The Danger Gang and the Isle of Feral Beasts! Read online

  “If you need help, I’m usually on channel 174 on the radio,” Delenda said. “Anything else I can do?”

  Jeeves gave her a weak smile. “Keep your ears peeled for the men who captured Josh Brigand.”

  “Or any talk of the FIB,” I added. “Or the Liars’ Club, for that matter.”

  “What are those?” Delenda asked, jamming the engine into reverse to keep from being washed toward shore.

  “The Liars’ Club is a worldwide villainous network,” I said.

  Delenda nodded. “And the FIB?”

  “They’re a local gang that’s part of the bigger organization,” Julianne said. “Like one very thorny rose on an entire thorny rosebush.”

  “I’ll scan the radio,” the captain replied.

  I thought to ask her to keep a lookout for the Serpent of the Mist, too, but talk of sea monsters could wait. Julianne already seemed nervous enough about swimming in the bay.

  We thanked Delenda and started toward the door. As Jeeves turned the handle, she called to him. “Hey, Tom. It’s polite for me, the winner of our chess game, to offer you, the loser, a rematch.”

  Jeeves’s thin lips curved into a slight smile. “I’d enjoy that,” he said, stepping back into the driving rain. “That is, if we make it out of this alive.”

  I jumped over the rail of the ship first. The cold water sent a rush of chills through my body. A second later, Julianne and Jeeves sputtered to the surface beside me and we swam for the rotting dock.

  Delenda angled the boat, so that its light shone on the water. Now we could see the flat, slick pieces of seaweed writhing like ribbon eels on the surface of the ocean.

  FACT: Thinking about ribbon eels is an excellent way to make a tired adventurer swim faster.

  By the time the crabbing boat left the harbor, we’d dragged ourselves up onto the dock. We were shivering and soaked to the bone. Julianne’s shoes squelched with water, and I could hear her teeth chattering.

  We started down the dock and after about twenty steps, came to the Zupan seaplane. I stopped and peered through the window. It was empty. I jiggled the handle. Locked.

  “The scalawags locked us out of our own plane!” I yelled to my friends over the storm.

  I tugged at the handle again, harder this time. When it didn’t budge, I set a foot against the plane’s body and jerked it with all my might.

  “Wait,” Julianne said, “if we think the FIB is in the theater, why bother with the plane?”

  I peered in the window. “Every plane in my parents’ fleet has been outfitted by the manager of Zupan Hangar, Elexander Davidson. My parents once survived for three months in the Albanian highlands with one of his supply cases.”

  “I forgot about that,” Jeeves said, snapping his fingers. “You’re absolutely right!”

  I noticed that Julianne had turned back toward the ocean, and I stopped tugging at the door to follow her sightline.

  “Something wrong, Sato?”

  She raised a hand to point into the endless darkness. “Do you see a boat?”

  I took a few steps forward and squinted into the distance. “You mean the one we just got off? The one full of clumsy crabbers?”

  “No,” Julianne said. “Way out there.”

  Ronald Zupan has the eyesight of a white-bellied sea eagle . . . and I couldn’t see a thing.

  “Strange,” she muttered after a long minute. “Probably nothing.”

  “Sato, nothing is ever nothing,” I argued. “As my mother says, ‘Always question the shapes you see out at sea.’ Maybe it was the Serpent of the—”

  “It was just a boat, Ronald. Small . . . ​the kind that could fit only one person.”

  I looked again. Whatever it was, it seemed to trouble my adventure partner.

  “Aha!” Jeeves said.

  Julianne and I both turned around. The door of the plane was open and the butler was beaming. He held up a thin piece of leather.

  “I picked the lock with my shoelace,” he said, leaning over the pilot’s seat to rummage for Elexander’s supply kit. “Your father taught me how to do it ages ago, back in Zanzibar.”

  It’d been a few hours since I’d thought of my parents. We needed to radio them. I just wanted to have a few good leads first, so they’d know that their brave son had this side adventure under control.

  I noticed that Julianne was staring off into the distance again, but this time I could see right away what she was looking at. The light of a single, flickering lantern bounced around inside the old theater.

