Zoobreak (4 page)

Griffin and Ben hustled him off the stage and into the wings.

“You don’t have to fight him,” Griffin soothed. “You just have to get to know him. When we go to scope out
All Aboard Animals
on Saturday, you use your acting skill to get his attention, and then you find out as much as you can about the security on the boat after hours.”

Logan was relieved. “I can do that. In fact, I’m beginning to feel the role coming to me.”

“Don’t get too fancy,” Ben advised. “He’s a muscle head, not an idiot. You don’t want him to guess what we’re up to.”

“Shhh!” Logan hissed. “I’m getting into character. My childhood has been painful….”

“It’s going to be a lot more painful if you get Klaus mad at you,” Griffin warned.

“Don’t worry, you guys,” Logan promised. “You can count on me. This is going to be an Academy Award performance.”

“Come on, Kellerman,” the spotlight operator called in annoyance. “You’re supposed to stand on your
X
.”

“Don’t rush me!” Logan snapped. His acting skill faced far greater challenges than one little school play.

Luthor’s supper dish was the size of a slop sink, and Savannah filled it from a bag of dog food taller than she was.

“Cleo doesn’t need
handling
,” she told them. “You’re never going to find a more mature, well-behaved primate.”

It was feeding time in Savannah’s room, which was a major operation. The cats, rabbits, turtles, parakeet, and chameleon were already chowing down with gusto. Only Luthor showed no interest in his meal, gazing with sadness at the empty bowl marked
CLEOPATRA
.

Griffin grinned at Savannah. “In that case, why don’t you just stay home, and we’ll stuff her in a gunnysack and drag her off the boat?”

“I will be there,” Savannah insisted emotionally, “to whisper in her ear that it’s all going to be okay.”

“And that’s not handling?” asked Ben.

“It’s friendship and support at a time when she needs it most. Poor Cleo! She’s been kidnapped and held hostage on that floating sewer! Even though we’re rescuing her, it’ll still be traumatic. Monkeys can be very easily stressed. Everyone knows that.”

Griffin rolled his eyes. “So I’ll cross out ‘handler’ and put in ‘guidance counselor.’ Come on, Savannah, we’re on the same side here!”

She reddened. “Sorry, Griffin. You guys are awesome for doing this. I’m never going to forget it, and neither is Cleo!”

“Aw, Griffin, why do I always have to be the tight-spaces guy? You don’t even know if
All Aboard Animals
has any tight spaces!”

Griffin and Ben headed down Savannah’s
front walk, with Luthor’s dejected whining still ringing in their ears.

“I’m sure they lock the boat up at night,” Griffin explained. “You can’t predict the exact details, but we need a kid shrimpy enough to jam through a porthole just in case. Besides, I want someone on the team I trust with my life, someone to be my assistant.”

“Assistant to what?” Ben challenged. “Melissa’s webcams spy on the boat; Logan neutralizes the security guy; Pitch gets us onto the grounds; I crawl on board and let everybody else in; Savannah takes her monkey home. The only person who doesn’t have a job is
you
, Griffin. What do you do on this team?”

That night, the team in place, Griffin sat back at his desk and studied his notes in a businesslike fashion. It wasn’t a plan — not yet. He had formulated enough plans to know that the details would not come together until their scouting trip to the Rutherford Point Preserve on Saturday.

Hang in there, Cleo
, he thought to himself.
It won’t be long now
.

“
T
his must be some zoo to have you kids begging to come back so soon.”

Nick Benson, Pitch’s father, piloted his Land Cruiser in through the gates of the Rutherford Point Preserve.

“It definitely caught our interest,” his daughter agreed, her sharp eyes scanning the wrought-iron fence poles from ground level to their lancelike points.

As Pitch had predicted, it hadn’t taken much convincing to get her father to act as chauffeur for the scouting mission on Saturday. Sidelined from climbing by his swollen foot, he was anxious to divert his mind from the fact that he was not in Wyoming, hanging off a rope at the seven-hundred-foot mark of Devils Tower.

