Mission to Moon Farm

by K. E. Rocha

  “You don’t have that option,” Yude answered. He tested the steel wire that ran from the iron railing on Moon Farm’s rooftop, over the stone wall surrounding the island, out past the rocky cliffs, to Bearhaven’s boat in the moonlit ocean. “We installed the zip line while you and Aldo were freeing Kate. It’s secure—Professor Weaver has specially engineered it to hold up to five hundred pounds.”

  Still, Spencer didn’t trust an exit plan that required him to jump off a roof. He opened his mouth to refuse one more time, but Yude cut him off.

  “Operative, it’s my job to make the plan; it’s your job to follow it. There are eighty-eight bears within two minutes of overtaking us. This is not a training exercise. This is the only chance any of us have of ever leaving this island. Now listen to me. Mission packs are designed to double as harnesses. You have a dozen carabineers in yours for a reason. You’re the only one whose hands can clip us to the wire. Now get ready.”

  There was no sense in arguing. Yude was right, and even if he was wrong, he wasn’t giving Spencer any other option. Spencer sprang into action. He dug all the carabineers he had out of his mission pack.

  “Aldo, you’re going down first,” Yude commanded. “You can’t take Kate down yourself. Together you’d be too heavy, and Spencer won’t be able to reach back to clip more than one other bear to the line after he’s clipped himself and Kate. Now get the extra strap out of your mission pack.”

  Aldo looked as though he wanted to protest leaving his sister, but there wasn’t much he could do except obey Yude, either. He ducked his head toward his fur-camouflaged mission pack and retrieved an extra strap with a clip on either end.

  “Spencer, help him attach it, and move quickly, operatives.”

  Yude had said mission packs were meant to double as harnesses. Spencer understood what he was supposed to do before Yude gave the instruction. He found two empty clips on Aldo’s mission pack and connected the extra strap, wrapping it around the bear so that it crossed in front of Aldo’s chest.

  Aldo gently nuzzled Kate for a moment before he ducked under the railing and perched on the few feet of rooftop that lay on the far side of the railing. Spencer gulped. If Aldo made one wrong step, he’d go over the edge in an instant. On the other side of the railing, there was nothing to stop his fall.

  Spencer hurried forward with a carabineer in each hand. It was his job to clip Aldo to the zip line, but what if he made a mistake? What if the carabineer was faulty or the straps of Aldo’s mission pack weren’t strong enough to hold the bear’s weight?! He shook the thoughts out of his head. There was no time for imagining all the things that could go wrong. He used a carabineer to clip each of the straps of Aldo’s mission pack to the steel wire of the zip line. He stepped back once they were in place.

  Thump! Spencer whipped around. The first of the bears had dropped to the roof and was running toward Bearhaven’s team. The bear snarled. His jaw popped and his eyes locked on Spencer.

  Thump! Another bear dropped from the ladder.

  “Now, Aldo!” he heard Yude command behind him. Spencer turned back just in time to see Aldo push off the roof. Spencer gasped; he wanted to reach out and grab Aldo to stop the bear from plummeting to the ground, but Aldo wasn’t falling. The zip line was carrying him, just like Yude had said it would. In the moonlight, Spencer watched as the bear was carried out over the courtyard, then the stone wall, then the cliffs, then the ocean.

  Thump! Thump! Spencer didn’t have to turn to know that two more bears were on the roof, racing toward him now.

  “Hurry, Spencer!” Yude growled. Spencer rushed forward. He ducked under the railing and stepped onto the unguarded sliver of roof on the other side. His hands were filled with carabineers.

  “Clip yourself and Kate in now,” Yude ordered, guiding Kate with her rope harness under the railing to stand beside Spencer. “You’ll go down together. I’ll hold them off.” Yude lunged away, his teeth bared. Spencer moved closer to Kate’s side. The cub was shaking and whimpering. Her eyes were wide with fear. The sounds of bears locked in battle surrounded them. How long could Yude hold them off?

  Spencer hooked Kate’s knotted rope harness to the wire with two carabineers. He secured his mission pack on his back and used a carabineer to clip each strap to the steel wire. He tried not to look down or think about what he had to do next.

  “Wait!” Spencer stopped himself from going any farther. He and Kate couldn’t leave until Yude was clipped to the wire, or Yude would be left with no way to escape the bears that were rapidly descending on them now.

