The Phantoms' Secret

by Christa Roberts

  Liza took in the mud-covered trail and frowned in dismay. “Peck’s right,” she said. For a while the Alphas had been following the trail of rotten goop, decayed plants, and terrible smells the Phantoms had left in their wake. But now, there was nothing—no rot or mold, no deadly fumes, and no signs that anyone had been here recently. “I think maybe we should have turned left back there, where we saw those wild mushrooms growing. If the Phantoms had come this way, they would have left a stinky trail.”

  A bright yellow butterfly landed on top of Graham’s head. “I could climb up to the top of the tree canopy,” he suggested, rubbing his beard. “But I’m not sure I’m going to be able to see very much. You know what they say: big leaves, small views!”

  Suddenly a large nut appeared out of nowhere, thudding at the Alphas’ feet. And a few seconds later, thud! Another one landed. They were the size of apples.

  “We’re under attack!” Peck cried, spinning around, bracing for a fight.

  “Haha, that’s no attack, Peck,” Cosmo said, his face lighting up. “We’re safe. The trees are just trying to get our attention.” He pointed behind her. “Look.” Sure enough, a cluster of towering nut trees were shaking their limbs in the Alphas’ direction.

  The Alphas hurried over to the trees. “You speak nut, right, Cosmo?” Graham asked. “I wish I did!”

  “You don’t have to speak nut when you are a nut,” Cosmo joked, chuckling. Peck let out a giggle, too—it felt good to lighten the mood, if only for a minute.

  Cosmo wrapped his arms and body around one of the trees. A dreamy smile came over his face.

  “I’m definitely putting this in a picture frame,” Liza said good-naturedly, taking a photo. “Caption: Tree Hugger!”

  “And proud of it,” Cosmo replied, hopping off and dusting himself off. “Okay, here’s what I just learned—the trees want us to know that we have to take the path over there, like Liza thought,” he said, pointing to the left of where they’d been headed.

  “Is that where the Phantoms went?” Peck asked, rubbing her paws together in anticipation. Her violet eyes shone. “I’m ready to kick some more Phantom butt!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I would have appreciated knowing we were headed to Crystal Sands,” Sir Gilbert said, his tone clipped as he and Greely stood side-by-side on a sandy beach. The air was hot and the sun was shining, as it always did in Crystal Sands. The two Alphas had found a secluded spot along the miles of shoreline. “A little clarity would have been warmly welcomed.”

  “I didn’t want to waste more time,” Greely replied, his eyes focused on the clear blue ocean. “These waters are known for their pearls. Dive in and find one. I’ll keep watch on the shore.”

  Sir Gilbert bristled at being ordered around. “Might I say, it was your idea to come here, Greely. Why don’t you dive in?”

  “I’d prefer not to,” Greely replied. The unapproachable wolf Alpha looked both out of place and uncomfortable in the relaxed setting.

  “Oh, that is rich,” Sir Gilbert said incredulously. “You would prefer not to.” He gave Greely a withering glance. “And may I add, finding a pearl might not be a simple task. It is not as if the pearls will be easily visible. As they would have been at Epic Wonders,” he sniped, unable to resist.

  “We’re wasting time,” Greely snapped.

  Sir Gilbert’s ears pulled back. “It is very clear to me now. One of us needs to take action. Evidently, it will be me.”

  Holding his head high, Sir Gilbert glided into the water. He gave a regal nod back at Greely, and he swore he saw a hint of a smile break the wolf Alpha’s usually inscrutable face. When the water was deep enough, he dove in.

  The water felt refreshingly cool, and Sir Gilbert was glad he, not Greely, was searching for the pearl. His powerful legs propelled him deeper and deeper into the water, and when he reached the white sandy bottom below, his eyes scanned the ocean floor. Using his sharp claws, he grabbed a cluster of mollusks and swam back to the shore.

  “I suppose you expect me to open them, too,” he said, taking a breath after dropping the mollusks on the sand near Greely. The wolf hadn’t moved. Sir Gilbert shook the water from his fur, purposely trying to get Greely wet.

