The Wild Ones--Great Escape Read online

  “The more you take of me, the more you leave behind,” he said.

  He didn’t even say hello first. Baboons, he’d read, did not think much of politeness. They thought manners were a kind of trickery.

  “What’s that?” A little baboon, about the size of Kit, scurried from a boulder where he’d been keeping watch over the glass wall that kept the animal exhibit separate from the People’s area. It ran from the floor to the ceiling, made of thick glass that went the whole length of the exhibit. The back of the exhibit was a massive rock face rising higher than Kit could see, as if the baboons lived in a deep canyon. Of course they could leap and climb, so Kit figured there were other security measures the People had taken to keep the baboons in. Behind the boulders, Kit saw doors to smaller cages where the People put the monkeys during bad weather.

  Kit breathed a sigh of relief that the baboons were not locked up in those cages at night. He’d never have been able to break them out if they were.

  “I said,” Kit repeated, as loudly as he could so the baboon could hear him through the glass. “The more you take of me, the more you leave behind. What am I?”

  The young baboon scratched his chin and pursed his lips. Then he broke into a wide pink-faced smile, the brown tufts of hair on either side of his cheeks spreading wildly. His big red behind shook with excitement. “A riddle!” he screeched, and jumped. “A raccoon’s brought us a riddle! Wake up, everyone! A riddle!”

  “A RIDDLE! A RIDDLE,” a chorus of baboon voices screeched. From every rock and nook and cavern and cranny of the baboon exhibit, the big monkeys came running, a troop of a dozen males and females, all shouting with ferocious, fang-toothed glee.

  Kit was, for just a moment, grateful for the wall of glass between them.

  “Wow,” said Eeni. “They really do like riddles.”

  “Repeat your riddle, raccoon!” a thunderous voice commanded, as the biggest male of the troop pushed his way to the front of the crowd, right up to the glass. He bent his head down so his eyes were level with Kit’s and his breath fogged the spot between them. “I am Major Babi,” he said. “And I will solve your riddle.”

  The baboon leader looked like no animal Kit had ever seen before. He was shaped something like a Person and something like a dog. His face was pink and free of fur and his forehead bald, but his cheeks and neck were ringed with a great tuft of white hair that gave him the look of a creature with wisdom. His long fangs and strong arms showed that with his wisdom came power.

  His muscular arms were also coated in long gray fur that looked like a warm cloak, while in truth he wore no clothes at all. It was almost like People thought animals didn’t deserve fashion just because they had fur!

  The big naked baboon whipped his gray tail to the side and sat back on his spindly hind legs, resting his paws on his knees. All the other baboons, whose fur was neither so fluffy nor so grand as their leader’s, looked to him.

  “Speak,” Major Babi commanded Kit, and all the baboons looked back at Kit, waiting. Kit knew that he was safe on this side of the glass, but still he shuddered.

  “The more you take of me, the more you leave behind. What am I?” Kit said.

  The baboon’s long fingers scratched his chin. “Hmmmm,” his voice rumbled.

  “Hmmmm,” all the other baboons echoed him.

  “Ummmmm,” his voice grumbled, and “Ummmm,” all the other baboons replied.

  “Ahh haaaa!” his voice shrieked, and he raised a single long finger into the air. All the other baboons burst into shrieks and applause.

  “Did you get it?” Kit asked.

  “I got it!” the baboon leader declared. “Are you a banana?”

  The other baboons laughed and cheered, but Kit and Eeni frowned. From the corner of her mouth, Eeni whispered to Kit. “That’s not it, is it? That makes no sense.”

  “No, that’s not it,” said Kit. “But look how happy he is . . .”

  The baboon troop leader had stood on all fours and was hopping up and down, dancing and wiggling his bright red behind.

