Exotics #1: The Floating Menagerie Read online

  “You’re pretty good at math for being eight,” Cassie said.

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m ten,” Cassie said.

  “That’s pretty old,” Rachael said.

  Cassie gave Rachael ten comic books from the big box at the end of the bunk bed. About half the comics were superhero comics, and the other half were about romance and friends and stuff.

  Rachael lay on top of the covers with the stack of comic books beside her.

  Cassie stood on the bottom bunk, her head and shoulders sticking over the side. “Please be careful.”

  Rachael, already reading the first comic book, said, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell.”

  “I know that,” Cassie said. “Just don’t get caught. I don’t want you to get hurt. And come back before sunrise. And, whatever you do, don’t fall asleep before you come back. And don’t go out on the deck. There’s always somebody awake all night on the bridge, making sure there aren’t any emergencies, and they’ll see you for sure.”

  “Okay,” Rachael said. She went back to reading, and Cassie’s head disappeared.

  When Rachael finished the last comic book and peeked over the side, Cassie was asleep with her mouth open. Rachael pushed up on the ceiling tile and slid it over top of the other tiles. They’d left the lights on in their room, so it wasn’t too dark, but Rachael had trouble finding the hole in the wall for a few seconds.

  Then she saw it. It looked pretty small, and Rachael wasn’t sure she would fit.

  Chapter 22

  Rachael slithered part way through the hole in the wall. She was nervous about getting stuck, but she didn’t know of any other way to get out of the room, so she did it anyway.

  Rachael felt around the dusty ceiling tiles on Babra’s side of the wall. She couldn’t get her fingers to go around the edges of the tile—wait! There was a piece of tape stuck to one of the tiles. Rachael pulled on the edge of the tape and quietly lifted the ceiling tile out of the way.

  Babra’s room was dark. Rachael reached down to the top bunk—her feet were braced inside the hole in the wall to keep her from falling right onto the bed—and felt a lump under the covers.

  Rachael froze. She could hear someone breathing, but it didn’t sound like the breathing was coming from the lump. Rachel pushed down on the lump, gently, to see if it was warm, and heard a tiny squeak.

  Rachael giggled as silently as she could. Babra had hidden a squeaky toy under the covers on the top bunk!

  Rachael crept down to the top bunk, avoiding the toy, and crawled down the ladder to the floor. When she turned the door handle, it opened easily.

  Rachael looked both ways and tiptoed down the hall toward the stairs.

  Luckily, everyone was asleep, and Rachael didn’t have any trouble getting to Dr. Menney’s office, although she thought she kept hearing things—even though when she looked behind her, she didn’t see anything.

  Rachael took the door handle in her hands and hoped it wasn’t locked.

  It wasn’t.

  Rachael slipped through Dr. Menney’s office to the infirmary door. It was true that she wanted to see if Raul was all right.

  And she wanted to ask him some questions.

  Rachael turned the handle on the door where Raul was kept, only to find that it was locked. Rachael said a bad word about Dr. Menney. Why had she locked the door if she hadn’t bothered to lock the door to her office?

  Because Raul was a prisoner, too, that’s why. No matter what the adults said, this was a prison ship.

  From the other side of the door, Raul said, “Who’s there?”

  “Me. Rachael.”

  “Let me out.”

  “I can’t. It’s locked.”

  The door rattled as Raul shook the handle.

  “Shh!” Rachael said. “It won’t do you any good to escape the infirmary, anyway. Are you okay?”

  “No,” Raul said. “I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I have to use the toilet, and I’m all beat up. Do you think I’m okay?”

  Rachael decided Raul was in a bad mood but was mostly okay anyway, despite what he said. If he was well enough to get out of bed and act snotty toward her, he must be better.

  Rachael went over to Dr. Menney’s desk and turned on the monitor. Sure enough, the computer was locked. Rachael looked around in the desk drawers until she found the black leather notebook that Babra had slammed shut yesterday.

  Rachael opened the front cover and found a code at the bottom under a sticky note. She typed in the code, and, as she had suspected, it unlocked the computer. Rachael found Dr. Menney’s email program and opened it. The program was offline, which meant that it wouldn’t send her email message right away, but it would send the message the next time Dr. Menney sent an email.

