The Mystery of the Zorse's Mask (2 page)

Leo grins as he scoops up his calico. “Lucky is coming home with me.”

“Lucky you,” I say enviously.

As Becca reaches the door, her cell phone rings. She glances down at the screen and rolls her eyes. “It's my mother.”

“Again?” I raise my brows.

“Mom probably found more chores for me. She could ask one of the volunteers, but no, she'd rather work me to death—sweep out the monkey cage, refill the rabbit feeders, pick up bird feathers. Wish I could ignore this …” Becca shrugs and answers.

She holds the phone to her ear, listening. Her lips pinch like she's biting back her temper. Suddenly she tenses. Her eyes go wide, and she clutches the phone with both hands. “No! You can't let him do that!”

Can't let who do what?
I wonder, coming over to stand beside Becca. I want to give her a hug or say something soothing, but I have no idea what's wrong.

A touch on my hand makes me look up to find Leo standing beside me. His hand brushes mine as we wait.

“Mom, tell him no … Please don't let this happen,” Becca pleads, close to tears. “Don't you even care that he could die?” Shaking her head, she shoves the phone into her pocket.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I am—but Zed won't be.”

Leo lifts his brows. “The zorse is in trouble?”

“The worst.” Becca scowls. “The man who claims to own him, the same man who probably beat him, wants him back.”

“Oh no!” I gasp.

“If he hurt Zed once, he'll do it again,” Becca says furiously. “He's coming to take Zed away in two days. And there's nothing we can do to stop him.”

Chapter 2

Secret Twenty-Nine

While the kittens chase each other around the dismantled grandfather clock, we pull our chairs close to the table.

“Tell us what your mom told you,” I say to Becca.

“Don't leave any details out,” Leo adds.

“Mom said his name is Caleb Hunter and he lives over a hundred miles away on a ranch in Nevada. His grandma owns Zed, but she's really sick and in a nursing home.” Becca grabs a berry juice packet from our snack box and takes a sip. “On the night Zed disappeared, his grandma had a stroke and was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Caleb thinks the siren spooked Zed and that's why he broke out of his corral.”

“How did Zed end up in California?” Leo asks, wrinkling his brow.

“No one knows. Everyone assumed he was dead until Caleb recognized Zed in an online news photo.” Becca rubs her finger on a stain on the table, her dark eyes narrowing. “At least that's what he told Mom.”

“You don't believe him?” I ask, surprised.

“Zed has been with us for over six months. His photo was posted all over the Internet and even on TV news. If Caleb Hunter cared so much for Zed, why didn't he find him sooner? I won't let that man have Zed,” she says with the fierceness of a mother zorse protecting her foal.

“He has a legal right to take the zorse,” Leo points out in his usual, practical tone.

“Doesn't Zed have any rights?” Becca argues. “You didn't see Zed when he came to stay at our sanctuary, but I did and my heart broke. One eye was swollen shut, his coat was matted with dried blood, and he had stripes of scars from being whipped. He looked like a wild beast, but we knew he was someone's pet because he was wearing a fancy fly mask. He let Mom and me touch him but trembled if a man came near, so I know it was a man who beat him.”

“That doesn't mean it was Caleb,” I put in, trying to be fair.

Becca purses her lips stubbornly. “He probably knows who did it.”

“Not if Zed was hurt after he ran away,” Leo points out.

“How do we know Caleb's grandma even owns Zed? He says Zed's real name is Domino Effect, which doesn't fit Zed at all. He could have made up the whole story about a sick grandma to get our sympathy, so we'll hand over Zed. What if he's scamming us so he can sell Zed for lots of money?”

“Easily verified. I'm on it,” says Leo, our club Covert Technology Strategist. He taps quickly on his cell phone, then reports, “Caleb Hunter, age thirty-six, resides in Nevada, divorced, no kids, and works as a horse trainer for D. S. Ranch. His parents moved to Arizona, but his younger sister, Carol Hunter-Bowling, and grandmother are in Nevada. His grandmother, Eloise Hunter, resides at Golden Meadows Senior Care Home.”

