“Something tells me that there’ll be someone special waiting inside for us,” Becca said, taking Miguel by the arm and gently leading him to the door. They’d all been waiting for this moment ever since they first discovered that Elephant had been hamster-napped after the summer school incident. “More precisely, two special someones. Would you like to do the honors of being the first to see them, Miguel?”

His head held high, Miguel reached forward and opened the door to the treehouse, stepping inside.

Matt

“Nacho!” Miguel yelled as soon as he was inside the spacious treehouse. “Elephant! We found you! We finally found you!”

His heart still pumping from climbing from the roof to the treehouse, Matt hurried inside, excited for the safety of a stable structure. It smelled like freshly cut wood, as though the clubhouse had been built very recently. He looked to where Miguel was crouched—sure enough, sitting in the corner of the room was an elaborate hamster cage, with Elephant waiting happily inside. Nacho was in another cage that sat beside Elephant’s.

Matt walked over and bent down to get a closer look; both animals looked well fed, clean, and taken care of. Elephant was even wearing a tiny black suit complete with coattails, greeting Miguel in style. “It’s like hamster couture,” he said.

“I missed you so much,” Miguel gushed as he eagerly opened the snake cage and stuck his arm inside. Nacho instantly swirled up and around Miguel’s arm, like he was giving his long-lost owner a hug.

“Awww,” Becca said from where she stood watching behind them. “I’m so glad they’re okay. They look happy and healthy, but still especially excited to see you.”

“Angel is going to lose his mind when he sees Elephant,” Miguel said, standing to interact more with Nacho as Danny made sure to get the hamster wearing a suit on camera. “I can’t wait to see his face when I first get home!”

“Another game won,” Danny announced in his narrator voice as he taped. “Just like with summer school, the crew managed to make their way through all the Game Master’s obstacles. The tricks were aplenty, the frights were galore! All to come to a happy conclusion, closing the chapter that was oh so mysteriously opened over two months ago . . .”

“Wow,” Frankie said, reflecting. “We really just did that. We went into the house on Gurley Street. It’s truly hard to believe.”

“Totally nuts,” Becca agreed. “And we figured out how to escape before nightfall, thank goodness. Take that, Game Master!”

“Seriously,” Matt said, looking down at the hamster, who was running around in happy, adorable circles. The inside of the cage was nice and tidy, with a bowl of fresh food and a bottle full of water available to Elephant. “I don’t even want to imagine what it would have been like to do the whole roof-to-tree thing at night.”