But she knew that unless all the Alphas were here, they wouldn’t be able to stop the Phantoms, let alone stop the eruption . . .
Without warning, Liza’s Alpha Stone began to glow. Liza felt a stirring of power inside her—the strength of all the Alphas combined. The panda Alpha gasped. It could only mean one thing . . .
“RRRRROOOOOAAAAARRRRR!” Sir Gilbert cried, springing over the wall in a smooth, single bound onto a group of Phantoms. He slammed hard into the ground, sending them running for cover. His Alpha Stone glowed a deep, vibrant crimson.
Behind him, Greely bared his sharp teeth. With a growl, he dove through the air, his dark purple cloak blowing backward. The bands on his forelegs smacked against the tentacles of the Phantoms, knocking them perilously close to the bubbling pit. The Phantoms shrieked out in fear, dropping their tools and fleeing, their spindly tentacles waving in the air.
The six Alphas were together at last!
With a collective cheer, the heroes fought side-by-side, driving the Phantoms away from the lava pit and out of the crater. By now, animals had rushed bravely into the crater and were fighting the Phantoms with all their might. Owls beat their wings, confusing the Phantoms. Wolves raced back and forth, causing the Phantoms to scuttle into the recesses of the volcano. Goats used their horns to flip the Phantoms onto their backs. Soon, the courage of all the animal species prevailed. The Phantoms fled the volcano.
“We did it!” Peck cheered as the Alphas gathered around the pit.
But Graham frantically shook his head. “We got rid of the Phantoms—but the volcano is still going to erupt!”
“We’ve got to get the animals out of here!” Liza cried as steam and smoke filled the air. She and the other Alphas hollered at the animals to run.
“Go! Go!” Sir Gilbert shouted as bunnies, foxes, lynxes, kangaroos, and wolves raced out of the crater.
The six Alphas turned their attention back to the lava. Each of them could feel the energy of their fellow Alphas flowing through their Alpha Stones. They pressed their backs against the inside wall of the crater.
“It’s getting so hot,” Cosmo said as Peck fanned the air.
Graham’s eyes were wide behind his fogged-up goggles. “Did you feel that? If only I had a seismometer.”
“I have a very bad feeling about this,” Sir Gilbert pronounced, as Liza nodded grimly. Greely said nothing, but it was clear by his rigid posture that he felt the same way.
A slow, deep hiss echoed throughout the inside of the crater. And then, the boiling red lava began to gurgle and spit.
“It’s going to erupt!” Peck cried, her eyes riveted to the scene in front of her. The ground under the Alphas’ feet began to tremble, and pieces of rock and shale began to tumble off the crater’s walls.
“Here it goes,” Cosmo whispered, instinctively bracing for impact. And then, to the Alphas’ collective dismay and horror, Mt. Magma erupted in front of them.
Whooosh! Boiling red lava shot upward like an angry geyser, all the way to the top of the crater. Fiery drops of lava sprayed in all directions, hitting the ground just inches in front of where the Alphas stood on the side. The sound of the spurting lava was deafening.
From the sidelines below, Peck gasped. Greely howled.
The Alphas gazed upward feeling helpless, as the molten red geyser reached the top of the volcano.
“The animals outside!” Liza cried out, clutching her camera as Graham shrieked. “Anyone standing near the volcano is going to be hurt!”
Peck was desperately trying to come up with a way to help, but all she could do was take shuddering gulps of hot air.
“We have failed Jamaa,” Sir Gilbert said, his voice cracking. The Alphas held their collective breath as the lava seemed to crest the top of the volcano. But then, to their astonishment, it reversed course.
With the same force that had propelled it upward, the lava now streamed back down to the volcano’s floor. “Look,” Liza breathed. Instead of pooling back into the fiery hot lava pit, it hardened into some sort of figure.
“What’s it doing?” Cosmo asked, wide-eyed. Indeed, the lava was forming into a towering statue.
“Is that—is that a bird?” Graham asked, pushing his goggles on top of his head, then back down over his eyes.
“It is not just any bird,” Sir Gilbert said quietly, glancing over at Greely, whose expression revealed nothing. “It is our Mira.”
The lava had hardened, glowing a bright red, into the extraordinary shape of a twenty-foot tall heron spreading her wings. The bubbling lava that remained at its base gurgled and spewed as it settled down.
“Mira,” the six Alphas whispered in unison.
“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Peck said, blinking in astonishment.
Soundlessly, Greely moved toward the statue. He gazed up as its features solidified and sharpened. This statue of Mira was much bigger than the one in the pool. But there was no doubt—it was undeniably a manifestation of the guardian spirit.
“The Phantoms thought Jamaa would be covered with lava and that the natural world would be destroyed,” Cosmo said, shaking his head in wonderment. “Instead, the eruption of Mt. Magma has given us something amazing!”
“Do you realize—? I mean—? But scientifically—?” Graham sputtered. Finally he was able to string together the words. “The lava is too hot to form into solid rock so quickly—”
“But that’s exactly what happened,” Liza said, finishing the monkey’s thought.
