F
INN AND
M
AYBECK
made their way toward the bat enclosure, just down from the tiger yard along the winding, dark trail of the Maharajah Jungle Trek. Bugs buzzed past their heads as the heat enveloped them, making their chests tight and their breath short. Birds cried out and fluttered past, winning Maybeck’s unflinching attention as he recalled his earlier horrifying experience. His DS beeped and he checked for the message.
panda: the backstage camera @ the bat enclosure just stopped working.
“That cannot be a coincidence,” Maybeck whispered to Finn. “That camera was sabotaged. Something’s going on back there, and we need to know what it is.”
angelface13: hey, guys, right behind u.
Finn spun around, looking for her.
angelface13:2 your left.
Finn glanced in that direction.
Finn saw her first: a paler green shape amid the dark green of the undergrowth. She was on the stilts and ten feet into the jungle, all but invisible thanks to the twisting vine of leaves that disguised her. It was only when she made a slight motion that he was able to spot her. The boys moved closer to the jungle so they could talk to Charlene in a whisper.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on the enclosure as Maybeck asked,” she said. “There’s been a lot of activity, a lot of coming and going through those doors at the rear. The workers have paid particular attention to that big bat near the red flag on the far left. Twice they’ve carried him through to the back and then returned him out front. I don’t know if that’s the one that was in the pillowcase, but…it might be.”
Finn and Maybeck weren’t where they could see well into the enclosure. Maybeck walked steadily closer to the viewing station, leaving Finn behind. He positioned himself with a decent view of the enclosure, then turned toward Finn, and both shrugged and nodded, as if to say:
It’s certainly big enough to be the same one.
Finn said, “We need to get back there and find out what’s in those cages.”
“No way!” Maybeck protested.
Charlene asked, “Still no sign of Willa and Philby?”
“No,” Finn answered with a heavy heart.
“I think I have an idea,” Charlene said. “A way to find out what’s going on back there.”
Finn, surprised by Charlene’s offer, turned toward the jungle to face her—though because of the way she blended in, he found it difficult to see her. Maybeck’s attention remained fully focused on the enclosure. He and Charlene were opposites: Maybeck tended to react too quickly to situations and liked to work as a loner; Charlene rarely contributed in discussions, and when she did participate, enjoyed working as part of a team.
“What are you thinking?” Finn asked.
“I’m going to need a diversion,” Charlene whispered. “Something big. Something everyone will watch. And by everyone, I mean every last bird and caterpillar, and especially the people and
bats
”
I
NGENIOUS
, F
INN THOUGHT
as he moved through the swinging doors and into the forward viewing booth. There were three levels of viewing offered at the bat enclosure, three open-air rooms constructed of dark wood that led the Park guest closer to the risk of contact with the flying rodents. The first viewing room offered glass windows; the middle room, screens; and the final room—more of a long booth—nothing but well-spaced vertical wooden bars to keep the large bats at bay. The bars were clearly wide enough for Finn to poke his head through, yet too narrow for the extended wings of the large African bats.
Finn kept his cap pulled down snugly, hoping to avoid being recognized; that was the kind of distraction he could do without. The viewing room was staffed by a college-age girl in a ranger’s uniform. Presently, she was answering the questions of two young boys who had too much energy for such a small space. Their mother seemed unwilling to contain them, which served Finn’s purpose well. He slipped the case off his father’s BlackBerry and stepped close to the open-air viewing windows, hoisting the phone to take a picture. He pressed up to the bars, a warm breeze striking him, and caught a fleeting and exasperated glance from the ranger, who was finding her patience taxed by the two boys.
Finn purposely fumbled with the phone and case, allowing the case to slip out of his hands and fall through the bars, down into the enclosure. He pocketed the phone.
“My case!” he shouted. He jumped up onto the sill and began to squeeze himself through the bars.
Finn was relatively slight of build. He actually got partway through the bars before the ranger’s strong hand grasped him by the upper arm.
“GET OUT OF THERE!!” the girl screamed at the top of her lungs, pulling on him. “YOU CAN’T GO IN THERE!!! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?”
The effect was exactly what Charlene had hoped for: every human eye was drawn to Finn; some of the bats were spooked by the ranger’s admonishments. For a few precious seconds, the ranger pulled and Finn resisted.
