The Menagerie (8 page)

“Oh, God,” Zoe said, dropping onto one of the boulders as if griffin wings had knocked her over. She buried her face in her hands. “Then it
was
my fault. But Dad, I never forget to lock the gate! I'm
sure
it was locked when I left last night.”

“Let's not jump to conclusions yet. I'm more worried about the hole in the grate,” her dad said kindly. “I'll have to speak to Cobalt about fixing that.”

Why would you leave us?
Riff bellowed at his son, wrapping his wings more tightly around the cub. His black lion tail lashed back and forth.
When we love you SO MUCH?

What Logan could still see of Squorp was wriggling uncomfortably.

Just wanted treasure,
Squorp said.
Clink promised treasure! Griffins supposed to have treasure!

“Oh, hey!” Logan said with a start. “The bank! I saw something weird there on my way to school this morning. Like the front door had been clawed up—maybe one of the cubs figured out there was money inside and went looking for treasure.”

“We'd better head over there right now,” said Zoe's dad. He glanced at his watch. “I guess the dragon toothbrushes will have to wait until tomorrow.”

“What about the library?” Zoe asked. She picked up a stray branch and started snapping it into small pieces. “It closes at seven. And also—uh, should we offer Logan, you know—something to drink?”

“Me?” Logan said. “I'm okay.”

“Let's put a temporary delay on that,” said Mr. Kahn. Zoe looked oddly pleased at this answer. “Matthew and I and your mother will head to the bank. You get Blue and take Logan to the library. See if he can hear the griffin there. With luck we'll get two more cubs back here before dinner.”

Squorp poked his head out between his dad's wings.
Dinner? Fish! Want fish! Me, fish, me!

For heaven's sake,
said Nira, opening her eyes.
I'm trying to get my first decent sleep in four months. Could you all take this noisy conversation elsewhere? Especially you two.
She clacked her beak at Riff and Squorp.

Let's go find you a fish,
Riff said with dignity, carrying Squorp away. The cub twisted his neck around to look back at Logan.

Good luck finding brothers and sisters! Come back soon! Bring cow!

Mr. Kahn turned and strode out of the enclosure, leaving Logan and Zoe staring at each other.

“Did he say dragon toothbrushes?” Logan asked.

“Isn't that lame?” Zoe dropped the pieces of her branch and stood up, dusting off her hands. “The SNAPA agents said we're neglecting the dragons' ‘dental hygiene.' There's no record of dragon toothbrushing anywhere in Kahn Menagerie history. They're wild animals! Plus their teeth are in great shape from all the volcanic rocks they eat. I swear the agents are just hoping we'll get our heads bitten off.”

“What is SNAPA?” Logan asked, following her to the gate.

“The SuperNatural Animal Protection Agency,” Zoe said. “Government, top secret, in charge of all the menageries. We had a surprise inspection visit from them last Sunday, and they gave us a giant list of things to fix before they come back
this
Sunday. So this is basically the worst possible time to be dealing with runaway griffin cubs, too.”

“We'll find them,” Logan said confidently. “I'll help. Don't worry.”

Five missing griffin cubs in a small town like Xanadu.

How hard could that be?

TWELVE

Z
oe wished Captain Fuzzbutt was out and about so she could hug him. That always made her feel better, but this was his exercise time with the yeti.

Had she really left the gate unlocked? Was this all her fault?

She glanced at Logan again. Part of her liked showing him around; it was fun to watch him quietly freak out about everything. But she knew it was dangerous for anyone to know about the Menagerie, and it made her nervous that her dad thought finding the griffins was a bigger problem.

“So where does Blue live?” Logan asked as they came out of the griffin enclosure. “You can use my cell if you need to call him.” He reached for his pocket and stopped. “Oh, no, sorry, I left it back with my bike.”

“I don't need a phone to call Blue,” Zoe said. She pulled the whalebone whistle out of her hip bag and blew into it.

Logan winced, touching his ears. “You use a dog whistle to call Blue?”