  Spencer turned back to the roof. Yude was fighting off three bears. Four more were closing in on them. Yude swiped a claw at one bear and bared his teeth at another. One of the three bears snarled and launched himself at Yude; his claws made contact with Yude’s stomach.

  “Yude!” Spencer cried. The bears would reach him and Kate any second now. Spencer would have no choice but to go. “Hurry! I have to clip you to the wire!”

  Yude turned and ran straight at Spencer and Kate. Pam’s bears followed close behind, and another dozen were thundering across the roof now. Spencer had two carabineers ready. The second Yude ducked under the iron railing, Spencer clipped the bear on.

  Three bears were suddenly on top of Yude, growling and biting. They reached for Spencer and Kate.

  “Go—” Yude’s command was cut short as a bear’s teeth sank into his back.

  Claws swiped at Spencer, and growls and snarls sounded all around him. He wrapped his arms around Kate and leaped off the roof.

  Kate’s chestnut-colored fur kept getting in Spencer’s eyes as they careened through the air. He held on to her tighter, terrified the knots of her harness would give way as they flew down the steel wire toward Bearhaven’s boat. The straps of his backpack were cutting into his shoulders, but Spencer ignored them. His determination to get Kate to safety pushed every other thought away. The wind whipped past his face, and his arms were burning from holding on to Kate so hard, but the zip line was working. They were going to make it.

  They zoomed over the stone wall surrounding Moon Farm, past the rocky cliffs, and over the water, flying lower and lower every second. Spencer craned his neck, trying to see out past Kate’s fur. He barely got a glimpse of what was ahead before they hit it a second later.

  Spencer and Kate made contact with the deck of Bearhaven’s speedboat. An inflated lifeboat softened their landing, but the sudden stop knocked the wind out of Spencer’s lungs. Before he could recover, Evarita was above him, unclipping him and Kate from the wire that Spencer could now see wasn’t attached to the boat at all. It was anchored in the water behind the boat, secured, Spencer guessed, in the ocean floor.

  “You made it!” Evarita cried. She helped him to his feet and tugged him out of the path of the zip line as Professor Weaver, B.D., and Aldo surrounded Kate, helping her carefully to the back of the boat.

  Spencer ran to the side of the speedboat and searched the length of the zip line. “Yude was being attacked!” he shouted. “Where is he?” He didn’t see the bear on the wire. The roof of Moon Farm was too far away; he couldn’t make it out in the dark.

  “ARGHH!” Yude’s howl of pain filled Spencer’s ear.

  “They’re hurting him!” Spencer cried.

  “Team.” B.D.’s voice connected their Ear-COMs. “He’s on the wire.” The Head of the Guard lumbered over to Spencer’s side, and together they focused on the zip line. After a second, Yude came into view, flying toward them. Spencer started to relax. They were all going to make it!

  Yude cleared Moon Farm’s stone wall and sped out past the cliffs. He was halfway across the stretch of ocean that lay between himself and the safety of Bearhaven’s speedboat when the zip line suddenly went slack.

  “They severed the wire!” B.D. yelled.

  Spencer watched in horror as Yude plummeted into the ocean. Evarita sprinted into the cabin. A second later, the speedboat’s idling engine roared to life.

 
; “Hold on!” Evarita called. She hit the throttle. The force of the sudden acceleration threw Spencer backward onto the deck. The speedboat skimmed across the water until Evarita cut the engine, turning the boat hard. “I can’t get any closer!” she shouted. “I can’t see the wire! If it gets caught in the engine, we’ll never get away.”

  Spencer scrambled to his feet. He saw Yude thrashing in the water several yards away. The bear was still clipped to the wire, which was weighing him down. Spencer climbed up on the side of the boat. He’d trained for this.

  “I’m going in!” he yelled. Before anyone could stop him, he dove into the cold, dark ocean. He swam as hard as he could toward Yude.

  “Spencer, no!” Evarita yelled.

  A second later, an enormous jet-black mass hit the water beside Spencer. It was B.D.

  “Come on!” the bear shouted. He swam out to Yude, reaching him just after Spencer did. Yude continued to thrash. He was bleeding, and even in the dark, Spencer could see the bear was getting weaker by the second. “Unclip him, Spencer,” B.D. ordered. Spencer tread water as he struggled to unhook the two carabineers from the heavy, sinking wire.

