“It makes sense,” Maybeck agreed.

Finn tried the D-Gamer chat room again, sending a shout-out to Willa and Philby. But the screen didn’t change. They weren’t answering.

“So what do we do now?” he asked.

“We can’t wait for them any longer. Maybe the dreams in Jez’s journal are supposed to help us find her.”

“We need Willa and Philby,” Maybeck said. “There are a lot of drawings to make sense of.”

Finn said what they both were thinking. “What if something’s happened to them?”

The two boys met eyes with horrified expressions.

33

AMANDA PRESSED THE right-hand button on the camera controls, zooming in to get a closer look at Finn and Maybeck.

The AnimalCam stations—four in all—were enough like a video game that she had immediately gotten the hang of it: a small screen to her right displayed rows and columns of thumbnail images, each representing a different camera mounted somewhere in the Park. Normally, there were about a dozen vantage points offered, all of them devoted to the wildlife on display in the Park: giraffes, elephants, tigers. Philby had upgraded hers. Scrolling down the thumbnail screen, she had dozens of views available to her—maybe a hundred or more. Selecting a particular camera transferred the view to a much larger television screen mounted at eye level. She could then zoom in and out using the two buttons to the right, or maneuver the camera to look left or right, up or down, using a joystick. It provided her with a virtual tour of every aspect of the Animal Kingdom.

At the moment, she was watching Finn and Maybeck as she was writing to Finn on D-Gamer.

panda: have not seen either willa or philby on camera

Finn: can u c the cast member entrances?

panda: yes. but have not seen them, park is packed, could be here.

Finn: i think the otakers may have heard the change in music same as us. U watch home base for Phily and Wila. also keep eye on us. watch our backs.

panda: can do.

Finn hesitated before writing the next message. But he felt he had to tell her.

Finn: maybeck and i think there’s a chance jez escaped, it might explain some stuff that’s been happening, if so, she’s prob hiding in park.

For a long time the screen flickered, but no message appeared. He couldn’t imagine what Amanda must have been feeling.

Finn: we could be totally wrong, maybeck and i are going 2 track down each of the diary drawings, maybe her escape was part of her dreams. ????? r u ok?

panda: scared 4 jez

Finn: my dad’s crackberry does the internet, i will go onto vmk and try 2 find wayne. maybe he can help us find philby.

panda: i’ll watch 4 them and i’ll watch u and maybeck too…

The cursor hesitated. She wasn’t done typing.

…but if she escaped, why haven’t we heard from her?

Finn didn’t have an answer for that.

Finn: ????? don’t know.

Amanda zoomed the camera back and tried to stay with Finn and Maybeck as they headed off. It took her a minute to figure out how to follow them, one camera to the next—she lost them twice—but not long after, she pulled up their images as they moved from camera to camera. She pieced together the route they were taking to Discovery Island. At the same time, she studied the tiny thumbnail views, hoping beyond hope to catch a glimpse of her missing sister.

* * *

Finn and Maybeck walked the Jungle Trek in a hurry, though not so fast as to stick out. They kept about ten yards apart; if one of them was spotted, maybe the other wouldn’t be. The Trek had an occasional park ranger at an education station—there to give hands-on demonstrations to the curious—any one of whom might be an Overtaker. Finn paid particular attention to each of these rangers as Maybeck passed, glad to see that none seemed to take any particular interest in him.

Soon, they reached the tiger-viewing yards, where they stood among the ruins of an Indian temple—the jungle and buildings so authentic that, although he’d never been there, Finn could imagine himself halfway around the world. The footpath rose here to where it was fifteen or twenty feet off the ground, the walls of the crumbling temple holding in the Park guests, offering views to either side, down into grassy knolls and fields. In the heat of the day, the tigers had taken to the shade at the edge of the wall that contained them. People crowded the temple’s viewing windows to get a decent look at the wild cats. The arching windows held no glass but were divided into small squares as if they did, or once had. And while there was no pushing or shoving to win the best view, there was some seriously competitive leaning going on.

But before Finn ever reached the clot of guests at the windows, Maybeck stopped and pulled him aside.

“Check it out!”

Just Maybeck’s tone of voice told Finn it was something important. Typically, Maybeck was much too cool to get excited about anything. “Son of a ______.” Maybeck said a word that would have once again gotten Finn grounded for a week.

“Oh…man,” he said, while Maybeck was busy unfolding his copy of the page from Jez’s diary.

The temple’s stone wall held a series of stone carvings, four feet by four feet pictographs showing different scenes. The primitive carvings were beautiful. One showed a person with his or her arms in the air, and an eagle flying overhead. Another had a fruit tree at its center, with birds in the branches and deer surrounding it. A monkey sat at the base of the tree holding a piece of the fruit. There were two others, both depicting a weird-looking guy with a mustache dancing around and doing strange things. But it was the image of the monkey that captured and held Finn’s attention.

Maybeck pointed to the monkey. “That’s the monkey she drew,” he said. “It wasn’t a live monkey, it was this one.”

“Agreed.”

panda: finn, check out the diary page.

He quickly texted back to her.

Finn: the monkey? can u c what we c?

panda: check out the window, my angle matches the diary exactly.

“The windows,” Finn told Maybeck, pointing to the knot of visitors straining for a look. He then found the incredibly similar drawing on the photocopy of the diary and pointed this out to Maybeck as well.

He and Maybeck moved toward the crowd.

“I gotta tell you,” Maybeck said, “until now, I wasn’t buying that Jez could dream the future.”

“And now?” Finn asked.

“Yeah, well. A person’s got a right to be wrong.”

34

FINN AND MAYBECK steadily pushed to the front of the throng gathered at the windows overlooking the tiger yards, where a blanket of green grass was interrupted by some trees and rocks. A huge tigress slumbered in the thick shade of a bamboo stand, her back against the tall rock wall that contained her. Jez had sketched both this window and the sculpture reliefs they’d just been studying, meaning this location had played a significant role in her dreams.

But what role? Finn wondered.

“It could be she’s hiding in the tiger yards,” Finn said quietly to Maybeck.

“You see her out there, do you?” Maybeck asked.

“No. But—”

“That’s because she isn’t there.”

“But it makes sense. She wouldn’t exactly be able to move if she was stuck in there. Not with tigers roaming the place.”

“Whitman, look around.”

Finn moved to the opposite side of the walled bridge dividing the two tiger yards. He didn’t have to challenge any crowds, because there weren’t any. There weren’t any tigers seen from this side.

“Convinced?” Maybeck said from behind him. He, too, had switched sides.

“But why would she have drawn both the window and the monkey? Can you explain that?” Finn asked anxiously. “They have to mean something.”

“She drew a lot of stuff: a dinosaur, the monkey, the window, a bat, some old dude. How are we supposed to know what it all means?”