“Hoo!” Ben rasped.
“Forget that,” Pitch exclaimed, annoyed. “We have enough hassles with the animals we’ve got. We shouldn’t have to worry about the one that got away.”
“Except,” Griffin reasoned, “if the cops put two and two together and realize that owl and Mr. Nasty’s owl are the same owl —”
“What owl?” Darren Vader joined the group. Everyone took one step away from contact with him.
“I didn’t say owl; I said towel,” Griffin shot back. “The one I cleaned the sewer with and then rubbed on your toothbrush.”
If Darren was offended, he didn’t let on. “Funny thing — an owl is one of the animals that got stolen off the paddleboat. But, hey, you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Right,” Savannah said threateningly. “We don’t.”
“That’s a crazy coincidence,” Darren went on. “You guys plan a zoobreak and then another group of kids does exactly the same thing on the same night.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Pitch said through clenched teeth.
“You know who’d find this whole thing really fascinating?” Darren persisted. “The cops. They love coincidences.”
The team exchanged uneasy glances.
Griffin spoke up first. “If you have a point, make it and go away.”
“I want a piece of the action,” Darren replied readily.
“Action?” Ben repeated. “What action?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Darren growled. “Those animals are worth money. Some of them are probably worth a lot of money.”
That pushed all Savannah’s buttons. “You can’t put a price tag on an animal’s life!” she raged. “You’re talking about forty beating hearts!”
Darren grinned triumphantly. “I’ll take that as a confession.”
Griffin juggled his anger and the need to choose his words carefully. “If we had them — which we don’t — and we sold them — which we won’t — we wouldn’t give one red cent to the traitor who stabbed us in the back when he was supposed to help us go get them — which we didn’t.”
The bell rang, and the students around them began heading for homeroom.
“Anyway, think it over,” Darren said in a friendly tone. “Oh, by the way, I read a description of this kid Ferris Atwater, Jr. Kind of reminds me of you, Kellerman.”
It was a tense start to what promised to be a tense day. The team knew from past experience that Darren was a bad enemy.
Logan alone wore a smile as the group broke up. He was finally famous — even if it was only to Darren Vader.
21
OPERATION HOUSEGUEST
ANIMAL MAINTENANCE FIELD NOTES
> 9:45 a.m. — DUKAKIS HOUSE
Griffin opened the toy chest and peered inside. “Amazing,” he said. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes.”
About a dozen stuffed animals were piled in the cedar chest. Among them, completely motionless, sat the prairie dog, one hundred percent real, blending in so well that it was impossible to tell it from the toys.
Melissa nodded. “When my mother reached in there to get my little brother’s teddy bear, I swear I almost fainted. But she never noticed a thing.”
“You’re lucky that prairie dogs stay so still,” Savannah informed them. She looked approvingly into the closet, which was lined with ripped-up newspapers. “Dried corn, seeds, plenty of water — that’s fine for the hen. What are you feeding the piglet?”
“Leftovers,” Melissa replied. “He’s like a little pink garbage disposal. He had General Tso’s chicken last night. The only problem is I’m going through a lot of newspaper.”
“The Sunday Times comes tomorrow,” Griffin put in helpfully.
“You’re doing great,” Savannah approved. “Only —” She looked around. “Where’s the mud?”
Melissa’s beady eyes were wide open now. “Mud?”
“It keeps their skin hydrated,” Savannah explained.
“This is a house, not a pigsty,” Melissa complained. She was anxious to please her friends, but come on! “There’s no mud.”
Savannah was adamant. “If you can’t bring the mud to the pig, you have to bring the pig to the mud.”
“No way,” Griffin jumped in. “That’s a security risk. Too easy to get caught carrying him in and out.”
“Hang on a sec.” Savannah stepped into the bathroom in the hall. She returned a moment later with a large tube filled with a viscous gray cream. “This should do the trick.”
Melissa was horrified. “That’s my mother’s imported Sumatran volcanic mud pack. It costs forty dollars a tube!”
