Terror at the Zoo Read Free Page A

shows. Relieved, she turned the TV off.
    “I’m going to call the airport and see if the plane landed on time,” she said. She took her parents’ itinerary off the kitchen bulletin board and read which airline and flight number.
    “I’m sorry,” she was told, “that flight has been delayed. I’m not sure what time it will arrive.”
    Ellen hung up. “Their plane isn’t in yet,” she said.
    “But what about the zoo?” Corey cried. “Mrs. Caruthers will be waiting for us.” He plopped down on the sofa and socked one of the pillows. “Mom and Dad should have come home sooner,” he said. “Grandpa shouldn’t have taken Grandma to the doctor today.”
    “It isn’t Mom and Dad’s fault if their plane doesn’t arrive on time,” Ellen said, “and Grandma can’t help it that her leg hurt.”
    Corey punched the pillow again.
    Two weeks ago, Grandma broke her leg; she was in a cast. Grandma and Grandpa had still come to stay while Mr. and Mrs. Streater were in San Francisco, but theycouldn’t do the camp-out. It was hard for Grandma to get around on her crutches and sleeping in a tent was out of the question.
    Since Grandpa didn’t want to do the camp-out without Grandma, Ellen’s parents had rearranged their schedule to catch an earlier flight. They were supposed to be home in time to pick up Ellen and Corey and get to the zoo by five.
    That’s when they were supposed to meet Mrs. Caruthers, the representative of the zoological society. She would have their picnic supper and would show them the tent where they were going to sleep.
    Ellen looked at the clock again. It was almost 4:30. She wondered what her parents would want them to do.
    Corey’s bottom lip trembled. “We’re going to miss the camp-out,” he said.
    I’m the adult, Ellen thought. I have to be mature, to take charge. “We’ll go to the zoo,” she said. “Mom and Dad know what time we’re supposed to be there. They’ll probably assume that Grandpa will drive us to the zoo and they’ll go straight to the zoo from the airport. We’ll take their sleeping bags with us and meet them there.”
    “How are we going to get there? It’s too late to take a bus.”
    “Maybe Mr. Zither will drive us.” Mr. Zither was the Streaters’ next-door neighbor.
    “Mr. Zither isn’t home. I saw him leave.”
    Ellen dialed Mr. Zither’s number, just in case he had returned. There was no answer.
    “I told you he wasn’t home,” Corey said, as Ellen hungup the phone. “How come nobody ever believes me?”
    Because you’re always telling stories, Ellen thought. But all she said was, “I’m going to call a cab.”
    Corey hopped off the sofa and threw the pillow in the air. “Get one of the limousine cabs,” he said. “A white one. They’re about a hundred feet long. When we drive up, everyone will stare and think we’re TV actors. Maybe someone will ask me for my autograph.”
    “Limos are too expensive,” Ellen said.
    After she called the cab, she took money, to pay the cab driver, from the “emergency envelope” that her mother kept in a kitchen drawer. She had never taken money from it before but she felt sure she was doing the right thing. Grandma and Grandpa had spent several hundred dollars for the zoo camp-out, and Mrs. Caruthers was waiting for them. It would be terrible not to show up.
    She hoped she was guessing correctly that her parents would go straight to the zoo. What if they didn’t? They might think that Grandpa would go on the camp-out, in which case they would come home to be with Grandma, instead of going to the zoo.
    Prince whined and sat by the door.
    “Take Prince out, while I leave a note,” Ellen said. “Grandma and Grandpa will probably eat dinner out after they see the doctor. They might not get back until late.”
    While Corey took Prince outside, Ellen wrote a note, just in case her parents came home instead of going directly to the zoo.
    Dear Mom and Dad:
    We are waiting for you at the zoo. We have