The Pursuit of the Ivory Poachers (4 page)

Jack's insides were really tumbling now. He quickly put the Signature ID back in his Book Bag. Aside from an anonymous note telling Jack that Max was in trouble, he'd received no other communication about his brother in the past six months.

Jack took another look at the note and studied the uppercase letters that shouldn't have been there. He grabbed a pen and paper from his bedside table and wrote them down. There weren't many
capital letters, so maybe they formed some sort of a code.

ABTMNNHTAUSOEETKH

Hmm, Jack thought as he stared at the jumble of letters. There was nothing obvious about anything to do with his brother.

When Jack was on a mission in Cambodia, he had received a clue about Max. His brother was supposedly working near a mummy in Egypt. After that tip, Jack did loads of research on mummies, but he still didn't have enough information to pinpoint his exact location.

Now, thought Jack as he stared at the code, he had been given a second chance. He was pretty sure that deep within the code was where Max was and why he was there. If Jack could solve it, he could probably help his brother. If he couldn't, well, Jack didn't even want to think about that.

Just then, Whizzy started to spin. Startled, Jack looked at the clock next to his little globe. It was already 7:30
PM
.

Before Jack could think any more about Max, Whizzy coughed – Ahem! – and spat a jigsaw piece out of his mouth. Leaving his notes behind, Jack raced over to the spot where it landed. He looked at it carefully as he picked it up.

“Now where does this one fit?” he asked, carrying the piece to his Magic
Map. The wooden map of the world that hung on Jack's wall magically transported him away on his missions when he placed the correct country inside.

He lifted the piece up to the left of the map and tried to match it to Alaska. When that didn't work, he moved it to Canada. Going south through North
America and towards Mexico, he waited for the piece to slip in, but it didn't fit. He carried on, sliding the piece over South America, but still no match.

Getting excited that perhaps the country he was going to was actually Egypt, he picked up the piece and placed it over that country on the map. When it didn't match, he slid it over Central Africa and towards Africa's eastern edge. When he reached the coast, the piece fell in. The name “KENYA' appeared and then disappeared into the map.

“Kenya?” said Jack. He knew that Kenya was a place for safari holidays. Maybe a tourist is in trouble, he thought, as he grabbed his Book Bag. He dialed into his Watch Phone for the code of the day. As soon as he received the word – S-A-F-A-R-I – he punched it into the bag's lock and it popped open. Looking through the contents, he made a mental note of his Hydro Pills, Flyboard, and the Lava Laser.

Jack stuffed Max's note into his Book Bag and zipped it shut. He raced back to the
Magic Map, where the light inside Kenya was starting to grow. Knowing that he needed to be focused, Jack thought about Max one more time before sending thoughts of him out of his head.

When the yellow light coming from the African country had filled his room, Jack yelled, “Off to Kenya!” Then the light burst, swallowing him into the Magic Map.

When Jack arrived, he found himself alone in an open field. The tall grass under his feet was brown and dry. There was a khaki-colored dirt road to his far right, and the lone tree ahead was just that, all by itself.

From the looks of it, Jack figured he was in the savannah, one of the many types of landscape in Africa. Besides savannahs, Africa also had deserts and tropical rainforests, each with its own kind of exciting wildlife.

Jack opened his Book Bag and pulled out his Google Goggles. The GPF's Google Goggles looked like ordinary swim goggles but they enabled the wearer to see great distances both under the water and on land. He switched them to ‘maximum' length, held them up to his eyes, and waited for them to focus.

Far in the distance he could see the animals of the plain. There was a herd of wildebeest making their way across a distant road. Beyond them was a family of giraffe. They were using their long tongues to eat leaves off of some prickly branches. An ostrich leaped into view and dashed across the savannah.

Scanning with the Google Goggles a further thirty degrees, Jack noticed a group of gazelle, a small deerlike animal. They were busy eating something off of the ground, while a group of patient lions watched their every move.

Jack looked at his Watch Phone. It had already adjusted itself to Kenyan time. Thankfully, it was after midday. Knowing that lions typically hunted in the cooler hours of the morning and night, Jack wiped the sweat from his brow. The last thing he needed was an encounter with a pack of hungry wild animals.

WHOOSH!

All of a sudden, there was a noise from above.

WHOOSH!

There it was again.

Jack dropped to his knees and aimed his Google Goggles at the sky. Sailing towards him was a red, yellow, and blue-striped hot-air balloon. Hanging underneath the balloon was an enormous wicker basket, and in the basket was a man wearing a floppy hat.