The Menagerie (10 page)

SIXTEEN

T
he griffin swiveled her head around in surprise and stared at Logan.

“Clink,” he said again. “That's your name, right?”

Lucky guess?
the griffin wondered.

“No, I can hear you,” Logan said, climbing to his feet. “Loud and clear.” Clink's voice in his head vibrated like swords clashing.

Hear me?
Clink flapped her wings.
Then GIVE ME! WANT! Treasure! Treasure! TREASURE!
She opened her beak and hissed at the Kahns. Her claws flexed menacingly, and they looked a lot more like full-grown lion paws than either Squorp's or Flurp's.

Logan did not want to see those claws sinking into Zoe's back or that beak stabbing at Blue's eyes. He could only think of one thing to do. “Here,” he said, fighting past the lump rising in his throat. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his mom's bracelet. “I have some really important treasure for you to guard. Really,
really
important. You have to be very careful with it and . . . and make sure it never gets lost and . . .” He stopped, swallowing. Was he really giving Mom's bracelet away? To a bossy, aggressive four-month-old griffin cub?

Clink ducked her head to peer at the bracelet. The gold chain glinted in the light, and the twelve charms spun and winked. The one that looked like a bird with big eyes was staring at Logan accusingly.
Your mom gave this to you when she traveled. She told you to take care of it for her while she was gone. What if she comes looking for it?

She won't. She's not coming back,
Logan thought, remembering the postcard.

The griffin cub jumped down to the floor, landing on quiet cat feet. She sat on her haunches and neatly lifted the bracelet out of Logan's hand with one claw. The elephant charm glowed against her dark fur as she turned the bracelet cautiously from side to side.

Beautiful treasure,
Clink breathed softly in Logan's mind.
So delicate. Very important to someone. Full of meaning.
Her black eyes were fierce and warm at the same time as she looked into Logan's face.
I will guard it with all the courage of my ancestors.

Suddenly Logan didn't feel guilty anymore. He knew she meant it. She would be gentle and careful with it. Mom's bracelet would be safer with Clink than anywhere in the world.

“May I see that?” Mr. Kahn asked Clink. She snapped her beak and glared at him, covering the bracelet between her front paws.

“It's okay,” Logan told her. “He's allowed.”

May look but may not touch,
insisted the griffin.

“She says you can look, but don't touch it,” Logan explained. Mr. Kahn nodded, and the griffin proudly displayed the gold charm bracelet.

“Where did you get this?” Mr. Kahn asked Logan. From most adults the question would have sounded accusing, but he only seemed curious.

Logan wanted the Kahns to know it was okay for Clink to have it, but without making Clink think the bracelet wasn't important or worth guarding. “It was my mom's. She's not around anymore, so I need someone brave to guard it for me. Someone who knows it's special.”

I do!
Clink insisted, drawing herself up like a Greek statue. Her chest feathers ruffled proudly.

Mr. Kahn gave Clink a small, respectful bow. “We know you will take good care of it until Logan's mother returns, Clink.”

Logan looked down at his sneakers, avoiding everyone's gaze.
Like that's ever going to happen.

“Will you stay for dinner, Logan?” Mr. Kahn asked, resting one hand on Logan's shoulder. “It's just spaghetti, but I think you've more than earned it.”

“
Just
spaghetti!” Mrs. Kahn protested. “I'll have you know I also defrosted turkey meatballs for you ungrateful lot.”

Clink perked up, swiveling her head toward Zoe's mom.

“Yes, you can have a meatball,” Mrs. Kahn said, smiling, “as long as you go back to your den without any more fussing.”

No more fussing,
Clink crooned.
Clink is a treasure guardian now.
She delicately draped the bracelet over a couple of large wing feathers and paced out of the garage, keeping one eye on the bracelet at all times.

“I'll go make sure that happens,” Mrs. Kahn said. “Oh, and I'll let the dragons know they can add Logan to the welcome list so we won't get any intruder alarms during dinner.” She hurried off.

“I just need to call my dad, but it should be fine,” Logan said to Mr. Kahn. He felt lucky they weren't kicking him out yet. Even with the scary person at the library and losing his mom's bracelet, this was still the best day he'd had in Xanadu. The best day he'd had since Mom left, actually.

A side door in the garage led right into Zoe's kitchen. It was huge and warm, with copper pots hanging from the ceiling, a mountain of mysterious gadgets piled on the drying rack by the sink, and two stoves crowded with covered saucepans. An herb garden was rioting in the bay window, effectively blocking the view of the driveway with winding green leaves and tiny red tomatoes. The room smelled like garlic bread and spaghetti sauce.

Logan nearly tripped over one of the hellhounds, who was lying sprawled across the heated, silvery gray stone floor. The large dog thumped his tail once and didn't even look up. Zoe frowned at him.

“Sheldon,” she said, “can't you even
pretend
to be a scary guard dog?”