  “What are you doing?” Raul hissed.

  Rachael went back to the door. “Raul, if you were a prisoner on a pirate ship and could only send one email to get someone to rescue you, who would you send it to?”

  “Ha, ha,” he said. “Stop joking and get me out of here.”

  “I’m not joking,” Rachael said. “I’d send an email to my dad, but I don’t know if he could rescue us. Do you think the Animal Lovers’ Club could do it?”

  Chapter 23

  Raul didn’t answer Rachael’s question.

  Rachael said, “Raul? Who can save us in the Animal Lovers’ Club?”

  “I’m thinking,” he said. “Normally, I would say your mom, but…”

  “Who’s my mom’s boss?” Rachael asked.

  Raul paused. “Somebody named Armand. But I don’t know his email address.”

  Rachael said, “How do you spell Armand?”

  “A-r-m-a-n-d.”

  Rachael went back to the computer and typed the name into Dr. Menney’s search field on her email.

  The name appeared in a few emails. Rachael read them carefully. It looked like Dr. Menney was trying to find a cure for the Exotics virus for the Shadow Dogs, with Mr. Hightower’s help. It also looked like somebody named Armand was trying to help her mother find the cure, for the Animal Lovers’ Club. However, Armand’s boss (someone named “R”) thought that there shouldn’t be a cure, and more people should turn into Exotics in order to keep the humans from killing off all the animals and destroying the Earth.

  Finally, in the last email, Mr. Hightower said he wanted to talk to Armand personally, and Dr. Menney sent him Armand’s email address.

  Rachael copied the address, started a new email, and typed “More Research” as the subject line, so it would look like the kind of thing Dr. Menney really would send to Armand. Rachael wondered why Dr. Menney and Armand were sending emails to each other anyway. Weren’t they supposed to be enemies?

  In the main part of the email, Rachael typed, “Dear Mr. Armand, two members of the Animal Lovers’ Club are trapped on the Floating Manajery”—she had no idea how to spell the word—“and need to be rescued. Also some other kids probably need to be rescued too. The people on the ship say that they aren’t going to sell the kids as slaves, but I don’t know if I believe them, because Mr. Hightower is so mean. He let Tapeworm beat up Raul and Rachael. I am afraid Mr. Hightower will hurt more people so please come and save them. Your friend, Babra.”

  Rachael almost clicked the send button, but she hesitated.

  She was putting Babra’s name on the email so if Dr. Menney or anybody found the email, they would blame Babra and not her.

  But did she really want to get Babra in trouble?

  Babra’s dad worked for the Shadow Dogs, which meant that Babra must be Rachael’s enemy. But Babra was the closest person that Rachael had to a friend on the ship. She was definitely the nicest person.

  Rachael clicked on the email and deleted the word Babra, then changed it to annonnnymouse, so the end of the email read “Your friend, annonnnymous.” The email program underlined that word, too, but Rachael couldn’t figure out how to spell it correctly, so she just left it the way it was.

  She
clicked the send button, closed the email program, locked the computer, and turned off the monitor.

  Hopefully, Dr. Menney wouldn’t notice the email hiding in her send box.

  Rachael tiptoed back to the infirmary door. Rachael whispered, “Okay, I set it up so the email will send the next time Dr. Menney hooks up her computer to the Internet.”

  Raul growled from the door. “There is no Internet on a ship, stupid.”

  Rachael panicked for a second. Her stomach felt so upset she thought she was going to throw up. Then she remembered: “Of course there’s the Internet on ships. On this ship, anyway. Mr. Hightower wanted my mom’s password, didn’t he? That must mean somebody has the Internet. And Dr. Menney got an email yesterday. It was in her inbox.”

  “You’re wrong,” Raul said. “It was a stupid idea.”

  “Fine! You figure out how to save us, then,” Rachael said. “I don’t see you coming up with any ideas.”

  “Go away,” Raul said.

  Rachael snorted. “You’re lucky I’m so nice. I like you even though you say mean things like that.”

  Raul didn’t say anything. Rachael stuck out her tongue at the infirmary door and left the office.

