Hissssss.

Spencer woke with a start on the floor of the Reptile Lodge. Snakes! was the first thought that popped into his mind. He sat up quickly, throwing the chef’s jacket he’d used for a blanket aside, and frantically searched the floor around him for snakes. He didn’t see anything, but the hissing continued.

“Aldo,” Spencer whispered, waking the bear who had slept on the floor beside him. “Do you hear that?”

Aldo was awake and alert in an instant. His ears immediately began to twitch. He got to all fours, sniffing rapidly. He padded over to the exit door, lowering his snout to the crack at the bottom. “It’s coming from out there,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a snake.” Aldo stepped back from the door, giving Spencer space to open it a crack.

Spencer opened the door, and heat and sunlight poured into the Reptile Lodge. The green lawn outside was being watered. Spencer closed the door.

“False alarm,” he said sheepishly. “It’s just a sprinkler system.”

“That’s okay.” Aldo returned to the spot where they’d slept for his last Raymond’s fuel bar. “We should get moving anyway,” he said, between bites.

“Yeah.” Spencer rolled up his chef’s jacket and stuffed it into his mission pack. He gathered the rest of his supplies and packed them up, too. Last night, before falling asleep, he and Aldo had decided the Reptile Lodge would be their home base. If they got separated at any point, it was where they would go to meet. Still, Spencer didn’t want to leave anything behind. There was no telling what he would need on the next phase of the mission. He unwrapped his last Raymond’s fuel bar and took a bite.

“So where do you think we should start?” Spencer asked. Their first order of business was to locate everyone. Once they knew where Mom and Dad and B.D. and Uncle Mark were being held, they would come up with a plan to free them and get out of Hidden Rock Zoo. He spread the old zoo map out on the floor between himself and Aldo.

“I think we should stick to the perimeter of the zoo.” Aldo ran a claw around the border of the map. “And make our way back to the parking lot with the catering trucks. I might be able to pick up some more clues about where Margo and Ivan took B.D. and Mark from there, now that it’s daytime.”

“All right, let’s do it.” Spencer popped the last of his Raymond’s fuel bar into his mouth and swung his mission pack onto his back. He folded up the map and stuffed it into his pocket.

They returned to the exit door, and Spencer opened it a crack. Aside from the sprinklers, the lawn beside the Reptile Lodge was empty. According to the map, the next section of the zoo on the perimeter was called Alligator Alley. It was made up of a series of pools and ponds where the bigger reptiles would have been held, and was surrounded by a stone wall. Spencer squinted across the lawn between the Reptile Lodge and Alligator Alley. He could just make out a low stone wall. It looked like Alligator Alley might still be intact.

“Okay.” He turned back to Aldo. “Let’s get to the stone wall. It’ll give us some cover, I think, but we have to get across this open lawn first.”

Aldo nodded and crouched down beside Spencer. “The faster we move the better, little man.”

Spencer climbed onto the bear’s back. “Ready,” he said as soon as he had a good grip.

Aldo crossed the lawn in ten long strides and leaped over a small stone wall, landing in what must have once been Alligator Alley. He padded quickly and quietly through the old alligator enclosure. It was made to look like a swamp, with tall grasses and droopy, willowy trees. A murky river wound through it.

“I guess he did get rid of all the animals,” Spencer whispered.

“That’s okay with me,” Aldo answered. “I don’t really want to run into an alligator right now.”

Aldo paused when they came to the stone wall, looking out over the next landscape. It was called the Savanna on the Hidden Rock Zoo map. Again, Spencer didn’t see any animals—not that he was hoping they’d have to navigate giraffes and rhinos. Aldo climbed the fence and broke into a run immediately, sticking close to the wooden fence as he flew across the dry grass and dust. Halfway through the Savanna, the next section of the zoo came into view.

Aldo didn’t slow his pace. Spencer squeezed his legs, clamping himself tightly to Aldo’s back as the bear launched himself straight over the wooden fence, across the small lawn separating the Savanna and the Shetland Pony Shed, and through the open stable doors.

The moment Aldo landed on all fours inside the Shetland Pony Shed, Spencer started to panic. The building was far from abandoned. In fact, the inside had been completely redone. Now it was a luxury garage, filled with the kinds of cars Spencer knew Uncle Mark would love to drive. There wasn’t a single pony in sight, but the stables were definitely not clear of animals. Instead, worse than any zoo animal they could have stumbled upon, there was Ivan Lalicki.