She had volunteered for what was probably the most dangerous assignment that Finn and Philby had come up with: to infiltrate and search the Kilimanjaro Safari grounds. The idea was a simple one: if someone was hiding Jez in the Animal Kingdom, why not stash her someplace where people were prohibited from going? When the Park was open, the safari teemed with hundreds of wild animals. People riding on the safari were restricted to the backs of the safari trucks with a driver/guide who pointed out animals and took guests on a “mission” to save a baby elephant from make-believe poachers. But, according to Philby’s research, throughout the safari grounds there were feeding stations, way points, and even some hidden gates offering backstage access. The Overtakers had once hidden Maybeck in a maintenance cage inside Space Mountain; it seemed possible, logical even, that they might hide Jez in a similarly impossible-to-access place. But if one of them got there before the animals were released…
“It’s done in stages,” Philby had explained. “Thomson’s gazelles are pretty tame and harmless. Some aren’t even rounded up at night, but most of the other animals are. They’re fed and washed and doctored, if need be, after the Park closes to the public.”
“But what about early morning?” Willa had asked.
“Before the Park opens, they return the animals in a specific order that offers the fewest problems. The trick for you is to get inside before eight AM.”
Willa didn’t wear a watch. She had no idea what time it was. That was an oversight. She was guessing it was between 6:30 and 7:00 AM, which gave her about an hour. But the later it was, the less time she had. She quickened her steps, off Discovery Island now, and headed toward the entrance to the Kilimanjaro Safari. A tremendous flock of black birds passed overhead—there must have been thousands of them. They streaked across the morning sky and were gone.
“If you hurry, you can catch the last one.” She looked up. It was a cute guy wearing a uniform identical to her own. He stood below the sign for the Kilimanjaro Safari.
“Ah…yeah,” Willa said. But she tensed as she felt his eyes following her. Did she look old enough to carry an ID badge?
She walked quickly through the empty waiting area, turning and winding her way down to the loading dock, where one of the trucks was waiting. There was an older woman—she had to be nearly thirty—leaning forward from the front bench, coaching the driver. Willa was the only passenger beside the instructor. It was obviously some kind of training run. The truck rumbled off down a path that wound through the jungle.
Willa called out, “I’ll be hopping off at Ituri Forest.”
The instructor, without so much as looking back, lifted her arm and waved.
Willa heaved a sigh of relief and held on as the driver avoided puddles and recited some memorized lines into the radio, “communicating” with other rangers who were searching for the poachers. Willa had taken the safari ride many times and enjoyed the story behind it as well as the animal-watching. But the emptiness of the place at this hour gave her the shivers. The truck rounded a bend and slowed.
“Is here all right?” the instructor called back inquisitively. Suspiciously?
The Ituri Forest, Willa realized.
“Fine!” She hopped the three feet down to the muddy ground, hoping the instructor wouldn’t see that she was wearing running shoes and not the required ranger boots. She slapped the side of the truck, and it lumbered off. The minute it was gone, she regretted getting off.
Alone on the truck route, in the midst of a thick forest of bamboo and sea cane, Willa spotted a pure white ibis as still as a statue. The bird stood on one leg, perfectly balanced.
She unfolded the map Philby had given her, tried to establish her position, and punched through the forest to her left, expecting to come across a feed station within the next thirty yards. It was tough going, the forest thick with vegetation.
Had she looked behind her, she would have seen a lizard following. It was five or six feet long, with a thin tail and little claws on its feet. Not so much a lizard—more like a Chinese dragon.
MAYBECK LOST GROUND to the small, agile simian that moved through the jungle’s tight growth in a seamless, fluid motion. He wondered if the monkey was under Maleficent’s control. But if so, then why had it not been ordered to release the bat? His answer came as a slice of first light caught his eyes. Bats were nocturnal; it was sunrise. Releasing the bat was not an option.
Maybeck had to get it back. He smashed into bamboo and rubber trees, baby banyans and mangrove. He sloshed through the flooded jungle floor, quickly gaining on the monkey.
Maybeck’s progress registered on the monkey’s face as wide-eyed terror. It shrieked and exploded into a frenzy, briefly increasing its lead on Maybeck. But only briefly.
Maybeck broke out of the jungle and felt something hard beneath his feet. He looked down: train tracks! The Wildlife Express Train was going through its morning test run. Maybeck jumped out of the way when he heard a blast from the train’s whistle. “You crazy?” the conductor shouted through the open window.
He’d been spotted. As the train passed, he saw the conductor reaching for his radio.
Not good.
The train whistle pierced the morning air, sending a flock of sandhill cranes into the blue sky. Maybeck spotted the monkey. It had been crouched in the center of the birds. He closed the distance to ten yards, then five.
The train had followed a long, sweeping curve of track but was now coming around and catching up to them. It reappeared to Maybeck’s right. The monkey changed directions, going straight for the train. Maybeck skidded to a stop, caught a toe, and went down hard.