Savannah nodded understandingly. “Better use it only once a day.”
> 10:33 a.m. — BENSON HOUSE GARAGE
Pitch was plainly worried. “The squirrels can still drink a little water, but the chipmunks have stopped eating altogether.”
Savannah reached into the picnic basket that served as the chipmunk house and retrieved a striped ball of fluff. “What are you feeding them?”
“Peanut butter, extra crunchy.”
Savannah’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“You said they eat nuts. That’s the closest thing we have.”
“Look at the poor little sweeties! You’ve glued their mouths shut! Quick — a toothbrush!”
“No way!”
Savannah sighed. “A Q-tip, then. Hurry!”
Griffin shook his head. This was not a good sign.
> 11:09 a.m. — DUCK POND IN PARK NEXT TO DRYSDALE HOUSE
“Hey, Mommy,” the little boy announced worriedly. “That duck is sick!”
He was pointing at the loon, which had just sent out its distinctive warbling call in the midst of a whole lot of quacking.
“I hear stuff like that through my window about ten times a day,” Savannah said wearily. “Face it, Griffin. The loon’s too different.” It was undeniable. The bird had dark, almost black feathers, a ruff around its neck, and a narrow, pointy beak. “It’s smaller than the others, except maybe the teals. And it’s a diver. People are talking about it way too much.”
“Maybe we should sneak it out tonight,” Griffin suggested. “It can go into Logan’s basement.”
“Don’t be stupid. It would eat the frogs and salamanders. And the noise! I mean, it’s not bad here — outside. But a damp basement is like an echo chamber!”
Griffin shook his head. “I was nervous about the rest of us. The one person I was sure would ace Operation Houseguest was you.”
Savannah laughed without humor. “Are you kidding? My own rabbits can’t stand the new rabbits, and it’s World War Three in the warren. You can know everything about zoology, but no one can predict a personality conflict.”
Griffin checked his watch. “We should probably head over to Ben’s. He’s ordering pizza for lunch. Ferret Face likes pepperoni. Then we can go to Logan’s.”
> 1:12 p.m. — KELLERMANS’ BASEMENT
The scene was something out of a dream. All the parts were normal enough, but they didn’t fit together logically. The floor was covered in at least six inches of water, and a beaver swam in circles around an island formed by a sodden beanbag chair. Turtles and salamanders lived on this island, joined by frogs, which splashed in and out of the water at will.
“It’s amazing!” Savannah breathed. “It’s like a whole ecosystem sprang up in somebody’s leaky basement!”
“It’s starting to creep me out a little,” Logan confessed. “See those bookshelves over there? They’re all chewed up. I think the beaver’s eating them.”
“He’s definitely got the teeth for it,” Griffin observed lamely.
“No, that’s not it at all!” Savannah pointed to a small mound of debris poking up from the water near the stairs. “He’s building a dam! Logan, this is wonderful! You’ve created a habitat so perfect that he’s actually doing what normal beavers do!”
Logan looked miserable. “You wouldn’t thi
nk it was so wonderful if it was your basement. When they pump this place out, someone’s going to have to explain why there’s a beaver dam down here!” He turned beseeching eyes on The Man With The Plan. “I can’t go on like this for two weeks! You’ve got to find a way to end it!”
He was almost in tears, and not acting this time. Not even a little bit.
> 2:20 p.m. — BINGS’ BACKYARD
“I suggest using toothpicks to remove the rodent droppings from your Lego drawers,” Savannah was saying. “Otherwise, you’re going to have an odor problem.”
Griffin was preoccupied. “Do you think Logan’s right? That we’re crazy to try to keep this going for two weeks?”
“We just have to take it one day at a time,” Savannah replied, “and do our best for the animals.”
“I’m worried about Ben. His dark circles are getting bigger. That ferret is waking him up when he —” He hesitated. His best friend’s extra naps were a secret. “Well, let’s just say the guy isn’t the world’s greatest sleeper. What if Ferret Face is making it worse?”
