“CAPTAIN RABBIT SAID these free zoo passes are good all day! Plus we’re only the ninth team that’s gotten the Zoo Crew clue so far! Seriously! Can you believe that?”
“His name is Captain Carrot, not Captain Rabbit,” I tell Liberty as we stroll inside the gates, our fifth golden coin tucked safely into her pack. “And that’s great, but let’s not get too excited. There are lots of possible clues,” I say. “It could be that only a small group of us got this one.”
“Or it could be that we’re awesome at this, and we’re going to win those VIP passes!” She gives my shoulder a punch. “Don’t you think? I’m sure of it!”
I’m not sure of anything. It’s already 3:30. We have about ninety minutes to solve this clue and the next one, and then get back down to the plaza before the Quest ends.
And the message on the little card in my hand is pretty cryptic.
It’s to be found
Where Vertebrate DCs
Are flipped around.
“Vertebrate DCs, flipped around? This is the weirdest clue so far. What is DCs? Data Collections? Digital Computers? District of Columbias? Direct Currents?”
“Duck Calls?” Liberty says as we walk past a quacking pond full of them.
I sigh.
“But it’s DCs flipped around,” Liberty says. “So does that mean CDs? Like compact discs? Are we looking for old-fashioned music?”
I snort. “Don’t forget the word ‘Vertebrate.’ Maybe both words get flipped, or written backward. Let’s see. That makes—CD Etarbetrev. Maybe that means something in Latin? Russian?”
Now it’s her turn to snort. “Well, what’s ‘flipped around’ mean? That’s the key. When something’s flipped around, it’s backward, or inside out, or opposite.”
A thought hits me. “Well, backward doesn’t seem to work. So what about opposites?”
“Well,” she says as we cruise past the panda exhibit, “what does vertebrate mean? Having a spine, right? So the opposite is invertebrate.”
“And what about DCs? What’s the opposite of that?” Another flash of an idea hits me. “Maybe we’re supposed to sound it out. DCs. That sounds like . . . Decease. Or disease. A spine disease? Are we looking for a place where there’s a spine disease? Maybe some animal at the zoo has a spinal problem?”
Liberty frowns. “But that doesn’t explain ‘flipped around.’ The opposite of vertebrate is invertebrate—spineless. That’s something, I guess. But what about DCs?”
I have another thought. “Liberty, we’re forgetting this is Trivia Quest. The answer has to have something to do with comics.”
“Yeah, so—?”
“So—DC. As in DC Comics. What’s the opposite, or the opposing comic company, to DC Comics?”
She just looks at me.
“Gah! It’s Marvel, right? DC’s rival comic company. So if we flip DC around to its opposite, we get Marvel. . . .”
I’m getting a headache. The minutes are ticking by.
Liberty runs off to grab a zoo map, and we sit down on a bench to study it. “Let’s just see what’s on here that has to do with invertebrates, or with comics companies,” she says.
I gasp. I see it before she does. A small dot, over by the reptile house, representing an insect exhibit.
According to the map key, the name of the exhibit is Spineless Marvels.
Vertebrate to Spineless.
DCs to Marvels.
That’s got to be it. Here we go.