“Okay, so he's not lying.” Becca crumples her juice packet, red juice squirting on her fingers. “But he still could be the brute who abused Zed. And since Mom won't protect Zed, it's up to me.” Becca wipes her hands with a napkin, then holds them out imploringly to us. “Will you help me? Caleb's coming on Saturday and I could use your support.”

“Nothing could keep me away,” I say, placing my hand over hers.

“Me either,” Leo adds his hand on ours.

We make sure the kittens have plenty of food and water, then leave the Skunk Shack. Becca only has a short hike down the hill to her wild-animal-sanctuary home, but Leo and I live a few miles away. Leo's kitten is snug in a pet carrier as Leo rolls off on his techno gyro-board (a speedy robotized skateboard that bends in the middle), and I walk the wooded trail back to my bike.

As I pedal home, I wonder how Zed got all the way from Nevada to California. It's amazing he survived. But his injuries are suspicious. He wasn't clawed by a bear or cougar; he was beaten by a human. Becca suspects Caleb, but I'm not so sure. If he hated the zorse enough to beat him, why drive over a hundred miles to get him? Sure, Zed is valuable, but he's a lot of work. He's stubborn and doesn't like to ride in the trailer, so traveling with him won't be easy.

Is Caleb Hunter a nice guy trying to reunite his sick grandma with her favorite pet? Or is he a liar and a fraud?

I'll find out on Saturday.

My spokes whirl as I coast into small-town Sun Flower, spinning my thoughts in a new direction. Soon I'll know if Dad got the job at the bakery where he interviewed last week. Working at a bakery is the most perfect job in the world for him. And he's so talented, how could anyone not want to hire him? When Dad bakes, he's like a sculptor creating a masterpiece. Mom teases that he should change his name to “More” because that's what people say after they taste his cookies, cakes, and homemade bread.

I roll up to my apartment complex, lock my bike in the rack, and sniff the air for a whiff of celebratory dessert. When Dad bakes, he opens all the windows so yummy smells sweeten the air. In our old neighborhood, people found excuses to stop by.

As I walk up the stairs, I don't smell anything baking. I unlock the front door and cautiously peek inside the living room. The TV is off and no one sits at the computer. I check the kitchen, and it's empty too.

Voices murmur from down the hall, so I slip into spy mode and investigate. My twin older sisters, Kiana and Kenya, share the first room. I don't hear them, so I check inside and see the usual mess—beds unmade and clothes scattered on the carpet. My sisters are probably hanging with their friends. I peek into my brother's room too. Kyle is a neat freak, so everything is where it belongs, from the pillows on his bed to the pens on his computer desk. All that's missing is Kyle.

Voices rise then fall in my parents' room.

I creep over to their door to listen.

“—was so sure,” Dad says with a groan.

“The next one will be even better,” Mom encourages, but her voice is heavy with disappointment.

“If there's a next one,” he adds grimly.

Oh no!
I realize Dad didn't get the job. Last time this happened, he paced the apartment like a caged animal for days and growled if anyone mentioned the word
job
. No surprise my siblings found somewhere else to be.

“You'll find another job,” Mom says confidently.

“Not in the food industry and”—he lowers his voice, so I miss a few words—“have to move to a big city.”

“I hope not.” Mom sighs. “Sun Flower is our home. I don't want to leave.”

“I like it here too, but I can't get a job, and your job at the florist is only part-time. Moving may be our only option.”

“I know …” She sighs again. “But moving away will be hard on the kids. Let's keep this a secret until we know for sure. No reason to worry them.”

“I'll do the worrying—it's the one job I can't be fired from,” Dad adds bitterly. Then I hear the sound of footsteps.

“Drats,” I mutter. He's coming my way.

