by K. E. Rocha
“I think we go right,” Uncle Mark muttered. He turned right, passing a parking lot filled with gleaming, expensive cars. The Rolls-Royce that had arrived ahead of the Creative Pastry truck pulled in between a Bentley and a Lamborghini. Spencer watched a woman step out of the driver’s seat of the Rolls-Royce. She was wearing a long white dress and a fur vest, even though it was way too hot for any kind of coat.
“Team,” Uncle Mark said, connecting his own Ear-COM with Spencer’s, Aldo’s, B.D.’s, and Evarita’s. “We’re in. Can everyone hear me all right?”
“Yeah,” Spencer said first.
“I can hear you,” Aldo’s voice sounded in Spencer’s ear.
“Yes,” B.D. said.
The Ear-COMs fell silent.
“Evarita, can you hear me?” Uncle Mark said. The Ear-COMs were silent again. “Evarita?” Still nothing. “We don’t seem to have a connection with Evarita.”
No connection with Evarita? No connection with Evarita meant no connection with the outside world … Spencer started to reach for his jade bear, then stopped himself, remembering again with a sinking feeling that it wasn’t there.
Uncle Mark pulled into a small parking lot. There were three catering trucks in the dimly lit lot, but the catering staff all seemed to be somewhere else. There was no one in sight. “There must be a kitchen the caterers are working out of,” Uncle Mark explained. “That’s a good thing. We won’t seem suspicious if we park here, but we won’t have to worry about a bunch of waiters and cooks poking around, either.” Uncle Mark parked the Creative Pastry truck alongside one of the real caterer’s vehicles.
“What about Evarita?” Spencer asked, afraid to hear Uncle Mark’s answer.
“I’m about to figure that out.” Uncle Mark pulled his black backpack onto his lap. He took out a small device Spencer didn’t recognize. Uncle Mark turned the device on. It immediately started to beep, and a red light flashed on and off. After a second, the device stopped beeping, and the red light stopped flashing. It just stayed on, like a miniature stoplight.
“The red light means it can’t detect any signals nearby. Pam must have signal blockers surrounding the place,” Uncle Mark said. “Nobody’s going to be able to transmit any information into or out of Hidden Rock Zoo tonight. I don’t know if the blocking is permanent or just turned on tonight for the party, but we’re not going to be able to connect with Evarita as long as Pam’s signal blockers are on.”
“But why?” Spencer asked.
“To stop people like us, Spence. And anyone else who might want to know what he’s up to in here. It makes it much harder to spy on someone when they jam up your gear like this.”
“All right, no Evarita tonight.” B.D.’s impatient voice broke into the conversation. “Mark, you should get moving.”
“Right.” Uncle Mark snapped to attention. “We can’t get sidetracked. Come on, Spence, let’s see what we’re working with.” Uncle Mark got out of the truck and closed the door behind himself. Spencer pushed his glasses into place and jumped out to join his uncle.
The parking lot backed up to a wall of trees and bushes. A single path led through the wall, and beyond it Spencer could see there was an elaborate garden. He wanted to see more, but he couldn’t without getting closer.
“I’m going in to find Dora,” Uncle Mark said quietly. He headed back toward the truck, unbuttoning his chef’s coat and slipping it off as he walked. Spencer knew this was the first step in the plan: rescue Dora, then use her knowledge of Hidden Rock Zoo to find Mom and Dad. But he hadn’t realized that plan meant he would be left behind in the truck.
“What about me?” he asked, stepping away from the entrance to the garden.
Uncle Mark walked around to the back of the truck and opened it. A light popped on and spilled out into the shadowy parking lot. Spencer watched as his uncle traded the white chef’s coat for a black tuxedo jacket, transforming himself with the help of his second disguise that day. With an empty silver tray tucked under one arm, Uncle Mark had gone from a chef to a waiter.