“My case!” he hollered.
“GET DOWN FROM THERE!”
Finn stole one quick glance. Maybeck helped Charlene, on stilts, through the jungle door and into the enclosure. Charlene’s ivy-clad costume pushed up against the rocks at the far end of the enclosure, and within seconds a miracle occurred: she disappeared. DeVine’s costume fit into the environment so well that her form appeared as ivy growing up the rocks. There was no mistaking this whatsoever for a girl on stilts. The change was extraordinary.
Finn, apologizing and complaining at the same time, allowed himself to be drawn back into the viewing room, actually grateful for the ranger’s efforts, since the swirling bats swooped and dove too close for comfort. The ranger scolded him briefly, then promised to have his lost case retrieved. She tried to contact someone over her headset, but clearly there was no answer. She double-checked both the headset and the radio it was plugged into, obviously annoyed by the lack of response.
She blushed, apologized, and asked Finn to stick around. “I don’t know why I’m not getting anyone back there,” she said.
I do
, Finn thought to himself.
The people behind that door are not the people you normally work with. If they’re even people at all…
Once again, his eyes strayed to the far side of the enclosure, where he saw that the ivy patch on the rocks had migrated a few feet farther along, a yard or two closer to the enclosure’s center doors. Charlene was moving so incredibly slowly, so expertly, that it was impossible to detect her movements. The ivy seemed to be growing and extending all on its own, blending in perfectly with the ivy already there.
W
ITH HER BACK TO
a false rock wall, Charlene watched Finn being grabbed by the ranger in the viewing booth. The girl stopped him from jumping into the enclosure, and then the two had words. Charlene thought that Finn seemed to be looking right at her a couple of times, and she wondered how good a job she was doing at blending in.
With her face painted camouflage green, white, and brown, only the whites of her eyes threatened to give her away; so Charlene tried to keep her eyes averted. But it wasn’t easy. Jangled by raw nerves, she inched her way along the wall, trying not to look at the bats. She hated bats, and the ones in the enclosure were the size of bowling pins: big, gray, winged rats, hanging upside down from clotheslines. As long as they kept their distance, she thought she could make it.
The only people who might spot her were those in the viewing station: the Park visitors and the ranger. When she did look up, it was toward the booth. She didn’t know if Amanda had a camera aimed at her, and she’d lost sight of Maybeck, who was somewhere off to her right near the jungle door. She was on her own: fenced in with several dozen giant bats, in a place that smelled…well, funky…trying to slow dance her way clear around the curve of the smooth, irregular rock wall to the center doors.
She inched a stilt to her left, stepped the other along, and then froze, allowing her vines to blend in with those growing on the rocks. Then, a minute or two later, she moved again. She and the vines crept ahead, no one the wiser.
Finn left the booth, and Maybeck appeared out on the path with him. They both glanced once in her direction. She saw Finn lift his DS, signaling for her that a text was coming.
Finn: can’t c u at all, Charlie, great job, we’re here if u need us.
The two boys walked off.
It was the first time Finn, or anyone else for that matter, had ever called her Charlie, and she actually liked the nickname. There was something pleasing about it, something incredibly personal that made her feel especially good about it. She hoped it might stick, providing she got out of here alive.
The left stilt caught on a rock as she moved, and the rock shot out from under it like a wet bar of soap, raising a puff of dust. This, in turn, startled the bats, already edgy from Finn’s distraction. Three of the ugly things flew straight for her, coming toward her face at incredible speed, flying close enough that she could see not only the black glass, buttonlike, beady eyes, but the tiny gray hairs that surrounded their ratty faces, and the eerie translucence of their wings. Her stomach knotted, her head swooned, and a scream bubbled up from her lungs. She kept silent only by snapping her lips shut and clenching her teeth. The last of the three brushed against her hair, dislodging a carefully placed plastic vine and causing a strand to fall into her eyes—undoing her disguise. If anyone looked directly at her now, they were sure to see a length of blond hair inexplicably sticking out from the ivy—and that couldn’t be good. She blew the hair out of her eyes with upturned lips and moved more quickly now, slipping her way around the curving rock wall and nearing the green doors at its center.