He looked up to see the monkey slip beneath a train car, the pillowcase in hand. Maybeck hurried to his feet and ran toward the train. The train conductor hung out of the locomotive, shouting at him. Maybeck squatted in time to see the monkey racing across a short distance of grass toward more jungle. There was no way Maybeck was about to crawl under a moving train. He waited it out impatiently. It seemed to move very slowly. Finally, Maybeck took off toward the end of the train and came around it, once again crossing the tracks.
He found himself next to the Chakranadi Chicken Shop. He came to a halting stop, looked left…right…there! A flash of the white pillowcase was all he caught—just rounding a bend in the path. He took off, heading away from Flights of Wonder. Again, his size and speed overcame the monkey’s efforts.
The monkey sensed its pursuer and skittered back and forth in a zigzag, chattering loudly. It crossed the path and shot straight up a dangling rope toward a concrete tower. It reached the turret, nearly thirty feet off the ground, and briefly disappeared. The next time Maybeck saw it, the monkey—still carrying the pillowcase—hurried across a set of ropes toward a crumbling Asian temple encased in bamboo scaffolding. This was on an island surrounded by a narrow moat.
Maybeck stopped at the concrete tower. The end of the rope the monkey had climbed was frayed as if it had been chewed through. He studied the layout, noticing that the rope bridges connected back to the temple, which meant that the monkeys weren’t supposed to be able to get down off the towers. The moat was meant to prevent their escape from the island. But the monkeys had managed to drop a rope that had yet to be spotted. By doing so, they’d given themselves an escape route.
The monkey disappeared into the red brick temple, dragging the pillowcase behind it, and was gone.
Maybeck, understanding the importance of acting quickly, rolled up his pant legs, pulled off his shoes, and waded into the murky water. A pair of ducks startled and splashed away to the other side of the temple, squawking and quacking.
Maybeck felt the cold mud ooze between his toes. Bubbles rose to the surface all around him, giving off an unpleasant odor.
He faced a wooden door with iron bars over its small, square window. It was the only way into the temple that he could see.
He arrived there in five giant steps and, sloshing out of the water, reached for the door’s handle.
> WILLA CHECKED PHILBY’S MAP once more: he had marked the location of a feeding station—disguised as a large stump—at the edge of the savannah. Its proximity to a nighttime animal holding pen qualified it as a possible hiding place where Jez could be kept and never discovered. A clock ran off the seconds and minutes in her head—she had several such places to check before the animals were released.
She pushed though the forest, following the map, and reached the edge of the sprawling savannah: a flat plain of low grasses interspersed with trees and rocks and a few small ponds, all of it surrounded by low rolling hills. It glistened in the first golden rays of dawn.
There, quite some distance away, she saw a stump, thinking immediately that it couldn’t possibly be Philby’s stump because it looked so real. But the location was right, so she decided to have a look.
The problem was, there was no way to sneak up toward a stump in the middle of a field without being seen. She had to cross a hundred yards in the open. Not that there was anyone to see her, but another training truck could come by at any minute. She decided rather than run out and look suspicious, she would walk casually—just another day on the job. Hopefully, the ranger uniform would do the rest.
Then, taking in her surroundings, she happened to look back.
At first, she thought it was an alligator. Terror gripped her: alligators ate people. It happened all the time in Florida. She’d heard they could run faster than humans, and when you saw one you didn’t want to run because it teased them into chasing you—and if they chased you, they considered you food. So she continued walking, though slightly faster than before. The stump—or fake stump—rose at least three feet off the ground. If she could only reach it in time…
But then she looked again. It wasn’t an alligator after all, but a giant lizard, maybe six feet long. She’d studied Komodo dragons in school, and this looked pretty much exactly like one. Komodos didn’t eat people, but they were known to bite and do serious harm. She didn’t know the rule about Komodos—did you run or walk? The lizard turned sideways for a second, as if to size her up, and once again she changed her mind: it wasn’t a Komodo; it looked more…prehistoric, with thick scales and…was that possible?…wings, tucked in along its back. It looked more like…
A dragon. She’d read stories about dragons. Had seen movies. She’d always considered them mythological creatures. But now she was looking at one.
It had a disgusting, pink tongue that flicked like a snake’s—but about two feet long. The tongue curled as it drew back between the rows of gray, stubby teeth.
She wanted to think of this as coincidence—the two of them had just happened to cross paths, and it was now following her. Tracking her was more to the point, she thought. But then something even more strange entered her thoughts: what if Jez was indeed locked up in the stump—the food locker—and the dragon was some kind of patrol for the Overtakers? After all, the safari was filled with all sorts of animals, from giraffes to zebras, but a scaly Asian dragon with wings?
The Overtakers.
It was the first thing to come to her: if Jez was being kept out here on the savannah, it seemed obvious who would guard her. And if there was a dragon mixed in with all the rest of the animals, could that possibly be a coincidence, since dragons hadn’t existed for the past few million years—if ever?
So what exactly was the dragon waiting for? It just lingered back there, a dozen yards away, trolling back and forth across the grassy landscape as if sniffing around for food. If he was going to attack her, why not get to it?
