Exotics #1: The Floating Menagerie Read online

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  When she woke up, she was in a tiny room with gray walls, and she was lying on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed. She sat up. Her stomach felt even worse, so she looked around for a place to throw up.

  There was a closet with no clothes in it, a trash can, and a latched metal box so big she could have hidden inside it. All the stuff was gray. She grabbed the trash can and threw up in it. She felt a little better right away, but her stomach still felt like it was rocking back and forth.

  “Oh, great,” a voice from the top bunk said. “I’m trapped on a pirate ship with someone who gets seasick. Could it get any worse?”

  Rachael stood on the edge of the bottom bunk and peeked over the side.

  A dark-colored girl with curly black hair and wearing a tan uniform lay on top of the covers, reading a comic book.

  “Hi,” Rachael said. “Sorry about barfing in your trash can.”

  “Yeah, hi,” the girl said. “Tie up the bag, or we’ll have to smell your chunder until exercise time.”

  “Sorry.” Rachael did what the other girl told her to do. “What’s your name?”

  “Cassie. You?”

  “Rachael.”

  “I’m a prisoner, too,” the girl announced. “I’m an Exotic, a big dog, a St. Bernard. But they don’t want me to stay as a St. Bernard because they say I poop too much. So they have me trapped as a human.” Cassie held up her leg and pushed down her sock. She had a black band on her leg with a flat tag fastened to it.

  “Can’t you turn it off?” Rachael asked. “Or take it off?”

  “No switch on these ones. And I can’t take it off without getting a real bad shock,” Cassie said. “It usually makes me pass out. What kind of Exotic are you?”

  “Um, nothing,” Rachael said. “They just want to know my mom’s password. Mom’s been kidnapped, and she won’t tell them, so they’re going to use me to freak her out, I guess.”

  “Your ma? What’s her name?”

  “Bea Baptiste.”

  “Ooh, the Queen Bee. You must be Baby Bee. I heard about you.”

  Chapter 11

  “You heard about me?” Rachael asked.

  “Yeah,” Cassie said. “She’s real proud of you. Says you’re real smart with computers, for a kid.”

  Rachael felt wonderful and terrible at the same time. “Cassie, what’s going on? Why was my mom kidnapped?”

  Cassie put the comic book down. “You’re pulling my leg.” When Rachael didn’t say anything, Cassie’s mouth fell open. “You really don’t know?”

  Rachael shook her head.

  “And you’re not scared out of your wits, either. Nice. I couldn’t stand that, if the Queen Bee’s own girl was a crybaby.”

  Rachael wiped her eyes, just in case, but she did feel slightly more curious than scared.

  “It goes like this. There’s bad folks in the world who will break the law if it means they get what they want, right?”

  Rachael nodded.

  “Me and your ma are part of a group that tries to help Exotics, the Animal Lovers’ Club. I met your ma once, in Canberra, when I was helping my Uncle Jim catch some poachers. That’s about all there is to it, really. Except the last I heard, she was working on something really big, but she didn’t want to talk about it. As for me, I was helping my uncle on the preserve one day, and next thing I knew, I’m here. My uncle’s going to be dead angry at me, I know it.”

  “He won’t be angry at you for getting kidnapped!” Rachael said.

  “You don’t know my uncle. But these guys on the ship, they’re Shadow Dogs, see? They, ah, I heard they sell Exotics as pets.”

  A buzzing sound echoed outside the door, followed by a clunk. Cassie slid off the bunk and put her shoes on. “Come on. Put the trash can outside the door.” She opened the door. “You coming or not?”

  Rachael put the trash can outside the door, as instructed. “Where are we going?”

  “It’s exercise time.” Cassie led her down the gray hallway, down some gray stairs, and through a gray door.

  Rachael heard footsteps behind them and looked; other kids were following them down the stairs.

  When Rachael went through the door, the sun shone in her eyes so brightly that she couldn’t see. She heard water splashing, and it smelled like the world’s biggest fish tank. She shaded her eyes with her hand.

  Cassie grabbed her other arm and pulled her along. “Get out of the way! You’re blocking the door.”

