“Look at this,” Lucas called from the back corner of King’s enclosure a few minutes later. “Loose board in the floor. King must have managed to pry it up with his head and slip out.”

They got Bubbles into her enclosure and started the search for the snake. Josh used a rake to gently rustle the bushes around the garage. He squinted in the late-evening sun, knowing that King would be hard to spot. His dark-green-and-yellow-gold skin was an almost perfect match to the crunchy dried-up grass around the house.

Josh had moved on to some bushes on the far side of the house when Aunt Nicole called them over to the bird feeder.

“I found something!” she shouted.

They gathered around her, and she held up what looked like a beige sock — a very long, very dry, very shriveled beige sock.

“King Kong finally shed his skin!” Holly said.

Aunt Nicole nodded. “I found it in the dirt, right over there.”

“That’s probably why he wanted to get out,” Holly said. “When pythons are kept in captivity, it’s harder for them to shed. They need to move across rough ground to get their skin off.”

Josh’s mind flashed to something Holly had told him about pythons, that in the wild they love to move around. Poor King had spent his whole life cooped up, first with his old owner and now in the pen in Holly’s garage. Holly and Aunt Nicole took good care of him, but still. Josh’s hands clenched tighter around his rake as he realized that Holly was right. It was cruel to keep these wild reptiles as pets.

Holly gently took the crinkly-looking skin from her mom. “I’m keeping this,” she said.

Yikes, Josh thought. Snakes were cool, but keeping a snake skin would be like saving old toenails or something. He definitely wouldn’t want the skin hanging around his house. Mom shot Josh a cringy look. She agreed.

Holly stashed King’s skin in the garage and they searched for a little while longer. When it was dark enough that they had to use flashlights, Aunt Nicole called them all together.

“We’re never going to spot King in the dark,” she said. “My guess is he’s found a hole, an animal burrow, to curl up in underground. Some rabbit or woodchuck is going to come home to a terrible surprise, but King will be safe. No animal around here would mess with a big python.”

“But what about mountain lions?” Holly asked worriedly.

Josh’s eyes went wide. “You have mountain lions here?!”

“They keep to themselves,” Lucas said. “And I’m pretty sure a mountain lion would be smart enough not to bother King Kong.”

As they made their way through the dusky darkness, Josh glanced over his shoulder at the forest, which seemed to stretch on forever.

King Kong was out there. Mountain lions, too.

What else was lurking in these woods?

He shuddered and walked a little faster toward the house.