I rush down the hall and duck into my room. Breathing hard, I sprawl out on my bed and stare up at the ceiling. The apartment walls are thin, so I can hear Dad stomp down the hall into the kitchen and slam the cupboards. He must be “vent-cooking,” a word my sisters came up with to describe the pots and pans banging when he's in a bad mood while making dinner. My sisters say it's therapeutic. I say it's noisy, so I put in earbuds and listen to my iPod while I catch up on my homework.

It's hard not to think about the secret I just overheard. But factoring equations distracts me from worrying. By the time I join my family for dinner, Dad has calmed down enough to smile. He even makes a pun about what a ghost calls spaghetti —spookghetti—and it feels good to laugh.

Before I go to bed that night, I take out my notebook from the hidden drawer in my wooden chest and flip open to a new page.

Secret twenty-nine—If Dad doesn't find a job, we'll have to move. Losing our house was bad enough, but leaving Sun Flower would be
worse.
No more biking over to Gran's house to visit her and our dog, Handsome. I'll be the new girl at a new school where I don't know anyone. No CCSC, Skunk Shack, secret kittens, or Leo or Becca.

As I bike to school the next morning, I brainstorm ways to stay in Sun Flower. It would be cool if I could win a lottery and hand over a huge check to my parents. While I earn some money for the CCSC Kitten Care Fund by returning lost pets, I'm too young to get a job or even enter a lottery. How can I help my family?

I don't have any ideas, but Leo and Becca may.

We can make it a CCSC project.

Smiling, I coast through the gates into Helen Corning Middle School and lock up my bike.

Becca is in my science class. I slip into the seat behind her, but she doesn't turn around to talk to me because we're keeping our club a secret to protect the kittens. One of her three Sparkler group friends, Chloe, sits across from her, and they're always whispering or covert texting. Becca is close enough to touch, but it's like she's far away on a distant planet, speaking a language only Sparklers understand.

I'll have to wait till later to talk to her. But I might be able to talk to Leo at lunch. He always sits alone, designing robots on his tablet. I eat with friends from my old neighborhood, Ann Marie and Tori. They're talkative and obsessed with sports, which is cool because I hear all the gossip about the jocks.

But I hesitate as I enter the noisy cafeteria, clutching my sack lunch and water bottle to my chest. I stare at the back of the room, where hoop players crowd one end of a long table. At the other end, Leo Polanski sits alone.

His blond hair falls across his face as he eats a pita sandwich while writing on his tablet. He's an island of Leo-ness, isolated and unaware that a sea of life swims around him. He doesn't even realize how alone he is, which makes it worse, and I feel sorry for him.

So I make a decision.

Today I'll sit with Leo.

He's my friend, and I don't care if anyone knows. He shouldn't be so alone.

First I stop by the table where I usually sit with Ann Marie and Tori. They're best friends but sound like worst enemies as they argue over a referee's call at a soccer game. I tell them I'm going to sit with another friend and they're cool with it.

Sucking in a deep breath, I start for Leo's table.

I'm halfway there when someone calls my name.

Turning, I scan the crowd until I spot Becca waving from the Sparkler table. I swivel around to see who she's waving to—then I realize it's me. Seriously, what's she doing? I mean, she's the one who suggested we pretend not to know each other at school. So why is she calling my name?

“Kelsey,” she says again, weaving through tables to stand beside me.

I cover my mouth and whisper, “You're totally blowing our secret.”

“This doesn't have anything to do with CCSC. Come on. You'll find out.”

“But keeping our friendship a secret was
your
idea.”

“You sit behind me in science. It's not weird for me to talk to you.”

“Well … yeah,” I say, pleased but puzzled.

“Come with me.” Becca hooks her arm through mine. “Over to my table.”

I look at her suspiciously. Is this some kind of joke?

“No joke,” she says as if reading my mind. “I've talked with the girls and they want you to join us.”