“There was a fountain of Mira in a pool in Coral Canyons,” Sir Gilbert announced. “Greely and I both saw it. Two statues of Mira cannot be a coincidence. Truly it is a sign that Mira is always with us.”
“There was a statue?” Cosmo asked, his eyes widening.
“And a pool?” Graham threw out his arms. “Tell us everything!”
“Yes, do!” Peck urged, her cheeks pink from both the heat and from excitement.
“It is quite a story indeed,” Sir Gilbert said, his gaze passing from Alpha to Alpha and finally coming to rest on Greely. Greely met his look with the slightest, almost imperceptible, of nods, and an unspoken understanding passed between them. Sir Gilbert knew the wolf didn’t want to share the details of what they had experienced with the others just yet, and for once, he felt the same way. “One that deserves the proper time and presentation,” Sir Gilbert finished, his tone regal and commanding. “For now, I hope we can agree that this statue will honor Mira’s courage and be a place where all in Jamaa can visit and pay her tribute.”
Everyone except Greely nodded decisively. The wolf had moved back into the shadows, away from the group.
“Greely? Do you agree with this?” Liza asked.
The wolf’s eyes glimmered in the dark. He stepped into the light. “Let’s go tell the animals that we are safe.”
When the Alphas went back outside, the sun shone bright in the sky and all the animals were celebrating.
“We saw the Phantom King,” a group of bunnies exclaimed, hurrying over to greet them. “He disappeared into a portal behind the rest of the Phantoms after the elephants started stomping on him!”
“And the slingshots were rad,” an excited trio of monkeys told Graham. “We got rid of a lot of Phantoms with them.”
The Alphas smiled at one another. “I only wish I’d been here to stomp on the Phantom King myself!” Peck said, high-fiving the bunnies. “You guys rock!”
Liza turned to Cosmo and Sir Gilbert. “Who knew that not only would we be celebrating the summer solstice, but that we’d be celebrating saving Jamaa from a volcano?”
“Everyone, please. Listen,” Sir Gilbert called out to the animals. “By working together, we have defeated the Phantoms. And in an unexpected twist of fate, the volcano they had hoped would destroy our villages and bring an end to all species of animals has instead t
urned into our greatest hope.”
“The lava formed a statue of Mira inside the crater!” Peck squealed. Animals looked at one another in astonishment, before bursting into wild applause.
“For now, I hope we can agree that this statue will honor Mira’s courage and be a place where all in Jamaa can visit and pay her tribute,” Sir Gilbert finished. “And we will call it—”
“Mt. Mira,” proclaimed Greely, the sound of his voice startling them all. The animals nodded solemnly.
Cosmo broke into a huge smile. “Never a dull moment around here,” he told Graham as the animals around them high-fived one another.
Graham nodded. “That was better than any science experiment. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“I’ve got the best idea, guys. I’m going to make Welcome to Mt. Mira T-shirts to hand out at the solstice,” Peck said excitedly.
Laughing, Liza nodded. “I love how your mind works, Peck.”
Sir Gilbert glanced around. Everyone was smiling and hugging one another . . . except for one Alpha. Sir Gilbert walked over to where Greely stood apart from the others. Something was troubling him. “I’m wondering if we should tell the others about what happened at the fountain,” Sir Gilbert said quietly. “We might want to take them there sometime, to see if there might be any further messages from Mira.”
To his surprise, Greely shook his shaggy head. “The minute we made our choice to leave the fountain and come to the volcano, we lost the power to communicate with Mira there,” he said quietly. “The pool and the fountain are gone.”
“You don’t know that for sure, Greely,” Sir Gilbert chastised. Greely always acted like he knew things the others didn’t. It was infuriating.
The wolf Alpha lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Say and think what you will, Sir Gilbert. We have Mt. Mira. That will have to be enough. For now.” And with that, Greely sloped off into the jungle.
The tiger Alpha took a deep breath. He knew the Alphas had a lot to be thankful for. Mira and Zios were watching over them. The volcano eruption had been halted, and Jamaa had been saved. He just wished that Greely could acknowledge what they had gone through.
A bright flash in the air suddenly got his attention and something small landed in front of him. The tiger Alpha peered down to see what it was.
There, sparkling in the grass, was the pearl he and Greely had found together.
Sir Gilbert glanced up and stared through the dark trees. He didn’t need to see the wolf Alpha’s rippling cloak to know that he was there.
“Everything okay, Sir Gilbert?” Peck asked, bouncing over. She had a hibiscus tucked behind her ear. “You look so serious.”
Sir Gilbert chuckled and picked up the shimmering pearl. “Everything’s more than fine, Peck. Let’s make this summer solstice one for the record books.”
Peck clapped her paws. “Sounds like someone wants to join the celebration,” she said playfully, putting her small paw in his large one. “And if anyone knows how to bring the party to the party, it’s me!”
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The Phantoms' Secret Page 6
