Beasties, p.3
Beasties, page 3
They all looked panicked and scared. Did they think we’d been kidnapped? What would they tell our families? And where was—?
“CALM DOWN!” shrieked a distant voice.
Sara.
I could see her now. She was in a cage, beating her orange wings against the bars. The cage was sitting on the bed of the park cart. One of the workers was trying to talk to her. “Shhh, we’re just trying to protect you.”
“SHHH, WE’RE TRYING TO PROTECT YOU!”
I was shocked at how good my rat hearing was. She was just repeating what was being said to her. She must have been petrified.
From inside the cart’s cab, the other worker was talking on her phone: “Yeah, hi, it’s Jen. Hey, just wanted to check if a parrot escaped from the zoo? We have one here by Eighty-First and Central Park West? . . . Uh-huh . . . sure . . . we’ll bring it over.”
She glanced to the other worker, who nodded and hopped onto the back next to Sara. He leaned over the cage, smiling and whispering to her.
As the cart puttered away, I could hear Sara’s voice, fading into the distance:
“WE’LL KEEP YOU SAFE! THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!”
14“You’re not dreaming. OK, let’s do the condensed version. First, this is real, so deal with it. The turd turned you into animals, and we have to box it up fast.”
15Meaning feeling really horrible after something bad happens. Aisha likes to use words like “traumatized.” And also “schadenfreude.” I still don’t know what that means.
16This is actually a great word that Aisha taught me. It means “the top of a huge rock that bulges through the dirt.”
5
“WHAT IF THEY KILL HER?” Kate said.
She was perched on a jutting root just outside the cave. Inside, the cave had become toasty warm from all our body heat.
“Zoo peeps are not in the habitat of killin’ animals,” Percy said. “Expecially beauty-full parrots.”
“They’re very nice,” Dylan said. “Well, the top executives are. We go to all the zoo’s fundraising galas. Great food.”
“We can’t let them just take her away!” I was pacing the cave floor. “We have to get her back.”
“We?” Dylan said.
“Hey, one for all and all for one!” Mason whispered. “I’d do it myself if I weren’t, you know, a water bug.”
“How do we do this, Riley?” Kate asked. “We turned into animals, not ninjas.”
“Maybe the spell will wear off?” Dylan said. “And, poof, we’ll be us? And Sara will just transform back into Sara by herself? That would be cool if she transformed while she was in that little cage. Squuuish! Aaaaagh! Human spaghetti! Hilarious!”
“You’re sick,” Kate said.
Dylan scowled. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”
We all fell silent.
“Welp, I’m thinkin’ there’s gotta be a cure,” Percy said. “I suspectify, if there’s a people-to-animals toid, then there’s got to be an animals-to-people toid.”
“And if there is one . . . maybe it’s buried near the other one!” Carlos added. “I say we keep digging, until we find box number two.”
“You said box number two,” Dylan said. “Hur-hur-hur!”
Kate smacked him with a wing. “Good idea. But let’s let the professional diggers do the digging. We have to stick together to save Sara. I’ll fly ahead to the zoo and do some recon. Riley, you and Dylan get there as quick as you can. We’ll meet inside the zoo. I’ll perch on that trellis behind the sea lions and wait. Once we find out where they have Sara, we can figure out a rescue strategy. Mason, I’ll give you a ride in my feathers, if you promise not to bite.”
“Yo, no worries, I can get there on my own. I know the way like the back of my”—Mason glanced down at his tiny legs—“whatever.”
“It’ll take you hours,” I said. “You’re the smallest of us all now. You ride with Kate. This is the new normal.”
“Whoa,” Mason said. “That’s harsh. But, yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Honestly, I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. I’m always taking orders, never giving them. Maybe being a rat wasn’t all bad.
Only 99.9 percent bad.
Kate tipped her wing toward Mason, and he crawled onto her back. “Keep hidden in my feathers. I’ll be your cockroach coach.”
As she leaped up and flew away, I could hear Mason saying, “I’m not a cockro-o-o-o-o-o-o . . .”