“It's not a dog whistle,” she said. “Or else you wouldn't be able to hear it.” She crossed the lake circle road and paused at the edge of the water, her sneakers sinking into the sandy gravel. “And don't say anything like that where Blue's family can hear you. They will seriously drown you.”

“Are you joking again?” Logan asked. He rubbed his arms nervously. “Are they, like, the Mob? Does the Mob have something to do with unicorns and griffins?” He paused. “Okay, if not, I am totally writing that movie.”

Zoe noticed that his arms were covered in goose bumps. She'd forgotten he must be cold without his jacket. “They're not the Mob,” she said. “Well, not
the
Mob. They're kind of
a
mob. You'll see.”

A head poked out of the water suddenly a few feet away, and Logan literally fell over with surprise. It was almost funny, but Zoe had seen this particular gorgeous blond head way too often, and she knew the mean-girl brain inside it. Jasmin tried to be mean, but she could never be as bad as Sapphire. Plus Jasmin had too much self-respect to wear a bikini top that skimpy.

“We need Blue,” Zoe said.

“This is his Dad Time, Zoe,” Sapphire said in a patronizing, can't-you-remember-anything voice. She wound her waist-length hair up on her head and fluttered her eyelashes at Logan.

“This is more important,” Zoe said.

“Oh,” said Sapphire with fake sympathy, “did you get lonely and finally notice he's your only friend? Or maybe you're feeling all useless and wretched because you're the first Kahn in Menagerie history to lose one of the mythical animals. Wait, did I say one? It's actually six, isn't it?”

Zoe couldn't speak for a minute. Sapphire always knew exactly how to punch Zoe in the heart. She could tell whenever Zoe was missing Jasmin, or wishing she could try out for soccer, or worrying about how she'd ever live up to Matthew and Ruby.

Zoe knew for a fact that mermaids couldn't read minds, but Sapphire made her wonder.

“Just get Blue,” Logan said, climbing to his feet beside her. Sapphire gave him an icy look. “Uh . . . please?”

The blond mermaid dove with a swish of her emerald tail that splashed them both.

“That was a mermaid!” Logan hissed. “A—well, kind of a mean mermaid.”

“They're pretty much all like that. Except Blue.”

“Blue's a—”

“
Don't
call him a mermaid,” Zoe said. “Trust me, it doesn't go over well. But he doesn't like merboy, either. And merman sounds totally weird. Merguy? I just avoid calling him anything but Blue.”

“So was that his sister?”

“No, no, no,” Zoe said, shaking her head firmly. “Blue's an only child. She might be his second or third cousin or something—I can't really keep track of how all our merfolk are related.”

“That is—” Logan trailed off as Blue came striding out of the lake. Shimmering blueberry-colored scales were still melting into the skin around his waist. Logan threw his hands over his eyes.

“Relax,” Zoe said, trying not to laugh. “He puts on shorts underwater before he comes up. We have a strict no-mermaid-nakedness policy.”
Which most of them hate,
she thought.

“Oh, thank God,” Logan said, dropping his hands.

“Hey, Logan,” Blue said casually, grinning, as if it didn't surprise him at all to find the new kid hanging out inside the Menagerie with Zoe. He took a towel from the storage chest beside the water and toweled off his hair.

Zoe saw the happy look that flashed across Logan's face. He hadn't thought Blue would know his name. That was kind of sad, actually.

“Hey, Blue,” Logan said, trying to sound equally casual.

“We're going to the library,” Zoe said. “I'll explain—this—on the way.” She waved her hands at Logan.

“Cool,” Blue said. “Man, you look cold. Want to borrow a jacket?”

“Nah, I'm good,” Logan said. He adjusted his stance to look a bit tougher. Of course, Blue was standing there, dripping wet, in nothing but shorts. Boys could be so dopey when they were trying to be macho.

“Yes, he does,” Zoe said. “He lost his jacket trying to save Nero from one of his temper tantrums. But hurry up. We only have half an hour before the library closes.”

Blue jogged ahead of them to the house, and when he emerged, fully dressed, he handed Logan a dark-green hooded sweatshirt.