She was partially hidden by several trees as she neared the two doors, suddenly realizing that on stilts she was much too tall to fit through without Maybeck’s help. Being near the middle of the enclosure, she was also now the center of attention. Without her knowing it, the Park guests were looking directly at her.
She wasn’t going to get through those doors, and she’d come too far to turn back. She looked up: the rock wall rose high above her head, but though it was uneven and craggy, there were plenty of handholds visible. Charlene climbed the rock wall at her gym—she considered herself something of an expert.
The trick was getting her feet out of the stilts without being seen and then leaving the stilts propped against the rock so that she could return to them and effect her escape. She eased down into a squat—not an easy balancing act on stilts—and managed to release her left foot. She freed her right foot, too, and then carefully stepped out of both stilts to leave them resting against the fake rock wall. Some of the ivy strands that wrapped around the stilts continued higher and merged into those that surrounded her leotard. She managed to disconnect the tendrils one by one; far more were sewn to the leotard and remained part of her costume. These also helped disguise her as, by handhold and foothold, Charlene climbed higher up the rock face. With each small ascent she paused for what felt like a very long time, allowing her vines to combine with rock and make it more difficult to spot her. She was helped out by the trees and vegetation between her and the viewing booth. But soon she rose above the crown of the nearest tree, clinging to the odd texture of the fake rock and staying close to the line of real ivy to help camouflage her.
Then, any possible route disappeared above her. She was used to having to plot her way up a rock wall, so she paused and looked for a possible route. The only small handholds she saw moved away from the patch of real ivy. But she had no choice. As she started off in that direction, she realized she was heading directly above the double doors at the center of the enclosure. She was also exposing herself to being seen by Park guests, as she was now directly in front of the viewing booths. Because of this, she tried to move incredibly slowly. But the slow climbing taxed her strength and weakened her.
She couldn’t “creep” between handholds and footholds, so she watched the viewing booths, waited for the attention of the guests to stray to one side or the other, and then made her move.
The doors swung open beneath her, and a worker stepped through.
Only then did she realize that some of the sandy texture was shredding off the wall where her running shoes touched. Painted sand rained down toward the ground, falling right on the head of the man who’d come through the doors. If he looked up, he would see her.
Counting on his entrance to have distracted both the guests and the ranger, Charlene no longer took her time. She gathered her strength, reached out, and moved with accuracy—three handholds, two footholds. She climbed quickly and deliberately, clawing her way up to the very top of the rocks, where, enclosed by the aviary’s netting, she spread herself flat.
The dust sprinkled into the hair of the man below. He turned to look up. But he saw only a wall—an empty wall. He brushed the sand out of his hair and cursed the people who’d built the enclosure. The darned thing was clearly falling apart.
C
HARLENE SCOOTED TO
the far edge of the top of the wall and peered over the lip. She had a good view through the netting of the backstage area. The enclosure’s wooden doors opened onto a small, courtyardlike area between the fake rock wall and a large garage with a flat roof. The steel wall facing her had been painted as a backdrop to look like rocks and vines.
She could hear a good deal of activity to her left but couldn’t see what was going on. She spotted a camera mounted a few feet directly below her and aimed backstage; she assumed this was the camera that Amanda had mentioned, the one out of commission, an easy assumption, given that the wire running from it was currently unplugged.
She reached under the edge of the netting, almost touching the camera, her fingers grasping for the dangling wire. If she could only reconnect it, Amanda could take over the surveillance. It was no use—she was too far above it, and to move any lower would risk her being discovered. But Charlene was not one to be discouraged. She squirmed her upper body slightly farther off the ledge and stretched out, her fingers now only an inch or two from the wire.
She lunged and grabbed hold of it, the wire firmly in her hand.
The worker who had entered the enclosure only a minute earlier, the man whose hair she had dusted with sand, now came back through the twin doors and shut them. There was no time for Charlene to retreat. Instead, she hung over the wall ledge directly above him, her left hand holding the wire, her right keeping herself from falling.
The man stopped and put down a white bucket.
“Well done.”
Charlene heard the voice—a woman’s sterile voice, uncaring and even rude, if uttering two small words could be made to sound rude.
