“I was thinking about it last night,” Zoe said. She touched the side pocket of her backpack as if checking that something was still there. “She has a cup of tea on her desk every day after school. You can distract her while I slip the kraken ink into it.”
“No!” Logan said, a bit louder than he’d meant to. A couple of eighth graders turned to stare at him, and he buried his head in his locker, pretending to be searching for a pencil.
“I won’t get caught,” Zoe whispered. “I’ll be careful.”
“That’s not the problem,” Logan said, keeping his voice as low as he could. “You can’t go around wiping people’s memories without knowing what you’re erasing.”
Zoe looked down and fiddled with her backpack straps. “Logan, I already said I was sorry for trying to give it to you. But Miss Sameera is different—we know she saw two of the griffins and she’s trying to tell people about it. Matthew and his Tracker camp friends would call her a ‘clear and present threat.’ This is exactly why we have the kraken ink—and why we’re always shipping cartons of it out to the other menageries.”
“No,” Logan said again, shaking his head. He’d come way too close to losing his memories of Squorp and the Menagerie, along with his chance to become friends with Zoe and Blue. It made his stomach hurt when he thought that he might never have known about his mother’s secret Tracker work. “Promise me you won’t use that stuff until we find out exactly what she knows.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Zoe demanded.
Luckily the bell rang before Logan had to admit he had no idea. He glanced down the hall at the library before following Zoe into Mr. Christopher’s homeroom.
Miss Sameera was watching them with bright, curious eyes.
It was torture trying to stay awake for the rest of the morning. Logan drew dragons in all his notebooks, thinking about how to find the eighth werecreature and whether that might be Pelly’s attacker, and missed every question the teachers threw at him. He could see Zoe’s eyes drooping, too, all through English and science and history. Marco actually fell asleep and clonked his forehead onto his desk, which was hugely amusing to the rest of the class and not so much to Ms. McCaffrey.
At lunchtime, Logan hesitated in the doorway of the cafeteria. It smelled like overboiled pasta and burned meat sauce. His feet instinctively wanted to take him over to his usual table, with the band geeks who talked about South Park and ignored him. It was lonely and boring, but it was familiar, and he knew they wouldn’t chase him away or give him weird what are you doing here? looks.
He scanned the room for Blue and Zoe, realizing he wasn’t sure where they normally sat or if they’d want him to join them. Maybe chasing griffins all weekend was one thing, but hanging out at school was another.
There weren’t a lot of tables where girls sat with boys; mostly it was one or the other. He saw Keiko at a table of sixth graders, examining a circle of their lunches and deciding which one she wanted while they all waited with somewhat worshipful expressions. Maybe I should look up what a kitsune can do before she tries any fox tricks on me, he noted.
Marco sat at the table with all the football and soccer guys from both seventh and eighth grade. They were the loudest group in the room. Marco was already mixing some kind of horrible “I dare you to drink this” concoction into one of the cafeteria glasses, while the rest of the soccer team hooted and offered suggestions.
“Ketchup!”
“Orange juice!”
“Chocolate syrup! GROOOOOOOSS!”
Logan couldn’t see Zoe or Blue anywhere. He scrunched the top of his brown paper bag in his fist. Having no friends during class wasn’t so bad, but the cafeteria always made him feel especially lame. It was the only part of Xanadu that made him wish they’d stayed in Chicago.
“Hey.” Blue appeared at Logan’s side and nudged his elbow. “This way.”
Logan tried not to be obvious about the wave of relief that swept over him. He followed Blue through a side door to a shaded courtyard with two small trees in it. Their leaves were turning bright gold and purplish red. Three stone tables with attached benches were spread around the edges. Zoe was the only other person there, sitting at the table under the tree with red leaves. Her lunch was shoved to one side and she was writing furiously in her notebook.
“We’re allowed to eat out here?” Logan asked.
“Yeah,” Blue said. “Usually it’s full of eighth graders, but they all go inside once it gets cold, so we wait until they’re gone to use it.” He slid onto the bench opposite Zoe and unpacked a tuna fish sandwich and a small bag of dried seaweed.
“Weird,” Logan said, pointing at Blue’s seaweed as he sat down next to him.
