The Secret Zoo (14 page)

W
hen the scouts stepped out of the alley, they found themselves on the other side of the city. The area was so packed with animals that moving forward was difficult. Animals filled the streets, the sidewalks, the alley-ways—they were everywhere. Monkeys swung from tree limbs, dangled from balconies, and rode on other animals. Reptiles clung to the sides of buildings. Birds were perched on trees, rooftops, awnings, and electrical wires.

When the animals saw the scouts, they moved aside; some squirmed, some flew, and some hopped to allow them passage. The path led to a low wooden stage, where
a group of people wearing trench coats sat in wide, pillowed chairs. The Secret Council. Noah found it interesting that Mr. Darby was the only member whose coat was made of velvet. Animals affectionately moved across the Secret Council—monkeys jumped across their laps, snakes slithered across their shoes, and lizards climbed up their backs—but the council members barely seemed to notice.

Mr. Darby's beard danced as he turned to face his guests. “Come! Come!” he said, and he stepped onto the path.

The three children advanced slowly through the crowd. Excited by their arrival, the animals erupted in a commotion, flapping their wings, stomping their paws, and clomping their hooves. Grunts and screeches echoed across the City of Species. The noise was deafening. Continuously waving to greet the crowd, Mr. Darby led the scouts and their animal friends to the stage. They climbed up and strode to the middle of the Secret Council, settled in their seats of honor.

Mr. Darby turned toward the spectacular congregation, and an eerie quiet washed over the streets. He cleared his throat.

“Esteemed members of our Secret Council and members of our Secret Society! As most of you undoubtedly know, today we have unexpected visitors in our city—extremely important visitors. I have called this emergency session of
the council to hear your voice in the matter of the Megan Situation. But first, let me say a few words.”

For fifteen minutes, Mr. Darby reviewed the Megan Situation, including the facts about her disappearance, the theories regarding her whereabouts, the likelihood of saving her, and the possible dangers in attempting a rescue. From start to finish, the Action Scouts gazed at the dreamlike crowd of animals and people. At the end of his speech, Mr. Darby said, “Does anyone wish to ask questions or make statements?”

An enormous man with a stomach as round as a beach ball pushed to the front of the crowd and threw himself against the stage. “I'd like to hear from the boy.”

“The boy?” said Mr. Darby.

“That one,” the man said. He shook his oversized finger up at Noah. It looked like a trembling hot dog. “The one who claims relation to the girl!”

Mr. Darby leaned close to Noah and grinned. “Are you the one who ‘claims relation to the girl'?” he whispered.

Too frightened to speak, Noah simply looked at Mr. Darby.

Mr. Darby stepped aside to give Noah and the huge man a clear view of each other. A hush fell over the City of Species.

The man stuffed his big fingers into his pockets and said, “Young man, do you understand how dangerous it is for you to be here?”

“I…I think so,” Noah replied.

“Do you understand what your presence means?” he asked. “Do you understand what your sister has done? Do you realize how she has divided this great society?” The man's voice rumbled.

“Yes. I think Mr. Darby explained—”

“You think your sister is in the Dark Lands? What proof do you have? We need proof!” he demanded.

Noah caught sight of Blizzard on the stage. Noah wasn't the only one who didn't like the way this man was acting. The polar bear looked ready to lunge at the man and take a healthy bite out of his rear end.

“I…I don't have any proof, sir. But the animals found her notes and—”

“You don't have proof? You don't have proof, and yet you stand here before me—before all of us in the City of Species—and ask us to open our homeland, our haven and shelter, to the threat of the Dark Lands?”

“I…I guess so. I mean…No!” Noah paused for a moment and added, “I mean…I don't know.”

“You don't know?” The man shook his head disapprovingly. “You
don't know
!”

Noah stood dumbfounded, clenching his hands. He felt dreadfully small and insignificant.

The man turned toward the Secret Council. “This young man would like us to open our community—our
homes, our streets, and our schools—to the dangers of the Dark Lands. Why? Because he has a hunch that his sister might be in there!”

Noah had no idea of what to say. Tears welled up in his eyes.

Ella jumped forward and shouted, “Watch it, tubby! Don't you talk to my friend like that!” Her ponytail and the fluffy mounds of her earmuffs bounced on her head.

“Young lady!” the man said. “When you—”

“I'm still talking!” Ella interrupted. “Do you know who we are? We're the Action Scouts. Nobody talks to us like that!”