“Tie him up,” the same voice said.
Immediately three big monkeys appeared from around a corner. Fast as lightning, they swarmed the worker. One tied and knotted a length of rope around the man’s wrists, holding them behind his back. Another secured his ankles. Within seconds, the man was bound. The third monkey leaped at the man and knocked him over. The man fell, and the two monkeys immediately dragged him across the blacktop and propped him up against a metal box, while the third tied a gag around his open mouth.
Only then did Charlene detect movement to her left, from where the voice had been heard: a flash of purple fabric and green skin.
Maleficent.
Charlene didn’t actually see her, but she didn’t have to. Purple and green were like Maleficent’s team colors. Who else could it be?
With the monkeys’ attention on the hostage, Charlene reconnected the camera and wire. The camera immediately sprang to life, tracking left. Charlene quickly retreated back to the top of the wall, flattening herself. She had a choice now: she could leave this to Amanda and the camera or…
She spun around and crawled in the direction of the noises. She had to see for herself. Something prompted her to glance back toward the viewing booth. From this height she could see out to several sections of the Jungle Trek path. It surprised her how much she could see—including Maybeck and Finn, who, standing to the side of the path, were shaking their heads furiously at her.
And then she understood: if she could see so much, then Park guests on the trail—like Maybeck and Finn—could see her as well. But rather than go back, she continued crawling, her curiosity ignited by the flash of green and purple, by the eerie sound of the woman’s voice, and by a trio of large monkeys who had acted on orders. She crawled past a narrow wall that acted like a buttress, supporting the fake rock wall. It also screened the source of the noises, and by leaving it behind, she now saw through the netting what all the commotion was about.
Four hairy orangutans were directing smaller monkeys while Maleficent stood in the shade watching. The monkeys were unloading bags of ice from a large rectangular truck. They were stacking the bags into a heap, and the ice was melting in the sunshine and leaking out into a large puddle that disappeared beneath the truck. The whole operation looked so human—bosses and workers. And yet these weren’t humans at all.
Then she saw the two cages.
Big
, as Amanda had described. They sat on the pavement, pushed up next to the steel barn. Both were wrapped in canvas tarps, but the canvas was not secured well along the bottom, allowing Charlene to see a slice of forest green fabric inside the cage: a ranger’s uniform.
Willa
!
She couldn’t see anything inside the second cage, but she didn’t need to:
Philby.
She had no doubts.
“Faster,” Maleficent ordered. “We need more room. Bigger! If he’s to fit, it must be bigger!”
Were they taking Philby somewhere? Smuggling him out of the Park in an ice truck? Or was she talking about some other hostage
?
She tried to make sense of it all: the monkeys clearly obeying Maleficent’s orders as if they understood her, the cages containing her friends, the melting pile of ice bags, the urgency in Maleficent’s voice.
She knew what had to be done: she had to untie the worker and set him free. But did she dare climb down and attempt that? Wasn’t it wrong not to? And if she messed up, if she got caught, would she end up like Willa and Philby? Where would that leave Maybeck and Finn, except further isolated?
Backing up slowly now, she decided this needed a team effort. She was no match for the power of Maleficent, who had once, with nothing but a wave of her hands and a mumbled incantation, created an electronic fence to surround Charlene’s friends.
The climb back down the wall proved more difficult than her ascent. She had just strapped her feet back into the stilts when she heard: “Look, Mommy! What’s
that
?”
The “that” was her, of course—the boy was pointing at her.
She stood absolutely still.
It felt like five minutes passed; it was more like thirty seconds.
“What? Where? The big one hanging from the rope?” the mother asked.
“Not the bats! The thingy. The creature. The vine thingy.”
But no one saw her. Charlene had blended into the foliage around her. A few minutes later the unwilling boy was led away, still protesting that he could see the vine lady, and why couldn’t anyone else see her?
It took Charlene fifteen minutes to work her way around the rock wall, and a second distraction—this time executed by Maybeck—to leave the enclosure.
A moment later, Finn and Maybeck joined her.
“So?” Finn asked. “Did you see anything?”
“We’ve got problems,” Charlene answered. “Big…big problems.”