by Paul Noth
“I don’t want . . .” I trailed off as something occurred to me. Though I had only been in law enforcement for about a minute, already I had solved my first crime: Mr. Abernathy was stealing the animals from his own zoo and selling them . . . But why? I reminded myself that I was here for another reason.
“Give me the new invention, Abernathy,” I said. “You know, the Golden Hoop.”
“That? You don’t want that. It’s cheap junk. Worthless. How about a walrus?”
“I don’t want a walrus!” I yelled. “Besides, you’re a zookeeper! You’re supposed to take care of those animals. Not sell them, or give them away as bribes!”
“I know I screwed up,” said Abernathy, suddenly sobbing.
“Nice tears,” I said. “You learn that from one of your crocodiles?”
“I know I messed up,” he cried. “But I’m in deep trouble with some very bad individuals. I mean . . . I gotta survive.”
“What about the animals!” I yelled. “Why don’t they get to survive?”
“Whoa, Detective, you got it all wrong. I wouldn’t sell to poachers or lowlifes.”
“Who else would buy stolen animals?”
“These guys are pure class. They’re, uh . . . like naturalists.”
“Naturalists?”
“You know, scientist-like. Gentlemen hobbyists. A-OK. Wouldn’t harm a hair. They’ll look the species over, take a few notes, some innocent snapshots, and send them home in a week. Classy. Two, tops. Good as new.”
“You must think I’m pretty stupid, Abernathy.”
“I swear! The proof’s right here.”
Abernathy reached into his left front pocket and handed me a small metal cylinder.
“See?” he said.
It was the device advertised on the strange poster in the Black Room. It had a picture of Dad on it and a logo and lettering in the crazy foreign hieroglyphics.
“Keep it,” said Abernathy, smiling and winking at me. “I didn’t even see you take it. Doesn’t have to go into evidence. Our little secret.”
“What is this thing? What does it do?”
“Anything and everything. With these boys, the sky’s the limit. Heh, not even the sky. Heh-heh. There IS no limit. Name your heart’s desire and blammo. Money. Cars. Pandas . . .”
“How’s it work?”
“It’s a Flash Beacon. You hold it up and press the top.”
“Is it drugs?”
“What! No, these guys are the real thing. They come to you. Wherever you are. Get you out of any pickle.”
“Could they come right now?” I asked, thumbing the cylinder’s cap.
“No!” yelled Mr. Abernathy. “Not while I’m here! See, these naturalists and I, there’s a . . . miscommunication I’m in the process of smoothing over. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not use the Flash Beacon until everything’s resolved. Uh, heh-heh. Heh . . .”
Behind me, a clock chimed the tone for the half hour.
Wheeling around, I saw the antique timepiece hanging upon the wall. It read 11:30. Far later than I thought!
“Where is it?” I yelled, turning back toward Abernathy. “Where’s the Golden Hoop?”
“That?” said Mr. Abernathy. “The old lady has it. She said she had to take it up to the solarium to run some sort of test on it. At noon.”
“Get down on the floor,” I said. “Put your hands behind your head.”
Abernathy did so quickly—before I had figured out what to say next.
“Now count to seven thousand,” I said. “And I better not hear you stop.”
To the sound of the zookeeper counting, I tiptoed quickly out of the room and back toward the yellow hallway. But there I saw two security guards walking straight toward me.
I ran back through the Azure Parlor and past Mr. Abernathy, who still lay counting on the floor. The security guards would be here before he had even counted to fifty.
I looked at the open window. What other choice did I have?
CHAPTER 15
EVERYTHING OUT THE WINDOW
Stepping out onto the windowsill, I gazed up the blocky facade stones of Conklin Manor. They looked almost climbable here. But could I make it up two stories to the solarium? And in time to stop the experiment?
I thought of Baby Lu. And those wires. And Grandma.
Taking a deep breath, I reached into the crevice between two stones and lifted myself up.
