by K. E. Rocha
“It’s on the other side of the zoo,” Aldo said quietly. He extended a claw and traced it around the map. “We’ll have to get around the gardens. I know it’s a little risky, but I don’t think we should stay in here any longer.”
As though on cue, the sound of footsteps echoed through the stables. Someone had just walked into the building. Spencer and Aldo both froze, listening. Whoever it was stopped walking. A minute went by, then another. Spencer and Aldo exchanged a look. Spencer quietly slipped his mission pack off his back. He unzipped the front pocket without a sound and retrieved a little handheld mirror. He crept to the very edge of the stall and poked the mirror out beyond it until it reflected a view of the rest of the stables. As soon as he’d gotten a glimpse of who was in the stables and what they were doing, he pulled the mirror back and returned it to its place in his mission pack.
“It’s a guard,” he whispered. “He’s sitting on a stool at the far entrance. His back is to us, but I don’t think we’ll be able to get past him without a distraction.”
“Okay,” Aldo replied, looking around.
They were only ten feet from an open door. They didn’t need the guard to be distracted for long, but they couldn’t risk him glancing over his shoulder as they snuck out of the stables.
Spencer crept back to the edge of the stall they were hiding in. Each stall in the building was spotless, its wood gleaming almost as much as the fancy cars and trucks parked inside. Spencer counted the stalls, there were eight on each side, and brand-new-looking vehicles were parked in four of them. Spencer spotted a silver Maserati, and a plan started to take shape in his mind.
“I have an idea,” he whispered as he dug into his mission pack for something else. When he pulled out the slingshot, Aldo eyed it with curiosity. Spencer searched the floor. He grabbed a pebble a second later. Let’s hope this works, he thought, trying to remember the last time he’d actually used a slingshot. “I’m going to get onto your back, okay? Just be ready to run.”
Aldo crouched down. Spencer climbed onto the bear’s back, clamping his legs around Aldo’s sides. He fit the pebble into the slingshot and took aim at the Maserati. “Ready?” he whispered.
“Ready.”
Spencer pulled back the slingshot and let the pebble fly straight at the side of the silver Maserati.
Ping!
Weee oooo weee oooo!
The pebble hit its mark, and the Maserati’s alarm immediately started blaring. Spencer grabbed hold of Aldo’s fur, getting the best grip he could with the slingshot still in one hand. At the sound of the alarm, the guard leaped up from his seat and ran into the Maserati’s stall.
“Now!” Spencer hissed as the guard disappeared into the stall. Aldo flew forward, lunging out of the Shetland Pony Shed. The sound of the alarm drowned out the bear’s racing footsteps.
Aldo crept along the zoo’s outer wall with Spencer on his back. They were taking the long way to the Caves, skirting the entire perimeter of the zoo and passing the guest parking lot, the tree tunnel, and the bear fountain in order to avoid Pam’s staff, who were cleaning up. Finally, they were next to an elaborate set of pools. The map had called them the Seaport Pools, and they’d originally been built as separate habitats for penguins, sea lions, and otters, but now they were connected by babbling waterfalls and had lounge chairs and cabanas arranged around their sides.
Between the outer wall of the zoo and the rock formation, there was an alleyway just big enough for Aldo to walk through. Aldo stepped into the shadows of the alley, and Spencer slid off the bear’s back. He pulled the zoo map out of his pocket.
“It looks like these rocks open up into eight caves, one for each species of bear.” Spencer pointed to the illustration of the Caves. Aldo nodded, agreeing. “I think if we went around the front, we’d be able to see into each enclosure.”
“Too risky. Is there a way in back here?” Aldo loped down the alleyway.
“There must be. They have to feed the bears somehow.”
“B.D. is definitely nearby. I can smell him.” Suddenly, Aldo stopped. He rose onto his hind legs and rested his paws on a door in the rock wall. “Here.”
Spencer jogged to catch up with the bear. He stepped in front of Aldo and pushed open the door to reveal a long hallway. They stepped inside, and Spencer closed the door behind them.