  “I thought they were supposed to be the cleverest of all the animals?” Eeni shook her head, still whispering to Kit while they watched the baboon dance party on the other side of the glass. “Bananas? Your riddle is obviously not about bananas. The answer, if they even thought about it for a second, is footprints—”

  Suddenly, all the dancing and shouting stopped and the baboons froze in place. Major Babi leaped with one powerful thrust of his legs directly in front of Kit again and pressed both his palms against the glass, baring his fangs in a wide, silent scream. Kit fell back startled, tripped on some kind of bench, and toppled end over end so his tail stuck up toward the ceiling. Eeni grimaced.

  “Are you telling me,” the large baboon snarled, “that the answer is footprints?”

  “Well, sir, uh . . .” Kit stumbled back onto his paws. “There are a lot of ways to answer a riddle, I guess, and bananas are the kind of thing you leave part of behind when you eat them, but . . . uh . . . yeah . . . the right answer is footprints.”

  The baboon stared at him with fierce, heavy-lidded eyes and snorted hot air through his nostrils. Kit swallowed, part of him worried the baboon was going to smash through the glass right then and tear Kit’s arms off for correcting him.

  But instead, the baboon started laughing. All the baboons started laughing.

  “I think the monkeys had their brains eaten,” Eeni said. “Because they’re all crazy.”

  “Baboons,” Kit whispered back at her.

  “Crazy Monkeys! More like Brilliant Baboons! Ha-ha-ha-ha!” Major Babi cackled, slapping his knees and rolling on the ground. “We’re not the ones who just told us the answer to the riddle! Ha! And I thought the raccoon was supposed to be some kind of great trickster! Ha-ha-ha-ha! You just told us what the answer was and we didn’t even have to rip your arms off! Some riddler you are!”

  At that, the baboons redoubled their laughter. Something about ripping Kit’s arms off seemed terribly funny to them. Kit and Eeni could do nothing but stand and wait for the fit of baboon boisterousness to end.

  “Hey, what’s three plus five?” Major Babi shouted through his gasps and cackles.

  “Uh . . . eight?” Kit said, and the baboons screamed.

  “He did it again!” one shouted.

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha!” they roared.

  “Oh, Kit!” Major Babi stood and wiped the laughing tears from his eyes. “A real trickster never answers a question. Why, we baboons haven’t answered a question in over thirteen generations. And do you know why?”

  “Uh.” Kit thought about it. “No.”

  “HA!” Major Babi fell back into the crowd of monkeys as a whole new round of cackling commenced.

  “You answered his question,” Eeni said to Kit. “We’ll never get anywhere if we keep answering his questions!”

  “What should I do?” Kit asked her.

  “Ask some of your own questions,” Eeni suggested.

  “Hey, Major Babi!” Kit called out. “How do you know my name?”

  The baboon leader cocked his head and grinned. “How does anyone know anything?”

  “Are you only going to answer my questions with other questions?” Kit tried.

  “Who can see the future?” The baboon shrugged, but the twinkle in his eyes told Kit he was loving this. A chat with baboons was a game. He’d have to figure out the rules as he played, but it seemed that the goal was to keep the conversation going with only questions.

  Maybe, Kit thought, if he could win, the baboons would help him. Or they’d try to rip his arms off. It was hard to know what these strange creatures would do, but Kit liked to assume the best about folks he didn’t know . . . until they proved him wrong and tried to rip his arms off. He always wanted to be nice to everyone but he kept his claws ready just in case. “Do you know why I
’m here?” he asked.

  “Did your parents not explain that to you when you were younger?” the baboon replied.

  “Have you met either of my parents?” Kit volleyed back.

  “Should a monkey ask every raccoon he meets about her children?” the baboon said.

  Kit’s heart raced. The baboon had basically just admitted he knew Kit’s mom! And he’d called himself a monkey, so maybe he wasn’t all that interested in what Kit called him, as long as he played his games. He had to keep going. “Doesn’t a baboon get curious?”

  “Has a raccoon never heard what happened to the curious cat?”

  “Is the monkey major comparing himself to a curious cat?” Kit noticed a few of the other baboons giggle at that one. Even Major Babi seemed to fight a fit of laughing, before he was able to get out his next question.

