The Secret Zoo

Several months later, Megan Nowicki is missing. The town spent a month looking for her before everyone gave up except her brother, Noah, and their friends, Ella and Richie. They continue to ask questions and investigate her disappearance. The four friends call themselves the “Adventure Scouts.” Noah climbs to their treehouse, Fort Scout, to raise the red distress flag, hoping Ella or Richie will see it and come running. While he waits, he remembers the night Megan told him she saw escaped monkeys running on the rooftops; Noah didn’t believe her, but now he wonders if the zoo and her disappearance are connected. He waits for half an hour and then, when nobody comes, returns inside and goes to bed. At midnight, something taps on his bedroom window.

A bird is tapping on Noah’s window. He opens it, and the bird flies in; when Noah tries to get it out, it evades him and drops a paper flier onto his bed. The bird lands on the windowsill. Noah looks at the paper and finds a secret message telling him to visit the zoo to see Mr. Tall Tail. When he looks back, the bird is gone.

After school the next day, Noah goes to the zoo and visits the monkey exhibit to see Mr. Tall Tail. The monkey does not say anything or react until Noah makes to leave; then, the monkey gives him a familiar piece of paper: a page from Megan’s diary entry.

Noah reads Megan’s diary page and finds excerpts about other zoo areas—specifically the Forest of Flight exhibit and a strange zoo employee who followed her. She talks about some holes in the wall she found; Noah decides to investigate them in case they hold a clue to Megan’s whereabouts.

At the Forest of Flight exhibit, Noah finds Marlo, the bird who brought the flier for the Mr. Tall Tails exhibit. Noah observes the same holes Megan watched when hundreds of birds suddenly fly out of the holes. They create a tornado of sound and flight that causes Noah to cover his ears and close his eyes. As quickly as they come, the birds leave. A security guard escorts Noah out of the now-closed zoo, and when he gets home, he finds another page of Megan’s diary stuffed in his pocket. After reading it, he decides to call an Adventure Scouts meeting.

Noah, Ella, and Richie sit together during lunch at school the next day. The conversation starts casually, but Noah soon raises the subject of Megan. His friends ask what he’s found, and he tells them that he believes the zoo animals have something to do with Megan’s disappearance. He pulls out her diary pages to show them.

The trio goes to the zoo after school and reads the newest entries. Megan writes about investigating the polar bear exhibit, where she found three polar bears when the zoo only has two. She also noticed that the animals became more active before the zoo closed. Noah, Ella, and Richie follow Megan’s trail to the polar bear exhibit.

They spend the day at the zoo, waiting for the end of the day when they hope to see some of what Megan saw. Within 15 minutes of the zoo closing, a light appears at the bottom of the tank, and Blizzard, the Polar Bear, leaves the tank and enters the tunnel where the Adventure Scouts stand. Blizzard drops a page from Megan’s diary and then rushes back into the tank through a secret entrance. A janitor kicks the three out but stops them when he recognizes Noah. Noah lies, but he knows the janitor knows him and likely knows his sister as well.

Megan’s trail leads to the Creepy Critters exhibit, where they search for the Chamber of Lights. As they walk through the aquariums, all the reptiles and fish know them and react to their presence. In the Chamber of Lights, they find only aquariums filled with flashlight fish. Noah insists something must be here, and Ella suggests that perhaps whatever Megan saw was from outside the exhibit.

They wait in a theater near the Chamber of Lights until the zoo closes. Once it does, a new security guard enters the Chamber of Lights and vanishes in a blinding flash of light. When the kids investigate where he went, the same security guard from the Mr. Tall Tail Exhibit comes up behind them and tries to chase them out. Noah demands to know where Megan is, which causes the guard to call a more senior security guard to handle the “Megan Situation.” The senior guard, Tank, carries Noah and drags Ella out of the zoo; Richie follows. Before returning inside, Tank tells them “the leaders” are watching them and they cannot draw attention to themselves. He then tells Noah to check his mailbox at midnight—he plans to get the Adventure Scouts into the “Inside” to help Megan.

Noah returns home and waits until midnight. An animal comes barreling down the street toward him a few minutes past the hour.

Ella cannot sleep and changes the television channel while thinking about their mystery. She thinks Noah is likely being set up and puts on her jacket and earmuffs to go to his rescue.

The animal is a cheetah who brings a written message from Tank and a key to the zoo. The note gives Noah directions to the Penguin Palace, where one of the penguins wants to help. Noah decides he cannot wait for his friends and goes to the zoo immediately on his scooter; on the way, he sees movement in the shadows, but nobody is there.