Traps and Specters (3 page)

“What happened?”

“I was walking to open the door and my slippers tripped me up. No biggie.” Scanning the kitchen again for P-Dog, Ella quickly switched the subject: “How was your card game?”

Instead of answering, Ms. Jones continued to study her daughter for signs of something wrong. Suspicion curled up one of her eyebrows.

“Ma?”

Finally, her mother let down her guard. “Not bad, I guess.” She walked over to the fridge and rummaged inside it. “You'll never guess what happened to Mrs. Carson last week!”

“What's that?” Ella said, feigning interest as best she could.

Her mother pushed aside the ketchup, the mayonnaise, a clear container full of goop which might have been days-old stew. “She bowls, you know … with Mrs. Anderson and a couple other ladies. Well … last week …”

Her voice became a murmur as Ella divided her attention between it and the whereabouts of P-Dog. As Ella searched from the corners of her eyes, she caught occasional words: “… Mrs. Baker, that new lady down the street …” and “… decided to come along …” and “Ella! Are you listening?” Ella nodded and curled the ends of her lips up.

Ms. Jones closed the fridge, a few slips of lunch meat drooping over her fingers, and headed to the bread basket. Ella took the opportunity to hurry into the connecting great room. She began checking behind the furniture, mouthing
P-Dog!
over and over. After a minute or two, Ms. Jones poked her head into the room and Ella jerked upright and fixed her attention back on her mother, who was waving a spoon in the air, saying something about Mrs. Baker dropping a bowling ball on someone's foot. Her mother laughed, then her head retreated into the kitchen as she returned to her work on her sandwich.

Ella peered under the couch. The only thing beneath it was the pink headband she'd lost about a year ago. It lay there covered in dust like a half-buried treasure in an archeological dig.

Her mother stepped into the dining room, this time carrying a plate and a glass of juice. She was talking about someone's swollen toe—a toe that the bowling ball had undoubtedly landed on. She took a seat facing Ella at the dining room table, lifted the sandwich, and tore off a bite. She chewed for a few seconds, then returned to her story. Ella smiled and nodded in the places she guessed appropriate.

From the same doorway that Ms. Jones had just stepped through, P-Dog suddenly poked his head into the room, his twitching nose pulling scents out of the air. Ella went rigid with fear. Her mother, sensing something wrong, followed Ella's gaze, but before she could spot P-Dog, the wounded prairie dog hobbled forward and disappeared beneath the table, right in front of her feet.

Ms. Jones turned back to Ella. Through a mouthful of food, she asked again if Ella was
sure
she hadn't hurt herself. Ella nodded. The way her mother waited to chew her food made Ella nervous. Finally, Ms. Jones snapped her jaws back into action. After a swallow, she continued her story, in which the big toe was now swollen to the size of a mature walnut.

Ella pretended to listen, a forced expression of interest on her face. Her gaze repeatedly dropped down to where P-Dog was now sitting, bug-eyed and jittery. After a few seconds, the unthinkable happened. Ms. Jones stretched out her legs and accidentally bumped P-Dog with her foot. When she dropped her head to peek beneath the table, she discovered the prairie dog lying completely still.

Ella gasped. She took a step forward and stopped. There was nothing she could do. They'd been caught, and now the Secret Zoo would be discovered.

After what seemed a long time, Ms. Jones sat upright and casually returned to the business of chewing her food. She swallowed and said, “All these stuffed animals—when are you ever going to get rid of them?” She sipped her juice. “Can't you at least pick them up?”

Ella smiled weakly. “Sorry, Mom.”

Ms. Jones took the last bite of her sandwich. “Isn't that funny?”

Ella thought that her mom was referring to P-Dog, then realized she was talking about her story. With a nod, she smiled her big, fake, rubbery smile again.

Ms. Jones rose from the table and carried her empty plate back into the kitchen, saying, “C'mon—pick that up. I don't want to see those things lying around.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

From the kitchen, Ms. Jones craned her neck back into the dining room. “And since when are you so polite? Stop—it's making me nervous.”

Careful not to speak and invite more conversation, Ella simply continued to hold up her smile.

Ms. Jones grunted and slipped back into the kitchen. When her plate banged into the sink and the faucet spilled its noisy water, Ella reached beneath the dining room table and swept up P-Dog. She fled the room and dashed up the stairs, her fluffy slippers two pink blurs over the carpet.

Just after midnight, at least an hour after Ms. Jones had fallen asleep, Ella was in her room, sitting on her bed in front of the window, staring out into the night. As usual, she couldn't see any tarsiers posted in the trees. She wondered if DeGraff had been captured—if Solana and the zoo guards had managed to get to him. Hope surged through her. The thing the Secret Society feared most—the Shadowist getting back to the magic of the Secret Zoo—might have ended tonight.

Ella turned to P-Dog, who was perched on his hind legs beside her. She wasn't sure what was wrong with him, but his side was swollen and he was having trouble walking. “P … I don't want to let you go—not tonight, not the way you are. The last thing I need to find on my way to school tomorrow is you squashed on the road, tire tracks across your face. In the morning … we'll get you back then.”