Could a dragon possibly think? Could it be waiting to see if she headed for the stump? She subtly increased both the quickness and the length of her strides. She glanced back to see that the dragon had stayed right with her. It didn’t seem to be moving any faster, either, and yet…there it was.
Now more convinced than ever that she was its intended target, she looked around and realized that she was all alone out on the savannah. She saw an ostrich in the distance—perhaps they had begun releasing animals already. A herd of Thomson’s gazelles shot across the field, but some nights they were left on the grounds; it didn’t mean much to see them. If, on the other hand, the animals were already being released and introduced to the savannah, then Willa hoped they might distract the dragon from its current obsession with her.
She moved increasingly closer to the stump, and now, looking back, she saw the dragon following her. If she climbed on top of the stump, she would be out of reach of the dragon. But what about the wings? Could something like that possibly fly?
She heard the sudden beating of hooves, seconds later mixing with the rumble of a truck engine. A herd of zebras had been released—again to her left—and from somewhere behind her a truck was approaching. If she was going to inspect the stump it had to be now—right now.
She ran the last few yards, and if she’d harbored any doubts as to the dragon’s intentions, they were answered by its light-footed sprint to keep up with her. There was no turning back now. No changing her mind. The dragon raced toward her, its mouth open, snapping at the air.
She reached the side of the stump—though shaped like a stump, it was made of metal, with a small door in the side. She worked the snap lock off the hasp and opened the door.
The dragon charged, seemingly not touching the ground at all. It flicked its long tail back and forth, moving in a snakelike fashion, quickly closing the distance between them.
Willa dove inside and pulled the door shut behind her. It was incredibly warm inside. Enough light filtered in to allow her to see that Jez was not there. There were sacks of food and salt licks. It smelled like a pet store. A coiled hose hung from a hook.
The dragon smashed into the door, then slammed its powerful tail against the stump. Her ears rang. A rumbling in the ground grew louder. Willa looked out a crack in the access door to see the herd of zebras bearing down on her as it crossed the savannah.
The dragon took off for a distant tree and climbed it in a creepy, effortless way.
Willa sagged down to sit, trying to catch her breath.
And then she saw it: freshly scraped into the fake stump’s rusty metal was a simple message that made absolutely no sense—and yet somehow she knew it had been written by Jez.
It read: Change Rob.
She curled up and held her breath, waiting to flee the stump once the storm of zebras had passed.
MAYBECK STOOD INSIDE a dark enclosure the size of a large closet. It had a concrete floor from which a low brick wall rose to waist level. From there, framed lumber intersected by long bamboo poles rose geometrically overhead, wrapped on the outside with heavy brown vinyl: fake brick. Together, it added up on the outside to what looked like an Asian temple. But inside it smelled bad—really bad—like one of those Porta-Potties at the state fair. It was surprisingly cool inside—a place for the monkeys to escape the heat. There was a white plastic tub with a metal handle sitting by the door. Alongside it was a neatly coiled green hose connected to a spigot.
The door clapped shut behind him. He turned in time to see the monkey overhead, carrying the pillowcase, climbing effortlessly, up, up, up, pulling himself between the bamboo poles and jeering down at Maybeck.
Sunlight seeped in through several square openings at the top of the temple. The temple provided shelter for the monkeys, a place to hide from storms and a cool place to sleep. The smell was the problem: the monkeys used the concrete floor as their bathroom. He understood the purpose of the hose, then, and felt tempted to give the concrete a spraying off.
If the monkey made it to the top window, the pillowcase and its contents would be gone. Maybeck considered climbing, but that was a race he was sure to lose.
The monkey crossed along the bamboo rafters, and then, to Maybeck’s surprise, began to work its way back down. Maybeck’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. And then something moved from the shadows.
Maleficent.
She stepped out to where Maybeck could see her, regal in
her purple-fringed black cape, her startling green skin glowing with maliciousness.
“Hello, Terrance.” A voice like grinding stones.
The monkey handed her the bag. She accepted it with an outstretched arm, never taking her eyes off Maybeck.
“Do you know what happens to children who play where they don’t belong?”
He couldn’t get a word out.
“They get…burned,” she said. A flaming orb appeared in one hand. She cocked her arm back, ready to throw.
Maybeck dove for the hose, swiveled its nozzle, and shot a ferocious stream of water at the witch.
The monkey cried out and leaped up into the rafters.
The water stream knocked the burning ball out of Maleficent’s hand but produced a cloud of steam that immediately filled the small space so thickly he couldn’t see.
A dark shadow shifted inside the gray cloud of steam: Maleficent moving to cut off his path to the door. He abandoned the hose and sprang for the door. But she was much faster than he’d anticipated. He came face-to-face with the green skin and bloodshot eyes. Her breath was like a dead mouse caught in a trap as she said, “No. I don’t think so.”
Maybeck didn’t hesitate. He kicked out, punching the door open and admitting a flood of light. Maleficent, still holding the pillowcase, moved to block his exit, just as he’d hoped.
He sprang up overhead, through the bamboo, and squeezed out the hole at the top. Hand-over-hand, he swung up the taut connecting rope—five yards…ten—as he pulled himself toward the tower.
Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set Page 30