  “Isn’t a cat just an alligator snack?” he asked, and the other monkeys gasped. Kit shivered. The baboons had heard his story, how in the battle against the Flealess, Kit and Eeni had fed the cat-assassin, Sixclaw, to an alligator. These baboons knew exactly who he was, which meant they probably knew exactly why he was at the zoo. He’d had enough silly games. He wanted these baboons to help him. He had to win this game right away.

  “Aren’t all our enemies just a snack?” Kit replied coldly.

  “Why should a baboon have enemies?” Major Babi said, grooming a bug from his shoulder and popping it into his mouth.

  “Has a baboon never been in a fight?” Kit said.

  “Isn’t the clever one the one who never has to fight?” the baboon replied.

  “Wouldn’t the clever one be the one who is free to leave?” Kit said. “Like me.” Then, without waiting for Major Babi to reply with a question of his own, he turned his back on the baboons and loped away from the exhibit. Eeni had to run to catch up.

  “Kit?” she asked. “What are you doing? Don’t you need their help for the breakout?”

  “Just keep going,” Kit whispered. “Don’t look back.”

  “But what if they—” she started, when a loud BOOM BOOM BOOM interrupted her. She and Kit froze, then they slowly turned back to the glass exhibit window. Major Babi stood on his hind legs, his full height towering over the other baboons, and with two balled fists he pounded on the thick window so hard that it rattled in its frame.

  BOOM BOOM BOOM. He pounded again.

  Kit didn’t move toward him, nor did he run away. He stood on his back legs, stretching up to his full height, which was dwarfed by the massive moonlit shadow of the baboon. Then he brought his paws together to form the letter A, the symbol of Azban, the First Raccoon.

  Major Babi narrowed his eyes and then he touched the tips of his fingers together in the same gesture and bowed his head.

  All the baboons did the same.

  “What just happened?” Eeni asked from the side of her mouth.

  “I think I just won,” Kit replied from the side of his mouth.

  “What now?” she asked him.

  Kit smirked, then dropped down on all four paws and walked back to the baboon cage. “Now we get these baboons to help us solve the riddle of the locks. And once they do, we get to work opening every single cage we can.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  A CHEESY PROBLEM

  KIT stood by a door in the wall next to the glass, a door that was almost invisible to the eye, but that he could feel by running his paws along its edges. There was a small panel beside it also set into the wall, but Eeni, standing on his shoulders, could reach it. She pressed on it and it swung open to reveal a box with buttons on it, just like the ones outside the other cages in the other buildings.

  “Just like I thought,” Kit said. “This is how they made all the locks. You have to press the buttons in the right order to open the door. They’re like riddles.”

  “RIDDLES!” the baboons on the other side of the glass cheered.

  Eeni studied the little box up close, staring at the odd shapes written on each button. “I could just chew through this!” she announced, opening her mouth to bite the soft plastic.

  “NO!” Kit wobbled and nearly sent both of them toppling to the floor. “If you break it, the door will never open. We have to solve the riddle to open it, not smash the riddle-box.”

  “These zoo People are sneaky,” Eeni said.

  “Maybe there’s no such thing as zoo People either,” Kit suggested. “Just People who work at the zoo. But they do other People things too. That’s how we’re going to solve this riddle.”

  “It is?” Major Babi asked.

  “Don’t you trust me yet?” Kit replied with a question of his own, then stepped back toward the lock so Eeni could get close. “Eeni, I need you to sniff each button.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because the People eat things and touch things and the smells from those things end up on their fingers. The same fingers—”

  “That they use to press the buttons!” Eeni finished his sentence.

  “Exactly!” Kit said. “If we can tell which buttons they press, then we can press them too and open the lock.”

  “Got it!” Eeni started sniffing, her little pink nose working its way over each button. “This one smells like plastic. This one too. Ooh, this one smells like pickles and mustard. This one like mustard and cheese. This one has a chemically smell, but it’s chemicals resting like a blanket over top of the pickles and mustard and cheese. This one too, although there’s maybe some lettuce, and this one’s got Swiss cheese. A lot of cheese. The rest just smell like plastic.”