Sheldon panted cheerfully at her.

“You can call your dad in there,” Blue said to Logan, pointing to an archway to the left. Beside it was a pass-through window to the next room, where Blue began stacking plates and mismatched silverware as Zoe handed them to him.

Logan went through the archway and found himself in a wide, open room. The quarter of it closest to the kitchen was a dining area filled with an enormous wooden table that looked like it had been a tree for a very long time. The surface was hacked and pitted like real wood, not smoothed over like most tables.

The rest of the space was a living room two steps down from the dining room. It stretched all the way to the far wall of the house, taking up most of the ground floor. It was covered in thick carpets, woven wall hangings of mythical creatures, comfortable-looking couches, enormous, floppy floor pillows, and what appeared to be hundreds of books—shoved into bookcases or sprawled across low tables or tucked into the corners of overstuffed armchairs.

There was no TV, but there were two things against the tall, sliding glass doors that reminded Logan of the mounted binoculars on the Skydeck at the top of the Sears Tower. The windows all looked out on the dark Menagerie, down the rolling grass hills to the lake glittering in the moonlight.

Logan sat in one of the large wooden chairs around the table, suddenly feeling exhausted. He pulled out his phone and dialed his dad's cell.

As always when Logan called, Dad answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Logan,” he said. “Sorry I'm not home yet.”

“That's okay,” Logan said. “Neither am I. One of my—” He stopped. It felt weird to say “friends.” Blue and Zoe weren't exactly his friends yet, were they? He wondered what they would say about that. “This guy at school invited me for dinner,” he said instead. “Is that okay?”

“Of course,” said his dad, sounding relieved. “That's great, Logan. No problem at all. What's his name?”

“Blue,” Logan answered. That seemed easier than trying to explain Zoe and her family. Besides, if his dad thought he was hanging out with a girl, he'd never hear the end of it.

His dad chuckled a little. “I've never met someone named Blue,” he said. “Is he cool?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Logan said, glancing at the pass-through with a grin. “Only the coolest people want to hang out with me.” Blue slid a pitcher of iced tea onto the bar and grinned back at Logan.

“All right, have fun,” said his dad. “I'll be home late, and out early tomorrow. But Sunday night, right? You, me, and the Bears?”

“You bet,” Logan said. “I'll probably be out a lot tomorrow, too.”

“With Blue?”

“Yeah, probably.” He hoped he'd be out looking for griffins, anyhow. Actually, even if he wasn't invited, he wouldn't let that stop him. He could look for griffin cubs on his own if he had to.

“All right, stay safe and have fun. I'll check on you when I get home tonight.”

“Don't work too hard,” said Logan. It was what he always said, but it had felt different to say it after Mom left. Like he kind of meant it more than he did before.

He hung up and glanced out at the Menagerie. One of the unicorns trotted out of the stable and stopped by the side of the lake, tossing its head so its silver mane rippled. Logan got up and walked around the table toward the window, then stopped short with a gasp.

He'd noticed the pile of brown fur when he came in, but he'd thought it was some kind of shaggy rug. Now he could see that it wasn't.

In the middle of the floor, sleeping on one of the enormous, pumpkin-colored pillows, was a woolly mammoth.

SEVENTEEN

Z
oe leaned against the kitchen counter and closed her eyes for a moment. Half the griffin cubs were back, but she certainly didn't feel half as stressed.
Either I left the gate unlocked by accident or someone snuck over to the enclosure later and unlocked it on purpose.

She wasn't even sure which one she wanted to be true.

“ZOE!” Keiko called from upstairs. “I know you're down there! Your stupid Skype is like FREAKING OUT! Get up here and turn it off!”

“It must be Ruby,” Dad said, looking up from the grapes he was chopping for the salad. “Tell her we said hi, and no, it's totally fine that she never Skypes or emails
us
, and we look forward to her next call when she runs out of money for all those textbooks she'll never read.”

“Do I have to talk to her?” Zoe sighed. “Last time she spent the whole call explaining why even a senile basilisk would appreciate it if I wore heels now and then.”

“I'll finish setting the table,” Blue said with his lucky-to-be-an-only-child grin.

Zoe hurried up the stairs. She could hear Skype pinging and blooping away on her laptop. In their room, Keiko was sprawled across her own bed, glaring at her math homework. Her long braids were clipped up so they looked like two extra ears on top of her head.

“Shut that thing up,” Keiko snapped.

“My day was great, thanks,” Zoe said. “And yours?”

“Oh, witty,” Keiko said. “And original. Like your fashion sense.” She closed her math book and pointedly stalked out of the room.

Thank you SO much, universe, for giving me TWO impossible sisters.
Zoe sat down at her desk and clicked on the
ANSWER WITH VIDEO
button. Immediately Ruby's face popped onto the screen, leaning in toward the camera. Ruby's eyes were fixed on the lower corner of her screen, where she could see herself on video, and she kept adjusting her head tilt to look as cute as possible.

