I thought perhaps I’d lose Eric to the side yard, where some of the smaller cousins were using the trenches as the setting for a giant water-gun battle. But after a few curious glances, he turned his back resolutely on the fray and scampered on ahead of me to the car.
As we neared the zoo entrance, I slowed down and scanned the road to my left until I spotted what I hoped was the dirt road Randall had drawn on his map.
“I thought we were going to the zoo,” Eric protested when I turned down it.
“We’re sneaking in the back way,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, settling back in his seat. He didn’t protest. He didn’t even ask why. Was that a bad sign? Was he picking up too many misguided notions from his mystery-mad grandfather?
Or for that matter from his nosy aunt?
I shrugged, and studied the landscape by the side of the road.
Obviously, one of Lanahan's major expenses when he set up the zoo had been the fence—an imposing ten-foot-tall chain-link barrier. But either he hadn’t gone for top-quality materials, or time and the elements were hard on fencing. In several places, trees had fallen on the fence, taking down a section or two, and the repairs didn’t look sturdy. Perhaps he’d been running out of money when he made them. In one place, someone had sawed off and removed a six-foot piece from the middle of a fallen tree, just where it crossed the fence, but repairs hadn’t yet begun—the fence had merely been propped up here and there with stakes. In another place, an even larger tree was still lying across the fence, flattening it nearly to the ground.
Randall Shiffley was right. Any reasonably enterprising antelope who wanted to leave the Caerphilly Zoo could eventually have found a large enough gap in Lanahan's badly maintained fences. Assuming, of course, that he could escape whatever inner enclosure Lanahan had provided to keep the antelopes from trampling the tourists. For all I knew the whole zoo could be in as ramshackle a state as its outer defenses. At any rate, I didn’t think Eric and I would have a problem sneaking in, and neither of us leaped nearly as well as the average antelope.
The farther we went, the more rugged the road became. Eventually, it dead-ended in a small clearing. I saw a “Posted: No Trespassing” sign ahead—presumably the beginning of the Bromley fiefdom—and the zoo fence took a ninety-degree turn and continued off into the woods to our right.
I turned the car around and headed back. I parked near the spot where the tree still lay across the fence, and Eric and I used its trunk to walk across into the zoo as easily as if someone had built us a bridge. And when Eric picked up Spike to carry him across, Spike didn’t even try to bite. Clearly I needed to talk with my sister, Pam, about Eric's need for a dog of his own.
I’d brought a small compass, in case we needed to blaze a path through the woods to the main part of the zoo, but after we’d stumbled a few feet through the underbrush, we came across a well-beaten trail. We turned right, more or less at random, and after five minutes of walking we came across an intersection with a signpost. An arrow pointing back the way we’d come showed that we’d been following the perimeter trail. To our left, another trail would take us to the lake. If we continued the way we were going, according to the sign, we’d arrive at the front gate. And even if we were tempted to stray from the paths, a five-foot fence ran alongside both the lake and front-gate branches—presumably a fence that normally enclosed the zoo's less lethal residents.
“Cool!” I said. “We’re on the right heading.”
Eric looked at me with mild curiosity, as if surprised that there could be any doubt. Obviously he had way too much confidence in my sense of direction.
After a few minutes, we reached a more open area and spotted a series of signs bearing the names and photos of the absent residents. From the positioning of the signs, it looked as if Lana-han had kept all the ungulates in one big enclosure, which meant the creatures shouldn’t be too unhappy with their temporary quarters in Dad's pasture.
And had I really mispronounced “ungulates” when talking to Ray Hamlin, or was it possible that he didn’t know the word? Of course, I only knew it from hearing Dad and Dr. Blake toss it around while talking about our accidental menagerie, but if I could pick it up that easily, couldn’t Hamlin? Did he have any knowledge of zoology? And if he didn’t, what qualifications did he have to run a zoo?
I reminded myself to worry about that later. Meanwhile, I pulled out my notebook and began taking notes. Llamas—well, we knew that already. Camels—check. Buffalo. Giraffes. No information on how many he had of each, but at least we knew what species to look for.