Megan, having run down a different hallway, slowed when she sensed she was at its end. She threw her arms forward and touched the space around her. Her fingertips soon found something soft and velvety—the curtain hanging above the entrance to the Chamber of Lights.
Big gold rings clattered along an overhead rod as she threw open the curtain. When she stepped into the room, which was no bigger than a walk-in closet, her memories of the day she’d vanished into the Dark Lands from this place sent a chill through her. In the exhibit’s single wall-mounted aquarium, dozens of flashlight fish blinked on and off like underwater fireflies. She stepped up and placed her palms against the glowing glass.
“I . . . I don’t know if you can understand me,” she said softly. “Maybe you can, the way Blizzard and Podgy and Marlo seem to.”
The fish continued to swim back and forth, winking on and off at random intervals. A few gathered near the front of the tank.
“We’re in trouble. The sasquatches . . . they’re escaping. The whole zoo is dark. I’ve seen what you can do, the way you can light up.”
In her mind, Megan returned to the day she had disappeared from this very room—the start of her terrifying ordeal as a prisoner of the sasquatches. She remembered how the peculiar fish had begun to brightly glow until they pushed forward a blinding light, sending her to the Dark Lands.
She paused to collect her thoughts. “We need you to help us. We need your light across Creepy Critters. All the aquariums . . . they connect . . . we’ve learned that.”
Her effort suddenly seemed pointless. Surely these fish couldn’t understand her. Could they even hear her? Did her voice penetrate the glass?
One of the fish stopped blinking and began instead to steadily glow. The darkness lifted from Megan’s hands, which were still pressed against the glass. Then it lifted from her arms, her chest. The walls of the Chamber of Lights slowly came into view.
A second fish began to shine, then a third, a fourth. As the darkness continued to melt away, Megan realized something was standing beside her. With a yelp, she turned and discovered Podgy. He’d apparently followed her down the hall.
“What are you . . .”
Podgy poked his head toward her and fluttered his eyelids. He then stepped forward and pinged his bill against the glass. Hearing the sound, the flashlight fish swarmed to the front of the tank, mere inches from the point of the penguin’s bill. Podgy tapped the glass a few more times, then turned and waddled out of the room, the dim light of the fish following him.
Just outside the Chamber of Lights, Podgy faced the aquarium through the open door. Then he raised his flippers to the darkness around him. Seeing this, the fish swam to the back of their aquarium, where, one by one, they disappeared into a hollow branch. Within seconds, all of them had vanished toward the Secret Zoo, taking the light with them.
“No way . . .” Megan breathed. She wondered if this could possibly work.
She felt her way back out the door, where she bumped into Podgy. She stared down the hall that she’d just crossed, seeing nothing. Soon, however, points of light began to dot the darkness along the walls. Megan counted ten, fifteen, thirty. They illuminated the aquariums like tiny bulbs. The fish were portaling into different aquariums, just as Megan had hoped they would. She knew by their number that they were coming from the Secret Zoo.
The shape of the hallway began to appear—its height, its width, its jags and turns. Then, all at once, the spots began to shine more brightly as the fish spilled forth their magic light. It took only seconds for the tanks, the tiles, the fake goop and vines to become clear.
The normal habitants of the tanks that the flashlight fish had invaded were swimming circles in corners. In dry aquariums, snakes coiled along branches, spiders stuck to the back glass, and crabs pinched one another’s claws.
As the flashlight fish continued to glow, Podgy waddled in front of Megan and turned his back to her. What he wanted was obvious, and Megan wrapped her arms around him, just below his neck.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Podgy raised his flippers, took a few strides, and lunged into flight. Megan nestled into position across his back, letting her legs dangle behind her the way she’d seen Noah do. Podgy soared down the hall, veering from side to side. As the corridor zigzagged, so did Podgy. He nearly bounced off the aquariums, startling fish behind strands of seaweed.
At the end of the hallway, Podgy swept into the Creepy Core and hung a right turn. Without hesitation, he flew toward Gator Falls, where the others were trapped.