  “Someone’s still there,” she said as Jeeves dragged a wooden crate out of the plane and wrestled it down onto the dock.

  “Where?” the good butler asked between heavy breaths. We pointed to the lantern light.

  “I suppose that’s where we begin,” he said. “Hopefully Davidson packed a few swords. Or maybe a cricket bat.”

  I knelt down and pried open the crate. It was held together with skinny nails and came apart easily. There was straw inside, covering whatever adventure supplies Elexander had stored away.

  “Here’s a blanket,” I called to my friends. “And . . . ​four tins of anchovies. And . . .”

  I dug my hand back into the crate and found a bottle of champagne, some cheese and crackers, a leather satchel, matches, and a box of sparklers. I dug deeper, sure that at any second I’d touch the cold steel of a sword, but came up empty handed.

  “No weapons?” I asked, holding up a fistful of straw.

  Jeeves looked down at our shabby supplies. “Crackers, cheese, champagne, sparklers, and a blanket—with a satchel to carry them all. I think Elexander expected whoever was flying the seaplane to have a picnic.”

  “You forgot to mention the anchovies,” I said. “Maybe we’ll meet a scoundrel who’s allergic to canned fish.”

  Even though they seemed useless, we loaded the things into the leather satchel. As the great Francisco Zupan says, “ ‘Supplies are important to any adventure . . . ​particularly insect repellent.’”

  Not that we had any insect repellent.

  The storm had let up a little and the rain was more of a drizzle. We could see the fuzzy glow of the half-moon above us, still blocked by clouds. The theater was farther off than it had looked, and the path was dark.

  Ronald led the way, with Jeeves behind him. I trailed behind and couldn’t stop myself from turning around every few feet. First there had been that strange car that drove after our taxi. Then, when we climbed onto the dock, I swore I saw a boat on the crest of a wave.

  I was starting to get a strange feeling that someone was following us, but decided that the only thing to do was keep moving.

  “Stop!” I called.

  There was rustling behind a tree and it froze me in my tracks. My heart hammered like the heart of a master adventurer who is not at all afraid but simply ready to face danger head-on.

  “Sato!” I said, waving her toward me. “There’s something back there!”

  My friends crowded close. Something was sniffing and scratching on the other side of a palm tree. Perhaps it was an FIB scoundrel, waiting to ambush us.

  I reached into the satchel and grabbed the cheese wedge. It wasn’t much, but my parents once fought a gang of smugglers in Bangladesh with two Belgian waffles and a cantaloupe. I passed the champagne bottle to Jeeves and two tins of anchovies to Julianne.

  “Come out, you rogues!” I boomed. “The Danger Gang is here.”

  “Hand over Josh Brigand,” Julianne added. “We’ve got . . . weapons.”

  No sooner had she said it than three sets of terrible yellow eyes appeared out of the gloom, glaring right at us.

  I took a step closer and squinted into the darkness. The yellow eyes belonged to some sort of small animal. From my best guess, they were a miniature species of coyote or maybe baby jackals.

  The only difference was that the odd creatures had giant, pointy ears.

  “Sato,” I said, “do you recognize these strange specimens?”

  “I don’t think so,” she answered.

  The animals yapped and nipped at one another, diving and rolling on the grass.

  “They don’t seem dangerous,” Jeeves said. “They’re almost . . . sort of cute, aren’t they?”

  “Nothing like the clouded leopard we faced in Borneo,” Julianne said. “It would take a whole pack of these to do us any . . .”

  She trailed off as two more of the feral beasts capered into a clearing. A second later, we heard rustling, spun around, and saw another four sets of eyes. Whatever the animals were, they were inching closer—only to dive out of sight every time we made the slightest move.

  We kept walking down the abandoned lane, steps quickening. The strange creatures trotted alongside us—doubling, then tripling in number. It was enough to make a master adventurer forget about Josh Brigand or the FIB.

  As we drew closer to the theater, still more of the odd animals popped out of the bushes. Soon, we had at least fifty of them tracking our every move. They were getting bolder too, prowling closer.

