Chapter 15
The Secret Polliwog Bog

Just beyond the portal, Noah’s palms pressed against something hard and flat and slick. Beneath him, the floor dropped a few inches and gave out in strange ways. Looking around, he realized that he’d crawled onto a stretch of lily pads across a dirty body of water—a bog or a swamp. The lily pads continued straight about fifty yards and stopped at a muddy shore. Not far into a wet, moss-covered woodlands, Noah saw a curtain dangling from a tree—the gateway into the City of Species.

Ella slammed against him and yelled, “MOVE! MOVE!” Noah sprang forward, almost like a frog, then took off crawling across the dense patch of lily pads. The floating leaves sank a few inches beneath his hands and knees, but were firm enough to keep him out of the water. His body dropped and shifted in odd, unexpected directions.

The lily pads were covered with frogs, green and brown and speckled. Hundreds sprang in all directions, their twiggy legs dangling beneath their bodies. They landed on Noah’s back and struck his head like rubbery pellets fired from a toy gun. He peered back at the other scouts. Like him, they were struggling to crawl across the shifting lily pads, and like him, they were quickly being covered with frogs.

The curtain to the Grottoes flew to one side, and through the opening charged two sasquatches. Their weight was too much for the lily pads, though, and the monsters plunged in the water, leaving behind a series of circular waves. Noah stopped, and the other scouts turned back to see what he saw: the sasquatches were gone.

The four friends kept perfectly still and stared out. No one dared to speak. Around them, waves lapped at the lily pads, and frogs continued to hop. Fog hung in the air, and winged bugs buzzed by—dragonflies the size of hummingbirds. The distance played the rum-rum-rum sound of bullfrogs, constant and throaty.

A sasquatch rose in front of the curtain like a monster on the stage of a horror show. It stood still, water dripping from its fangs. A few lily pads clung to it, their stems wrapped in its stringy hair. It snorted up water, then locked its eyes on the scouts.

It was blocking their way back to the Grottoes.

The water was up to the monster’s chest, which meant it was over the scouts’ heads. Noah looked out in all directions. Their best escape was into the City of Species through the portal on the shore.

“Guys . . .” Noah said.

Just then, the other sasquatch reached out from the water beside them and swung its arm down at Megan, barely missing her.

“Go!” Noah commanded.

He tried to stand, but his legs plunged though the lily pads. Crawling was the only way. The scouts moved as fast as they could, their arms and legs pitching wildly beneath them. Frogs continued to leap all around, their panic an echo of the scouts’.

About thirty yards from the shore, the sasquatch sprang up in front of Noah, who somersaulted onto his back and kicked the soles of his shoes into its chest. The beast splashed backward and became entangled in the long stems of the lily pads. Noah rolled onto his stomach and saw the now-distant portal back to the Grottoes. Just as Noah realized the other sasquatch was gone, a furry hand punched through the lily pads just behind his friends and swung through the air. The second sasquatch’s claws barely missed Ella’s head and sliced through a patch of frog-covered lily pads.

“We’re cornered!” Richie hollered.

The sasquatch behind Noah untangled itself and slid back into the water. The scouts swung their heads around, trying to locate their monstrous adversaries in the murky bog. There was no sign of them.

“Which way?” Ella asked Noah. When he didn’t respond, she barked, “Noah—which portal?”

“I . . .” Noah looked in front of them, behind them. He stared into the dark water over the ledge of the lily pads. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted.

“Keep still,” Megan whispered. “If we can get both of them to one side, we can run to the portal in the other direction.”

The scouts waited. No one moved. Or breathed. Even the frogs were still. Noah wondered how long the sasquatches could hold their breath.

Ella reached over into Richie’s jacket.

“What—”

“Shhh!” Ella said. “Watch this.”

When she withdrew her hand, she had Richie’s penlight in it. She flicked on the switch and heaved it toward the portal to the Grottoes. It smacked down on the lily pads twenty feet away, its light clouded by a puddle of water.

“Get ready,” Ella said.

The scouts braced themselves, suddenly conscious of what Ella was trying to do.

Both sasquatches sprang up at the same time beside Richie’s penlight and swiped down at it, splashing water and ripping away lily pads. The scouts turned and crawled as fast as they could in the opposite direction.

“Go! Go! Go!” Ella screamed.

Noah’s heart pounded. The lily pads continued to swing out in differing directions, their flimsy stems collapsing.

As the scouts closed to within twenty yards of the shore, Noah was suddenly hoisted into the air. Beneath him was a sasquatch. The beast shoved out its arms, and Noah flew through the air, his limbs flailing, then splashed down about forty feet away.

As Noah sank, the world went pitch-black and his winter clothes filled with weight. Unable to touch the pond floor, he swam to the surface, gasping for air. On the now-distant stretch of lily pads, his friends had stopped crawling and were staring out at him.

“Keep going!” Noah yelled.

He realized the water was churning. All around him, something was swimming; small, flexuous bodies squirming along his arms and legs. They felt like tiny snakes.

Between Noah and the lily pads, the sasquatch stood, seaweed and muck clinging to its torso. It raised its arms, displayed the piercing points of its long claws, then roared and ran at him through the waist-deep water.