“You mean awesome,” Blue said with a grin.
“So I’m afraid the next step is to talk to Keiko again,” Zoe said without looking up from her notebook. “I know she’s mad, but if we apologize enough, maybe she can tell us more about the other werecreature and if she knows who it was.” She sighed. “It’d be really nice if we could figure it out without her, though.”
“Get ready to do a lot of sixth-grade math,” Blue said.
“Why don’t you do her math homework?” Zoe asked. “You’re just as good at it as I am.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is better,” Blue said, flapping his seaweed at her. “But that sounds an awful lot like work, and I’m sure my dad wouldn’t approve.” He grinned at her frown.
“Oh, here you are, Blue!”
They all froze as Jasmin sauntered into the courtyard. She looked perfectly put together, as always, in a white turtleneck and fake-fur-trimmed candy-pink vest with a black skirt, black leggings, and pink boots. Her long, dark hair was clipped back into a low ponytail. Ignoring Zoe and Logan, she slid onto the tiny edge of the bench on the other side of Blue and leaned one of her elbows on the table.
“Um,” Blue stammered. “Hi, Jasmin.”
Logan glanced across at Zoe. She was twisting her hand around her wrist, the way she always did when she was nervous, and he suddenly remembered the friendship bracelet the last griffin cub had buried. The one that reminded Zoe of Jasmin—the one she probably used to wear every day, until they couldn’t be friends anymore.
“So I was thinking,” Jasmin said to Blue, “maybe a knight isn’t such a good idea after all. It’s like cooping you up in a big tin can, even though my matching warrior princess costume is pretty awesome. How about we go as superheroes instead? I could be the Black Widow and you could be Aquaman.”
Blue choked on his sandwich and Logan had to thump him on the back.
“I’m just kidding.” Jasmin giggled. “I wouldn’t make you wear Aquaman tights, don’t worry. Maybe Hawkeye? He’s the one with the bow and arrow, right? That guy was pretty cute in the Avengers movie. And he’s probably got the best costume, as long as nobody thinks you’re Robin Hood.”
“Um,” said Blue.
“Great! I’ll see what I can find.” Jasmin gave him a sweet smile and let her hand rest briefly on his shoulder, then got up and sailed back into the cafeteria.
“Oh my gosh,” said Zoe.
“This is your fault,” Blue said to Logan.
“Oh, no,” said Logan. “I’m so sorry a pretty, popular girl is paying attention to you.” He did actually feel a bit guilty, but not for Blue. He felt bad for Jasmin, who seemed to think something had changed when Blue showed up at her front door on Sunday.
“You have to be nice to her,” Zoe said fiercely, poking Blue’s tuna sandwich with one of her carrot sticks.
“In what universe can you imagine me not being nice?” Blue demanded.
Zoe shook her head. “This is going to end badly,” she muttered. She flipped to a new page in her notebook. “We should come up with other ways to prove Scratch’s innocence, in case we don’t find the werewolf by Thursday. Mom and Dad checked the width of the claw marks on the door and said it’s inconclusive—they could be from a dragon Scratch’s size, or they
could be something Aliya did a while ago that we never noticed, or it could be something else altogether. So that doesn’t help us.”
“Wouldn’t the other birds have freaked out if a dragon opened the roc door, came flapping in, ate one of them, and flapped out again?” Logan asked. “Wouldn’t they have made the kind of noise they did when we found the crime scene? And wouldn’t someone have heard that?”
“Good point,” Zoe said. “I asked the same thing, and Dad says it looks like someone used the tranquillity mist on them that night.”
“One of the switches to turn on the mist is up by Aliya’s door,” Blue pointed out. “But I don’t know. A dragon on a hunting mission? Not usually that stealthy.”
“Seriously,” Logan said. “Between that and hacking the security system, it seems like it had to be someone Mostly Human. The agents have to see that.”
“Or maybe someone was helping Scratch,” Zoe said, rubbing her eyes.
“What about Nero?” Logan asked. “Did you talk to him? Did he see anything?”
“Nero is being an annoying basket case,” Zoe said. “I mean, way, way worse than usual. If any of us go anywhere near him, he shrieks something like, ‘No one is safe! They’ll come for me next!’ and poof—flames, smoke, pile of ashes with an egg in it.”
