“They’ve seen it already, if they’re that close!”
They crouched down behind the line of cages. Outside, someone fumbled with the padlock. One of the jackalopes looked down at them with interest.
The door opened.
“You left the light on, idiot,” said Lenny over his shoulder. “It’s wasting electricity. Do you think we’re made of money?”
“Sorry, boss,” said Earl. “I meant to check, but one of the campers had to talk to me. Forever. Something about a show with zebra smugglers and a prophecy and I don’t know what-all. I may need to get the DVD.”
“Yeah, yeah …” Lenny glanced over the cages. “I guess this is a big enough load. Wish we’d been able to catch the last couple, though.”
“What are you going to do after this?” asked Earl.
“Saguaro cactus probably,” said Lenny. “Land-scapers’ll pay a pretty penny for a full-grown saguaro.”
Next to Danny, Wendell squirmed with outrage. “That’s illegal!” he hissed in Danny’s ear. “They take like three hundred years to grow! You’re not supposed to dig them up!”
“This is not the time, Wendell!”
Lenny looked at his watch. “Buyers should be here in an hour. The campers ought to be in bed by then.”
An hour! Danny’s heart sank. They had to do something right now! If only Lenny would leave—and leave without noticing that the cages were unlatched and ajar, that one in the back was actually wide open, and oh god, a jackalope was sticking its head out of it—
“Boss!” said Earl. “Look, one’s getting loose!”
“Catch him!” Lenny moved down the aisle toward the open cage door. If he reached it, he’d be less than a foot from where Danny and Wendell were crouched, and he would absolutely spot them.
Danny did the only thing he could think of to do. He jumped to his feet, slammed his shoulder into the table, and yelled, “The doors are open! RUN!”
It worked. Hitting the table knocked most of the cage doors wide open, and the jackalopes—panicked.
It was not a very large space.
There were a lot of jackalopes.
“STAMPEDE!” screamed Wendell, and then a jackalope launched itself off his head, knocking his glasses to the ground.
Lenny grabbed for them as they passed, but the jackalopes moved like hairy lightning. They ran between his legs and past his knees, they launched off the table and over his head. It was like being in a room full of bouncy balls with antlers.
They poured out of the building. Danny frantically threw latches open on the remaining cages. There was only one row left when he felt a hand close over the back of his shirt.
“I’ve got the other one, boss!” said Earl, who had Wendell in a headlock, although since Wendell had lost his glasses and couldn’t have found his way out of a paper sack, this was hardly necessary.
The frog looked down at Danny and said, “Dragonbreath. I might have known.”
“What do we do with ’em, boss?” asked Earl.
Lenny sighed. “Look, Danny, Wendell, I know you think you’ve seen something strange here, but I assure you, you’re mistaken. We’re collecting specimens for the zoo—”
“You are NOT!” said Danny, squirming. “You’re selling powdered jackalope horns! We know all about it!”
Lenny put a large webbed hand over his face.
“Should we gank ’em, boss?” asked Earl. “I don’t want to gank anybody, but if we have to, I could use the Chinese Throwing Lanyard of Death—”
“Earl,” said Lenny, sounding very tired, “we are petty criminals. We do not gank campers. That is not our thing. We’ll lock them up, I suppose, and then we can round up the rest of the jackalopes—hopefully they won’t have gone far—and after the buyers have left, we’ll figure something out.”
Danny listened to this and immediately zeroed in on the most important bit.
“There’s a Chinese Throwing Lanyard of Death?”
“Yeah!” Earl forgot the headlock long enough to wave his hands in the air in excitement. “It’s really cool! You use razor wire—you have to use gloves to weave it—”
“Earl!” said Lenny. “Jackalopes are getting away!”
“Right, boss. Sorry, boss.”
Lenny grabbed Danny around the waist with one flabby arm and dragged him away from the door. The remaining jackalopes in the cages put their paws up on the wire bars and gronked frantically.