“You have to stay here and guard the truck. Start filling the silver trays with chocolate mousse.” Spencer looked blankly back at his uncle. Guard the truck? “Just look busy,” Uncle Mark went on. “And if you see someone coming, or you have any trouble and need help, I’ll be able to hear you on the Ear-COM. The code word is ‘peanut butter.’ ”
Spencer placed ten miniature chocolate mousses on a silver tray one by one, just as Uncle Mark had instructed. He was standing in the back of the Creative Pastry truck, less than five feet from the trick doors to the fridge where Aldo and B.D. were hidden, trying to convince himself to keep doing what Uncle Mark had told him to do: guard the truck. It wasn’t going very well. With every second that ticked by, Spencer became more certain that by arranging tiny desserts on a silver tray he wasn’t helping anyone. And he definitely wasn’t getting any closer to finding Mom and Dad.
Spencer put the tray down and jumped out of the catering truck. He closed the door behind himself almost all the way, leaving it open a crack so B.D. and Aldo wouldn’t be trapped inside if there was an emergency.
He looked around the empty parking lot, convinced he was doing the right thing. After all, a long-haired kid moving bear-imprinted chocolates around an empty catering truck was way more suspicious than an empty catering truck in a row of other empty catering trucks. And Spencer had made major discoveries every time he’d taken matters into his own hands before. Getting out of the truck now seemed like the exact right thing to do. Uncle Mark had gone into the party to search for Dora, but nobody had gone in to gather information and scout the place. What if Spencer discovered something that led them to Mom and Dad more quickly, or something to help them protect Bearhaven?
Spencer grabbed his mission pack from the front seat of the truck and crept over to the path leading into the garden. He couldn’t walk right into the party the way Uncle Mark had. There was no way Spencer would be able to pass for a waiter. He’d have to make sure he wasn’t seen. Spencer took off his white chef’s coat. He rolled it up and stuffed it inside his mission pack, then swung the black backpack onto his back over his dark gray T-shirt. He could do it—keep himself invisible—he just had to use everything he’d learned in Bear Stealth training.
Spencer searched the small section of garden that he could see from the shadowy parking lot. He narrowed his eyes, slipping into operative mode. There was a row of flowering bushes not far away. He dropped to his hands and knees, and scrambled as fast as he could into the garden. His heart started to beat faster the moment he broke out of the darkness. The pure white pebbles of the path dug into his palms as he pushed himself in between two flowering bushes.
Okay, calm down, he thought. Spencer was careful not to let a sound escape his lips, afraid it would be sent straight to Uncle Mark’s Ear-COM, revealing that Spencer had left the truck. He pushed a branch of pink flowers out of his face and took a better look around the garden. He had to admit, it was pretty cool. The path of white pebbles was lined in blazing lanterns as it wound in and out of lush greenery. Exotic flowers Spencer had never seen before seemed to be in bloom everywhere, and marble bridges arched over a crystal clear stream.
Spencer’s eyes followed the stream. It created a moat around a wide marble courtyard, where tables and chairs were set up for the party. Off to one side, an orchestra was playing. The music almost drowned out the rushing sound of the waterfall, which was definitely the coolest thing in the garden. The towering wall of water started high above the garden, so high Spencer couldn’t see what was beyond it. All he could see at the top of the waterfall were two sculptures. Each sculpture was of a bear on all fours, crouching, its eyes trained on the scene below. The bears looked like they were made of water themselves, but Spencer guessed they were glass.
“Have you seen him yet?”
Spencer froze. Two people were walking down the path toward him. The blazing lanterns illuminated their faces. One of them was the woman i
n the white dress, from the Rolls. Her blond hair was pulled back tightly, and her eyebrows were furrowed in what looked to Spencer like a permanent glare. The man with her wore a black suit, and a black hat that hid his eyes. He wore a silver ring on each of his fingers. Each of his nine fingers. Spencer looked away from the man’s right hand, where the pinkie ended in a scar-covered nub.
“No, not yet,” the woman answered. “I’ve never met him at all actually. What’s the best way to get into his good graces?”
The man chuckled. “Compliment him.”
They must be talking about Pam, Spencer thought.
“Any ideas where the new inventory is coming from?” the woman asked.
New inventory? Spencer gulped. That could only mean one thing: Pam had a bunch of bears he wanted to sell.
“No, I haven’t got a clue. But I want a piece of it.”
“From the way the invitation put it, it sounds like there’s going to be plenty to go around, Lucian.”
Lucian! Spencer tried not to gasp. The man with nine fingers must be Lucian Line, the owner of Hook, Line, and Skinner. Spencer shrank back even deeper into the bushes.