So the SUV that normally navigated the rugged roads to cliff faces and crags was now returning Griffin, Ben, Pitch, Logan, and Melissa to
All Aboard Animals
. Only Savannah was staying home from this stage of Operation Zoobreak. After the unpleasant scene at the field trip, she couldn’t risk being recognized by Mr. Nastase.

“We should split up, too,” Griffin whispered in the backseat. “Together, we might jog the guy’s memory.”

In the parking lot, Mr. Benson limped to a bench and settled himself down with a book. The team made a great show of heading for the zoo boat. But Pitch left the others and doubled back across the manicured lawn to have a closer look at the fence around the property.

Melissa reached into her pocket and produced four tiny battery-powered wireless webcams. The purpose of these cameras was to give the team a complete view of what happened when
All Aboard Animals
shut down and locked up for the night. Griffin’s plan called for her to plant them where they would provide different angles.

She surveyed the dock area thoughtfully, determined to get this exactly right.
She wanted to do her part to help rescue Cleopatra, but there was more to it than that. Melissa was a loner, more comfortable with computers than with actual living people. Before the baseball card heist, she’d never had any friends. She didn’t want to let the team down. The thought that she was being asked to help again was almost too good to be true.

The first vantage point was in a maple tree with a straight-on view of the starboard side of the paddleboat and the main gangway. She picked a wad of chewing gum out of her mouth and used it as mortar to set the tiny camera in place in the crook of a branch.

The second spot was atop a pylon on the dock itself. It focused on the zoo boat’s bow and was also set in gum. The third she positioned for a view of the stern, not dead-on, but at an angle that also provided another view of the entrance.

That was enough, she thought. There was still one webcam left. She looked around for Griffin. He was in line on the gangway, waiting to get into the exhibit. There was no chance to talk to him now. And the rule was to stay separated.

She made an executive decision. She would place the final webcam aboard the boat, monitoring the entrance from the inside.

As she headed for the gangway, she popped another stick of gum into her mouth and began to chew.

Griffin was standing in line to buy his ticket when he made his first Nastase sighting. The zookeeper was manning the cash box and stamping hands.

Griffin caught a nervous look from Ben, three people ahead of him. But he was relieved to see his friend hand over his twelve dollars and pass through without a second glance.

Twelve bucks to look at a bunch of moth-eaten squirrels and a stolen monkey — all while being drenched in the stink of poorly maintained cages
. This guy was a big-time crook.

Now it was Griffin’s turn. The zookeeper paused, his squinty black eyes riveted to Griffin’s face, his expression saying:
Where have I seen you before?

Griffin felt a stab of fear. He had been the first to speak up for Savannah on field trip
day. After her, he might be the easiest for Mr. Nastase to recognize.

He held out his hand with twelve dollar bills fanned out like playing cards.

The money broke the spell. “Welcome to
All Aboard Animals
,” the zookeeper greeted in a bored tone. “Prepare to be astounded.”

Griffin nodded, shaken, and fled past. He caught up with Ben at the chipmunk cage.

“What was that all about?” Ben hissed. “Did he remember you?”

“I think he was starting to,” Griffin whispered back. “I threw him off the scent with a fistful of dollars. Come on, let’s find Cleopatra.”

They navigated quickly through the depressing display of ill-kept and underweight animals, gagging as the stench grew stronger toward the center of the ship. To make matters even more unpleasant, a group of smirking teenagers had gathered around the great horned owl, rattling the cage every time the nocturnal bird tried to close its eyes. The earsplitting hoot-shriek echoed all through the paddleboat.

“Savannah wouldn’t like that,” Ben observed.

“Savannah doesn’t like anything about
this place,” Griffin replied. “Look, there’s Cleopatra.”

The monkey was in the same separate compartment. The only new addition was a hand-lettered sign that declared:

PRESENTING: THE LADY ELEANOR

They hung back as a mom and two little kids, one a toddler in her arms, made monkey sounds and fawned over Mr. Nastase’s latest exhibit. At last, the family moved on, allowing Griffin and Ben to get close to Cleopatra.