“The Action Scouts!” the man said mockingly. “Why, of course. We're dealing with the Action Scouts. Why, I'd simply forgotten!” He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. Nervous chuckles rippled through the council.

“Don't you—”

Noah took Ella's arm, and their eyes met for a moment. Feeding off Ella's support, Noah found himself taking three steps toward the man.

“If Megan's not in the Dark Lands, then where is she? The animals in Creepy Critters—they saw her go into the Chamber of Lights and then disappear. Mr. Darby told us so! If you can't find her anywhere in the Secret Zoo, then where else can she be?”

The man raised one eyebrow and grimaced. He knew Noah had a good point.

“She's in the Dark Lands, and you know it! You're just afraid of what that means.”

The man parted his lips to say something, but Noah went on before he could speak.

“My sister's gone!” he cried. “Do you understand what that's done to
my
home? To
my
community? Do you know how many people—people I've never even met—have been crushed by her disappearance? I'm not trying to put anyone in danger. Not at all! I'm only asking the Secret Society to help me find my sister. Help me bring her home.” Noah paused. He searched for some powerful words to influence the crowd, but he could think of none. What came out instead was the simple truth. “I…I miss her.”

A hush swept across the council. The crowd became still. Even the monkeys stopped chattering.

Mr. Darby touched the boy's shoulder and said, “Thank you, Noah.” He turned back to the enormous congregation. “I believe now would be a good time to put this to a vote. All those in favor of opening the Dark Lands, let us hear from you.”

The city erupted with noise and commotion. Chimpanzees screeched and swung through the trees. Birds squawked and flew through the air. Elephants
trumpeted and pounded their feet. Alligators hissed and clanked their tails against signposts. Near the stage, a giraffe hoisted its long neck into the air with three prairie dogs on its head so their squeaky barks could be heard. Ella and Richie ran to Noah and hugged him.

When the clamor faded, Mr. Darby turned to the people seated onstage and said, “And who in the Secret Council is in favor of advancing into the Dark Lands?”

Everyone onstage raised a hand.

“Well, Action Scouts,” Mr. Darby said, “I think the decision has been made.”

The scouts cheered and exchanged high fives.

“Give me one hour to finalize the logistics of Operation Wrecking Crew and Rescue,” Mr. Darby said as he walked past the council to leave the stage.

“Operation Wrecking Crew and Rescue?” exclaimed a council member. “We never discussed such a plan.”

“Who said the council would discuss it?” Mr. Darby called out. “One must occasionally think for oneself, yes?” He directed his gaze intently at the scouts and said, “By the way, there's one thing I want the three of you to know—to
really
understand.”

“Yes?” said Ella.

“Even if Megan is in the Dark Lands, there's no guarantee that we'll bring her out. You understand this, right?”

The scouts nodded.

“You should also know,” he warned, “that we ourselves might never make it out of there. You need to truly understand this. If the sasquatches have survived, there's a formidable chance that many of us will not.”

The scouts huddled together, and for the first time, they looked afraid. Then they all nodded at once.

“Good.” Mr. Darby spun around. “Let us not waste any more time. I'll round up my crew.”

“Your crew?” the scouts chimed.

“You'll see, scouts,” Mr. Darby said. “You'll see.”

D
uring the next hour, the animals evacuated the area in front of the bricked entrance to the Dark Lands. Into the clearing stepped a small group of elephants, polar bears, and rhinos. They stood side by side, two hundred feet from the curtain. Behind them, the city was alive in a hullabaloo: birds and monkeys leaping across treetops, possums swinging from balconies, and otters and penguins swimming up and down streams. Everyone was nervous.

The scouts stood under a large tree, watching the operation unfold. A group of concerned Secret Cityzens walked
up and offered them snacks that were just short of a full meal. The scouts gratefully accepted—they were starving. They quickly devoured everything: apples, bananas, berry-filled granola bars, chocolate, and warm homemade bread soaked in rich butter. They sucked down tall glasses of cold water and tiny cups of sweet nectar.

As they cleaned up from their snack, Noah realized he had no idea what time it was. It seemed as if the scouts had been in the Secret Zoo for days, but surely it had been nothing more than a few hours. He asked Richie, who checked his watch and reported the time as just past four in the morning. Noah was right: barely four hours had passed since his adventure first began with a cheetah arriving at his mailbox.

