Krakens and Lies (16 page)

Zoe's phone buzzed softly and she glanced at it.

Are merboys allowed to date human girls?
said the text from Jasmin. Zoe smiled at it.

Have you ever ridden a dragon?
said the next text, followed by:
Can I ride a dragon?

Yes, no, and no,
Zoe texted back.

YES?!!!!!!!!
came the response.

Allowed to, yes
, Zoe typed.
Smart enough to, I'm not sure.

LOL. What is he doing right now? What is he wearing right now? Also, then what CAN I ride?

Zoe glanced at Blue.

“What?” he whispered.

She shook her head and typed,
Nothing.

The response came quickly.
He's wearing NOTHING???????

Ha-ha-ha gross
, Zoe typed back.
Dark blue coat, jeans, sleepy expression. We're on a mission in the mapinguari's habitat.

??? OK, you got me on that one. I'm looking it up.

I bet Capt. Fuzzbutt would let you ride him,
Zoe typed.

Mapinguaris sound dangerous,
Jasmin wrote back.
You need a BFF sidekick with a totally menacing tennis racket.

Do not sneak out of your house right now, you lunatic
, Zoe typed.
We are fine. I will update you in the morning.

SIIIIIGH
, Jasmin responded.
OK. Call me first thing.

Good night.

Don't let the chupacabras bite. OMG, you don't have those, do you?

Stop making me laugh! The mapinguari is sleeping.

OK, OK. I'm off to delete all evidence of this conversation. Good night!

“I'm guessing from your face that that was Jasmin,” Blue whispered.

“She's amazing,” Zoe whispered back, trying to wipe the grin off her face.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I mean—for you! Amazing—friend—type—person.” He coughed and punched Logan's shoulder.

“Shhh,” she scolded him. “Don't wake up Guava.”

Zoe, Logan, and Blue sat quietly for a long time, staring at the wall. It was very high and made of stone, but on this side Zoe could see that a lot of the vines had grown up along it, creating an easy crisscross web to climb down. They'd have to fix that. She wished she had her notepad so she could add it to her to-do list.

Stupid dragons
, she thought, shaking her head with frustration. Why had they let Mr. Wilde in—not just once, but three times? She hadn't had a chance to question them yet because of all the chaos of the merfolk strike. She knew Scratch had neglected his guard duty to go out hunting sheep a few times, but she'd checked the log and both Clawdius and Firebella had ignored Mr. Wilde's trespassing as well. And if they were willing to ignore him, they could have ignored anybody. For all she knew, the Sterlings could have been climbing in and out of the Menagerie for months without a single dragon saying boo about it. After all, they hadn't so much as snorted when Jasmin came into the Menagerie.

She hugged her knees, thinking of Jasmin. She'd wanted to bring Jasmin into the Menagerie and show her all the animals for practically her entire life. It had seemed wildly unfair to her when Jonathan got to meet them instead, just because he was Ruby's boyfriend. And it had been even
more
unfair when Jonathan betrayed their trust and the rules got even stricter.

For a while, she'd started to think she'd never have any friends but Blue, possibly ever again.

And then she'd found Logan in her unicorn stables, holding a griffin cub.

She glanced sideways at him again. He'd changed everything. Now she had him, and Marco, and, most miraculous of all, she had Jasmin back. But it had all started with Logan.

“I don't think your dad's coming,” Blue half whispered, half yawned. “Maybe we could go back and just watch the security monitors.”

“Right. Which, in Blue-speak, means
I
could watch the security monitors and
you
could nap on the couch,” Zoe said.

“Well, if you insist,” Blue said with a grin.

“Wait,” Logan whispered, touching Zoe's knee. He pointed to the top of the wall, where a small beam of light was skimming the treetops on the other side. It blinked out, and then there was a quiet scraping sound.

Like someone leaning a ladder up against the wall
.

Zoe could feel the tension humming through Logan. She realized she was a tiny bit terrified. She was sure Logan's dad wouldn't hurt them—but she was also sure he wouldn't be happy to see them.

Maybe I should have told Mom and Dad about this
.

She rubbed her damp palms on her jeans and felt for the flashlight in her pocket.

Bump. Bump. Bump
. Footsteps climbing the ladder.

They didn't have night vision without the security camera, but the moon cast enough light that they could see the
shadowy head that slowly rose up above the wall. A tall, lanky figure swung himself over and carefully climbed down. He glanced around and took a couple of steps into the trees.

The will-o'-the-wisps came shooting through the woods and surrounded him, bobbing and weaving frantically. In the light they cast, Zoe could clearly see Logan's dad's face. He was smiling at the little fireballs.

Logan drew in his breath. His dad held out one hand and let the will-o'-the-wisps dance around it for a minute. His smile slowly faded, and then he dropped his hand and started toward the fence with a serious expression on his face.

“HRRRRRMMMMMGGRRRRR.” A growl shivered through the forest. The hairs on Zoe's arms stood on end. She whirled and saw the enormous shadow of the mapinguari come shambling out of his hut.

“RRRRRRRRRAAAAARRRRGH,” Guava roared. He stood up to his full height and roared again. The moon reflected off his long, sharp, shiny claws.

Logan's dad had frozen in place when he heard the first growl. Now he took a tentative step back toward the wall, which was closer than the fence.

The mapinguari swiveled its head toward him . . . and charged.

“D
ad!” Logan screamed. He threw himself out of the bushes just as his dad went hurtling past, running for the wall. They crashed into each other and sprawled into the dirt.

“HRRRRRRAAARRRRRR,” the mapinguari roared again, taking another slow, stomping step toward them. Logan sat up and scrabbled inside his shirt for the scarab. It must have protected his dad from the creature before. It would protect him again . . . Logan hoped. He pulled it out and held it up.