  Within a very short time, she was asleep in Cassie’s bunk next to a pile of comic books.

  Chapter 24

  Babra wasn’t at breakfast the next morning, and Rachael felt guilty, even though she knew there was no way for anyone to know that she had almost tried to get Babra in trouble. Cassie told her that Babra sometimes left early in the morning to help the Gardener. The Gardener, not being able to change into a human when she wanted to, sometimes needed someone with hands to help her, and nobody else had the patience to help a giant snake when they had other jobs to do.

  “Even if they are pretty lazy jobs,” Cassie said, staring at Sponge and Tapeworm a few tables away.

  “I heard that,” Sponge said.

  Tapeworm just glared at them.

  Rachael pretended to ignore them and ate her oatmeal. “I think I’m getting used to the ship. I haven’t felt sick since yesterday before supper.”

  “That’s good,” Cassie said. She leaned forward and whispered, “Did it go okay?”

  Rachael, her mouth full, just nodded.

  Behind them, Hideo said, “Did what go okay?”

  “Butt out,” Cassie said. “It’s none of your business.”

  “I heard someone moving around in the hallway last night,” Hideo said. “Was that you, Rachael? How did you get out?”

  Cassie picked up her tray. “Come on, Rachael. We’re done eating.”

  Rachael shoveled the last of her oatmeal into her mouth and got up.

  Cassie and Rachael dumped their trays in the bin and left.

  Sponge followed them out the door. “Ladies, I hope there’s no trouble going on.”

  “No trouble,” Rachael said.

  “We all know that Hideo is your spy,” Cassie said. “So quit having him try to spy on us.”

  Sponge shook his head. “You kids are too smart for me. I’ll just stay out of it. Where are you going?”

  “To…to the cavern,” Cassie said. “We’re supposed to hurry up and help Babra with some painting and stuff.”

  “No problem,” Sponge said. “Bob’s already down there with Digger. They’re helping, too.” Sponge led them to the last dome and into the small, white building on the side of the mountain, the Tiger’s Nest. “No messing around, all right?”

  The two girls went inside the building and into the tunnel. On the way down, Rachael felt Cassie tug on her shirt in the dark. “What are you going to do?” Cassie whispered.

  “What do you mean, what am I going to do?” Rachael asked.

  “To escape.”

  “I can’t tell you,” Rachael said.

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  Rachael thought about that for a second. Did she or didn’t she? “It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that you can’t get in trouble for what you don’t know.”

  Which was true.

  “Did you do it already?” Cassie said. “Last night?”

  “Do what? I only went to the infirmary,” Rachael said.

  “How’s Raul, then?”

  “Mad,” Rachael said. “I don’t think he’s as hurt as he’s making everyone think, though.” Rachael decided that she wanted to get out of that dark, cramped tunnel right away and pulled her sleeve out of Cassie’s hand so she could rush down the tunnel. “Ugh. I have to get out of here. It’s creeping me out.”

  Cassie didn’t say anything else as they rushed out of the tunnel and into the cave. It was dark, but at least it wasn’t as dark, and it was a lot bigger.

  Dangling from a bunch of ropes and a harness, Babra was painting about halfway up the cave wall. A spotlight behind her was throwing her shadow against the wall. The Gardener had reared up underneath her and looked like she was trying to catch Babra so she could swallow her whole.

  Rachael gasped.

  Babra said, “Who is that? I can’t see you with this light on.”

  Cassie said, “It’s me and Rachael. We’re here to help you and to stay away from Tapeworm.”

  “Okay.”

  The Gardener dropped to the floor, nosed around in a pile of stuff near the cave wall, and pulled out a bucket. She slithered toward Rachael and Cassie, circled them, then slithered back toward the paint.

  Overhead, a bored man’s voice said, “She wants the floor of the pond to be blue. Would you mind painting the pond?”

  Rachael looked up. Another adult was suspended from the roof by ropes, painting a swirl of red onto the wall. Strangely, she didn’t see Digger anywhere.

  “Who is that?” she whispered to Cassie, as they walked toward the bucket.