“As a rule, I don’t buy anything I can’t have right away,” Lucian said, confirming Spencer’s fears. “But Pam always delivers.”
The woman didn’t answer. Spencer was careful to stay completely still as the two animal dealers passed his hiding spot and continued down the path. Before Spencer could try to make any sense of what he’d overheard, a deep, loud gong sounded, making him jump. He turned his attention to the marble courtyard, where everyone was moving around the tables, finding their seats. A woman held her empty glass out into the air until a waiter rushed up to take it. The waiter was Uncle Mark. He obviously hadn’t found Dora yet. But Spencer wasn’t surprised. Pam didn’t seem to be here, and they knew Pam liked to keep the bear close to him. If Pam wasn’t here, Dora wouldn’t be here, either.
Spencer thought he saw a flash of movement in the shadows to one side of the waterfall. He squinted, trying to make out what it was. A hulking figure stepped out of the dark. Then a hand reached out and snatched the large figure back. If Spencer hadn’t known any better, he would have thought it was a bear, but it wasn’t. The man who was just pulled back into the shadows was Ivan Lalicki, and the angry hand could only have belonged to his sister, Margo.
Spencer shrank even deeper into his hiding spot between the two flowering bushes. If Margo and Ivan caught sight of him, he didn’t think his blond wig and glasses would save him from being recognized. And if Margo and Ivan found him now, this mission to rescue Mom and Dad could be over before it even had a chance to begin.
The orchestra music cut out, leaving only the sound of the waterfall crashing and the chatter of the party guests.
“Welcome, friends,” a high-pitched voice filled the garden. It was Pam, speaking through a loudspeaker from somewhere Spencer couldn’t see.
The light in every lantern in the garden went out—all their flames extinguished at once. Only the marble courtyard with its candlelit tables and sparkling lights, and the spot-lit waterfall, were illuminated now.
Spencer searched the courtyard for Pam from the safety of the darkened garden as all the guests did the same thing. Many of them were turning in their chairs, looking for their host, but he wasn’t in the courtyard. Spencer turned back to the waterfall. What had Margo and Ivan been up to over there?
Kaboom!
Spencer jumped, startled, as two fireworks shot up over the waterfall. Each one screamed straight up in the air, showering white sparks over the glass bears. At the top of their flight, they exploded into a pinwheel display. In the same instant as the final explosion, the waterfall disappeared.
The water that had been pouring down from some unknown source stopped, leaving the two glass bears staring down over a shining black wall. Spencer thought he heard a gasp from the courtyard. The image of a silver crown was projected onto the wall, and directly below it, standing in the center of the spotlight, was Pam. A jet-black bear sat back on its haunches beside him.
Dora.
Applause broke out over the marble courtyard. Pam waved back at his guests. He looked horribly pompous. And horribly evil. When the clapping stopped, Pam took a theatrical bow. “I’m so very glad you all accepted my invitation,” he crooned. “I am on the verge of making history!” Pam paused, a smug smile on his face. He wore a dark purple shirt under a silky black tuxedo. It matched the shiny, oily black hair that fell in a perfect wave over his forehead. And even though Spencer was too far away to see Pam’s fingers, he knew that each one ended with a long, clawlike nail. Spencer had seen those disgusting talons twice before. Pam reached out a hand and stroked Dora’s head, and Spencer shuddered, imagining those fingernails running through the bear’s fur.
Spencer saw some of the guests exchange looks, impressed, he guessed, by Pam’s control over an unrestrained bear, especially one as large and powerful looking as B.D.’s sister.
“No one has ever had access to the number of high-caliber bears that I am about to bring to the market,” Pam announced. An even louder round of applause broke out in the courtyard. Spencer bit his lip, furious there were so many people who could mistreat bears the way Pam did, buying and selling them like cars.
“Tonight, you are in luck,” Pam went on.
Dora huffed loudly beside him. She swung her head from side to side with her nostrils flared. She was smelling for something, Spencer could tell.
