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afraid he was going to say something. She put her finger to her lips again. The whites of Corey’s eyes seemed enormous as he pointed at the man.
    Ellen nodded. She watched as the man put the bills in the pocket of his jacket and zipped the pocket shut. Then he calmly sat on the counter of the food stand and continued to eat potato chips.
    Ellen dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl away from the food stand, staying as close as possible to the bushes. She was afraid to stand up, since the man was facing in their direction. Even though they werefar beyond the rectangle of light that fell from the open panel to the ground outside, she didn’t want to take any chance that he would see movement and come to investigate.
    Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Corey was creeping along too, directly behind her. When they rounded the curve, heading back toward the south gate, Ellen stood up.
    Corey stood beside her and slipped his hand in hers. For once, he kept his mouth shut. Ellen took a deep breath and then jogged toward the gorilla house, back to the North Meadow and the safety of their tent.
    The moon rose silently, sending a dim light over the zoo. Ellen looked up. The moon was nearly full. A harvest moon, her mother would call it. In her mind, she could hear Mom singing, as she always did when they sat together around a campfire: “Shine on, shine on, harvest moon, up in the sky.”
    Mom. Where are you? Why haven’t you come?
    Ellen wished she had not brought Corey to the zoo. It had seemed right at the time but she had been positive her parents would join them. She hadn’t counted on being locked in the zoo alone with Corey all night.
    And she certainly hadn’t counted on discovering that a thief was prowling around the zoo.

5

    “I ’ M GOING to spy on him some more,” Corey said.
    “No, you aren’t. We’re both staying right here in this tent.”
    They were sitting on their sleeping bags, with the picnic supper between them. There were chicken salad sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwiches, little bags of chips, apples, bananas, and chocolate-frosted brownies. There were cans of apple juice, too, and even a little bag of after-dinner mints.
    The basket contained enough for four people, but after nibbling at half a sandwich, Ellen quit. Despite her grumbling stomach and the delicious food, nothing tasted good. She was too nervous to eat.
    “We need to gather all the evidence we can,” Corey said. “Maybe the security guard does other bad stuff.”
    “I don’t think that man was the guard.”
    “Then who was it?”
    “I don’t know. But we’ll find out what the guard looks like when he comes past here at midnight. You can spy on him then, from inside the tent. If he isn’t the thief, we can tell him what we saw.”
    “I don’t want to tell the guard. I want to be a detective and gather more evidence.”
    “We don’t need more evidence and it would make him angry if he caught us following him.”
    Corey bit into another brownie. “Well, I’m not staying in this dumb tent all night. I want to walk around the zoo. What good is it to spend the night in the zoo if we don’t see anything but the inside of a tent? I want to have an adventure.”
    “You’ll have more of an adventure than you bargain for if that thief catches you spying on him.”
    “He won’t catch me.”
    “That’s right. He won’t catch you because you aren’t going to do it.”
    A loud roar from across the meadow made both of them jump.
    “A lion,” Corey said.
    “Be quiet and listen. Maybe we can hear some of the other animals.”
    They stretched out on top of their sleeping bags and listened.
    The lion roared again, a deep throaty noise that ended on a high whine. Ellen closed her eyes and strained her ears to hear more. All was quiet.
    It felt cozy in the tent, the way it felt when her family went camping. Outside the tent, there was only silence. Gradually, her tight muscles relaxed.
    Ellen took a deep breath