In the few days since the class trip, the capuchin had undergone an alarming transformation. There was only one word to describe the poor creature — depressed. The climber and swinger who had made best friends with the toughest Doberman in Cedarville had become a silent, drooping figure. She squatted in the cage, seemingly unconnected to the world around her, eaten up by her own sadness.

Griffin sidled up to the enclosure and slipped a couple of pieces of sliced plantain between the bars. “These are from Savannah,” he whispered. “Eat them fast, before somebody
notices.” He felt like an idiot, talking to the monkey as if she were a human being. But he had promised Savannah to deliver her message. “Don’t lose hope. Your friends haven’t forgotten you. And — oh, yeah — Luthor says hey.”

It might have been just their imagination, but Cleopatra seemed to perk up a little bit. She definitely enjoyed the plantains.

“What do you think about the cage?” Ben ventured.

“Wire cutters. Definitely. The bars aren’t too thick. The big question is how to get in here if the boat’s locked down.” He cast a quick glance around the compartment, his eyes coming to rest on a ventilation grate in the ceiling.

Ben followed his gaze in alarm. “You mean
me
? You want me to climb in through that thing?”

Griffin nodded. “And then let the rest of us in the front door.”

“Aw, Griffin, couldn’t we just wait till nobody’s watching, cut Cleopatra loose, and make a run for it?”

Griffin was horrified. “In the middle of all these people, with Klaus around and Mr. Nasty watching the door? That’s the worst
plan I’ve ever heard in my life! Even if we do get off the boat, they can stop us at the main gate of the preserve. Somebody’s bound to notice the missing monkey by then!”

“It was just a thought,” Ben mumbled, chastened. “You’re the one who said a plan is never finished until you’ve considered all the possibilities.”

“A nighttime assault is our only option,” Griffin stated with certainty. “The big question is, can you fit into that vent?”

“An amoeba couldn’t fit into that vent,” Ben replied bitterly.

“Only one way to find out, I guess,” said Griffin, as if Ben had never spoken. “We just have to find the outside opening for those ducts. Come on. We’ve had our twenty-four bucks worth.”

They retraced their steps to the entrance, arriving just in time to receive a discreet nod from Melissa. The webcams were in place.

Mr. Nastase barely looked up from the cash box as Griffin and Ben left the exhibit. The zookeeper took no notice when, instead of exiting via the gangway, they made a quick left turn and hurried along the paddleboat’s narrow outer deck.

Ben bit his lip. “I don’t know about this. All the people in line saw us run off where we’re not supposed to be.”

Griffin walked briskly ahead. “Don’t worry about them,” he advised, scanning the superstructure of the ship for possible vent openings. “Mr. Nasty’s inside counting his money. He’s the one who can’t know where we are.”

“And
Klaus,” Ben added.

Another left turn brought them to the stern of the ship, which housed the paddle wheel. The deck was wider, but they had to pick their way around coils of rope and piles of equipment. There were no air vents on the superstructure, just three steel-rimmed portholes. One of these provided a view of the owl and its teenage tormentors. Klaus had arrived on the scene, gesturing emphatically with muscular arms thick as tree trunks.

Ben was terrified. “Let’s scram before he looks out the window!”

“Not until we find the vent,” Griffin replied stubbornly. “Hey —”

Ben followed his friend’s pointing finger. A hornlike shape protruded from the roof.

“I’ll bet that’s it,” Griffin decided.

Ben wasn’t convinced. “Looks more like a tuba.”

The two explored the rest of the starboard side and the bow. There were no other openings.

Griffin returned to the big horn. “This has to be it. Come on, I’ll give you a boost.”

“I can’t climb in there now! The boat’s full of people!”

“You don’t have to go inside. Just get up there and make sure the opening’s big enough.” He laced his fingers together, forming a stirrup.

With a tremulous sigh, Ben grabbed his friend’s shoulder and then stepped onto Griffin’s interlocked hands. Griffin heaved, straightening his back and raising Ben upward. The smaller boy reached for a handhold, but he was still shy of the roof. With a whimper, he toppled onto Griffin. The two of them ended up in a heap on the deck.