“No!” Danny kicked out hard, but Lenny was very large, and years of dodge ball and scavenger hunts apparently make you very strong. He wanted to breathe fire—forget jail, Lenny deserved it!—but he was afraid of hitting one of the jackalopes too. All that fur would probably burn really well.
“You know, you could have just left it,” said Lenny wearily. “I’m not a vengeful frog. I would have been willing to let bygones be bygones. It’s not like I would have had you locked in the cellar or anything. We don’t even have a cellar. There’s a rather large walk-in pantry, but that’s as far as it goes.”
Danny squirmed under the frog’s grip. “You mean you’re not going to gank us?”
Lenny sighed. “Do you know what happens when a camper gets ganked? The police show up, the FBI shows up, the parents sue, the other parents sue because their precious angel was traumatized, and that’s the end of Camp Jackalope. No. I am not going to gank either of you.”
Wendell, trying to navigate blindly, ran into a jackalope cage. The occu- pant kicked out at him.
“No. I am going to send you back to your cabins. The counselors already know better than to listen to you. And when you go screaming to your parents at the end of the week that the head counselor is keeping mythical creatures in the storage shed, I will point out that you are a youngster with a very active imagination, that we were keeping an injured jackrabbit in here while it healed, and that you managed to multiply that into a horde of jackalopes. And then I will laugh and pat you on the head—”
“—and agree with your parents that you are quite a handful.” The big frog shoved Danny farther into the cabin and folded his arms. Danny rescued Wendell, who was about to wander into a wall. “And then they will apologize for taking so much of my time, and I will suggest that perhaps Camp Jackalope is not the place for you in the future, Dragonbreath.”
“Sure I can. I’m an adult. And the adults always win.” Lenny poked Danny in the chest with a flabby finger. Danny thought he was probably mad enough to breathe fire—he could feel an acidic burn at the back of his throat—but he didn’t dare. Lenny was right. There was no way that any grown-up would believe Danny’s story, and setting Lenny on fire wouldn’t help at all.
And then Danny saw something behind Lenny, peeking around the doorway.
It was Spencer. And—oh no, with him, was that—Jack?
Danny stifled a groan. If Lenny saw them, he might catch Jack, and when these mysterious buyers showed up, there’d be one more jackalope in the cages, waiting to have his horns ground into powder.
He tried to catch Spencer’s eye. “Well, if you’ve got it all figured out, I guess we should get going then …”
Lenny was counting jackalopes. “Eight … nine … hmm?”
“If you’ve got it all figured out, we should just get out of here.” Danny jerked his head at Spencer, hoping he’d get the message.
Spencer grinned like an idiot and waved at him. Danny took a step sideways and saw that Spencer was actually sitting on Jack’s back—was he riding him? Jack wasn’t that much bigger than Spencer, so maybe they were very strong for their size …
“Oh no,” said Lenny. “You’ve caused enough trouble for now. I’m gonna march you down to my office and you’re going to sit there until after the buyers have come by, and you and Wendell are going to be cleaning lunch trays until the end of camp—”
“Hey, Frogbutt!” yelled Spencer.
Danny covered his eyes. The next time they played video games together, Danny was going to wrap a controller cord around his cou
sin’s stupid neck.
Lenny whirled around, saw Spencer, said, “What—?” and then saw Jack.
The head counselor lunged for the jackalope. Jack danced backward, out the door, while Spencer held on to his antlers for dear life. Lenny made a grab for him but missed, probably because Danny had just smacked into the back of his knees, yelling, “Leave him alone!”
(Not even Danny knew whether he was referring to Spencer or Jack, and fortunately, nobody ever asked.)
Lenny lunged forward.
Jack and Spencer ran. The little jackalope was fast, but he was carrying a rider, and they weren’t nearly far enough ahead of Lenny for Danny’s comfort. He ducked past Earl and gave chase.
A WILD RIDE
Moonlight splashed the campgrounds. Danny could hear the sounds of singing from the direction of the campfire. The dark shape of Lenny ran ahead of him, big webbed feet slapping the ground, and Danny panted as he tried to keep up.
He hoped Lenny couldn’t catch Jack.