The prairie dog looked up at Ella, his eyes gleaming like black marbles, and sniffed the air near her face.

Ella already had a plan. It involved the prairie dog tunnels that extended from the Grottoes and ran through her neighborhood—the ones the prairie dogs had emerged from to attack DeGraff tonight. She had no idea where the tunnels came out into her yard, so she couldn't risk having P-Dog roam around her property in plain view of her mother or anyone else. But she did know where they opened into a hidden spot in Noah's backyard. Every morning, Ella walked to school with the other scouts. If she could release P-Dog by the tunnel in Noah's yard, he could trek the short distance back to the zoo, even with his injuries. She just needed to figure out how to get P-Dog across the neighborhood without him being seen.

Thinking about this, Ella stared into her closet and spotted her backpack. She pointed to it and said, “What do you think, P?”

P-Dog followed her stare. After a few seconds he turned back to Ella, his eyes wide with concern. He yipped once, a bit defiantly, Ella thought.

“If you've got a better idea, I'd love to hear it.”

Seeming to consider this, he tipped his head one way, then another. After a few seconds, he looked away.

“I didn't think so.”

Ella turned back to the dark streets. Her mind replayed the incident on her front porch. She kept imagining DeGraff, the wide brim of his hat, his upturned collar, his long trench coat. Why had he come to her door? She wondered again if he had been caught. If not, would he be back again tonight? The thought sent waves of terror through her. An hour passed. Then another. Near two o'clock in the morning, she finally dropped the blinds and fell into bed, lying on her side. P-Dog curled up against her stomach, and she rested her palm on him.

“Thanks, P … for being there tonight, I mean.”

P-Dog sniffed her hand, his puny nose dotting moisture on her skin.

Believing she'd never relax, Ella closed her eyes and immediately drifted off. The world of reality became the world of her dreams, two places divided by a line that seemed to be thinning more each day.

CHAPTER 4

E
lla woke to her alarm clock. Grumbling, she rolled over, pinching something between her stomach and the mattress—a
something
that gave a squeaky
yip
! She threw herself to the edge of the bed and saw a small animal lying in her pink sheets. P-Dog. It looked like he was resting in a pink pasture. Memories of the previous night swarmed into her head.

A muffled voice came from out in the hall: “Ella?” Then knuckles rapped the bedroom door. “You okay in there?”

Ella flung the blankets over P-Dog and jumped to the floor. “Don't move,” she warned the pink bump on her bed.

Her bedroom door swung open and in walked her mother. “I made waffles. Hurry up and get them before they get cold.”

“Thanks, Ma.”

Her mother backed out of the room, and once her footsteps had faded away, Ella softly closed the door and hurried back to her bed, where P-Dog was squirming around. She threw off the blankets, scooped him up in one arm, then gently placed him into the closet on a pile of half-folded sweaters. He peered out from the colorful cotton and yipped again.

“Sorry, P. But you have to stay here till I'm done eating.”

Ella shut the closet door, left her room, and hurried down the hall. In the dining room, she dropped into her seat and scarfed up her waffles, her mother grimacing more than once at Ella's overloaded cheeks.

Back upstairs, she eased open her closet. P-Dog shot her a scornful look and waded out from the spill he'd made of the sweaters. She wriggled into her clothes, grabbed her backpack, and pried it open like the mouth of an alligator. She stuffed her zoo uniform inside, then held the opening toward P-Dog. “Here.”

The prairie dog sniffed curiously at the bag, then backed away.

“C'mon—what's the matter?” She poked her face into the opening. “Okay, so it stinks a little. It doubles as my soccer bag, you know.”

P-Dog took another step back.

“Look, it's only for a few minutes. Just until we get to Noah's.”

P-Dog inched forward and sniffed the air a second time. As he did, Ella lifted him by his belly, carried him into the bag, and zipped it shut. P-Dog yipped once and turned in circles, his body making a lump under the nylon.

“Sorry, P,” Ella said as she stood and eased one strap over her shoulder. “It'll just be a few minutes, I promise.”

P-Dog wriggled into a comfortable position and became still. Ella stomped down the stairs, set the backpack onto a chair near the front door, and put on her jacket and earmuffs. After hoisting P-Dog onto her back again, she called, “Bye, Mom!” and pushed out onto the porch. It was pouring rain.

“Great.”

The door creaked open and her mother's hand appeared, clutching an umbrella. “Here.” Then she stated the obvious: “It's raining.”

Ella took the umbrella, sprang it open, and headed out, a scowl on her face. As she crossed her yard, wet leaves clung to her shoes like giant leeches. P-Dog kept squirming around in her pack, forcing the straps off her shoulders. “Knock it off, dork,” she kept saying.

As she headed down Jenkins Street toward Noah's house, a car approached, its headlights causing the raindrops to sparkle. It slowed to a crawl beside her and the driver's window dropped, revealing Mrs. Nowicki, Noah and Megan's mom. The wind tossed her curly, uncombed hair.

“C'mon,” Mrs. Nowicki said. She tipped her head toward the backseat. “Hop in.”