“Spencer,” Aldo whispered. Spencer looked over his shoulder, then immediately spun around. He backed up until he was pressed against the door he’d just closed. A grizzly bear was staring at them. The sound of the door opening and closing must have gotten his attention. Spencer gulped. Without a BEAR-COM, there was no way to explain to the carnivore that he was there to help.
“It’s okay,” Aldo said. “He can’t get out.”
Aldo was right. The grizzly bear was behind glass, locked into his own enclosure. Spencer looked down the hall. The grizzly wasn’t the only bear looking at them.
The hallway reminded Spencer of a hospital. It was brightly lit and sterile. All along one side of the hall were shelves filled with supplies. The other side of the hall was a brick wall, broken up every few yards by a metal door, and a floor-to-ceiling glass window. Each door and window marked a new cave, and the entrance to a different bear’s enclosure. To the left of the grizzly bear, Spencer saw a polar bear. Another carnivore.
Spencer stepped away from the door he was leaning against. He moved closer to the grizzly bear. The animal was huge. Much bigger than Aldo.
“Come on,” Aldo said, taking off down the hallway. “We didn’t come here to look at bears.” Spencer heard the edge in Aldo’s voice. He guessed any bear in captivity made Aldo angry. Spencer didn’t like thinking about Pam owning the bears in the Caves, either, but he couldn’t help being fascinated. He’d only ever seen a black bear up close, never a grizzly or a polar bear. He tore himself away from the grizzly bear’s cave and started down the hall after Aldo. He passed the polar bear, then an empty cave. Spencer spotted bamboo through the mouth of the empty cave. This one must be for a panda, he thought, hurrying past.
Aldo was in front of the last enclosure in the row. His head was bowed. Spencer ran up to meet him.
“B.D.!” Spencer gasped when he got a glimpse of the head of Bearhaven’s Bear Guard. He tried to open the door to B.D.’s cave. They had to get in right away! But the door was locked. Spencer pressed his hands against the glass window. He stared at B.D., desperate to get to him.
Unlike the grizzly and the polar bear, B.D. wasn’t sitting back on his haunches, looking out the window of his cave at Aldo and Spencer. Instead, B.D. lay on the cement floor. His face turned to the wall. His fur was clumped with dried blood.
A lump rose in Spencer’s throat. “Is he … breathing?”
Aldo didn’t answer. He moved forward and butted the glass with his head. “B.D,” he said, then launched into a long, low, pleading string of Ragayo. “B.D., wake up. It’s me and Spencer. We’re here. We’re about to get in and help you. Just … wake up, B.D.”
B.D. stirred. His ears twitched.
“He’s alive! He heard you!” Spencer cheered.
B.D. lifted his head. He turned to the window and, at the sight of Aldo and Spencer, struggled to get to all fours. The massive bear seemed to wince with every move he made, but by the time he’d risen to stand, he’d managed to hide any sign of pain.
Spencer knelt on the floor outside B.D.’s cave, his eyes narrowed on the locked door. He moved the lock pick and miniature wrench again, jabbing them around in the lock on the enclosure’s door. A lock-picking kit was fortunately one of the things he had added to his mission pack on Bearhaven’s plane, but unfortunately, one of the things he didn’t exactly know how to use.
If only he could communicate with Uncle Mark or Evarita! He was sure one of them would be able to talk him through picking the lock. He glanced down at the instructions that had come with the kit one more time. “Push the pins up with the pick until they set,” they said. Whatever that means …
<
br /> Aldo was pacing back and forth behind him. “Is it working?”
Spencer glared at the locked door. He adjusted the wrench and wiggled the pin in the lock again.
Click!
“Yes!” Spencer leaped to his feet. He pushed the door open and rushed in to B.D.’s side, only narrowly avoiding being trampled by Aldo.
“B.D.! Are you okay?!” Spencer tried to get a good look at B.D.’s wounded shoulder, but the bear moved a few paces away. He said something in Ragayo Spencer didn’t understand.
“His Ear-COM, Spencer,” Aldo said. “Disconnect.”
Spencer hurried to retrieve his mission pack from the hallway where he’d left it. He dug around in the bag, searching for the translating device as he returned to Aldo and B.D. Once he had it, he held it out in his palm, showing it to B.D. The bear lowered his head, tilting it toward Spencer. Spencer fit the device into B.D.’s ear.