“All right, thanks,” Logan said. He put it on while Zoe and Blue wheeled their bikes out of the garage. His brown eyes went even bigger when he saw the silver fire-retardant suits hanging on the walls between the golf carts and dragon harnesses.

But his next question wasn't about dragons. As he picked up his own bike in the trees outside the wall, he said to Blue, “So, do you live in the lake?”

“Some of the time,” Blue said. “That's where my dad is. The rest of the time I'm up at the house with my mom.”

“Oh,” Logan said. “So they're—”

“Yeah. Divorced,” Blue said. “It sucks. But whatever.” He shrugged.

“And now the whole colony won't shut up about what a mistake it is for merfolk to marry humans,” Zoe said. Logan tilted his head curiously, and she guessed what he was thinking. “They're not talking about
us
, dorkface. Blue's like my brother. Gross. I want to strangle him, like, fifty times a day.”

Besides, she would never do that to Jasmin, even if they weren't speaking anymore.

“Oh, but if it comes up at school,” she said, “everyone there thinks Blue and his mom rent an apartment in our house.”

It was mostly downhill to the library. Usually Zoe loved the feeling of the wind flying through her hair, but out in front of the others she had no one to distract her from her worries about the griffin gate.

Surely this couldn't be her fault. She
had
locked it. She
knew
she had.

But if that was true . . . then who had unlocked it?

THIRTEEN

B
lue didn't seem quite as stunned as everyone else by Logan's ability to hear baby griffins.

“That's cool,” he said. The three of them were across the street from the library. The sun was nearly all the way down, and it was quickly getting cold and dark outside. As far as Logan could tell, they were waiting for Zoe to make a plan.

“Mostly Squorp talks about food,” Logan said to Blue. “It's not, like, deep conversation.”

“Sounds useful, though. They get so mad when we don't understand them.” He held out his arm to show Logan a bruise on his wrist. “The black one bit me a couple days ago when I gave her a fish to stop her yelling. Still not sure what she really wanted.”

“Maybe treasure,” Logan joked.

Blue's eyes went thoughtful. “Actually, yeah, maybe,” he said.

“Can't their parents tell you what they're saying?” Logan asked.

“Nira's too busy,” Blue said. “And Riff's too frantic.”

“Six cubs are a lot to handle,” Zoe said. “This is their first litter.” Her voice glowed with pride. “The Kahn Menagerie has the best griffin-breeding record in the world. Mom and Dad raised Riff's litter and traded one of his brothers to another menagerie for Nira. We knew they'd be perfect together.”

Logan remembered the sleepy, disgruntled white griffin and wondered if that was true. But he wasn't about to question the best griffin-breeding record in the world.

“So what do we do now?” he asked, nodding at the library.

“We leave our bikes by the pizza place,” Zoe said. “That way the librarians won't see them when they leave. Then we'll hide in the library until it closes.” She checked her watch again. “Ten minutes. Hurry.”

The pizza place was only a block away. As they leaned their bikes against the alley wall, Logan noticed that the restaurant was closed, which seemed weird for a Friday night. He tried to peer in through the dark window, but he couldn't see anything. Except maybe—was that a puddle of tomato sauce on the floor?

“Come
on
.” Zoe yanked on Blue's sleeve and took off toward the library.

Logan and Blue followed. Logan liked how Blue never rushed. He matched the taller boy's pace as they strolled up the stairs into the library. Zoe had already vanished inside.

“Hold up,” Blue said, stopping to inspect a notice on the bulletin board. Logan looked at it, too. It was about some rancher meeting to discuss a bunch of missing sheep. He glanced at Blue. What—

“Okay, now,” Blue said. Logan realized that the lone librarian at the desk had bent down to empty the book drop. They were able to go by without being seen. Logan grinned.
Slick, Blue.

Blue took the stairs two at a time with his long legs. At the top he slowly pivoted, scanning the aisles of books, round wooden study tables, and armchairs tucked into dark corners. Logan did the same. All he saw was Zoe pacing nervously past the shelves, glancing along each one. There were a lot of walls and tall bookshelves, so it was impossible to see every part of the floor from anywhere. The few people left at the tables were packing up their bags and heading downstairs.