“I bet he’s outraged that everyone is so upset about Pelly,” Blue observed. “Typical Nero, he’d like a little more attention back on himself.”
“Or maybe he really did see something,” Logan said. “Maybe he’s afraid of what might happen to him if he talks.”
“You haven’t been putting up with his hysterics for years,” Blue said. “This kind of attention seeking is really pretty normal for Nero.”
“We’ll calm him down eventually,” Zoe said. “But he would have been knocked out by the tranquillity mist when it happened anyway, so I doubt he’ll be much use.”
“AHA!”
Logan jumped and nearly fell off the bench as Marco came bounding into the courtyard.
“You guys are hard to find! Man, it is cold out here! Is that seaweed? Can I have some?” Marco plunked himself down next to Zoe and took a piece of Blue’s seaweed. “Whose lunch is this?” He opened Zoe’s lunch bag and started poking through the Tupperware containers. “Sometimes it seems like Mom thinks I can live on corn, which, don’t get me wrong, I love it, but come on, even a wererooster needs real food sometimes, like—what’s this? Vegetable lasagna? Can I have it?”
“Um . . . sure,” Zoe said, pushing her hair behind her ears.
“Awesome, thanks.” Marco stuffed half the lasagna in his mouth while the others stared at him. After a minute he paused and pulled an apple juice out of his backpack. “So I told my mom about that thing,” he said to Zoe as if their conversation in the hallway that morning had just taken a brief break. “And she was all, what did you tell them! And I was like, nothing they didn’t already know! Except maybe about our pancake breakfast tradition. And she was like, come home right away after school! We thought something had eaten you! And I was like, well, nice of you to finally worry about that for once, and she was like, no, I mean a specific thing, because we saw it running through the woods, and I was like, ooo, if it’s a werewolf, I totally know some folks who are looking for him, and she said, what do we know about these friends of yours and how do you know none of them eat roosters and I was like OBVIOUSLY THEY DO NOT EAT ROOSTERS, MA, GIVEN THAT I’M STILL TOTALLY NOT EATEN OVER HERE, NO THANKS TO YOU, plus I pointed out that you completely rescued me, basically, and so, long story short, want to come over after school? Mom wants to meet you guys.”
Logan couldn’t believe Marco hadn’t spilled the beans on his family to someone before now. He reminded Logan of the time the water heater in their Chicago apartment bathroom got a hole in it—his dad had been trying to “fix” it—and there was an instant geyser that sprayed all over the tiles and ceiling and it was practically impossible to turn it off. The way Marco talked was kind of like that, in that it was both unstoppable and hilarious.
Mom was home when that happened, Logan thought. Not off on a “business trip” hunting mythical animals. He remembered her laughing and laughing, her hair dripping wet as she tried to plug the hole, while Dad kept insisting it wasn’t funny.
“Wait,” Zoe said, grabbing Marco’s arm. “They saw a werewolf? Did you say they saw a werewolf?”
“She was kind of yelling,” said Marco, “so I’m not sure, but she saw something, so maybe? Come on over and you can ask. I promise they don’t bite.” He burst out laughing. “I mean, except when they do, of course, but usually they don’t when they’re people. Okay, maybe Elena, but she’s pretty slow, so I think you could get away from her.”
“If they saw the eighth werecreature,” Logan said, “maybe this is our way to find out who it is without Zoe having to do a bunch of extra homework.” He slid his oatmeal raisin cookies across the table and grinned as Marco wolfed them down.
Zoe got up, pulling out her phone. “Let me check with my parents.”
Logan guessed she was going to ask how much she could reveal about the Menagerie. He figured a werefamily had to know a thing or two about keeping secrets, even—or maybe especially—with a loudmouth like Marco in the mix.
He just hoped for Scratch’s sake that they really had seen a werewolf . . . and that they could lead the Menagerie right to it.
TWELVE
Marco’s house was set off by itself, far back from the road. It was tall and painted dark red, with a wide porch across the front and along one side. Toys littered the porch and the yard. Logan stepped carefully over a space blaster, a Barbie with teeth marks all over her arms, a punctured basketball, and several discarded costume hats, including a princess tiara, a cowboy hat, and a purple beret.
