Cloaked by Alex Flinn

Author:Alex Flinn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Characters in literature, Magic, Shoes, Missing persons, Juvenile Fiction, Miami (Fla.), Social Issues, Fantasy & Magic, General, United States, Royalty, Clothing & Dress, Princesses, Animals, People & Places, Fairy Tales & Folklore, Key Largo (Fla.), Adolescence
ISBN: 9780060874223
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-04-08T00:37:58+00:00

Chapter 28

“We’re looking for the ranger,” I tell the lady at the information desk.

“I can help you.” She glances at the door behind her, which says RANGER’S OFFICE. “What do you need? Maps? Guidebooks? Tour information?” She hands me one of each, glancing again at the door. “There you go.”

“Um, thanks.” I take them from her. “But I really want to speak to the ranger.”

“He’s not here. Maybe another day. Or next week.” She reaches into a drawer and hands me a sticker that says I BRAKE FOR KEY DEER. “Here. Have a bumper sticker.”

This isn’t good. I need the ranger now. “Is he on a trail?”

“Margaret?” says a voice from the office. “Have you reached the National Guard yet?”

Margaret turns and cracks open the door, then whispers, “They’re not coming.”

“Not coming! Why not?”

“Shh.” Margaret looks back at me. “They don’t believe you. Say it’s urban legend.”

“The National Guard doesn’t believe me?” The voice is even louder. “Let them come over here and look around. See if they think it’s an urban legend when they’re staring it in the face.”

Margaret glances back at me again, then whispers into the door. “Wendell, I’ve been telling these nice young people how the ranger isn’t in today.”

Wendell! That’s the name the fox gave me.

“Look,” I say. “I know that’s the ranger. I’m not leaving until I talk to him.”

I’m not usually pushy like this, but being trapped underground makes you bold.

“I can call the police,” Margaret says.

“And tell them what? That I’m in a national park, expecting to speak to a ranger, but the ranger can’t talk to me because he’s hiding in his office? Yeah, I’m sure they’ll arrest me.”

Meg puts her hand on my shoulder. “Let us speak to Wendell. Then we’ll leave.”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“It’s okay, Margaret.” The door opens. “They’re all going to find out anyway.”

The ranger is a short, balding man in a brown uniform with shorts. His scalp is sunburned and peeling. What’s left of his hair is unkempt. He looks like he’s gotten less sleep than I have. He gestures us into his office.

“All right,” he says when we get in. “Where’d you see it?”

“See what?”

“You’re here to report a dead Key deer, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, we did see a deer, but that’s not why we’re here.”

“So you found another one? Another one?”

He bursts into tears, and not some manlike tears either, where you pretend you’re brushing something off your face and, incidentally, wipe a tear. Nope. He starts bawling like a kid who spilled his Slushie, clutching his head. Finally, he sits down and begins rocking back and forth, saying, “Ruined. It’s all ruined.”

Margaret walks behind him and strokes his back. When he keeps saying, “Ruined,” she puts her arms around him.

“There, there.” She glares at me. “See what you did?”

“What I did?” I don’t understand. What’s the big deal? “I just said . . .”

“This is a Key deer refuge.”

“I know. So?”

“So someone is killing the Key deer. That’s a problem.

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