“Team,” Aldo said as soon as B.D.’s Ear-COM was in place.
“I’m glad to see you two are all right,” B.D. said right away.
“We’re fine, but are you okay?” Spencer tried to look at B.D.’s shoulder. Again, the bear shuffled back a step, moving his left shoulder away.
“I’ll be fine. Can you give me an update?”
“I’ll update you while Spencer cleans that wound,” Aldo said. His tone surprised Spencer. B.D. was the Head of the Guard, but now Aldo was stepping up and taking charge. B.D. glared at the younger bear. His jaw was set in a firm line. Aldo pretended not to notice. “Spencer, what do you have in your mission pack?”
“I have a first aid kit,” Spencer answered, looking back and forth between the bears. “And some ginger root.”
“I don’t need ginger root,” B.D. snapped. Spencer could have guessed B.D. wouldn’t accept any ginger root, Bearhaven’s natural pain killer, in front of him and Aldo. After a moment, B.D. stepped toward Spencer and stretched out on his stomach, giving Spencer full access to his shoulder. “Now, give me the update.”
Spencer took one look at B.D.’s shoulder and had to look away. Dora had left her brother with four deep gashes there, and swollen, bloody bite marks down his left leg. B.D. needed stitches. A lot of them. But Spencer didn’t have the right tools. His first aid kit would hardly have enough antiseptic to clean all the injuries on B.D.’s huge body. Spencer got to work, furious that Pam, Margo, and Ivan could lock up a badly hurt bear without caring for it first. How did they think they would be able to get their thirty-five thousand dollars for B.D. if he was in too much pain to walk?
Aldo launched into the update. “After we left you and Mark in the parking lot, we hid nearby, but we weren’t able to follow you quickly enough to know where you’d been taken.”
B.D. flinched as Spencer touched an antiseptic cloth to one of the deeper cuts. Spencer jerked his hand away, afraid to hurt the bear, but B.D. acted as though nothing had happened, so Spencer started to clean the wound again.
“We camped out in one of the old zoo buildings Pam isn’t using,” Aldo continued. “The Reptile Lodge. And we came to find you this morning. Margo and Ivan towed the Creative Pastry truck … So the getaway vehicle is gone. Or at least, it’s been moved.”
“Are they still here?” B.D. asked. “Margo and Ivan?”
“No,” Spencer answered. “We overheard them say they had to leave to catch a flight somewhere as soon as the truck was towed.”
“Any leads on where the others are?”
“Not yet,” Aldo said.
“And Dora?”
Aldo hesitated. “We haven’t seen her since last night.”
“Spencer, don’t bandage it,” B.D. said, turning to Spencer, who was rummaging through the first aid kit. “Thank you,” the bear added.
“Are you sure?” Spencer eyed the wound. If he couldn’t give B.D. stitches, he should at least bandage the shoulder …
“Yes. A bandage will give us away. If Pam or his thugs see it, they’ll know I had contact with a human.” B.D. explained. “You’re going to have to leave me here until the last minute—until we’re ready to make our final escape. If you break me out now, they’ll know we have more operatives here. It’s best if they think we’re weak and they’ve got us all locked up. You will be able to continue to move around Hidden Rock Zoo without the guards on high alert.”
“We’re just going to leave you in here?” It hadn’t occurred to Spencer that they would leave B.D. locked up once they’d found him.
“Yes,” B.D. confirmed. “For now.”
“All right,” Aldo agreed. “Can you direct us from here?”
Spencer’s hopes lifted. If they left B.D. with the Ear-COM the Head of the Guard would be able to guide them through the rest of the mission!
“No,” B.D. answered right away. “You’ll need the Ear-COM.”
“What for?” Spencer asked, packing up the first aid kit.
“For Dora,” B.D. answered.
Spencer dropped the first aid kit. It clattered loudly to the cement floor. He didn’t move to pick it up. He just stared at B.D. in confusion. B.D. was going to send them to Dora, the bear who had nearly torn his leg off and mauled his shoulder less than twenty-four hours earlier?
B.D. looked from Spencer to Aldo. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked gruffly.