Dylan dropped to all fours. “I’ll race you! Last one there is a rat!”
I looked back at the others. Carlos waved a wing at me. Christina sat up and moved one of her tiny arms inward. I think she was trying to touch where her heart was. “Good luck,” she said. “And don’t be afraid. Remember, people are always scared of creatures that are low to the ground. Rats most of all. They’ll fear you more than you fear them.”
“Bon voyage,” Carlos added.
“We’ll keep a light on for ya,” Percy muttered. “And maybe we’ll have the cure upon your retoin.”
Dylan was long gone as I started out. I figured he’d be out of sight by now, but I nearly ran into him just outside the tent. He had stopped cold, staring out at the big main road. It was full of joggers, cyclists, horse-drawn carriages, and pedicabs.
“Scared?” I said.
“Yeah, ’cause I saw your face,” Dylan replied. “Um, you know what? Forget about racing. Let’s do this together.”
We made our way through the grass to the curb. Before us was the wide blacktop road that circles the whole park. All day long, thousands of New Yorkers use it. I could see why Dylan was afraid. It’s hard enough to cross this road when you’re a human. Bikes and scooters go really fast. And they seem way more dangerous when you’re small.
Dylan was staring at something in the center of the road. A squashed mouse. “I’m f-f-feeling sick,” he burbled.17 “That could be me.”
“We’re smarter than that mouse,” I said, eyeing a break in the traffic. “On the count of three, let’s cross the street. One . . . two . . . now!”
I bolted. It took Dylan a fraction of a second longer. Just enough time to be in the path of a speeding cyclist. “YO, YO, YO, YO ,YO, YO!” the rider bellowed.
Dylan just barely reached the other side safely. “You were supposed to say ‘three’!” he hissed.
“I did!” I replied.
“You said ‘now’! That’s not ‘three’! Duh!” Dylan began trotting off to the left.
“Wait, why are you going uptown?” I called out. “The zoo is downtown from here—”
“And across the park, double duh!” Dylan drawled. “Which means we have to go around the lake. You know, the lake that’s right before our eyes? The lake that’s between us and the zoo? If we take the Ramble,18 we’ll get there faster. So unless you want to swim . . .”
I knew his way would be longer. It was going north to go south. But Mason’s words were still in my head: All for one and one for all. So I followed Dylan.
Now a tourist couple was oohing and aahing over Dylan, taking photos. He stopped, standing on his hind legs, his face pointing upward to the sun. “This is my good side! Be sure to tag and follow me, at Dylanthegreat—”
“Dylannnnn!!” I shouted as I approached.
Seeing me, the tourists pocketed their cameras and bolted.
“Thanks, Riley,” Dylan said with a sneer. “You totally destroyed my moment. . . .”
His voice trailed off as he craned his neck upward. I followed his glance. A flurry of brown and gray feathers was plunging toward me from a branch high in a tree.
Before I could run, a pair of talons dug into the flesh of my back.
“Owwwww!” I yelled.
“What? How come he gets a ride now, Kate?” Dylan shouted. “How unfair is this? I thought we were supposed to stick together! Come ba-a-a-ack. . . .”
His voice was fading as we left him behind, rising into the sky. I wiggled. I jerked left and right. “That hurts, Kate!” I complained. “Put me down! Dylan is right. For once.”
Kate didn’t say a word. Which made me really angry. “If you’re gonna do this, at least adjust your claws!”
Nada.
“Say something, OK?” I said.
Finally I heard a reply. “Hungry . . . yum . . . eat . . . still moving . . . not ready . . .”
“Kate?” I said.
“Die . . . eat . . . yum . . .”
I could feel everything going numb. All over my body.
This was not Kate.
It was a hawk.
A real one.
And it was hungry for fresh rat.
17And I did not make fun of his stuttering. Just saying.
18If you live in NYC, you know where the Ramble is. It’s this magical forest in the middle of the park with a stream, winding paths, lots of birds. Really, you can’t believe you’re actually in a city.
6
“LET”—I JERKED MY BODY to the left and right—“me . . . go!”
The hawk shrieked, “Wiggle bad bad stop alive . . . there . . . go . . .”