“The library will be closing in five minutes,” said a voice over the PA system. “Please bring all materials to the front desk to check out.”

“Why, hello there.” The school librarian emerged from one of the stacks, carrying a pile of books. Her lime-green skirt looked a bit less startling here, away from school. She smiled at them. “How nice to see some of my students at the library on a Friday night.”

“Hey, Miss Sameera,” Blue said, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “Need help with those?” He reached for her books, but she took a quick step back.

“No, no,” she said. “Nothing interesting here. Just a private project.” She gave an odd little laugh. Logan couldn't be sure, but he thought she was deliberately holding the books so they couldn't read the titles.

Huh,
he thought.
Must be something really embarrassing
.

“See you on Monday,” she said brightly, and hurried off down the stairs with her skirt mirrors tinkling and flashing as she went.

Curious, Logan leaned over the stairs to watch her check out. He couldn't read the book titles from where he was, but one of them had a pair of rearing unicorns on the cover, and another one looked like it was about sea serpents.

Weird.

“Let's hide,” Blue said, bringing Logan's attention back to the griffin search. “Looks like Zoe already has.” He led Logan down one of the long aisles and along the back wall of windows to a pair of plain wooden doors. White letters on black labels said
HEMINGWAYS
on one door and
BRONTËS
on the other.

“I don't get it,” Logan said, reading the signs.

“I didn't either at first,” Blue said. “Zoe explained it. That one's Men, like Ernest Hemingway, and that one's Women, like the Brontë sisters. It's a library joke.”

Logan didn't think it would be very funny if he'd accidentally walked into the girls' bathroom because he'd never heard of the Brontës.

They went through the “Hemingways” door and each hid in a stall. Logan was glad the doors went all the way to the ground so he didn't have to stand on the toilet.

“This is like that book,” he whispered. “Where the kids run away and stay in the Metropolitan Museum? Remember? They hid in the bathrooms every night from the security guard. After I read it, I made my mom take me to the Art Institute so I could figure out where I'd sleep if I was spending the night there.” He stopped. His mom had loved the book, too. She hadn't looked at her Blackberry once that whole day.

“When did your parents get divorced?” he asked to change the subject.

“Pretty soon after I was born,” Blue's voice said over the partition. “They're not big fans of each other.”

The bathroom door opened, and Logan shut his mouth quickly. He pressed his back against the wall.
Please don't check all the stalls,
he prayed.

“Anyone in here?” It sounded like one of the librarians, who spoke with a quiet midwestern accent. The lights flashed off and on a couple of times, and then went off. They were plunged into darkness as the door closed.

Logan exhaled softly.

“Now we wait a few minutes,” Blue whispered.

Logan had a million more questions about the Menagerie, but he didn't want to break the silence. So he just waited until finally he heard Blue step out of his stall and open the door.

The library looked like a whole different place in the dark. Moonlight came through the windows, turning everything purple and silver. Long shadows crawled across the rug from the shelves and furniture, like puddles of melted night creatures.

“I'll go this way,” Blue said, pointing along one wall. “You go that way. We'll run into each other on the other side of the building.”

“We don't have to find Zoe first?” Logan asked.

“Don't worry,” Blue said. “She'll find us.”

Logan started off along his wall, which was not the one with windows. The room got darker and darker as he went forward. His hands bumped into a doorknob on his right, but the door was locked. Administrative offices, maybe. He peered down each dark aisle, but it was hard to tell what was shadow and what might be griffin cub unless he walked up and down, so he started doing that, wishing he had a flashlight.

He reached the far wall, where a bank of tall windows looked out on the front of the library. Here there was bright moonlight again. The street outside was quiet. Logan glanced at the sidewalk below.

A shiver ran down his spine. Was there something . . . or some
one
 . . . in the shadows of the trees?

Logan edged slowly away from the windows. He didn't think anyone could see in, but still, he had a strange, creeping feeling that someone was out there, just standing, staring toward the library.