  “He’s free!” he shouted once Yude’s mission pack was unclipped from the steel wire. Spencer wrapped his arms around the injured bear, and B.D. clamped his mouth onto the skin at the back of Yude’s neck. They started to swim. Together, B.D. and Spencer got Yude to the side of the speedboat. Aldo helped B.D. aboard, then the large bear pulled Yude out behind him. Evarita dragged Spencer out of the water.

  “Spencer—” she started in a reprimanding tone, then seemed to decide against scolding him. She hugged him instead. “That was really brave. Now put on a life vest and try to stay on the boat until we’re back at the dock, okay?”

  Spencer pulled his life vest tightly around himself and buckled it. He tried to catch his breath, but before he could, he was gasping at the sight of blinding lights heading straight for them. “Evarita!” he managed to shout, pointing at the lights as they sped closer and closer.

  Evarita whipped around. “Team!” she cried. “They’re after us! Everyone get down!” She hurtled into the driver’s cabin and, with a roar from the engine and a huge lurch that sent Spencer careening back down to the boat deck, hit the throttle. B.D., Professor Weaver, and Aldo scrambled unsteadily to the back of the boat, where they could stand guard over Kate and the wounded Yude.

  Spencer crawled across the deck, reaching for the railing on the side of the boat to keep himself from being tossed into the ocean. Bearhaven’s speedboat seemed to be flying just above the water, knocking into the waves and bumping back up into the air every few seconds. Spencer craned his neck. The boat behind them was close, too close, and keeping up, despite the fact that it looked rusty and patched together. Spencer could just make out M.F. Tidal Control painted in peeling letters on its side. Uh-oh. Spencer had one guess as to who was on that boat. As it gained on them, he saw he was right.

  Margo was behind the wheel of the M.F. Tidal Control, her greenish hair whipping back and forth across her face. Crouched in the bow, with something tucked under one arm like a football, was Ivan.

  “They’re getting closer!” Spencer shouted.

  “Faster, Evarita!” Professor Weaver’s voice called through the Ear-COMs.

  The Tidal Control was so close now, Spencer could see the look of fury on Ivan’s face and the look of disgust on Margo’s. Spencer’s eyes widened as the giant wound up and hurled something at Bearhaven’s speedboat.

  Ivan hit his mark.

  Bam! Something hard hit the deck beside Spencer. He reached for what Ivan had thrown. It was a solid cement teddy bear the size of a grapefruit. M.F. was carved into its chest. If it had hit him or anyone else on Bearhaven’s team—human or bear—it would have really really hurt.

  “Spencer!” B.D. shouted.

  Bam! Another cement bear hit the speedboat a few inches from where Spencer’s hand had just been.

  “Faster, Evarita!” Professor Weaver called again. But the speedboat shuddered underneath them. They were going as fast as they could.

  The speedboat bucked as it flew across the water. Spencer grasped for anything to hold on to as he crawled toward the awning-covered stern. He was afraid he’d be thrown overboard at any moment or knocked unconscious by one of Ivan’s stone missiles. The Tidal Control was looming right behind them as he took cover under the awning with Bearhaven’s bears.

  Kate was crouched on the deck of the boat. She was partly shielded by one of the boat’s bench seats. Aldo was beside her, and Professor Weaver hovered above, offering as much protection as their bodies could. Kate looked afraid, but her eyes were open, and Spencer didn’t think she was shaking anymore. Being reunited with Professor Weaver and Aldo must already be helping. Spencer wasn’t surprised. No matter where he was, or what was happening around him, when he and Mom and Dad were back together again, he’d feel better, too.

  Stretched out on the deck beside Aldo and Kate was Yude. He looked weak and his eyes were closed. He hardly even flinched at the banging sound of Ivan’s cement bears hitting the speedboat. B.D. was stationed beside the wounded bear. The Head of the Guard had one paw on a mission pack that was pressed against Yude’s chest. Spencer didn’t have to ask; he knew B.D. was applying pressure to try to stop Yude’s bleeding.