It wasn’t much of a conversation. The hawk didn’t use words, exactly. It’s hard to explain. It was more a feeling of words.
Reasoning with it would be a dumb idea. Flinging my body to try to get loose was dumb, too. If the bird let me go, it was a long way down. We were higher than some of the brownstones on the West Side.
Either way, I felt sure I was about to die.
Then I slammed down onto a tree branch. I don’t know how the hawk managed to hold on to me and the branch at the same time.
Its talons were pressing down on my neck, hard. Beneath us, a human dad was pushing a stroller, talking on the phone. Some guy with a fancy camera was taking photos of us. A toddler pointed up and said, “Birdie!” I tried to say something, but my windpipe was totally choked off.
I was about to black out when I heard a cackling shout from directly above us. “GET OUTTA HEEEEEEEEERE!”
The hawk loosened its grip. A blur of black feathers swept by. Now a different bird was attacking. A crow!
It took me a moment to realize the attacker wasn’t after me. It was dive-bombing the hawk. Crows hate hawks. That’s one thing you learn when you live near Central Park.19
The talons loosened a little. The hawk strained to look up. Now a second crow was swooping in. And a third and fourth. In a moment, the sky was dark with a massive gang of crows20 circling us and screaming. They were amazingly loud. And nasty. I can’t repeat some of the things they said.
The hawk was dodging them. I tried to squirm free. But even distracted, that hawk still held tight.
I almost didn’t notice a lumpy, striped figure climbing up the trunk toward us. Very slowly.
“Dylan?” I cried.
“No, Santa Claus,” Dylan replied. “Hey, hawk! I know you’re not Kate. Let go of my friend! Or I’ll sue for ratnapping!”
The hawk flicked its eye down to look. The sight of Dylan’s bulk was like an all-you-can-eat sign. “Ohhhhhh, juicy juicy fat fat heavy big—”
“Whaaat did you say?” Dylan said. “I’ll—I’ll sue for libel!”
Taking advantage of the distraction, one of the crows scored a direct hit on the hawk’s head.
Now it was loosening its grip on me. And I spun around to clamp my teeth down on its skinny leg.
“HUUUUUUURRTTTT!” the hawk shrieked.
It totally let go, and down I went. My fur scraped the bark of the tree as I fell, tumbling head over heels.
“Riley, look out!” Dylan wailed.
I slammed into his back and barely grabbed his shoulders, piggyback style. Dylan’s claws dug deeper into the bark, but he was shaking. “You . . . coulda . . . given me . . . a warning . . .” he grunted.
But before I could reply, the bark ripped loose with a sickening crrrrick. We both tumbled downward, limbs flailing.
Dylan hit the ground first, and I landed on top of him. “Wow, thanks—you’re like a pillow,” I said, hopping off. “Are you OK?”
“Am I OK? I just fell out of a tree with a rat—how OK can I be?” Dylan said, struggling to his feet. “I hate you. When this is over, Riley, I swear I will—”
I didn’t give him the chance to say “sue.” Because the hawk was still eyeing us, getting ready to dive again.
“Go! Now!” I pushed Dylan away from the tree and jumped after him. The hawk landed with a soft thud behind us.
We ran, sticking to the high bushes as much as we could. We passed clouds of pollen swirling in the air. And I didn’t sneeze once. Not even a tickle.
I was scared the hawk would follow us, but we emerged at the Bethesda Terrace safe and sound. The terrace has this really famous fountain with a statue of a winged woman. Tourists were everywhere, taking photos of it. So they didn’t notice us as we scooted for the stairs and then dodged around pedicabs on the upper roadway.
We were getting closer to the zoo now. We cut diagonally across the plaza in front of the big domed band shell. Some guy with a long stick was making huge soap bubbles with a bucket of detergent. A bubble the size of a school bus floated over our heads.
Of course, Dylan ran right underneath it. “Careful!” I shouted.
The blacktop was slick with soap. Dylan’s legs went out from under him. “This is sooooo coooooooool!” he screamed as about seven billion tourists snapped pictures of a raccoon sliding across the park on its butt.