  Rachael stumbled, then suddenly she could see again. She was standing next to a big gray building on one side and a railing on the other side. Past the railing was an endless, waving, sparkling stretch of water.

  But Cassie was pulling on her arm, so Rachael didn’t have time to stare at the ocean for long.

  Cassie led her along the railing and around the side of the building.

  At first, Rachael didn’t understand what she was looking at, because the sun was reflecting into her eyes, and she couldn’t see again. Then Cassie pulled her closer, and Rachael was looking at a huge glass dome. The dome was filled with lots of trees and vines.

  “Is the elevator working yet?” Cassie asked.

  A tiny blond girl behind them said, “No. We tried it yesterday after supper, and it almost dropped us all the way to the bottom.”

  Rachael noticed that two adults, one with an eyepatch, were following them. The adults and kids wore tan uniforms with black dogs on the front. Rachael still had her green spotted pajamas on; they were getting dirty.

  “Bleah,” Cassie said. “Right. It’s the ladder, then.”

  She led Rachael to a small glass door in the side of the dome. When she opened the door, a gust of wind rushed out, and Cassie pushed Rachael inside quickly. The other three kids followed them inside, and Cassie shut the door. The two adults followed them in, shutting the door behind them, too.

  Inside the dome was a jungle that stretched to the top of the dome and went down into shadows and darkness. They were standing on a small, gray platform near the top.

  Cassie said, “Guys, this is Rachael. Rachael, we’re going down the ladder. I hope you ain’t afraid of heights.”

  The ship moved under Rachael’s feet, and she grabbed the railing on the side of the platform. “I’m not afraid of heights,” Rachael said. “But why does everything have to keep moving?”

  “This is going to be bad,” Cassie said. “All right, Rachael. You got to go first, in case you, ah, throw up. Nobody wants to get hit with that.”

  “Okay.” Rachael walked along the railing, hanging on with both hands, until she reached the ladder.

  The ladder went so far down into the shadows that she couldn’t see the bottom.

  Rachael turned around, grabbed the side rails as hard as she could, and started climbing down.

  Chapter 12

  Rachael felt the boat sway as she was climbing down the ladder. She froze, trying not to be sick.

  “Hurry up,” a boy’s voice said crossly.

  “I think she’s going to throw up,” the blond girl’s voice said.

  Rachael hung on, ignoring the comments from above until her stomach settled down again. She went down the ladder for so long that she thought she was never going to come to the bottom.

  But finally she did.

  She let go of the ladder with a sigh of relief and stumbled as the ship moved again. Was it ever going to get any better? She grabbed the trunk of a skinny tree and held on.

  Cassie climbed down after her. “Good job there. Let’s wait for the others, right?”

  Cassie was followed by a frowning, dark-haired boy with black glasses, then the blond girl, and finally a strong-looking tanned boy with tiny eyes and a big smile.

  “Oh yeah.” She pointed at the boy with glasses. “That’s Hideo.” She pointed at the blond girl. “Babra.” She pointed at the boy with tiny eyes. “And Digger.”

  “Where are we?” Rachael asked.

  “Follow right behind me,” Cassie said. “
I’ll explain as we walk.”

  They walked along a dirt trail covered with leaves. Cassie kept talking, as promised. “The Gardener says she wants to put a pretty pathway in later, but I like walking on the trail. Makes it seem more like we’re really in the jungle. Anyway, we’re inside one of the four habitats that the Gardener is building on this ship, the Floating Menagerie.”

  “Menagerie?”

  “Yeah. It means like a zoo. A place for rich people to keep their animals, like. When they’re all done, there will be a jungle habitat, a desert habitat, an ocean habitat, and a mountain and cave habitat.”

  “We’re already on the ocean,” Rachael pointed out.

  “Yeah. But if you get dumped in the ocean around here, you’ll get eaten by sharks, and nobody wants that.” Cassie pushed between the leaves of a big fern into an open area. She pointed toward the top of the dome. “That’s the elevator. I can’t wait until it gets finished.”

  A big glass elevator shaft led from the top of the dome to the jungle floor, supported by the trunk of a giant tree. Rachael walked over to the tree and touched it; it was fake, made out of cement and painted brown.