Pam tensed slightly beside her, but he went on in his disturbingly sweet voice, as though Dora’s huffs were all part of the act. “Now, Dora, we can’t keep all those beautiful bears for ourselves.” He stroked her head again. “My friends, each and every one of you have an exclusive opportunity to participate in tonight’s advance sale. And I assure you, the inventory you are about to preview will not disappoint.”
There was a third—even louder—round of applause. Just as the clapping started to quiet, the silver crown on the black wall behind Pam was replaced by new images.
NO! Spencer squeezed his eyes shut, and his heart started to pound in his chest. He opened his eyes to look at the pictures again, desperate to be wrong about what he’d seen there. But the images were the same.
The “inventory” Pam was allowing the most dangerous animal traders in the world to preview tonight was made up of bears, but not just any bears. Bearhaven’s bears. B.D., Aldo, Kate, Yude, and Ro Ro, the first bear Spencer had ever helped rescue, were five of the six bears whose images were projected onto the wall behind Pam. Spencer’s eyes blurred with furious tears.
He searched for Uncle Mark, who was still posing as a waiter, in the courtyard. Even in the candlelight, and even with prosthetics hiding Uncle Mark’s face, Spencer could tell his uncle’s expression was grim. Spencer thought of Aldo and B.D., hiding in the Creative Pastry truck not far from here. If this mission didn’t go well … Spencer tried to push the thought away, but the danger B.D., Aldo, and all of Bearhaven’s bears were in had suddenly gotten a lot more real. And a lot more terrifying.
“Without further ado, let’s preview the wares and start the auction, shall we?” Pam chirped, his sickly sweet voice still blasting out over a loudspeaker.
Auction? Spencer’s stomach flopped again. Pam was going to sell these bears tonight, deciding their doomed fates, before he even had them in his possession. But how could Pam auction off Bearhaven’s bears—B.D., Aldo, Kate, Yude, and Ro Ro—before he even knew where the bears lived? Before he had even discovered Bearhaven’s location? Spencer took a deep breath. Either Pam is crazy for selling these bears now, or he’s a whole lot closer to taking over Bearhaven than we realized, Spencer thought.
The images projected behind Pam dissolved and were replaced by a new photo. Now only B.D.’s image showed on the sleek black surface. The picture looked like it had been taken a long time ago. The bear was younger, and he looked much less healthy and powerful than the B.D. Spencer knew now. In the back of the pict
ure, Spencer could see something green and gold—it was too blurry to make out—but the colors were enough for Spencer to guess that the picture had been taken at Gutler University, before B.D.’s rescue.
“We have a bear of unparalleled stature,” Pam announced cheerfully as the soundtrack of a bear attacking something was played out over the garden. “This bear’s size and musculature will amaze you.” Suddenly, another image appeared beside B.D.’s. It was the one bear Spencer didn’t recognize. Pam glared off to one side of the waterfall-turned-stage. Spencer followed his gaze and could just make out Margo and Ivan there. Margo was holding a clipboard, and beside her, Ivan seemed to be holding something else. Margo elbowed Ivan sharply. He must be controlling the slideshow, Spencer guessed.
“Brothers,” Pam practically squealed with joy, returning his attention to his horrible sale. “The pair can be purchased together. And trust me, my friends, their brotherhood and training in entertainment makes the set an incredible investment.”
John Shirley. Spencer stared up at the picture of B.D. and Dora’s brother, the third Benally sibling. Spencer had never met John Shirley. After his successful rescue from Gutler, the bear had chosen to live in the wild.
Wait a second! Pam thinks John Shirley is in Bearhaven! Spencer realized with some relief. He’d been afraid Pam had forced Mom and Dad to give him information about Bearhaven. Spencer knew Mom and Dad would never tell Pam anything willingly, but he didn’t trust Pam not to force Mom and Dad to talk. Spencer didn’t have to worry about that now, though. Pam thought John Shirley lived in Bearhaven, and John Shirley didn’t, and all Pam’s photos were out-of-date. He didn’t know any more about Bearhaven than their team had thought.
There was a flash of lights, and the photos of B.D. and John Shirley were replaced with a shot of Yude, Bearhaven’s key strategist who always wore his green cloak wrapped around him and who Spencer had only recently started to get along with. The image was grainy and had obviously been taken from one of the security cameras at Pam’s Moon Farm factory.
