Free Terror at the Zoo by Peg Kehret Page B

a job?” Ellen said. “Most people have one.”
    The man quit laughing. “I’m not most people. I’m Tony Haymes. You won’t find me grubbing around for eight hours every day, breaking my back so the boss can get rich. No way. Old Tony’s too smart for that.”
    “If you don’t have a job,” Corey said, “how do you pay your bills?”
    “I’ve been living rent-free.” The man started laughing again. Ellen looked at Corey and rolled her eyes. This guy was some kind of a wacko.
    “When you’re smart enough,” the man said, suddenly serious again, “you don’t need a job. You can get plenty of bucks without working.”
    “You steal money, don’t you?” Corey said.
    “I take what I deserve.”
    “It’s wrong to steal.”
    “What are you, my conscience?” The man looked atthem with such loathing that both Corey and Ellen took a step backward.
    “If you get caught,” Corey pointed out, “you’ll go to jail.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    The way he said, “Tell me about it,” made it clear that he already knew firsthand about going to jail. Ellen shuddered. Who was this Tony? And how were she and Corey going to get away from him?
    “Listen hard,” Tony said. “This is what we’re going to do and I don’t want any screwups.”
    Ellen looked at him. She needn’t have worried about remembering specific details, when they watched him rob the snack store. The details of this man’s face were etched in her brain. She would never forget this face, this voice. Never.
    “We’re going to spend the rest of the night in the ticket booth, right next to the gate. No matter what we hear or who we see, we’re going to be quiet. You got that?”
    Ellen nodded. Beside her, Corey nodded, too.
    “Good. Because one peep out of either one of you and the other one will never talk again.”
    Ellen swallowed. Corey slid his hand into hers and held tight. In his other hand, he still clutched the remains of his bag of peanuts.
    “As soon as the zoo opens in the morning,” Tony said, “we’ll be out of here.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
    He made them walk in front of him. Slowly, they went past the flamingos, and down the path past the great apes.
    Ellen knew there was one big flaw in the man’s plan.They couldn’t spend the night in a ticket booth because the ticket booths were on the other side of the barrier.
    She didn’t tell the man that, though. Let him think what he wanted. The longer he kept her and Corey on the zoo grounds, the greater the chance that they would be rescued. This is where Mom and Dad would look for them.
    Ellen had put the flashlight in her pocket before the man opened the door. She left it there. The slower they walked, the better the chances that help would come.
    Corey tugged on her sleeve. She leaned down but kept walking.
    “I’m going to escape,” Corey whispered.
    “No!” Ellen said. “Don’t do something stupid.”
    “What are you kids whispering about?” Tony demanded. “I told you to be quiet and I meant it.”
    Just then, Ellen stumbled on an uneven part of the path. If Corey hadn’t caught her sleeve, she would have fallen. Instantly, Tony was there, too. He grabbed her arm but Ellen knew he was not trying to help her; he only wanted to make sure she didn’t run away.
    “No tricks,” he hissed.
    They kept walking. Ellen was unsure where they were. Gradually, she became aware that Corey was dropping the peanuts out of his bag. One by one, every few feet, he took a peanut and let it slide from his fingers to the ground.
    He’s leaving a trail, she realized, like Hansel and Gretel. He’s making a trail so that if anyone is looking for us, they’ll know we came this way. Maybe her brother was smarter than she thought.
    She reached up and unclasped one of the barrettes fromher hair. Then she lowered her hand and dropped the barrette, flinging it slightly to the side so that it would land on the grass and not make any noise. A few