  Rachael looked around. “What about Raul?”

  “Who’s that?” Cassie asked.

  The blond girl, Babra, said, “He’s the new wolf that just got here. Is he your friend?”

  Rachael nodded. It didn’t matter whether Raul thought she was his friend or not. For all she knew, Raul was still mad at her for getting him captured by the Shadow Dogs. But she was his friend now, no matter what.

  “When he woke up, he attacked one of the adults,” Babra said. “Tapeworm.”

  Cassie said, “Uh-oh.”

  Babra touched Rachael gently on her arm. “I’m sorry. Tapeworm beat him up pretty bad. They’re keeping him in the infirmary next to Dr. Menney until he gets better.”

  Rachael was shocked. “Is he going to die?”

  “I don’t think so,” Babra said. “There was a boy who died last year. Dr. Menney was very angry when he got sick, and she got angrier and angrier until she was screaming at everybody. When I went to visit the wolf boy yesterday, she was just a little grumpy, like usual.”

  “Who is Tapeworm?” Rachael wanted to know, so she could get back at him. Then she shuddered. “Is he an Exotic? Can he turn into a worm?”

  Cassie said, “Nah. He’s just one of the adults. It’s his nickname. He was one of the adults following us upstairs, the shorter one.”

  A bell chimed from overhead. Cassie yelled, “All right! Exercise time!” and all the kids stripped off their clothes.

  Rachael wanted to know what everybody turned into, so she peeked through her hands as they changed.

  Cassie dumped her clothes on the ground and turned into a giant brown-and-white dog. The dog still had a black band on its hind leg. Hideo carefully put his glasses into a case, went behind a tree, and flew out as a parrot a few seconds later. Babra turned beet red, covered her face, and fled behind a big bush. Digger shrank to the ground and crawled out of his clothes as a small black rodent with giant claws, eyes so small they were invisible, and a nose surrounded by tiny pink tentacles. He waved at Rachael, then dug straight into the ground and disappeared.

  A small dog with golden, wavy hair on its floppy ears poked its head from behind the bush a few minutes later and barked to get Rachael’s attention.

  “Babra?” Rachael asked.

  The dog barked excitedly and galloped toward Rachael, barking happily. Rachael knelt down, and the dog jumped into Rachael’s lap and wagged her tail. Rachael scratched the Babra dog behind her ears.

  Cassie snorted a big, slobbery snort. “I think she forgets she was ever human sometimes.” She ran off through the trees.

  Rachael scratched Babra on the head. “Good girl.” Then she heard a noise behind her that sounded like a car driving over sticks and turned to look.

  A big black snake was slithering behind her on the path. The snake was so big that the top of its head was taller than Rachael as she sat with Babra on her lap.

  Rachael screamed and clutched Babra to her chest.

  Chapter 13

  The snake raised its head. Rachael grabbed Babra and backed away, trying not to trip. “You better stay away from us!” Rachael yelled.

  Babra barked and tried to jump out of Rachael’s arms, but Rachael held her tight.

  Suddenly, the shorter of the two adults jumped out of the jungle and hit the snake on the nose with a long stick.

  “Back!” he yelled.

  The snake hissed and shook its head.

  “Get back! Ha!” The man whipped the snake across the nose. “That’ll teach you to scare little kids. Ha! Ha!”

  With each yell, the man whipped the snake again. The snake tried to slither away, but the trees were too close together, except on the path. The snake turned and turned again, trying to get away from the man with the stick.

  The man chortled and struck the snake over and over.

  Rachael should have been glad to be saved from the giant snake, but the way the man was laughing and yelling at the snake was even creepier than the snake itself.

  “Leave it alone!” Rachael yelled.

  The man laughed harder. “She was going to eat you up, little girl! I saved you. Aren’t you even going to say thank you? Ha!” He didn’t stop hitting the snake.

  The snake gave up trying to escape and laid its head on the ground. Its whole body shook.

  “Stop it!” Rachael shouted.

  She put Babra on the ground and charged at the man. At the same time, Babra ran toward the snake.