He hoped Wendell and Christiana could handle Earl.
They passed the other storage shed, the girls’ bathroom, and the farthest cabins. Danny could feel a stabbing pain starting in his side. He didn’t know how much farther he could run, and if Lenny did something to Spencer …
Danny’s vision filled up with bright sparkles. That probably wasn’t a good sign.
Something next to him said, “Gronk!”
Danny jumped sideways, startled, tripped over a rock, and fell into a bush.
It was another jackalope, and this one was twice the size of Jack.
It gronked again, urgently, then crouched down and gave him a meaningful look.
“You want me to ride you? Really?”
“Gronk!”
It didn’t need to gronk at him twice.
Danny scrambled onto the jackalope’s back. It was a lot smaller than Bandit, and he didn’t quite know where to put his feet. He was still trying to figure it out when the jackalope took off at a run.
Riding a jackalope was not like riding a horse. It didn’t gallop, it bounded. You had no way to steer and only the antlers to hang on to. It was the most exhilarating ride of Danny’s life, but he would have given a lot to have stirrups. Every step slammed him hard into the jackalope’s backbone—probably not any fun for the jackalope either, Danny thought—and then he lifted up again and nearly fell off until the next step slammed him down hard.
He hoped they were gaining on Lenny. He couldn’t tell. Holding on was consuming all of his attention.
The trees flashed by. A few times Danny was sure that they were going to collide with a tree trunk, and then the jackalope would wrench to one side and clear the trunk by inches. Undergrowth whipped at his legs.
Danny was very glad when they were out of the forest and into the desert. The rocks slid under the jackalope’s paws, but there were fewer things to dodge. The desert was clear and stark in the moonlight.
He caught a glimpse of Lenny ahead of them. The big frog was clearly winded and had slowed to a jog, but Jack and Spencer were barely keeping ahead of him. The little jackalope was not so much bounding as hopping, and Spencer kept shooting terrified glances over his shoulder.
Danny crouched low over his jackalope’s back. They were gaining, but would they be fast enough?
“Gotcha now!” cried Lenny.
Jack put on a last, desperate burst of speed, and dodged behind a tall jumble of rocks.
“No!” cried Danny as Lenny closed in.
And then a sea of dark shapes separated themselves from the stones, and moved to encircle Lenny.
Moonlight glittered on a dozen pairs of antlers.
The jackalopes were waiting.
The jackalopes were not happy.
“Groo-ooonk!” said Jack.
The other jackalopes didn’t say anything. They just moved in closer … and closer …
Danny’s jackalope crouched down and slid Danny off. Danny took a step, realized his legs weren’t quite in the same shape they had been when he started, and sat down hard. His jackalope stepped forward to close off Lenny’s escape.
Lenny glared at him over the ring of prongs. “Dragonbreath,” he said. “You’re both trouble. When I get my hands on you—”
A jackalope charged. Lenny jumped as antlers jabbed his backside. The ring of jackalopes moved with him.
“Shoo!” yelled Lenny. “Get out of here! Go awaaaaaaiiiiieeeeeee!”
Danny’s last sight of counselor Lenny was the frog running across the desert, the ring of jackalopes closing around him, antlers flashing. The frog’s yells were quickly swallowed by the night.
Danny exhaled.
“Jack gathered them all up,” said Spencer, coming out from behind the rock. He put an arm around Jack’s neck. The young jackalope looked exhausted but smug. “Then we just had to lead Lenny back here …”
“Spencer, that’s awesome!” said Danny.
He stood up. It went a little better this time, although he was still sore in places that he didn’t know he had.
Still, riding the jackalopes really had been cool. And Spencer and Jack really had helped save the day.
Danny looked around, made sure no one was watching—except for the jackalopes, of course—and hugged his cousin. “You did great!”
Spencer grinned and ducked his head. “Yeah. I did, didn’t I? I mean, it was just like the one bit in One Fleece where the albatross leads the army of—”
Danny sighed and began herding the chattering Spencer back to camp.