On the path leading up to the door was a chalk outline of hopscotch, decorated around the edges with what appeared to be vampire bats and drooling zombies, which were themselves embellished with flower headdresses in a different color of chalk, which were then scribbled out. Little word bubbles came out of the zombies with notes like: STOP DRAWING FLOWERS ON ME OR I WILL EAT YOUR BRAINS! and NINA’S BRAINS ARE MY LUNCH! and NINA, STOOOOOP! and AAAAAARGH!
Logan, Zoe, and Blue followed Marco up the steps. Marco kicked aside a couple of newspapers and a toy trumpet and reached for the doorknob.
The front door flew open.
A black bear stood in the frame, up on its hind legs, baring its teeth at them.
“ROAR!” it bellowed.
Even though it was no bigger than Logan, and even though he immediately knew this must be Marco’s brother Carlos, Logan still felt his heart thump in his throat for a moment.
Marco picked up one of the newspapers and flung it at the bear, bonking it on the nose. “Carlos, go away! Nobody here is scared of you!”
The bear dropped to all fours and shambled back into the house, grumbling.
“MA!” Marco hollered, leading the way inside, into a cluttered living room that was twice as crowded with stuff as the yard and the porch. Taylor Swift music thumped from a room down the hall and a vacuum cleaner droned upstairs. “Carlos is answering the door as a bear again!”
The vacuum cleaner stopped and a short, plump, dark-haired woman wearing bright parrot green came clattering down the stairs. “Marco!” She grabbed Marco’s shoulders and smushed him into her for a giant hug.
“Mooooooom, you already hugged me this morning when you dropped off my bag,” Marco complained.
“I will hug you as many times as I want to,” Mrs. Jimenez said sternly. “I am the mother. It is one of my privileges.” She gave Logan and the other two a suspicious look.
“MAMI!” shrieked a female voice from the room down the hall. “Carlos is poking his nose in my garbage can! Gross! Stop that!” There was a series of thumps.
“Nina, stop throwing shoes at your brother!” Marco’s mom shouted. “And don’t you dare—”
There was an even louder thump and the sound
of furniture overturning.
“Oh, you did not!” hollered Marco’s mom, letting go of Marco and storming down the hall.
“MOOOM! MOOOM! MOOOM!” screamed a different female voice. “She’s stepping on my clothes! MOOOOOOOOM, SHE SQUISHED MY LADYBUG BOOTS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” The voice escalated into a full-blown wail.
Marco chased after his mom. “You’ll want to see this,” he called back to the others.
When Logan reached the doorway of what turned out to be a small back bedroom, he nearly ran straight into the long, serious face of a giant moose. Behind the moose, a bookshelf had been knocked over and books were scattered across the Minnie Mouse rug. The moose had one antler caught on the top rail of a bunk bed, where a little girl, maybe three or four years old, was sitting up close to the ceiling, hugging a Dora the Explorer pillow and bawling. The edge of a red rain boot stuck out from under one of the moose’s giant feet. The black bear was backed into a corner beside a tipped-over trash can and a pink karaoke machine, growling at the moose.
“ENOUGH!” bellowed Marco’s mom. “We do not fight as animals in this house! We use our words! Everyone back to human right now.”
The moose gave Logan a pointed look. He’d never seen a moose up close before; he couldn’t even remember seeing one in a zoo or anything. It was absolutely gigantic.
Marco’s mom eyeballed the moose. “What are you waiting for, young lady?”
“She can’t change back in front of boy-oy-oys,” sobbed the girl on the top bunk. She pointed to a ripped pile of clothes under the moose’s feet.
“Oh, right,” Marco said. He shepherded Logan and Zoe and Blue down the hall to the living room. “Sit, sit,” he said, waving at the sagging couch, which was shrouded in a sheet that was so covered in fur that Logan couldn’t tell at first whether it was gray, black, or brown, and then he figured out that it was actually green under all that. Marco whisked the sheet away, revealing a slightly less fur-covered mustard-yellow couch, and bounded off to the kitchen. A few clanging noises suggested he was stuffing the cover into a washing machine.
The Menagerie #2 Page 8