Spencer was starting to worry that the pain was getting to B.D. more than he was letting on. Hadn’t the bear learned his lesson? Dora didn’t want anything to do with them, and she definitely didn’t want to be rescued. B.D. had nearly sacrificed the entire mission trying to reason with his violent sister. Now he wanted Spencer and Aldo to go to her again?
“Trust me.” B.D.’s voice was firm. “Dora is angry and confused, but she’s not crazy. She’s obviously still hurt from not making it out of Gutler University during that first rescue and holding everything against me that happened to her since John Shirley and I were rescued, but I don’t think she’d hurt you. And she’s still our best chance of finding Jane, Shane, and Mark quickly.”
Spencer looked at Aldo, hoping the bear would stand up to B.D. again and tell him this plan to send them to Dora was crazy, but Aldo was pacing back and forth by the mouth of B.D’s small cave and he didn’t say anything.
“How do you know she’ll even let us get close enough to talk to her?” Spencer asked, imagining himself putting the Ear-COM in Dora’s ear as she huffed and swatted at him with her claws.
“There’s something you can say to her … ” B.D. said slowly. “She’ll listen to you if you do.”
“What is it?” Spencer asked after a few seconds had passed in silence. Aldo stopped pacing to look at B.D.
“It’s something our mother would say to us back, before we were captured,” B.D. started. “It translates to ‘with you I am home.’ Dora, John Shirley, and I would repeat it at Gutler on the worst days to remind ourselves that as long as we were together, protecting one another, we’d be okay. Disconnect,” he said so Spencer could hear his Ragayo. Then after a second, “Yi hu aro valu.”
“Yi hu aro valu,” Spencer repeated back.
B.D. nodded. “Team,” B.D. reconnected their Ear-COMs. “Say that to Dora. She’ll listen to you after you do. And if she still refuses to help, it will at least be enough to protect you.”
I hope you’re right, Spencer thought, careful not to say it aloud. “Now we just have to find her.”
“I already did,” Aldo spoke up.
“What?!” Spencer practically shouted. “When?!”
B.D.’s head whipped around to look at Aldo. He winced in pain at his own sudden movement.
“Just now.” Aldo padded back to the opening in the cave that led out into the rest of the enclosure. Spencer rushed over to see. When he reached the mouth of the cave, he was sure to keep his body hidden by rock as he peered outside. B.D. limped over to stand behind Aldo.
“Up there.”
Spencer followed Aldo’s gaze. A hill overlooked the Caves, and perched on top of the hill was Pam�
��s house. The house looked like a modern, high-tech assortment of glass, wood, and iron boxes stacked together, like fancy building blocks. Spencer could see right through some rooms. Others were completely hidden from view. A wooden viewing deck wrapped around the second floor of the house. Spencer could imagine Pam standing there, looking out over his collection of bears in the Caves.
A matching, but much smaller, building stood not far from Pam’s house. At first glance, Spencer thought it might be a garage, or a garden shed. But most of the smaller building was made of glass and completely transparent, and after squinting to get a better look at it, Spencer realized there was a bear inside.
Dora was sitting back on her haunches inside the small glass building, staring down at them. Spencer jumped back from the mouth of the cave, but he knew it was too late. Dora had seen him, and by now, she had definitely seen Aldo, too.
Spencer closed the door to B.D.’s cave and heard the lock click into place. He glanced through the glass window. B.D. had his back turned. He sat in the mouth of the cave, watching Dora move around her own glass enclosure on the hilltop not far away. Spencer didn’t want to leave B.D., but they had no idea when the person who cared for the eight bears in the Caves would arrive, or what Dora might have in mind for Spencer and Aldo now that she knew they were still moving around the property. Spencer and Aldo needed to get out of the Caves while they still could.
“Did you find any food?” Spencer called down the hall to Aldo, who was beside the polar bear enclosure, rummaging around the supply shelves lining the wall.
“It’s hard to say,” Aldo answered. He sniffed at a row of large bags on the bottom shelf. “This smells a little bit like food … ” Spencer walked over to Aldo. He crouched down to examine one of the bags Aldo was nosing into. Bear Kibble it read. Spencer pulled a half-full bag toward himself. He unfolded the top and looked inside.