  “I have an idea,” Julianne said.

  She peeled open one of the tins of anchovies, grabbed an oily fistful, and threw them as far as she could. The whole sea of pointy ears turned away from us at once and dashed for the fish.

  I grinned at my adventure partner. “Sato, that—”

  “Wasn’t your best idea, I’m afraid,” Jeeves interrupted.

  The animals were already racing back to us, and there were twice as many now. When Julianne didn’t give them anything else, they let out little dissatisfied sniffs and snarls.

  “The theater is only twenty steps away,” Jeeves said. “We could—”

  “Go!” Julianne threw the entire tin, and we sprinted for the door.

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; We hadn’t gone five feet before the beasts were on our heels again, yipping in a chorus. Our drenched shoes slapped across the pavement and hundreds of tiny feet padded along after us.

  I skidded to the door first. There was a hole where the deadbolt should have been. My toe kicked something, and I saw the lock. Some scalawag had chiseled it out of the wooden frame.

  Seeing the smashed lock reminded me that we might be walking right into an FIB trap set up by Dirk Grimple or his boss. We’d been so worried about the rabid animals behind us that we’d completely forgotten about the deadly villains that might be ahead.

  “Friends,” I said, “as we enter, I’m reminded of the words of Francisco—”

  “Ronald,” Julianne interrupted, pushing me forward, “talk inside.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. The moon had broken through the clouds completely now, and I could see the animals more clearly. They were like small dogs with pinched faces and those strange, oversized ears. They weren’t scared of us anymore, either. Instead, they were inching closer as one massive group.

  “Where could they be coming from?” Jeeves cried.

  I shoved the door. There was something blocking it, but it didn’t push against me the way a fearsome enemy would have. Julianne peeled open another tin of anchovies and hurled it as far as she could. I used all my Zupanian might to force the door open and then slipped through a thin gap.

  “This way!” I said.

  My friends squeezed in after me just as the beasts came charging back. We slammed the door shut and Julianne held it closed. A couch had been shoved up against it, and Jeeves and I pushed it back into place. The strange animals were left whining and clawing hopelessly against the wood.

  We found ourselves in a cavernous lobby, cast in darkness.

  “Friends,” I said, “these FIB goons have us at a severe disadvantage. We have no weapons, no light, and no idea where they took their captive.”

  “I don’t like those odds,” Julianne said.

  “Me neither,” Jeeves agreed. “Ah, but here’s one problem solved.”

  He flipped a switch and ten lamps hummed to life around the lobby. There was an empty concession stand to our right and two sweeping staircases leading to the balcony on either side of the room. Opposite us, there were engraved swinging doors. I deduced that they probably opened into the theater.

  “Now what?” Julianne asked.

  It was a fair question. Anchovies might have held the pack of animals at bay, but they wouldn’t defeat the FIB. We needed a way to defend ourselves.

  The three of us gazed silently around the room. There wasn’t much that could be useful. An old popcorn maker, but that was too heavy; a few tattered movie posters, but those were too light.

  Julianne ran over to a giant espresso machine sitting in an alcove underneath one of the staircases.

  “Tired, Sato?” I asked my adventure partner. “Helen Zupan often says, ‘If you’re feeling like you need a week of sleep, even a weak cup of coffee can—’ ”

  Crack! Julianne snapped one arm off the machine and weighed it in her hands. It was oddly shaped, but no rogue would be eager to be clubbed by it. Jeeves followed her lead—wrenching the oval lid off the contraption and giving it a few practice swings. That left me with a chrome coffee canister. I held it over my head, ready to throw it at any enemy I spotted.

  Thunk! We heard a sound echo in the theater. Someone was still there.

  “I knew we should have brought a cobra,” I whispered.

  Julianne dimmed the lights until they cast just enough glow for us to see one another. We slipped through the doors to the theater and started walking down the center aisle, toward the screen. I bent low to inspect the carpet.

  “What are you looking for?” Jeeves whispered.

  “Clues,” I said. “Signs of villainy afoot.”