The question was immediately replaced by a more pressing issue. They had reached the makeshift greenhouse. The meerkat was not there.
“That’s impossible!” Griffin exclaimed, refusing to believe the evidence of his own eyes. “There’s no way he could lift the glass cover to get out!”
But there was also no denying that the greenhouse was empty.
Wordlessly, Savannah grabbed Griffin by the shoulders and turned him around. There, about six feet behind them, was the meerkat, up on its hind legs, watching them.
“How —?”
All at once, the animal was gone again, as suddenly as if it had vanished in a puff of smoke. Seconds later, it was back in the greenhouse, looking up at them.
Griffin was flabbergasted. “He teleports?”
Savannah walked over and crouched down at the spot where the meerkat had once stood. “He tunnels. I should have known. Meerkats are diggers.”
Griffin was alarmed. “Then there’s no way to keep him inside the greenhouse! He could dig his way out and come up anywhere! I have to lock him in a closet or something!”
Savannah smiled patiently. “Don’t you see? It’s just like the beaver. He’s living like a meerkat in the Kalahari.”
“Except in the Kalahari, he can’t pop up in front of my parents!”
“Meerkats are low on the food chain,” Savannah explained, “so they develop strong bonds to a safe place. If you keep plenty of food in the greenhouse, he’ll always come back to it.”
“That works?”
She chuckled. “Zoology isn’t an exact science. Nothing is certain when you’re dealing with living creatures, each with its own unique temperament. But you’ll probably be okay.”
He regarded her with dismay. She had complete confidence in her understanding of animal behavior. But The Man With The Plan was starting to see that no reliable plan could ever include forty animals. They were just too quirky and unpredictable.
He could feel fate closing in on him. Something was going to go wrong. The only question was when.
If there was one thing Darren Vader couldn’t stand, it was to be left out of something big. And this was big. He could smell it. Bing, his sawed-off sidekick, and their flock of sheep definitely had those animals. Somehow, they had found a way to pull off the zoobreak without him.
Griffin was a loser, but Darren had to give him credit. He obviously knew how to recognize a business opportunity. This may have started out as a rescue for Drysdale’s monkey. But when Bing got aboard the zoo boat and looked around at the animals, he had to see dollar signs. What else could explain going for one critter and coming back with the whole kit and caboodle? It was all about the Benjamins — the kind of money his old man was never going to make with his fruit pickers and orchard scooters.
Darren knew he had to get in on this scam. But how? Blackmail didn’t work. But he should have expected that. He had almost as much to lose here as Bing. If Darren ratted to the cops, sure, the zoobreakers would get in trouble. But then the jig would be up. The animals would go back to the paddleboat, and nobody would make a buck off them.
He walked to the window and peered out over the rooftops of Cedarville. Griffin and the others were biding their time, waiting for the right moment to cash out. That meant that somewhere hidden in this boring little town was a fortune in stolen animals. If he could somehow get his hands on one — just one …
A sound reached him out of the distance. A muffled — hooting? He recalled Griffin’s words the previous morning: I didn’t say owl; I said towel.
He had a grainy vision of a great horned owl asleep in its cage at All Aboard Animals.
Smiling now, he powered up his computer and opened the browser for a Google search. Keywords: owl trap.
22
The cages were piled in a corner of the main compartment that had once been the floating zoo.
“It’s a write-off, boss,” Klaus rumbled in his deep baritone. “They’ve all got at least a few bars cut.”
Mr. Nastase added the item to his list of losses for the insurance company: 31 state-of-the-art climate-controlled animal habitats with electronic locks.
If he couldn’t have his animals back, at least he could make a killing on the insurance claim. And there was one other advantage to the theft of his zoo….
“You know,” he commented, “I never thought I’d be able to breathe through my nose on this boat. I don’t think I realized how bad the stink was till it was gone.”
“Amen,” his security man agreed. “Still, I kind of miss the little guys. I didn’t think I was the type to get attached. But that’s what happened with some of them.”
