Terror at the Zoo by Peg Kehret Read Free Book Online Page A

him.
    She felt thirsty now so she opened the ice chest and removed a can of juice. After a few sips, she looked outside again.
    Corey should be back by now. It didn’t take this long to walk to the rest rooms and back.
    Ellen put the can of juice down. It would be just like him to decide to go off by himself in search of some excitement. Like it or not, she supposed she had better go look for him.
    She walked across the meadow to the rest rooms and cracked open the door to the men’s side. “Corey? Are you in there?”
    There was no reply. If Corey had been to the bathroom, he was gone now.
    She wondered which way he would go and decided it was useless to guess. With her brother, anything was possible. He was probably looking for his dancing zebras and flying giraffes.
    At least she didn’t have to worry that Corey would get lost. He knew his way around the zoo and no matterwhich way he went, sooner or later he would come back to the North Meadow. She just hoped he wouldn’t try to find the thief and spy on him.
    The thief must be a zoo employee—a keeper, perhaps, or a maintenance man. She found it hard to believe that anyone who worked at the zoo would also steal from it but the fence went completely around the outside; no one else could possibly get in.
    Or out, she thought glumly.
    She decided to take the path to her left first, because she thought that path dead-ended at the north end of the zoo. If Corey had gone that way, she would find him for sure.
    She had not gone far when a rustling sound came from the right side of the path. She stopped walking and pointed the light in that direction. Then she smiled. On the other side of the fence sat a whole row of wallaroos, a small kind of kangaroo. They were all up on their hind legs and supported by their tails. They sat still, watching her. Their eyes glowed red as her flashlight reflected off them. Apparently, they were curious about her flashlight and had come to see what it was.
    Ellen swung her hands back and forth like the conductor of a symphony orchestra, waving the flashlight in loops and circles. Her parents had taken her and Corey to see a laser light show at the Pacific Science Center once; she wondered if the wallaroos thought this was some kind of laser show.
    She continued down the path, pausing now and then to shine her light on each side of the path. When shereached the end, she saw that there was a metal gate blocking this entrance, too. She turned and started back.
    The only other animal she saw was a snow leopard, which seemed just as fascinated by her light as the wallaroos had been. After watching Ellen for a moment, the leopard went into its den and then, just as Ellen was going to move on, it came back with a baby leopard.
    Clearly, the mother leopard wanted to show her baby the amazing light. Maybe the leopards thought a flying saucer had landed in the zoo and she was an alien being. She realized that was exactly the sort of thing Corey would say, so she beamed the light back at the path and continued on.
    Even with the almost-full moon, it was difficult to see where she was. The tall trees with their thick dark branches loomed over her. The flashlight made a small circle of light on the path immediately ahead of her but on both sides and behind her the darkness hung close and heavy. The air seemed thick.
    Where was Corey? Where were her parents? She felt isolated from the rest of the world, as alone as if she were walking through the jungles of Africa, where the wild beasts roamed free, instead of here in the zoo where they were contained behind fences.
    Although the light helped her see where she was walking, it also made her feel more vulnerable. Anyone or anything in the shadows could see her quickly because of her flashlight, while she could see only what she pointed the flashlight directly at.
    She switched off the flashlight and went on without it.She walked more slowly, putting her feet down carefully, feeling with her toes to be