Part 5 (1/2)

Chapter.

7.

The sun was setting over New York. The Doctor left the squad car parked on Fifth Avenue, and Amy took a moment to take in the beauty and sheer scale of Central Park. Above her, ducks circled lazily, and thousands of lights were being switched on across the city, making the steel and gla.s.s towers glow against the sky.

'Wow!' Amy was impressed. 'On the maps, the park looks tiny. But you could fit all of Leadworth into it. Twice.'

The Doctor signalled for Amy to be quiet as they got within sight of the Zoo. As the evening drew in, the Zoo was shutting down for the night, and the main entrance was full of groups of schoolchildren, filing out as the security guards closed up.

73.'Where exactly is the Zoo?' the Doctor asked.

Before Amy could speak, he answered his own question.

'It's right in the middle of New York, isn't it...'

'Does that mean anything?' Amy asked.

'We're about to find out.'

They circled the Zoo fence until they reached the service gates. Beyond the heavy steel doors, they could see the top of the large animal enclosure, tantalisingly close.

'I can sonic the gates open,' the Doctor told Amy, 'but I'm gonna need a diversion...'

He nodded towards the entrance. On either side of the service gates, two security guards were sitting back in their chairs, chatting and laughing.

Amy smiled and whispered to the Doctor, 'I've got a really good idea. You stop here, I'll get them out of the way.'

The Doctor crouched on the ground as Amy crawled across the road and ducked behind a bush. A moment later a tiny pebble skittered along the tarmac and came to rest beside the foot of the security guard. The man didn't notice and kept on talking to the other guard.

Amy tried again, with a slightly larger stone. This time it bounced up, and knocked against the guard's knee. But he still didn't notice. The Doctor signalled to Amy that they didn't have much time.

On her third attempt, Amy chucked a hefty stone.

74.It flew through the air, bounced off the ground, and whacked the guard right on the forehead.

'Omunicate this to his favourite keeper, but she'd simply given his trunk a rub and fed him a banana. And now that the woolly creature had woken up, it was behaving even more oddly, pawing at the ground, and walking in strange concentric circles.

Flappy wasn't to know, but the Polar Woolly Mammoth was doing something very akin to pacing out the dimensions of the cage.

77.

Chapter.

8.

The Doctor and Amy crouched low and stepped quietly into the Zoo. The locks were red hot and smoking in the evening air. crouched low and stepped quietly into the Zoo. The locks were red hot and smoking in the evening air.

To get to the enclosure” they had to sidle past a little hut where the crying security guard was holding an ice pack to his bruised head while his friend was busy putting plasters on his injuries.

Safely past the hut, the Doctor and Amy ducked off the main track and crept along behind the enclosures. This was the secret part of the Zoo where the keepers stored the animal food and the old, smelly hay. These shortcuts from the main path zigzagged through the Zoo, and unwittingly the Doctor and Amy stumbled out onto one of the main walkways.

79.As a crowd of naughty school children went past, Amy saw someone headed straight for them and pulled the Doctor back. She was too late: a zookeeper returning from her rounds stopped to talk to the Doctor.

'Hey, mister, nice bow tie.'

The Doctor turned to Amy, grinning triumphantly. 'See! I told you it was cool. Just you wait and see, they'll all be wearing them soon.'

Amy pointed over the Doctor's shoulder where the keeper was still waiting to talk to the Doctor...

'School visiting time is over now, sir,' the keeper continued. 'Would you be so kind as to fetch your cla.s.s from the petting zoo. It's closing time.'

Amy struggled to keep a straight face. The keeper thought that the Doctor was a teacher.

The Doctor smiled and tried to explain himself. 'Ah, right, you think I'm a teacher 'cos of the jacket and the bow tie, ah, I think you'll see their teacher is actually over there.' He pointed to the other side of the path, where a fl.u.s.tered-looking man was having a sneaky cigarette by the koala cage.

The teacher was a deeply uncool man in his forties, fl.u.s.tered, paunchy and wearing a purple s.h.i.+rt and bow tie.

He was trying very hard to ignore the noise of the rowdy children who were meant to be in his care.

Amy laughed out loud. 'You could so be brothers.'

80.The keeper pointed down the path. Thank you both. The exit is that way.'