  Greely then did something unexpected. “I will help,” he said, and together they began to open the shells. One by one they pried the mollusks open and found nothing but pebbles and sand. Finally, one unopened mollusk lay on the ground between them.

  Greely laid his paw on the hard shell. “Shall I do the honors?” he asked drily.

  “Please do,” Sir Gilbert replied. “But I have to say, the chances of this last mollusk containing a pearl—”

  The tiger Alpha was interrupted with a sharp crack as Greely snapped open the shell.

  There, glinting and shimmering, was a smooth white pearl.

  “What were you saying?” Greely asked. And there was no mistaking it this time—spreading across the wolf Alpha’s face was a full grin.

  The trail was downhill—and steep. The farther the four Alphas went, the darker it grew. Before long, the light had all but disappeared and darkness surrounded them.

  As the Alphas walked, they kept looking behind them—and peering into the darkness. There was no sign of the Phantoms, but that only made them more suspicious.

  “They’ve got to be here somewhere. We’re almost at Mt. Magma!” Peck whispered, stepping on a branch. Crack! The sound shattered the silence.

  The Alphas stopped walking and stood silently in the rainforest. It felt as if hundreds of eyes were watching them. Were they?

  Cosmo wiped some rain droplets from his fur. “We definitely are on the right track. But you know how devious and sneaky Phantoms are. They could be under our feet, for all we know.” With that, everyone looked down at the ground. They’d been scanning the path for hidden traps—nets and webs—but so far, nothing.

  “What’s this?” Liza asked, brushing aside some long, stringy vines. Underneath was something very strange: a moss-covered stone wall. She pushed aside some vines to reveal more of the wall.

  “What’s a wall doing in the middle of the rainforest?” Peck wondered aloud.

  Graham stared intently at the stone. Then he scampered down next to it and began running his hands over the structure. “The Phantoms want us to think this is a wall,” he said slowly. “But the minute they want us to think one way, I think the opposite!” The monkey held up a fistful of vines. “Bingo! It’s a door.” Underneath the vines, barely visible in the stone, were the slight outlines of hinges.

  “Okay, you’re definitely a genius,” Peck said, offering Graham a fist bump. Graham blinked in confusion, and then put his hand over her paw, making Peck giggle. She pulled her paw back and then lightly tapped his fist with hers. “And geniuses need to learn how to fist bump!”

  “Stories where characters find secret passageways and hidden doors are my favorite,” Cosmo said, reaching up in awe to touch the hinges. “I never thought I’d actually help discover one myself!”

  “How do we get inside?” Liza asked, scanning the wall door for a way in.

  “And what are we going to find if we do?” Peck wondered.

  Graham didn’t answer. Instead he was busily pulling on the vines that covered the wall, gently testing each one. He mumbled under his breath. “Not this one. Okay. How about this one? No.” Then he pulled on a curled, climbing strand.

  The hidden door slowly swung open.

  “You did it!” Peck said.

  This time, Graham offered her a fist bump, then flashed her an appreciative smile. “Any inventor worth his salt knows that if there’s a door, there’s a way in. Just might take some time to find it.”

  The Alphas peered inside. A twisting passageway led into the darkness.

  Liza stepped forward. “Let’s do this.”

  Cosmo lit the candle at t
he end of his staff, then joined Liza. “The flame can help show us the way,” he said, holding it up. The light flickered in front of them.

  Peck scooted closer to Liza. “Secret passages in the dark aren’t my favorite,” she whispered to Liza as the Alphas stepped into the secret passageway. The door swung slowly shut behind them.

  The passageway was narrow and sloped downward. There wasn’t room for the Alphas to walk side-by-side. They had to walk single file, casting eerie shadows on the stone walls that loomed up on either side of them. If not for the flickering glow of Cosmo’s candle, they would have been in utter darkness.

  “Do you hear that?” Liza said softly, halting her step. Everyone stood silent, listening. There was a clanking, and a faint whirring noise that seemed to be coming from below.

  “Clanking and whirring and clashing . . . it sounds like some kind of machine,” Graham whispered. “And machines don’t belong in the middle of the rainforest.” The Alphas exchanged worried glances.

