Free The Explorers’ Gate by Chris Grabenstein Page A

chimes and the magic garbage can.
    Stay where your feet are, I told myself because my mother used to say the same thing to me whenever I started beating myself up about mistakes I had made. Forget the past. Live in the moment.
    Okay.
    At the moment, I was locked inside a dungeon cell with really bad lighting. The flickering shadows were driving me batty.
    Uh-oh.
    I looked up at the skylight. Heard wings flapping. Assorted squeaks.
    There was a very good reason the light was so riddled with shadows: A flock of bats, some with wingspans three feet wide, was swooping around in the chamber above mine. One bat was dangling upside down from a bar in the skylight, staring at me with huge Chihuahua-like eyes.
    My mom, dad, and I once went camping upstate and discovered that a bat had somehow checked into the rustic cabin before we did and, when we flicked on the lights and spooked him, the fuzzy thing started flapping around the room in crazy circles until, finally, he dive-bombed me and got caught in my hair, which I have always worn really, really long.
    I still have nightmares.
    At least I now knew where my prison was located: underneath the Central Park Zoo. To escape, I’d have to somehow scale the slick stone walls, crawl through the skylight, and battle my way through my worst fear—flying rodents.
    Or, I could just sit there and wait until Wednesday when the newly crowned King Loki would tell Globbo, who’d probably be promoted to Duke of Puke, to let me out.
    I sat down on the cold stone floor.
    To be totally honest, I still wasn’t that keen on becoming deeply involved in the whole kabouter power struggle. Yes, my mother might’ve wanted me to do it, but she wouldn’t have wanted me to get myself killed in the process.
    So, I decided I’d just wait. Hide in the corner. Not cause any trouble.
    Hey, it worked for me at school.
    About an hour later, the steel drain in the floor started to screech up.
    I scooted deeper into the darkness.
    â€œOoof!”
    The iron grill went flying up into the air and landed with a wobbling clamor. I tucked in my knees and covered up my head.
    â€œHiya, Nikki!”
    I opened an eye.
    Half of Garrett Vanderdonk was poking up out of the floor. He was sopping wet.
    â€œWhoo!” he said, fanning the air near his nose. “You have no idea what’s in the sewers underneath a zoo!” He took in a deep breath. “Ahh. This dungeon smells soooo much better.”
    He hauled himself up into the cell.
    â€œHow’d you know where to find me?” I asked.
    â€œEasy. Willem told the Indian Hunter and his dog to keep an eye on you this morning.”
    The Indian Hunter is a bronze statue of a stealthy Lakota hunter, bow and arrow in hand, his faithful hunting dog at his side, as they close in on their prey.
    So that’s who had been following me through the darkness this morning near the softball fields!
    â€œOf course, the hunter had to jump back into his shell before the sun came up,” Garrett continued, “so he told Thomas Moore to keep an eye on you, since Moore’s bronze bust is right near the Pond and he could do it after the sun came up without leaving his home base.”
    â€œBut how …”
    â€œMoore saw Loki escort you toward the rock cliff near Green Gap Arch.”
    â€œHis secret cave.”
    Garrett laughed. “It’s not that secret, Nikki! Willem knew exactly where Loki was taking you because King Kroll gave these caverns to Lord Lorkus back in the early ’80s.”
    â€œSo how’d you crawl into, you know, the zoo sewer?”
    â€œWell, Willem assembled the Royal Corps of Engineers the instant he heard you were in trouble.”
    â€œBecause he needs me for round three, right?”
    Garrett’s face scrunched into crinkles as he thought about that. “No. He said he was worried about you and that it was our fault for dragging you into this mess in the first place so we had