I had daydreamed about scaling these walls. From the ground it seemed doable. But distances that look friendly from below can turn on you from above. You face wind, vertigo, and the cold, hard fact of a three-story, unsurvivable fall.
My fingers soon went completely numb, and I felt too terrified to lift my weight on digits I couldn’t even feel. So I wrapped my palms around a green copper downspout and climbed it like a gym rope. This brought me a few feet higher. An S-curve in the pipe took me near a fourth-story window ledge. But not near enough. I had to swing back and forth on the pipe a few times before I dared risk letting go.
My feet reached the ledge, but my body weight did not.
Falling backward, only a hip-rocking dance kept me from dropping to my death.
As I regained balance, I looked through the window. I saw Chip Ricky and Grandma coming out of the elevator. Grandma was holding Baby Lu.
“Hap,” hissed a voice from above me. “Hap.”
Looking up, I saw Kayla’s face poking out from a fifth-story window.
“Get up here,” she whispered. “Climb. Hurry.”
With hands that felt like they had already fallen off at the wrists, I climbed and climbed.
Kayla grabbed my jacket and helped pull me over the window ledge. For a moment I couldn’t catch my breath. We stood in some sort of flower-planting room.
“Kayla,” I breathed. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to stop you, you idiot,” she said.
“Stop me from what?”
“From flying us straight into the Last Hexagon,” she said, and shoved me hard in my chest. “What are you going to do next, Hap? Steal the baby back from Grandma? Then what? How will you sneak Lu out of the mansion? Carry her out the fifth-floor window?”
“I would never do that,” I said. “Did Alphonso say I would? Because I would never—”
“You have no idea what you’re capable of anymore. You’ve gone some new breed of bananas. Diving into the incinerator? Punching Florida Pete? Impersonating a federal officer and history’s greatest horse? You’ve become a reckless, unpredictable maniac! Putting everything at risk. Pulling us into futures too crazy to even contemplate!”
“So what do we do?” I asked. “How do we stop the experiment?”
“We don’t,” said Kayla. “We missed our only safe chance.”
“But we can’t just let it happen. An experiment on Baby Lu?”
“At this point, that’s the least worst outcome I can see, as bad as it is. Because you trying to stop it, Hap, means the Last Hexagon.”
“You traitor!” I said, backing away from her. “Baby Lu still has a chance, Kayla. She doesn’t have to be a freak like us.”
“I am not a freak,” said Kayla, walking toward me. “For your information, I like being different. You’re the traitor, Hap. I actually like our family. I like Dad not being arrested and Mom not being deported and me not living in a research hospital.”
“I won’t let any of that happen,” I said, backing into a marble hallway.
“How can you possibly prevent it?” she said, walking toward me.
“You’ll help me,” I said. “Come with me. Help me find a new way through this.”
Kayla scowled. Then she sighed.
“The problem is I can’t keep stopping you forever,” she said, following me into the hallway. “But there’s nothing I can see down this way except disaster.”
“Nothing you can see yet,” I said, leading her toward the bright enormity of the solarium. “But keep looking, okay?”
“Every new prediction,” she whispered, “is worse than the last one.”
“Don’t worry,” I whispered back. “You’re with an unpredictable maniac.”
Kayla gave me the hairy eyeball. I led her down the marble hallway.
But soon she was the one leading me. We crept along the circular floor’s edge, on a curving pathway between the latticed glass walls and a small forest of plants and statues. The tropical vegetation smelled almost violently intense. Between trees and sculptures of Roman emperors, I caught glimpses of Grandma walking with Baby Lu in her arms.
Beyond a small fishpond, where a young sea turtle peacefully swam, Grandma carried Baby Lu to the center of the circle and set her down on a pedestal.
Kayla led us so close I felt sure Grandma would hear and look up, but she did not. We crouched behind a little banana tree. Grandma lifted the Golden Hoop and fastened it around Baby Lu’s neck.
I tensed up. Kayla squeezed my arm as though to say, “Not yet.”