“Guava, stop!” Zoe cried. She tossed the flashlight to Blue, ran up to the giant sloth, and shoved its belly with both
hands. “Behave! Bad mapinguari! No eating people! Bad!”

The mapinguari stopped and grumbled loudly. Blue got the flashlight switched on, and in its beam Logan could see that the overgrown sloth was giving Zoe a very reproachful look.

“I don't care what your venerable furry ancestors ate,” Zoe said, putting her hands on her hips. “Like me and Dad, you are a respectable vegetarian. If you go back to bed right now and leave this nice trespasser alone, tomorrow I will bring you that eggplant thing from Veggie Monster that you like so much.”

Guava grumbled again and reached his claws toward Logan and his dad.

“Right. Now,” Zoe said firmly. “Or there will be NO BUBBLES in your next bath.”

The giant sloth sighed enormously, rattling the leaves on the trees. He dropped to all fours and slowly shambled back inside his hut.

Logan twisted around and found his dad sitting up, rubbing his head, and looking rather stunned.

“See?” Logan said. “I told you Zoe was pretty cool.”

His dad smiled weakly.

“Also,” Logan said, “how dare you give me your scarab and then sneak in here with no protection? Do you know how mad I would be if you got eaten by a mapinguari?”

“Not as mad as
I
would be if
you
got stomped by a dragon,” his dad answered.

“They're not very stompy,” Logan said. “More . . . fire-breathy. And actually fairly chill if you don't bother them.”

“Why are you cavorting with dragons?” his father demanded. He climbed to his feet and hauled Logan up, too. “That is exactly what I was afraid of. Anything could happen to you in here, especially since—since—” He fell silent, glancing at Zoe.

“Since you sabotaged us?” Zoe said challengingly. “Since you deliberately let the griffins escape and blew a hole in the Reptile House and framed Scratch for murder?”

Logan studied his dad's face and felt a surge of relief. There was nothing but confusion there.

“What?” Dad said. “What are you talking about? Who's Scratch?”

“Why else have you been sneaking into our Menagerie?” Zoe asked.

“Because you have Abigail!” Logan's dad burst out. He turned and gripped Logan's shoulders. “The Kahns have your mother, I'm sure of it. I've been looking for her all over this place, but there are areas I haven't gotten into yet. And then I was so worried they'd take you, too—but now they'll wipe our memories—and then who—who will rescue Abigail—” Dad broke off and rubbed his eyes.

“No, no, you've got it all wrong,” Logan said, putting his hands over his dad's. “Zoe's family is as worried about Mom as we are. They're good people, Dad. Mom was friends with
them. If she told you about this place, didn't she tell you that?”

“Yes,” Dad admitted. “But she could have been tricked. There was a clue. . . .” He trailed off again.

“Mom wasn't easily fooled,” Logan pointed out. “You know that.”

“I think, if you guys don't mind, that maybe we should go talk to my parents,” Zoe said. “I double-triple promise we won't kraken ink you, Mr. Wilde. I'm sure they'll want to meet you. And then we can tell you what we know about Abigail's disappearance.”

Logan looked up at his dad, who hesitated for a long minute, then finally nodded. A thrill of hope ran along Logan's skin. Maybe if they put together everything they all knew about how Mom disappeared—maybe then they'd figure out where she was . . . and how to get her back.

Mr. and Mrs. Kahn were surprisingly calm about being woken up in the middle of the night to meet Logan's dad. But then, they were pretty calm about everything, as far as Logan had seen. They sat and listened with mugs of tea in front of them, bathrobes over their pajamas, as if strangers scrambled over their walls and accused them of kidnapping all the time.

Dad, understandably, had said no to tea, or anything else that might have kraken ink in it.

Logan sat next to his dad, in the warm yellow light of Zoe's living room, with Zoe and then Blue on his other side.
It was surreal, but also felt somehow right, having everyone together and talking about everything at last.

“I hired a private investigator,” Dad said intently, tracing his finger along one of the grooves in the heavy wooden dining room table. “He said Abigail was last seen renting a car in Cheyenne, but someone else returned it—a young man. I thought perhaps that was your son.”

“Matthew,” Mrs. Kahn supplied. “No, we didn't know about the rental car.”

Logan caught Zoe looking at him. Was she thinking what he was thinking?
Jonathan Sterling?

Zoe's mom went on. “We got a call from her after she left Cheyenne—she said she was on her way with the Chinese dragon and would be here in about two hours. Usually with Abigail's driving that means more like one and a half, but we waited and waited, and she never showed up. We called her a hundred times, but she never answered.”

“Same here,” said Logan's dad. “But she did get to Xanadu that night. My PI said the last signal from her cell phone came from somewhere around here, before it went dead. That's why I thought she must have made it to this place.” He waved one hand at the Menagerie around them.

“But why would you think we kidnapped her?” Mr. Kahn asked mildly. “We were getting the Chinese dragon anyway. Why would we want a Tracker locked in our cellar, when she could be out finding and saving more creatures?”

Logan saw his dad's eyes dart around the room, as if he was looking for a hidden cellar door, before he caught himself. With a sigh, he reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a wrinkled white rectangle.

Logan recognized it immediately. It was the last postcard his mom had sent them. The only postcard Logan hadn't wanted to put in his box of postcards from her. He'd read it about three thousand times that first week and then, when it still refused to make any sense, he'd thrown it out. He hadn't realized his dad had kept it; he must have salvaged it from the trash.

“Abigail sent us a postcard after she disappeared,” Logan's dad explained. “It's all nonsense, doesn't sound like her at all. She says we won't see her again—that's crazy. She would never, never in a million years leave Logan. She's told me every day since he was born that he's her heart and soul.”