Noah turned to shore and swam, his arms swinging in wild arcs, his hands swatting through the things in the water. Waves spilled off his face and into his mouth. He understood nothing but to go—to go as fast as he could.

Something cinched his ankle and pulled him back. His nostrils burned as water was forced into them. Peering over his shoulder, Noah saw the sasquatch looming over him, its arm cocked. Just when he expected its claws to come down and tear into his body, the sasquatch abruptly released his leg and took a frenzied step away, its arms swiping through the water.

Noah peered into the dirty pond and realized what was happening. The tiny creatures were converging on the sasquatch. As hundreds streamed past Noah, he saw their dark, sinuous shapes.

The sasquatch rolled its head left and right and turned its body in fitful jerks. The water swirled and splashed as the curvy creatures moved in on it. They began to wriggle up through its mangy hair, rising out of the water along its arms and torso. Noah saw they were four inches long, with tails and bulbous heads. Tadpoles. He saw at least thirty, then forty, then many more. They squirmed up the sasquatch’s arms and back and stomach. The confused beast swiped at its body, tearing out patches of fur. The tadpoles continued up its neck and over its head. Clutching its face, the sasquatch staggered to one side, lost its balance, then toppled into the water. The pond churned violently as a swell of tadpoles plunged after their prey, traces of moonlight gleaming on their slick bodies.

Noah didn’t wait to see what was to become of the sasquatch. He turned and swam. A minute later, he pulled himself onto shore, muck oozing through his fingertips. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw the other scouts charging away from the lily pads. He merged into his friends, and together they headed for the gateway into the City of Species. Noah glanced around: there was no sign of the second sasquatch.

“Where is it?” Noah called.

“We don’t know!” Ella answered.

The four of them dodged trees and hurtled through a web of exposed roots. They splashed through mossy puddles, ducked drooping vines, and plowed through patches of tall grass. Flying insects buzzed past, some pelting their cheeks and brows. Frogs of all sizes leaped out of the way. When they were twenty feet from the curtain, the second sasquatch jumped out of nowhere to cut them off. Hunched over, it growled, snarled, and spit.

The scouts stood braced to run in any direction. Nearby, the tall grass shook and something big hopped out, startling them. Noah looked down to see a frog with a body bigger than a football and back legs almost as long as Noah’s arms. Another frog of equal size sprang out of the marshy surroundings. Then another and another. Their giant bodies were slick and green.

“Richie!” Ella said. “What the heck are these things?”

“Goliath frogs, I think.” Richie nervously jerked his head left and right. “Biggest frogs in the world.”

Continuing to leap out, they crowded the space around Noah and his friends and then began to crawl onto one another, their dark, bulging eyes fixed forward. As the sasquatch lowered its head and peered around, drool spilled out from its scowl and plopped into a puddle. A frog jumped forward and landed near it. With a grunt, the monster lifted its big foot and tried to squash the frog, which sprang out of the way just in time. Mud and muck sprayed everywhere. When a second frog hopped forward, the sasquatch tried to kill it, too. A third frog advanced. Then a fourth, a fifth. In the air, their long legs dangled webbed feet as large and flat as flyswatters. One frog drove its snout against the monster’s leg. Another struck its stomach. One jumped down from a low branch and pushed off the side of its head. The sasquatch swung its claws, missing the green aggressors while slicing through low-hanging vines.

As more and more frogs attacked, the sasquatch stepped back, blindly swinging its arms, batting an occasional frog out of the air. It got to within four feet of the portal, then three. Then it tripped over something and fell through the gateway, scores of goliath frogs pouncing after it. It was gone, and somewhere in the City of Species, it was still under attack.

“Un-be-liev-a-ble,” Richie said as he watched the frogs launch themselves through the portal.

Noah took off running back the way they had come. “C’mon,” he said. “We’ve got to find Tank.”

Back at the pond, the scouts dropped down and crawled across the path of lily pads. As they went, Noah kept an eye out for the other sasquatch. There was no sign of it. Noah suspected the tadpoles—the weight of their unimaginable number—had drowned it.

At the end of the lily pads, they crawled through the portal and stood up in the Grottoes. Tank was there, bleeding from a cut above his eye and looking confused.

“Tank!” Megan cried out. “You okay?”

The big man nodded and forced a deep breath, his body shuddering. “You?” he managed to say.

They quickly exchanged stories. The scouts learned that Tank had fought off a sasquatch in the Secret Koala Kastle. When a group of koalas got involved, the sasquatch fled across the sector. They chased after it, but it managed to escape.

“I got to get back to the City of Species,” Tank said. “Can you guys find your way out of here? Just go back to east-northeast and come out through Chinchillavilla.”

The scouts nodded.

“Go as fast as you can. There might be others down here.” He glanced around, seeming to consider something. “This is not good. The sasquatches . . . they’re moving on the Grottoes, that’s for sure.” He struggled to catch his breath, then stared at the scouts. “They’re coming for your world.”

Richie gasped and took a step back. Noah felt his heart sink.

Without another word, Tank ran through the portal to Koala Kastle and was gone.

The scouts didn’t hesitate. They hurried down the path that would leave the Grottoes and the increasingly dangerous world of the Secret Zoo behind.