Little lights came on all over the delicately braided gold wires.
“Wait,” breathed Kayla.
Grandma turned and walked out of the room.
“Now,” said Kayla.
Leaping up, we ran around the fishpond. Baby Lu smiled as she saw us approach. I put a finger to my lips. Kayla lifted her up from the pedestal. I could still hear Grandma’s heels clicking somewhere nearby.
“She’s coming back,” I said.
“I know,” said Kayla. “We need to hide.”
She pointed toward an antique carved wooden chest.
“Won’t she find us in there?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Kayla. “But it will buy us a few minutes to think until she does.”
I ran and opened the lid of the chest.
“Quick. Get in,” I said. Kayla stepped in with the baby.
“Hurry up, Hap,” she said. “Come on, get in too.”
“No,” I said. “I need to talk to Grandma.”
Kayla stared at me. Her face quivered. Then she gasped, as though some new possibility had dawned. Her eyes filled with tears.
“What do you see?” I asked.
Turning away from me, Kayla reached down and unfastened the Golden Hoop from under Baby Lu’s chin. Then she lifted it to me and wrapped it around my own neck. As she fastened it, a tear rolled down her cheek. Then she hugged me, as though for the last time.
She crouched down into the trunk with Baby Lu and began to close the lid over them.
“Go do it, Hap,” she said, just before the lid shut.
CHAPTER 16
GRANDMA
I turned around in time to watch Grandma stride back into the room. Finding the pedestal empty, she stared down for a moment in confusion. But her features calmed as she heard my footsteps approach. She flashed a cold smile.
“Happy Junior,” she said before looking up at me. “I might have known.”
“Hi, Grandma,” I said. I walked closer, my eyes locked on hers.
“So,” she said. “Our little bearded revolutionary. Have you come to overthrow the tyrant?”
“I just want to talk to you,” I said, stepping closer.
“ ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men,’ ” said Grandma, “ ‘which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.’ But perhaps, young man, you have misjudged that tide.”
“Uh . . . okay,” I said. “But, Grandma, you are not going to experiment on Baby Lu.”
“Experiment on her?” Grandma laughed. “I should say not. I have never experimented on any of you. I will protect her, as I have protected all of you. And, yes, as I have gifted each of you with your own special greatness, so I shall gift Baby Lu.”
“Ha!” I said. “Protected us? Gifts? Special greatness?”
“Indeed,” said Grandma. “The inventions have only ever been pretexts to make you each exceptional and worthy of your destiny.”
She’s lying, I told myself. Don’t believe a word she says.
“I made each of you extraordinary,” she said. “Just as decades earlier, when your father was a baby, I gave him the gift of his unique genius.”
This stopped me. My blood ran cold. It had never occurred to me that Grandma had experimented on Dad. She’s lying, I told myself. She’s trying to trick you.
“Even if I believed you,” I said, “I would still not let you near Baby Lu. First, because she’s already great. And second, whatever you do could go wrong. Like with Kayla.”
“You think Kayla’s greatness is an accident?” said Grandma. “Does Kayla seem like an accident to you? She’s one of the most remarkable people on this planet. Granted, she’s not perfect yet. She worries and hesitates far too much. She’s like the poor cat in the adage, letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would.’ Quite unlike you, Happy Junior. I made sure that you would be brave, bold, and decisive. Manly, even before your time.”
“Me?” I said. Don’t listen to her tricks, I thought. She lies about everything.
“You think your beard is just a nuisance, yet you fail to see that with it, I have given you strength and valor in an almost equal portion to my own. You don’t even realize yet how powerful you are. But I have something here that will help you to achieve your true greatness.”
Grandma reached into a pocket of her sweater and pulled out a tiny box, wrapped in glittery black paper and tied with a blood-red bow.
“With this, you can fulfill your destiny to be my partner in a great endeavor.”
She stretched her hand toward me, as though she wanted me to take it. “Join me, Happy Junior. As a partner. And together we shall win an extraordinary victory for humankind.”