AN ALARMING DEVELOPMENT
Meanwhile, back at Camp Jackalope (Your Home on the Range!) Earl and Wendell were staring at each other—or rather, Earl was staring at Wendell, and Wendell was peering nearsightedly at the lizard-shaped blur that was Earl.
“I really don’t feel good about this,” said Earl apologetically. “But the boss wouldn’t want me to let you go.”
“Could you help me find my glasses, anyway?” asked Wendell. He knew he had to free the last couple of jackalopes, but at the moment he couldn’t tell a jackalope from a giraffe.
“Oh—sure.” Earl came around the corner of the table. “I’m really not a bad guy,” he told the iguana. “I don’t like doing this. But if I don’t do what Lenny says, he’ll fire me, and it’s not as easy to get a lanyard-related job as it used to be.”
“Mmm,” said Wendell. By touch he managed to find a latch on a cage, and flipped it open. Something inside went “Gronk!” and pushed against the wire.
Wendell hurried blindly down the table and flipped another latch by feel. A jackalope went past him in an antlered blur.
“Kid, I don’t want to have to stuff you in the pantry—”
“Oh no, not another one!” Earl rolled his eyes. “And this one’s got painted toenails. Look, kid, I don’t really want to do this, but I have to. And what are you going to do to stop me?”
“This,” said Christiana—and pulled the fire alarm.
There was one on every cabin. They had been installed last year after the Bottle Rocket Incident.
When Christiana pulled the alarm, sirens went off all over camp. Lenny had been taking no chances when the system was installed.
It is possible he regretted this later. Certainly Earl did.
Every light in all of Camp Jackalope went on. Campers poured out of the cabins, clutching toothbrushes, towels, and the remains of s’mores, and were greeted by dark horned shapes streaming past them into the night. Any chance of catching the escaping jackalopes was lost as campers milled about aimlessly, looking for the source of the noise. Somebody screamed, and somebody else began to cry.
“Oh crud,” said Earl, because Christiana’s counselor was running up the pathway, along with the nurse and the woman who served lunch in the camp cafeteria, and all of them were yelling.
“What do we do?”
“I see smoke over by the craft cabin!” said Christiana helpfully, and pointed.
Nobody else saw the smoke, since
Christiana had just made it up on the spot, but they all ran that way anyway, and Earl, forgetting that it was all a ruse, yelled, “The lanyards!” and ran after them.
Christiana slipped inside the cabin and quickly freed the rest of the jackalopes. “Where did Danny and Spencer go?” she asked.
“It’s all a blur,” said Wendell gloomily. “Like, literally.”
“Hmm.”
The last of the jackalopes fled the cabin, stopping to poke Wendell with its nose in a friendly fashion.
“Do you think they’re okay?” asked Wendell worriedly as they left the cabin. He was using Christiana as a seeing-eye lizard and trying not to trip on the ground.
“Actually, they’re coming this way. …” said Christiana.
Danny and Spencer hurried up.
“Are you okay? You’re limping.”
“We’re fine,” said Danny, rubbing his tail. “Just … jackalope backbones … Look, I’ll explain later. You wouldn’t believe the story I’ve got to tell you …”
TRIUMPH ON THE RANGE
Lenny was gone the next day. When somebody asked where he was, the counselors said that he’d had a family emergency and been called away suddenly. Earl was still around, but he was extremely jumpy and yelped whenever anybody opened the door to the craft cabin. Wendell’s glasses eventually turned up in the lost and found, and that was more or less that.
“It wasn’t a family emergency,” said Christiana smugly, a day later.
“Well, duh,” said Danny.
“No, I mean I overheard the lunch lady talking to the nurse.” (This was technically true, although Christiana had been hiding behind the Dumpster with the express purpose of overhearing this particular conversation.) “Lenny’s been arrested.”
“No way!”
“They said there were ‘financial irregularities’ in the bookkeeping. Two police officers came in a car and took him away!” said Christiana happily. “Apparently Lenny had been stealing money from the camp, and there was a big audit coming, so he was desperate for money!”
Dragonbreath: Revenge of the Horned Bunnies Page 5