I reached him just as he started convulsing in front of the cameras. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Twerking!”
I yanked him away, then took the lead. We kept close to the stones that line the pathways. We raced past the statue of Balto the sled dog. We veered right under the Delacorte Clock, which chimes a song every half hour above brick archways. In the shadows under the clock, a skinny guy with a saxophone started playing “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
We finally stopped outside the zoo entrance, hiding in the plants. “Can you see Kate and the other dorks?” Dylan asked.
I looked around the eagle statues that greet visitors at the entrance. I eyeballed the sea lion pool. I looked up at the trellis above it, where Kate said she’d wait. It was covered with plastic, and I couldn’t see her. I glanced over my shoulder at a glass enclosure, where a huge owl stared back at me. “No,” I said. “I don’t think Kate realized the trellis was covered over. She must be somewhere else.”
“This place is huge,” Dylan said. “We need a better view.”
I looked back toward the Delacorte Clock, above those brick arches. It sits on a bridge that forms a roof over the main walkway, connecting two zoo buildings. The clock is smack in the center of the bridge, rising on a thick brick column. Surrounding it is a turntable, which contains statues of animals posed as if they’re playing musical instruments. When the clock chimes its tune, the animals rotate on the turntable. It’s low-tech but, trust me, very cool to see. A ladder stood against the brick wall, so workers could climb onto the bridge’s platform for cleaning or repairs.
I knew we could make it up that ladder. It would give us a birds’-eye view of everything. “Let’s go,” I said.
It wasn’t so easy. Kids screamed at the sight of us. But they stopped after we climbed the ladder and leaped onto the platform. It’s lined with low brick walls on the long sides, north and south, to protect the workers from falling. And it was high enough to hide us. We waited a moment for everyone to lose interest. Then we climbed the little wall to peer over, looking away from the ladder. From there, we had a great view of the whole zoo. “She’s definitely not anywhere near that sea lion thing,” Dylan said. “Trestle.”
“Trellis,” I corrected him. “Look, what about the storage shed? Maybe she went there? Or the Children’s Zoo, behind us.”
Dylan turned in the other direction. “Gurp.”
“Gurp?” I said.
That was when I heard thumping noises.
“R-R-Riley?” Dylan said. “Don’t look now, but someone saw us.”
I spun around in time to see a guy in a park uniform standing on the top of the ladder. Looming over us.
In his right hand was a broom, which he swung down toward our heads.
19Seriously, if you’re in the park and you hear tons of crows screaming out of control, look up and you’ll see a hawk somewhere in a tree, I guarantee.
20Actually, a whole gang of crows is called a murder. It’s true. Next time you see them, you can point and say, “That’s a murder of crows!” And you can thank me.
7
BING-BONG-BONG-BONG . . .
BING-BONG-BONG-BONG . . .
My whole life, I’ve been hearing the bells of the Delacorte Clock from our apartment. Every hour and half hour they play some corny tune.
Up close to the bells, I felt like my eardrums were about to explode. But it didn’t matter, because I was going to be squished by a broom.
I leaped away. All I felt was a whoosh of air. The second swing landed—on Dylan’s back. “Aaaaaagh!” he shrieked. “Hey! Do you know who I am? Does the name Vlissing mean anything to you?”
Before Dylan could threaten to sue again, I doubled back and ran at the guy. He wasn’t expecting that. It threw him off balance and he nearly fell off the ladder. “You little monsters!” he cried out.
We were too high to jump. That ladder was our only way down. But Broom Guy was holding tight, not getting off. So we had to draw him away.
I turned and headed for the clock at the center of the platform. “This way, Dylan!”
We hopped up onto the turntable that surrounds the clock. Did I mention the turntable has these big, metal animal statues? I hid behind a goat playing pipes. Dylan ducked behind a dancing bear.
“When he follows us,” I said, “scoot around him and race down the empty ladder!”
I had forgotten one thing.
When the corny tune starts, the turntable rotates. Very suddenly.
“Who-o-o-oa!” Dylan cried.
