Chapter 2
The Secret Kangaroo Kampground

“Here,” Tameron said. “This is it.”

The Crossers were in the rear of Kangaroo Kampground near a tent that was big enough for at least ten adults to stand in. The two flaps of the tent’s only door were draped closed. Punchy was standing beside Richie, his puny arms dangling in front of his stomach.

“The gateway,” Tameron continued. “To the Secret Kangaroo Kampground. It’s on the back wall of this tent. Straight access to the Secret Zoo—no Grottoes.”

The Descender led everyone inside. Punchy jumped forward and squeezed into a spot between Richie and Ella near the middle of the tent.

“Comfy?” Ella asked.

Punchy turned and curiously sniffed her earmuffs again.

The back wall of the tent was made of velvet, the kind that contained the magic necessary to cross into the Secret Zoo. Just beyond it, the scouts knew, was the Secret Kangaroo Kampground.

“Who’s first?” Tameron asked.

“Me,” said Megan. She stepped forward and pushed against the wall, which gave way on all sides except the top. The curtain draped across her shoulders and then down her back. A second later, she was gone.

Ella went next, and Punchy hopped after her. Richie followed. In the near-empty tent, Tameron swept his arm toward the gateway and invited Noah to have at it. Noah did. As the velvet stroked his body, he felt the familiar tingle of the magic moving into him. The cloth dropped against his heels, and Noah was sent to the Secret Zoo.

The Secret Kangaroo Kampground was like a big and extravagant version of the kangaroo exhibit in the Clarksville Zoo. Covering as much as two square miles, the sector resembled a forested campground. Streaks of sunlight fell from a ceiling of tall, full trees. Countless kangaroos were lounging on their sides or hopping about. Between hundreds of tents were picnic tables, wooden signs, and fire pits. All the tents had velvet flaps for doors—magical gateways.

At least thirty people were scattered about. They wore green lab coats and carried clipboards with thick stacks of paper. A few walked in and out of the velvet doors. Magical scientists—the scouts had seen them before.

“What are they doing?” Megan asked.

“The scientists?” Tameron asked. When Megan nodded, he said, “They’re studying the magic—manipulating it to create new portals.”

“Portals?”

Tameron steered a confused look at her. “C’mon—you guys know about portaling.”

The scouts shook their heads.

Sounding a bit disgusted, Tameron said, “The gateways that you’ve been jumping through—they’re portals. Just seconds ago, when you passed through that velvet wall of the tent in the Clarksville Zoo, you portaled. To another world, in fact. Portaling . . . it’s when something instantly moves across two distant spots. Thanks to Bhanu and his brothers, the magic of portaling is all over the Secret Zoo. Our scientists study it and use this sector to test their findings, portaling from one tent to the next.”

Megan said, “But in this case they don’t have any real purpose, right?”

“To Crossers they do. We use them to quickly cross the sector, jumping from one tent to the next. The hard part is remembering how the tents connect. It’s kind of like a maze without walls.”

Noah scanned the far reaches of the sector and saw a light blinking above a tent, marking the gateway into the City of Species, their destination. The area between looked like a crowded suburb of tiny canvas houses. “You have the route memorized?”

“More or less,” Tameron said.

A kangaroo jumped up to Noah and became curious about one of the earflaps on his hat. The animal touched it with a stiff forelimb, nervously pulled back its head, then hopped away.

“Okay,” Ella said to Tameron. “Lead the way, I guess.”

“Just do like I do,” Tameron said. “And try to keep up.”

The Descender charged forward, straight into the sprawl of tents and kangaroos. He dodged left and right, avoiding the things in his path.

“Hey!” Megan called. “Wait up!”

As the scouts followed him, kangaroos jumped out of the way, their dark eyes wide with fright and their pointy ears twitching toward different sounds.

“Mooovvve!” Ella called out to the kangaroos.

Tameron found a tent of interest and disappeared through the portal. As the velvet door swept across Noah, magic surged through his body, and he instantaneously crossed space to exit another tent deeper in the sector. Startled by his sudden appearance, a nearby crowd of kangaroos scattered, their powerful hind legs thrusting against the earth. Noah tripped on a tail and almost stumbled to the ground.

Noah sensed something running beside him and turned to see Punchy. The kangaroo met his gaze in how-you-doing? fashion, then casually looked away.

Tameron quickly led the scouts through another tent entrance, and the Crossers portaled to a new spot. Noah glanced back to see they were already halfway across the Secret Kangaroo Kampground.

As the scouts followed Tameron to a new gateway, a frightened kangaroo darted across their path and crashed into Ella. Right before Noah portaled, he saw his friend lose her balance, then stumble through the velvet curtain of a neighboring tent, unintentionally portaling to a new spot, far away from the group.