  The Alphas began moving forward once more. They began to hear the faint sounds of voices, which were frantic and agitated.

  “Phantoms,” Liza whispered, motioning them to keep going. The passageway turned. When they came around the corner, the wall on their left was lowered enough so that the Alphas could make out light coming from below.

  Cosmo blew out his candle so they wouldn’t be seen. The four Alphas crept to the wall, making sure to stay out of the sight line of anyone who might be below them.

  They raised their heads and peered over the edge of the wall, not quite knowing what to expect. Much to their surprise, they were standing on the edge of an enormous cavern.

  “Watch your step, folks! We’re on the edge of the crater,” Graham whispered as everyone realized the same thing at once: The secret path had actually taken them inside Mt. Magma! He gazed around in wonder. “I’ve always wondered what it looked like inside a volcano.” Far above them, a small sliver of sky was visible from the tip of the volcano. Below them was the volcano’s floor. And there, in the middle of the volcano, was an army of Phantoms hard at work.

  Some of the Phantoms were digging into Mt. Magma’s base, using their tentacles to shovel dirt away from the chamber walls. Others were chipping away at the ground, removing layer after layer of dirt.

  Large maps lay spread out on tables on the far side of the cavern. Clusters of Phantoms were studying the maps and talking among themselves, wildly gesturing with their tentacles.

  “Lava,” Peck said softly, her eyes wide. Sure enough, in the very middle of the dig site there was a small burble of lava visible. It was boiling hot, bubbling and fuming. A few Phantoms stood by it, fanning it with gigantic leaves. The more they fanned, the more fumes and bubbles there were.

  A very large Phantom was making the rounds, inspecting the work of the smaller Phantoms. His black body was covered with purple splotches, and the top of his head was cracked open. It almost looked like he was wearing a crown. And unlike the worker Phantoms, who all seemed to have multiple pairs of tentacles, this Phantom only had two.

  Cosmo gasped. “It’s the Phantom King!”

  “Shhh, listen,” Liza murmured as she took pictures. They couldn’t risk missing a single word.

  “This is going exactly as I dreamed,” the Phantom King said to one of his henchmen, a fat, bulbous Phantom with hairy tentacles. The Phantom King’s loud, gleeful voice echoed off the chamber’s walls. “The summer solstice is tomorrow. Now that we’ve exposed the lava, the sun and sky will unite and the volcano will erupt.” He let out a booming laugh, and his henchman laughed back. “Soon all of this wretched land will be covered with hot lava. Trees will burn. Lakes will be filled with ash. And the fields will wear a coat of crunchy molten rock. It’s going to be so beautiful.”

  “And the animals?” the henchman asked, a revolting grin taking over his entire face. “Tell me about the animals.”

  The Phantom King chuckled, flexing his muscled tentacles. With each move, ripples of electricity shot up and down them. “Every village they have built will be destroyed. Their civilization will be in ruins. And any animal who isn’t burned by the lava will suffocate in the rain of ash that will befall this land. Soon the animals will be nothing more than a footnote in the history of Jamaa. A mere fable, a sad story.” His eye pulsed with giddy anticipation. “Mt. Magma will be the end of every animal species. Which means one thing. Finally, Jamaa will be back with its rightful ruler. ME!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “One riddle down, two to go,” Sir Gilbert said, feeling determined. He had strung the pearl from a bit of string they found by the beach, and it now bounced against his chest as they walked.

  The forest path they were on was covered with twigs and leaves, yet Greely managed to walk without making a single sound. In fact, Sir Gilbert turned around every ten yards or so just to make sure that Greely was still with him. This seemed to bother the wolf.

  “Do you think I’m going to disappear?” Greely asked quietly after the seventh time Sir Gilbert had turned to check.

  “One never knows,” Sir Gilbert said haughtily, staring at him for a long moment. Throwing his shoulders back, he faced forward again and continued along the path. “‘I hang from the sky and lie on the ground. I am closed or open, long or small,’” Sir Gilbert said to himself, hoping that it would help him think of the answer.

  “Instead of repeating the riddle over and over, we need to solve it,” Greely muttered from behind him.