Five additional elephants stepped through the crowd and into the clearing. Each had lugged a wooden cart filled with monstrous boulders. Two of the rhinos briefly stepped out of the line to lift the front ends of the carts, dumping the boulders to the ground. Each boulder was no less than seven feet high and wrapped in steel mesh. Dozens of monkeys scurried up nearby trees with steel cables pinched in their teeth. All at once, they dropped the cables over the strongest available branches. On the ground, several men ran back and forth, collecting the cables and harnessing one end to an elephant and the other to a boulder. When that was done, the elephants
backed up, raising the boulders in the air with ho-hum ease. Two lions stepped forward and pulled back the curtains. In an emergency, the boulders and curtains could be dropped instantly to close off the Dark Lands once again. The elephants would hold up the boulders as long as the operation was in progress.

Noah pointed to one of the animals in the line. “There's Blizzard!” he shouted, and he charged into the street, calling, “C'mon, guys!”

When the scouts reached Blizzard, the big polar bear rolled his head and let them wrap him in their arms.

Richie darted to the rhinos at one end of the line, calling out, “Ella, look who's here!”

“Little Bighorn!” Ella screamed. She rushed over and stroked the rhino's head. “How did I know we'd be seeing you again?”

“Everyone! Can I have your attention please?” Mr. Darby was standing on a hippo the size of a small car, talking into a megaphone. His voice rose above the hubbub. “This day has been waiting for us. We are about to embark on a great and possibly dangerous adventure. It is only fitting that we are joined by three children known as the Action Scouts.” Mr. Darby winked at the scouts. “We have had long debates on how to handle the Megan Situation. Today, my friends, we have closed those debates and are determined to take action!”

The scouts cheered along with the rest of the crowd.

“Now, let us go forward without fear or hesitation. Let us march into the Dark Lands and do what we can to bring a lost girl home.”

Animals growled and paced back and forth. Birds flew out of trees and soared in the sky. People shouted. The air grew thick with tension.

Mr. Darby pointed to the Dark Lands and turned to the small group of animals at the front. His voice blasted through the megaphone as he said, “Let's bring that wall down!”

In unison, the enormous animals huffed and snorted. A moment later, they were off, headed toward the brick wall with terrifying power. Their footfalls rumbled and echoed off the buildings. The scouts ran to Mr. Darby, who was still standing on the hippo's back. Noah thought he looked like an old soldier rallying his troops from the top of an army tank.

“Mr. Darby!” Ella called out.

Without turning his eyes away from the marching animals, the old man said, “Yes?”

“She's in there, right? I mean, we're gonna get her back.”

“I don't know, Ella,” he replied. “We can only do our best.”

The front line broke its trot and started to run. The ground shook. An elephant knocked over a tree that was in his way. A rhino flattened a mailbox like a tin can.
Their footfalls reverberated like a long rip of thunder, startling birds into the sky.

The powerful animals dropped their heads and prepared to ram the wall.

“This is it,” Ella said.

“I can't watch!” Richie announced. He pulled his cap over his eyes.

Noah placed his foot on the edge of the hippo's open mouth as if it were a step and climbed up to join Mr. Darby. He snatched the megaphone and hollered, “Go, Blizzard!”

Hearing Noah's voice, Blizzard jumped to the front of the pack. Just before he hit the wall, he turned his body to protect his head, struck the bricks, and plowed straight through. The other animals smashed forward in succession, and what was left of the wall exploded. Bricks shot in every direction, bouncing off buildings and shattering windows. Dust clouded the air as if a bomb had blasted.

Mr. Darby took back the megaphone and commanded, “Everybody—MOVE!”

The other animals charged forward: monkeys beside horses, giraffes beside cheetahs, crocodiles beside tigers. Thousands of animals barreled down the street.

Mr. Darby turned to the scouts and said, “Well? Are you ready to show us why you're called the Action Scouts?”

Ella reached over and lifted Richie's hat off his face.
“You're probably gonna want to see where you're going.”

“What?” Richie asked. His eyes shifted nervously. “What happened?”

Noah jumped off the hippo and took off running to join the stampede. Ella ran after him, pumping her fist in the air. Richie followed, his reluctance evident in his skittish gait.

The scouts reached the rushing animals and found themselves in the middle of hundreds of white rabbits. Squinting in a cloud of dust, they charged through the open wall, straight into the unknown dangers of the Dark Lands.