Terror at the Zoo Read Free Page B

your sleeping bags. We took a cab because Grandma had trouble with her cast and Grandpa took her to the doctor to have it checked. Grandma says to have fun on the camp-out and not to worry about her.
    Love,
Ellen 
    She placed the note on top of the telephone answering machine. Her parents always checked the answering machine as soon as they got home, to see if there were any messages. Ellen believed her parents would go straight to the zoo from the airport, but if they didn’t, they would find her note and go to the zoo then.
    As Corey and Prince came in the back door, the cab honked in front of the house. Corey dashed outside. Ellen gathered sleeping bags in her arms, locked the front door, and left.
    Mrs. Caruthers was pacing outside the zoo’s south gate, where they were supposed to meet her, when the cab pulled up. “Thank heaven you’re here,” she cried. “Just before I left home to come to meet you, I had a call from my son-in-law. My daughter has gone to the hospital to have her baby.”
    Ellen paid the driver and he helped them unload their sleeping bags.
    “Where are your parents?” Mrs. Caruthers asked.
    “They’ll meet us here,” Ellen said. “Their flight from San Francisco was late.”
    “Oh,” Mrs. Caruthers said. “Oh, dear.” She bit her bottom lip. “The tent is all set up for you, in the North Meadow. I was hoping . . .”
    “You don’t need to stay with us,” Ellen said. “We’ll wait inside the gate for Mom and Dad and we know where the North Meadow is. We’ve been to the zoo lots of times.”
    “I can’t leave you here alone,” Mrs. Caruthers said.
    “Mom and Dad will be here any minute,” Ellen said.
    “Maybe your daughter will have twins,” Corey said. Mrs. Caruthers’s eyes widened. “Maybe even triplets! If she has triplets, she’ll win lots of prizes, like diaper service and cases of baby food. She might even get her picture in the paper, with all her babies.”
    “This is my first grandchild,” Mrs. Caruthers said. She sounded a trifle breathless.
    “Then you should hurry along to the hospital,” Ellen said. “We don’t want you to miss the birth of your grandchild—”
    “Or grandchildren,” Corey interjected.
    “Because of us,” Ellen finished.
    “I’ll have someone else wait with you until your parents arrive.” Mrs. Caruthers led the way to the ticket booth. “Your tent is on the far side of the North Meadow,” she said. “I’ll get a map for you from the ticket booth.”
    “We don’t need a map,” Corey said. “The North Meadow’s that way.” He pointed. “The monkeys are that way, and . . .”
    “There are flashlights in the tent, and a first-aid kit and an ice chest containing your picnic supper.”
    “I hope there’s plenty of dessert,” said Corey.
    Ellen poked him in the ribs with her elbow and said, “Shh.”
    “The night security guard will pass the North Meadow around midnight and again at three. If you need anything, he’ll help.” She stopped at the ticket booth. “These are the campers,” she said to the woman in the booth, as Ellen and Corey proceeded into the zoo. The ticket seller nodded without looking up from the novel she was reading. “They’re going to wait here with you until their parents arrive.”
    Mrs. Caruthers stepped inside the ticket booth and picked up the telephone. “I’ll call the zoo office,” she said to Ellen and Corey, “so they know what’s happened.”
    “Here come Mom and Dad!” cried Corey.
    “Thank goodness,” said Mrs. Caruthers, as she hung up the phone.
    “Where?” said Ellen.
    “There,” said Corey, as he pointed to the far left side of the parking lot. “They just drove in. They’re parking the car over there, behind that bus.”
    “In that case,” said Mrs. Caruthers, “I’ll be on my way. Tell your parents I’m sorry I had to rush off.” She patted the ticket person’s shoulder. “We don’t need your help, after all,” she said.
    “We’ll read