“Hi, Ruby,” Zoe said, trying to sound upbeat. “Hey, your hair is blond again.” Ruby's asymmetrical pixie cut peaked on one side of her head. Heart-shaped rubies dangled from her ears, and a tiny ruby glittered in her nose. Zoe knew the earrings had been a present from Jonathan on Ruby's seventeenth birthday, but the epic tragedy of their relationship apparently hadn't stopped Ruby from wearing them.

“Zoe, what did you DO?” Ruby demanded. She squinted at the video screen. “And are you wearing flannel again? Didn't we talk about this?”

“We're about to have dinner, Ruby, so—”

“Stop right there,” Ruby said. “Dinner? How can you even think about having dinner when those griffin cubs are out there?”

Zoe took a deep, calming breath that didn't calm her down at all. There was only one person who would have told Ruby about the missing griffins.
Matthew, why would you do this to me?
“It's okay,” she said. “We've got three of them back already.”

“Yeah?” Ruby checked her teeth and rubbed a bit of lipstick off one of them. “Where were they?”

“The library, the bank, and—” Zoe couldn't think of a lie fast enough. “And this guy Logan's house.”

“Who's that?” Ruby asked. “Logan? He didn't see anything, did he?”

“He's just a guy in my class,” Zoe said. “Um. He's . . . kind of helping us. He can hear the griffin cubs, Ruby. It's pretty amazing.”

“Oh, no,” Ruby said, jabbing her finger at the screen. “No, sir. You know the rules, Zoe! I don't care how cute he is. You don't want to get your heart broken like mine, do you?”

Zoe was really, tremendously over hearing about Ruby's heartbreak. “I never said he was cute!” she protested. “It's not like that. I barely know him. He's been useful, that's all.”

“But you're not going to let him leave knowing about the Menagerie, are you?”

That's ironic. Ironic and unfair,
Zoe thought bitterly.

“Ruby, I have to go to dinner.” She reached for the mouse.

“ZOE!” Ruby yelled. “Do you have any idea what's at stake here? Do you know what'll happen if SNAPA finds out those cubs got loose?”

“Of course I do,” Zoe said. “They'll shut down the Menagerie. I don't want that, either, Ruby.” It was true—as much as she sometimes wished for a normal life, she would never risk the Menagerie for anything.

“It's not just that,” Ruby said, a little triumphantly. “Mom and Dad don't want you to know, but I think you should. Ever since that whole thing in the Amazon last year, SNAPA policy is to terminate any escaped creatures on sight.”

Zoe froze with one hand on the mouse. She felt like all the air had been sucked out of her.

“Exterminators?” she said. “You mean they're real?”

“All I know is the new policy,” Ruby said. “If they find any griffin cubs outside the walls, they'll kill them. They might even kill the ones you already brought back, to make sure they don't cause trouble again.”

“That doesn't make sense,” Zoe cried. “They're a
protection
agency! It's right there in the name.”

“Protecting the secret of all the animals is more important than keeping one or two alive,” Ruby said, shaking her head so the earrings flashed. “And if they find out about your boyfriend, it'll be much worse. Who knows what they might do to him? I totally understand your feelings, Zoe, but you have to be strong, like I was.”

“It's nothing like Jonathan,” Zoe said, irritated. “Logan is just a friend.”
And he's not an enormous thieving jerk, either.

“You can talk to me, Zoe,” Ruby said. She tilted her head and put on her concerned older-sister expression. “Obviously I understand what you're going through better than anyone.”

“You really, really do not,” Zoe said.

“Well, okay,” Ruby said. “I mean,
I
never lost any of the Menagerie animals, so
that
part I can't relate to, but I do know what it's like to give up something you love.” She sighed dramatically.

“GOOD-BYE, RUBY.” Zoe clicked off before Ruby could make her feel worse, and then closed her laptop so Ruby couldn't call back.

Was it true? Would SNAPA kill the griffin cubs if the agents found out they'd escaped? Zoe rubbed at her temples, trying to erase her headache. And what would they do if they found out about Logan? Or what if Logan went home tonight and told someone about the griffins, even after promising he wouldn't? How much did she really know about this guy anyway? Could they trust him with something so important?

She went slowly back down the stairs, studying her dad from above. He'd been acting surprisingly calm about the griffin escape—he and Mom had been so busy with all the other SNAPA fixes they had to get done—but now that she looked, she could see that his hair had gotten crazier as the day went on, which was always a bad sign. It poked up in wild tufts all over his head, and he wasn't whistling over the salad like he normally would be.

She glanced at the bread box, and then out at Logan, who was talking to Blue in the living room.

I like him, but he's a liability,
she thought.
Like Jonathan. As long as he knows about the Menagerie, everything here is in danger.

Maybe I can't get the griffin cubs back right now . . . but at least there's one thing I can do to protect us all.