  “So they press five buttons,” Kit said. “Press the five with the smell of People food!”

  Eeni pushed on the buttons but her little rat arms weren’t strong enough. Kit stood on his tippy toes while Eeni sniffed and pointed him toward which buttons to press. His other paw tried to open the door.

  Nothing happened.

  Kit leaned on the door. It didn’t move.

  “Try again,” Eeni suggested.

  Kit tried again.

  Still nothing.

  “Are you pressing them in the right order?” Major Babi asked.

  “Oh!” Kit remembered what Titus had said about the telephone. People push the buttons in a certain order to make it do what they want. These buttons were just like those, so they probably had to be pressed in the right order. But what order was that?

  Eeni told Kit a different order to push the buttons.

  Still nothing.

  “Did you try them all yet?” Major Babi asked.

  “Did he try them all yet?” Eeni scoffed. “Do you know how many combinations there could be?”

  The baboons looked at one another and started counting on their fingers. “Is it five?” Major Babi asked.

  “There are five different symbols on here that smell like they’ve been touched by people fingers,” Eeni said. “So if each button gets pushed only one time, then there are five possible choices for the first one, then four for the second, and five for the third and four for the fourth, and three for the fifth. That’s five times five times four times three . . .” She thought for a moment. “That’s one hundred and twenty possible combinations! And that’s if the symbols don’t get pressed more than once!”

  Kit was impressed by how fast Eeni was at math, but he was dismayed by how impossible solving the order was going to be. It was closer to dawn than to midnight, and they didn’t have the time to try a hundred and twenty different answers to this lock, and then a hundred and twenty on the next one and so on. They’d never get any of the doors open that way.

  “Which one smells the least fresh?” he asked Eeni.

  Eeni sniffed. “This one, with the chemicals.”

  “Then maybe that one was pressed the longest time ago,” Kit said. “So it would be first.”

  He pressed it.

&n
bsp; “And the next weakest smell?” Kit asked.

  Eeni sniffed some more. “This one’s got more pickle in it and some of the cheese. Smells like a good cheese too,” she said, and Kit pressed it. The next one was pickles and mustard but pungent, and then the symbol right in the middle had pickles and mustard, cheese, and just a hint of bologna, and the last was the most intensely cheesy. He pressed that last.

  There was a click. Kit pushed on the door into the monkey exhibit . . . and it opened!

  The monkeys cheered.

  Eeni cheered.

  Kit raised a paw to hush them all as he stepped inside.

  “Listen, friends, we don’t have time for speeches and I’m not so good at them anyway, but hear this: Tonight, you have been freed by the Moonlight Brigade. Freedom is the gift I give you, but I ask something in return. Will you pay this gift of freedom forward? Will you help me open the other cages so that any animal who wants to run free can do it?”

  Major Babi approached Kit and towered over him, his mighty arms crossed in front of him and his heavy brow turned down. “You are asking if we will stay in this zoo, and risk the freedom we have just been given, to help others be free? Is that your question, little raccoon?”

  Kit nodded.

  “That is a stupid question,” the big baboon said. “What kind of monkeys do you think we are?”

  Then he burst out laughing and Kit knew the baboons were on his side. “The other Moonlight Brigadiers will help you with the smelling, but we’ll need your height and strength to reach all the riddle-boxes. If you move fast, we’ll have every door open by sunrise. But watch out for the peacock! He’ll do anything he can to stop us.”

  Major Babi patted Kit on the head. “Why would a free baboon fear Preston Q Brightfeather?” he said. “Why would a free baboon fear anything at all?”

  And with that, he howled a mighty howl and led his entire troop of monkeys past Kit and into their first night of freedom in the zoo.

  “We just started a revolution, I think,” said Eeni. “The People are not going to be happy about it.”