“Thanks,” I said, stepping closer. “But I don’t want any more of your ‘gifts.’ ”
Grandma scowled and dropped the box back in her pocket.
“As to a ‘partnership,’ ” I said, “sure. Fine. I’ll do anything you want. On one condition: Baby Lu gets to stay normal. No gifts or greatness or specialness for Baby Lu.”
“Normal,” said Grandma. “What is normal? Take a look at this.”
Grandma pulled the rose from her lapel.
“Do these petals look normal?”
I noticed a coil of pink electricity dancing atop the red petals. As I leaned in to see better, she pushed the rose toward me, touching its electricity to the center of my chest.
The pain started big and only got bigger, until it was too enormous to feel at all.
“How dare you!” said Grandma. “I offer you my hand in partnership, and you spit conditions in my face?”
Numbed to my core, I could neither feel nor move but only sway a little, like something badly balanced.
“I am deeply disappointed, Happy Junior. To think I ever imagined us as a team. I must be going soft in the head. My offer is officially revoked.”
Now a larger coil of pink electricity bloomed atop the rose, and Grandma jabbed it straight into my face.
I didn’t feel the floor, even as I collapsed upon it like a bag of soccer balls. Grandma continued to talk to me, but all I could hear now was the crazy quivering feedback the electricity had left in my head.
I strained my hardest to move even one single finger, but my brain seemed not to know what a finger even was, let alone where one might be found.
“One more,” said Grandma through the feedback, “and you will learn the lesson.”
No! I thought as the rose in her fingers flowered up into a blaze of red fire.
Fingers, I told my brain, the five things at the end of the arm. Those things that feel covered in a billion pinpricks. Yes, those. Aiming the flower down toward me, Grandma noticed my hand flopping and jerking to life. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Flash Beacon. Her mouth formed the word “don’t” as I raised up the cylinder and pressed the button.
CHAPTER 17
THE “NATURALISTS”
The Flash Beacon vanished into pure light. My hand was empty.
Otherwise, it didn’t seem like much had cha
nged. I still lay on the floor of the big bright solarium, but now the only sounds were the faint motorized hums of my gold collar and the filter in the fishpond. We remained the same two people in the same positions, but I realized an important difference: Grandma, who had been moving, was frozen, and I, who had been frozen, could move, though not much or well.
Piece by piece, I heaved myself up from the marble floor. I felt awful, like I had some weird tropical disease and the ambulance coming to save me had run me over instead.
I heard a clop.
From where? It hadn’t come from the fishpond.
A few seconds later, I heard another clop, then a clop-clop, a clop, a clop-clop, a clop, and then so many more clops that recounting them all here would get monotonous. I looked off toward the clops, through a high doorway into the adjoining room. Something in there kept clopping. From above the doorway, a long, slender yellow shape slinked down—a shape of orange patches on yellow. I didn’t recognize it as a neck until a giraffe’s face showed up at the end. Ducking down, the giraffe came clopping into the solarium. Other giraffes followed. All of these giraffes, I noticed, wore jade-green glasses on their faces, like Beth’s Specs, only larger.
“Ack,” said the giraffe, spotting me. “Here he is! I found him! Ack! This way, everyone! He’s in here. Ack!”
I screamed.
You would have too. I know talking animals in stories are magical or funny, but in real life they’re upsetting. You get nausea and nightmares. Because things that shouldn’t talk shouldn’t talk. Right?
“Ack,” said the first giraffe. “Ack. Hello.”
I screamed again, which upset several of the giraffes.
“Could you, ack, not make that sound, please, ack?” said the leading giraffe.
“Stop talking!” I yelled. “Oh God!”
“I’m sorry, have we, ack, done something to upset you?”
“You’re giraffes! GIRAFFES!”
“We are not, ack, giraffes, if that is the problem. Ack. We have merely chosen these forms so as not to alarm you.”