“I don’t miss a single one,” the zookeeper said flatly. “I miss the lines of paying customers. I miss the feeling of their money in the cash box. I miss the sight of a spoiled brat in an All Aboard Animals T-shirt, overpaying for a souvenir and giving me free advertising at the same time.”
Klaus laughed. “You’re a hard man, boss.” The smile clouded. “But there is one kid I’d like to see again.”
“I know.” The lines of Mr. Nastase’s mustache sharpened to a spear point. “Ferris Atwater, Jr.”
“Right, him, too, I guess. But I was thinking of the little snot-nose who went commando on me and then lured me into the ceiling.”
The zookeeper added a note on the insurance paper about the damage done to the ceiling and bulkhead while cutting this muscle-bound lunkhead out of the ductwork. Aloud, he said, “I hope you know, Klaus, how much I appreciate what you went through for this company.”
His cell phone rang. From the display, he recognized the number of Detective Harrigan, the lead officer investigating the robbery.
“I hope you have some good news for me, Detective,” Nastase said into the handset. “Klaus and I have been going through the wreckage here, and it hasn’t exactly been fun.”
“We found a few webcams we believe were used to case the boat,” Harrigan replied. “Their server seems to be overseas — ultra-secure, dead end. But we’ve got something else that might turn into a lead. There have been reports of an aggressive owl terrorizing cats and dogs in a Long Island town not far from you. You lost an owl, didn’t you?”
“Yes, a very valuable one,” Nastase confirmed. “But surely there are a lot of owls on Long Island.”
“The timing’s a little suspicious. And the location — it’s across the sound from the spot where we found your life raft. Maybe you’ve heard of this town — Cedarville.”
Cedarville! All Aboard Animals booked hundreds of school visits. But that name sounded familiar.
“Thanks, Detective. Please keep me posted.” As soon as he was off the phone, the zookeeper went to the office and took out the appointment log for school tours.
There it was — Cedarville Public School District. They’d sent several groups the week before the robbery. It rang an unpleasant bell. That girl — Sabrina, Susanna,
something like that. The one who’d accused him of stealing her monkey! The family had even gone so far as to have their lawyer call.
He began flipping through the register, searching for his notes on the incident.
Klaus ducked in through the hatchway. “Find something, boss?”
“That girl — the one who insisted Eleanor was hers.” He slapped the page. “Here it is — Savannah Drysdale from Cedarville, New York. The same town where owl sightings are happening right now.”
“Great news!” Klaus exclaimed. “Call that cop and tell him what we know.”
Mr. Nastase looked thoughtful. “I don’t think we should involve the police just yet. I want to handle this — quietly.”
The security man was mystified. “What for?” He frowned. “Wait a minute. You’re not telling me we really did steal that monkey?”
“Of course not!” the zookeeper replied in a wounded tone. “It’s just that things can get complicated when you’re dealing with false accusations.”
Klaus fixed him with a piercing stare. “But we definitely didn’t steal the monkey, right?”
“Do I look like a thief?”
Klaus’s eyes fell on the desk lamp. The sticker on the shade read: PROPERTY OF HOLIDAY INN.
23
“Ben, are you all right?”
Ben opened his eyes to find Nurse Savage leaning over the cot where he took his special nap every day. He moved his arm across his chest to make sure she didn’t notice the bump in his sweatshirt that represented Ferret Face’s hiding place of the moment.
“Uh, I’m fine,” he answered. “I just can’t sleep.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? You’re supposed to sleep. You’ve always slept before. Has anything changed in your medical condition?”
“I don’t think so,” Ben said carefully. Being saddled with a ferret 24/7 was definitely a condition, but it wasn’t medical. The truth was painfully obvious to him. Narcolepsy or not, he was no longer in danger of falling asleep during the day. Any time he showed signs of nodding off, Ferret Face would grab hold of his skin and bite down just hard enough to keep him awake.