  “I am well aware of that fact, thank you,” Sir Gilbert said crisply over his shoulder. Greely was certainly not easy to get along with.

  Dusk would be falling soon. “Let me remind you, if it were not for me, we would not have solved the first riddle.”

  For the first time that day, Greely stepped on a branch. Snap. Sir Gilbert knew that he’d gotten under the wolf Alpha’s skin. And then, in a burst of frustration, Greely kicked at a pinecone, sending it flying through the woods.

  “No need to throw things,” Sir Gilbert scolded as another pinecone came sailing past his face.

  Whoosh! Without warning, Greely leaped past Sir Gilbert and landed next to the pinecone. He picked it up and held it in front of the tiger Alpha.

  “It’s a pinecone.”

  Sir Gilbert blinked. “Very good, Greely. But now is not the time for a nature lesson—”

  Greely cut him off. “Pinecones are on the branches above us and on the ground under us. Some of them are closed, some of them are open.”

  “And they can be long or small,” Sir Gilbert finished, realizing where Greely was going with this. “You did it! You solved the second riddle!”

  Greely fashioned a string from long blades of grass. He wrapped one end of the string around the pinecone and tied the other end to the chain he wore around his neck.

  “One riddle left,” Sir Gilbert said elatedly. “One answer stands between us getting Mira back!”

  “This is far worse than I’d imagined,” Cosmo said as he and the other Alphas raced back up the narrow passageway. Now that they had heard the Phantoms’ plans, they were impatient to get back outside, where they could figure out their next steps.

  “I feel sick to my stomach,” Peck confessed as they rounded the corner. Her earring jingled as she ran. “All this Phantom activity must have polluted the ground water leading to Bunny Burrow!”

  “And Bunny Burrow won’t be the only place affected by the Phantom King’s plan. All of Jamaa is in danger!” Graham added as the Alphas reached the hidden door. The Alphas pushed on the door and it swung open. They spilled out into the fading daylight.

  Liza paced back and forth. “We need to come up with a plan that’s going to stop the Phantoms, once and for all.”

  “It’s time to get the strength of all of the Alphas together. We need to find Greely and Sir Gilbert,” Cosmo said, snapping his fingers. “That’s
our best chance for a positive outcome.”

  “You’re right,” Liza said, nodding. A look of determination came over her face. “And time is running out.”

  “Let’s go back to Alphas Hollow,” Peck suggested. “Surely we can think of something!”

  Dusk had begun to fall as the panda, monkey, bunny, and koala Alphas ran through the woods toward Alphas Hollow.

  Peck glanced up at the darkening sky and noticed something flying in the air above them. Whatever it was, it looked too big to be a bat. Peck squinted, slowing down her pace. “Guys, stop for a minute,” she called to the other Alphas, who were behind her. Then she cupped her paws around her mouth. “Ivan! It’s Peck—and I’m with Cosmo, Liza, and Graham. Can you fly down to us for a minute? We need your help!”

  Ivan swooped toward the ground and landed on a tree branch near the Alphas.

  “Peck, hello,” Ivan said. “Good to see you again.” The stately eagle greeted the other Alphas. “I was just enjoying the breeze on this last night before the solstice. How can I help you?”

  “We found out that the Phantom army has infiltrated Mt. Magma,” Peck explained, waving her paws. “They’ve been digging out layers of dirt to expose the lava, and at the moment of solstice tomorrow, their plan is to cause the volcano to erupt.”

  “They’re messing with nature,” Cosmo said, his shoulders sagging. “It’s so wrong.”

  A shudder went through the Alphas.

  “What can I do?” Ivan asked, alarmed at seeing the Alphas so upset.

  “We need to find Greely and Sir Gilbert,” Peck told him. “Have you seen them?”

  Ivan nodded. “I was with them earlier today. I’m sure I can find them.”

  “We have to find them,” Peck exclaimed. She threw her arms open wide as her words grew more impassioned. “All the Alphas need to be together!”

  “I’ll do some quick calculations and fly to where I think Greely and Sir Gilbert should be,” Ivan said. “When I find them, I will tell them what you’ve told me. Where should they meet you?”