  Rachael twisted the stick out of the man’s hand. Then he twisted it out of her hand and got it right back. He raised the stick to hit her. “Nuh-uh, kid. Don’t even think about it.”

  She ducked under his arm and started running. “Help! Help! I’m being attacked by a bad man and a giant snake! Please help me!”

  Behind her, the snake hissed. The man charged after Rachael, running noisily through the trees.

  Rachael ran along the path, which circled around and around, like it was trying to find the longest way to get where it was supposed to go instead of the shortest, until she almost ran into a curving metal wall that reached up into the dome. The path ended at a metal door with a small, circular window.

  Rachael reached up and grabbed a lever that looked like it might be a door handle, but it only moved a little before it stopped with a clang: the door was locked.

  The man was right behind her with the stick, and Babra and the snake were right behind him.

  The man stopped, grinned, and raised his stick. “I’m going to teach you a lesson—”

  “Stop!” A new voice echoed around them. “All of you.”

  The skinny man lowered his stick and glared at Rachael. Babra stopped barking, and even the snake froze.

  Above them, a man in a white suit and hat stood on the elevator platform at the top of the dome. He pointed toward them. “What’s going on here?”

  The man with the stick moved his jaw back and forth angrily but didn’t say anything. In fact, nobody else said anything. The snake flicked its tongue, and Babra whined.

  Rachael yelled, “I thought the snake was going to attack me.” She pointed at the man with the stick. “Then he attacked the snake, but he was so mean about it that I tried to take his stick away. Then he started chasing me.”

  The man with the stick bared his front teeth in a silent growl, but he didn’t say anything.

  The man on the platform yelled, “Tapeworm. I’ll see you on the bridge in ten minutes.”

  The man who had beaten up Raul threw his stick into the jungle. “Get out of my way, kid.”

  Rachael backed away from the door. As Tapeworm pulled out a key and unlocked the door, Rachael said quietly, “You’re the one who hurt my friend.”

  The man stopped and smiled at her. Only half of his mouth went up, and he showed teeth again. “You’re friends with the wolf boy? Don’t th
ink I won’t do the same to you. Stay out of my way.” He opened the door with a jerk on the handle and slammed it behind him.

  Rachael looked back at the platform. The man in the white suit had left; she could see him hurrying along a gray walkway that joined the tops of the domes with the big building at the back of the ship.

  Babra said, “She wasn’t going to hurt you.”

  Rachael looked down. The snake had left without her noticing. Babra was lying near Rachael’s feet with her head between her front paws.

  “I didn’t know that,” Rachael said. “I thought she was going to eat us.”

  “But she wouldn’t,” Babra said.

  “Okay.” Rachael sat on the ground and scratched Babra between the ears. “Is she an Exotic, too?”

  “Yes,” Babra said. “It’s very sad. She gets stuck as a snake most of the time and forgets how to talk. She’s very smart, though.”

  “What’s her name?” Rachael asked.

  “Her name is Molly,” Babra said. “But everybody calls her the Gardener. She’s the one who’s building the habitats on the ship.”

  “And who was that man?” Rachael asked.

  Babra growled a tiny, adorable growl. “Tapeworm?”

  “No, the other man. The one in the white suit.”

  “Oh,” Babra said. “That’s Captain Monn. He’s my dad.”

  “Your dad?” Why was Babra locked up, if the captain was her dad?

  Another adult came crashing through the jungle, a tall, strong-looking man with a big bald spot on top of his head. “Yo,” he said. “Kid. Somebody wants you. Come with me.”

  Rachael looked at Babra.

  Babra said, “It’s okay. It’s just Sponge. He’s nice.”

  The man frowned at Babra. “I am not nice. Come on.” He bent over and tugged on Rachael’s arm until she stood up and followed him. “Mr. Hightower wants to see you.”

  Babra yipped and cowered, then ran into the trees. “Oh no, oh no, oh no…”

  Chapter 14

  “Never mind her,” Sponge said. “She doesn’t get along with Mr. Hightower, that’s all.”

  “Babra, Babra!” Rachael called, but the little Exotic didn’t reappear.

  Sponge led Rachael to the door in the side of the wall and opened it. Rachael stepped through, and Sponge closed and locked the door behind them.