  Spencer squeezed into the little bit of space between Yude and Aldo. He tried not to think about what would happen to Kate and the rest of them if Margo and Ivan caught them now. The list of sales in the Moon Farm shipping room flashed into Spencer’s head. Outrunning the M.F. Tidal Control was their only hope. He glared back at the boat behind them.

  Wait … it wasn’t as close as it had been a second ago.

  “I think we’re losing them!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “They’re slowing down!”

  Professor Weaver lifted his head, relief flashing across his face. “We haven’t lost them yet,” he called back, and urged Evarita on.

  “They’re sinking!” Spencer cried, hardly believing the words as they flew out of his mouth. The Tidal Control was sitting lower in the water than it had been a moment ago, and its progress seemed to have stopped completely. Margo shrieked something from behind the wheel that Spencer couldn’t hear, then abandoned steering altogether to run to the bow of the boat. She seemed to be yelling at them and at Ivan at the same time, but her threats were carried away by the wind and drowned out by the roaring of Bearhaven’s speedboat’s engine.

  Margo’s eyes landed on Spencer. The hair rose on his arms. He ducked, desperate to escape the nasty woman’s hateful glare.

  When Spencer lifted his head again, Evarita had finally put enough distance between the speedboat and the Tidal Control that Spencer couldn’t make out Margo and Ivan’s faces on their boat’s deck anymore.

  “Now we’re losing them,” Professor Weaver said as the speedboat crashed full speed across the water. “I thought they’d never go down!” the professor added.

  “No kidding!” Evarita called back through the team’s Ear-COMs. “Next time let’s drill a bigger hole.”

  Drill a bigger hole?

  “Wait a minute!” Spencer shouted. “What did you guys do to Margo and Ivan’s boat?!”

  “You didn’t think we’d let you have all the fun, did you?” Evarita answered.

  “If it came down to a chase—which it obviously did—we wanted to give ourselves as much of an advantage as possible,” B.D. explained gruffly, as though squashing any ideas that they’d tampered with the Tidal Control just for the heck of it.

  “Right, of course,” Spencer answered, trying to sound businesslike. He couldn’t help but smile. Sinking Margo and Ivan’s boat was so cool. He cast a glance back in the Tidal Control’s direction and his smile faded. The boat was just a sinking shadow now, but Moon Farm loomed on the horizon, as threatening as ever. Spencer could still see the large illuminated silhouette of the painted bear on the stone wall surrounding the island. It looked like an enormous
ghost. Spencer shuddered, remembering the words Pam had proclaimed loudly during his midnight assembly: “When we find Bearhaven, we’ll be ready.” He reached for his jade bear.

  Bearhaven’s team was going to escape tonight, that much was clear, but this battle wasn’t over. Pam, Margo, Ivan, and their army of microchipped bears were coming for Bearhaven. Not today, and not on the Tidal Control, but they would finish this chase.

  Spencer sat on the floor in the TUBE’s wardrobe car as the train sped back toward Bearhaven. He was in the women’s closet, his mission pack in his lap. The picture of himself with Mom and Dad in front of the Lab was on the floor in front of him. There wasn’t a trace of the broken glass and frame he’d left behind after his confrontation with Yude on the way to Moon Farm. Spencer guessed Marguerite had removed it, leaving just the unframed picture behind.

  Spencer was supposed to be getting himself cleaned up after the mission, but there was something he had to do first. In all the mayhem of their escape from Moon Farm, he hadn’t had a single second to think back on seeing Uncle Mark in the tower. Now that Spencer was able to recall the moment he saw Uncle Mark, he realized there’d been clues his uncle had been at Moon Farm all along. First, there was the motorcycle, a perfect getaway vehicle parked in the very same parking lot Evarita had chosen for the ice cream truck. Then there was the silver dingy at the loading dock when Bearhaven’s team arrived. Remembering the dingy made Spencer feel way better about the fact that it was only now occurring to him that he should have told Evarita to turn Bearhaven’s boat around and return for Uncle Mark. The dingy would be all Uncle Mark needed to get back to shore. And lastly, the evidence that someone else had entered the illegal half of Moon Farm through the same skylight Spencer opened with a crowbar.

  Spencer couldn’t believe he hadn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together sooner. But even if he’d figured out that Uncle Mark’s solo mission had led him to Moon Farm, Spencer would never have predicted Uncle Mark would appear right when they needed him most.