  “Bob,” Cassie said. “He’s one of the engineers that works for Ken.”

  “He looks familiar,” Rachael said. “I mean, from before.”

  Suddenly, Rachael felt a strong hand on her shoulder.

  Chapter 25

  Rachael twisted out of the way and ran straight into Mr. Hightower, who grabbed with both arms around her chest and hung on until Tapeworm could get both of her arms behind her.

  “Help me!” Rachael shouted.

  “Oh no, not again,” Babra squeaked. She struggled in her rope harness but only managed to get herself tangled up.

  “Got you now,” Tapeworm chortled. “Want another black eye? You’d look like a raccoon, and then you’d fit right in with these animal freaks.”

  Cassie backed away, both hands over her mouth and a terrified look on her face.

  “Let me go!” Rachael shouted.

  The Gardener hissed and started slithering toward them. Tapeworm slapped Rachael across the face and told the giant snake, “Come any closer, and I’ll do worse.”

  The giant snake stopped but kept hissing.

  The other man up in the ropes, Bob, said, “Don’t be so rough, Tapeworm.”

  “I’ll be as rough as I want to,” Tapeworm said. “Rachael here has been very naughty. She was wandering around the ship last night when she wasn’t supposed to.” He shook Rachael by the arms.

  “Ow! Stop it!” Rachael shouted.

  “Miss Rachael.” Mr. Hightower leaned down and put his face next to hers. He pushed up his glasses. “Why were you in Dr. Menney’s office last night?”

  “I was not!” Rachael said. “I fell asleep reading comic books! I didn’t go anywhere!”

  “We know that’s not the truth.”

  Babra had let herself down to the floor and ran toward Rachael. She tripped in the ropes. “You let her go!” she shouted. “I’m going to tell my dad on you!”

  Bob pulled out a walkie talkie and spoke into it quietly.

  “Hm,” Mr. Hightower said. “Tapeworm. My room, if you please.”

  Tapeworm frog-marched Rachael (that is, with both hands behind her back) out of the bottom door of the cavern and into the belly of the ship. Rachael struggled, but Tapeworm h
ad a pretty good hold of her. She dropped to the ground, wrenching her arms backwards until they were almost over her head. It hurt, but she wasn’t about to walk any further.

  Tapeworm dropped her arms and grabbed her by one foot and started dragging her. The floor of the ship was smooth metal, but every time he dragged her over the edge between two metal plates, her back got scratched up.

  Rachael kicked with her other foot, and he captured that one, too. She tried to sit up so she could claw at him with her fingernails, but she couldn’t get herself up far enough.

  As Tapeworm dragged her, she screamed: “Help me!”

  At the bottom of the stairs, Mr. Hightower said, “Stop. If you drag her like that up the steps, you’ll knock her out.”

  “So?” Tapeworm asked.

  “It’s a waste of time if I can’t ask her any questions.”

  Tapeworm grumbled and dropped her feet. Rachael rolled away and tried to run, but Tapeworm caught her again before she could get more than a step away. He tried to frog-march her again, but she just sat down and refused to move.

  “I’m going to need help,” Tapeworm said. “I can’t carry her around like a sack of potatoes.”

  “No,” Mr. Hightower decided. “This is isolated enough. I’ll ask my questions here. Miss Rachael, we know that you used an access area above the wall in your room to sneak into Miss Babra’s room and out to the hallway. We know that you were in Dr. Menney’s office last night. What were you doing there?”

  Rachael couldn’t believe it. Who had ratted her out? Babra? Had Babra betrayed her, after she decided that she didn’t want to get Babra in trouble?

  Or Hideo? Had he overheard too much?

  Tapeworm pinched her. Well, regardless of who had betrayed her, she was going to have to get out of it somehow. First step: deny everything.

  “I didn’t go anywhere!” Rachael yowled. “Let me go!”

  A metal door slammed above them.

  “What’s that?” Mr. Hightower asked.

  Tapeworm shrugged.

  The sound of toenails scratching metal echoed down the hallway. The howl of a wolf echoed through the building.

  Rachael grinned. “I’d start running now if I were you, Tapeworm. It sounds like someone let Raul loose.”