  “Speaking of ‘a foot’ . . .” Julianne held up a single white-and-tan saddle shoe.

  It was Brigand’s all right. I’d noticed them back in Bay City. The man may not be as adventurous as Ronald Zupan, but he does have style.

  “Maybe Josh kicked off the other one somewhere,” Julianne said. “Like leaving breadcrumbs.”

  She and Jeeves fanned out to opposite sides of the theater. I flipped to a familiar page in my adventure journal.

  “Sometimes the best clues aren’t objects,” I read aloud, “they’re seen or heard or smelled.”

  “I only smell dust and stale popcorn,” Julianne said, off to my left.

  I hopped up onto the stage, still holding the coffee canister, and slipped between the thick velvet curtains.

  “Sometimes it’s as simple as a change of breeze,” I said, “like when my parents were lost in the Egyptian desert. That time they actually felt a clue.”

  FACT: At that moment something came soaring toward me and I felt a clue of my own: a sandbag, smashing me right behind the ear.

  My vision exploded with a rush of stars and color. Then my legs turned into Burmese rubber and everything went black.

  Ronald groaned, and his coffee canister clanged to the ground.

  “What happened?” Jeeves yelled, sprinting for the stage.

  “I have another sandbag!” a voice warned. It was a young boy, by the sound of it. “Don’t come up here!”

  The voice came from overhead, in the catwalks. “Are you . . . ​are you good guys or . . . bad guys?”

  Jeeves stopped moving and stared at me.

  “Good guys,” I said.

  “That’s what bad guys would say,” the boy replied.

  “Have you heard of the famous Zupan family?” Jeeves asked.

  “No,” the boy said.

  I pulled myself up onto the stage. “The people who came into this theater earlier tonight, they were bad guys, right? Except their captive.”

  “Don’t come any closer,” the boy said.

  I put my hand on the velvet curtain. “Well, those men are our enemies. If they’re bad guys, then we—”

  “You could still be bad.” The voice was trembling. “Bad guys can chase other bad guys.”

  I hesitated, then pushed the curtain aside. “We need to see if our friend is okay. He needs our help.”

  “Don’t—”

  “It’s our duty,” Jeeves interrupted. He hopped onto the stage and we both stepped past the velvet curtain.

  There was a long pause before the voice spoke again. “Well . . . that doesn’t seem like something bad guys would say.”

  Seconds later, dozens of lamps all around the theater hummed to life.

  We found Ronald just on the other side of the curtain, sprawled on the ground. He had a bump swelling up behind his left ear, but his breathing was steady. A sandbag tied to a rope sat next to him.

  “He’ll be okay, right?” I asked.

  “He’s got the thickest skull of any person I’ve ever met,” Jeeves replied. “He’ll be fine.”

  We heard movement a few feet away and glanced up. The boy had slipped quietly down from an iron ladder and was watching us from across the stage. He had thick, curly black hair, dark skin, and hazel eyes. My best guess put him at eight years old.

  “I thought he was going to find me,” he said. “That’s why I dropped the sandbag.”

  Jeeves touched the back of his hand to Ronald’s cheek. “We swam in the bay and he’s got a chill. Do you know any place where we might warm up?”

  The boy hesitated for a second, then nodded. “My mom and I have an apartment upstairs. There’s a fireplace.”

  Jeeves hoisted Ronald over his shoulder, and the boy led us into the lobby and up one of the sweeping staircases. There was a cozy apartment with two desks and a little kitchenette. The room had one glass window looking out over the theater, with a film projector pointing at the screen.

  There were embers still glowing in the fireplace. Jeeves peeled off Ronald’s wet shirt and rolled him up in a blanket on the carpet. We leaned over him together and listened to his breathing.

  “Do people usually stay knocked out this long?” I asked.

  Jeeves lifted one shoulder. “Not sure. If he doesn’t wake up in . . .” He checked his watch. “Ten minutes, then we’ll have to get him back to Bay City.”

  For the first time I realized that I was shivering too. The boy noticed and ducked into a second room. He came back with a whole armful of blankets and towels. He also gave me a thick wool sweater.