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
Zoe 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.
EIGHTEEN
“I know what you’re thinking,” Blue said, appearing at Logan’s elbow. “You’re thinking, ‘Wait, a mammoth’s not a mythical creature.’”
“Way too advanced,” Logan said. “My brain’s stuck back at ‘Hey, there’s a mammoth on the floor.’” His skin prickled with excitement. “I should ask you guys for a list so I won’t keep being surprised by everything.” Blue laughed.
The mammoth snorted and rolled sideways so its trunk flopped over the edge of the pillow. A small, honey-colored tusk poked out on either side of its trunk, and a furry tuft of brown hair hung over its eyes.
“All right, wait,” said Logan. “A mammoth’s not a mythical creature. They really existed, like, forever ago. Didn’t they?”
“Yup,” Blue said. “One of our best Trackers rescued him from some kind of cloning lab when he was only a month or two old. I mean, where else are you going to put a mammoth, right? I guess the Tracker thought the lab wasn’t safe for him.”
“That’s not a full-grown mammoth, is it?” Logan asked. From what he could tell, the animal on the floor was bigger than a horse, but not as big as he’d imagined a mammoth would be.
“Nah, the Captain’s only two years old,” Blue answered. “He’s not even elephant-sized yet. It is not going to be fun the day he crashes through the stairs and we have to explain why he can’t come sleep in the house anymore.”
Zoe came in with the glasses and began to set them around the table. “Zoe’s his favorite,” Blue added.
Zoe’s tense expression relaxed, and she grinned at the sleeping pile of mammoth. “He’s the best animal in the Menagerie,” she said. She put the last glass in place, hopped down into the living room, and knelt beside the mammoth. He wriggled closer to her, half dozing as she rubbed his side vigorously. In seconds her jeans were covered in long, brown hairs.
“Oh, hey,” Logan said. Now he recognized the smell in the room competing with the warm-food scents from the kitchen. “That’s what your—” He stopped. Maybe it wasn’t the best move to tell Zoe how weird her backpack smelled.
Zoe brushed at the fur on her hands with a rueful look. “I know; I’m always covered in this stuff although I roller my clothes like ten times a day.” She shrugged and hugged the mammoth. “Captain Fuzzbutt is worth it, though.”
Logan couldn’t help but agree. He wouldn’t care what he smelled like if he had something like this waiting for him at home.
Captain Fuzzbutt lifted his head and shook it like a dog, his ears flapping. He opened large brown eyes and raised his trunk to poke Zoe’s face. The soft end felt around for a minute, then lifted up in the air and turned like a periscope, twitching as if it was sniffing. His head flopped back down, and he rolled his eyes toward the boys.
His gaze landed on Logan and stopped. Suddenly the mammoth bolted to his feet, knocking Zoe sideways. The Captain stared at Logan for another moment, and then, all at once, he charged.
“Fuzzbutt!” Zoe shouted. “Stop!”
Logan only had a moment to see the sharp tusks coming at him and wonder if he’d be the first person in ten thousand years to be killed by a woolly mammoth. A second later he felt the furry trunk circle his waist and lift him straight off the ground. The room revolved as the mammoth rolled him in, and Logan ended up eye to eye with Captain Fuzzbutt.
His fear melted away. The mammoth’s expression was clearly delighted.
“Captain Fuzzbutt! Let him go before I demote you,” Zoe commanded. “That’s no way to treat a guest.”
Logan was swept with a new wave of dizziness as the creature lowered him back to the floor. The mammoth’s trunk patted Logan down, as though making sure he hadn’t done any damage. It stopped at Logan’s hand and poked his palm.
Logan laughed and held out his fist. The mammoth bumped it gently with the end of his trunk.
“Huh,” Mr. Kahn said from the kitchen doorway. “I’ve only seen him do that once before.”
Zoe kicked the carpet. “I’ve never seen him do that. Fuzzbutt is usually totally shy around strangers. I guess you have a special bond with mammoths, too, griffin whisperer.”
“Cool,” Logan said, reaching up to rub the Captain’s forehead between his eyes. He estimated the mammoth was about six feet tall, the same height as both his mom and his dad. Fuzzbutt rumbled low in his throat and patted Logan’s forehead with his trunk.
“Yeah,” Zoe said. “‘Cool.’ Now you just have to sweet-talk the kelpie. If she decides not to eat you, I’m seriously quitting this family and moving to New York.”
“What’s a kelpie?” Logan asked nervously.
“Don’t ask,” said Blue. “Better if you never meet her. She’s nastier than the unicorns.”
“And a smidge more murder-y,” Zoe said, squeezing past the mammoth to get back to the table. “But that’s how kelpies are.”
“Nonsense.” Zoe’s mom caught the tail end of the conversation as she came through the sliding door from the garden. “She just needs a little more positive-rewards-based training, that’s all.” The weird chirruping night noises of the Menagerie disappeared again as she thunked the door shut.
Zoe rolled her eyes at Logan. “You sit there,” she said, pointing to the chair opposite hers. Logan obeyed, and the mammoth flopped down next to him with a thump that made the whole house shake.
Logan’s glass of iced tea was already poured, but as he reached for it, Blue offered him the platter of garlic bread. Then there was salad and two giant bowls of pasta, one with meatballs and one without. He noticed that Zoe and her dad took the pasta without meatballs.
“Keiko!” Zoe’s mom yelled in the general direction of the front hall. “Dinner!”
“I’m not hungry!” a voice shouted from upstairs. Logan remembered the bad-tempered sixth grader who had been with Zoe and Blue earlier that day.
“Keiko lives here, too?” he asked.
“We adopted her last year,” Zoe said. “Yay.”
“Zoe,” her father said sternly.
“What?” she replied. “I said yay.”
“There are turkey meatballs!” Mrs. Kahn called sweetly.
“I hate turkey meatballs!” Keiko shouted back.
Mrs. Kahn sighed. Blue hid a smile.
“She’ll eat when she’s hungry,” said Zoe’s dad calmly. “Unlike Melissa, who could probably starve to death over her calculator and not even notice.” He unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “Melissa, put down Form B7504 and get in here.”
The walkie-talkie crackled, and a female voice said, “Form B7504? Who’s been eaten by a grindylow, and why don’t I know about this?”
“I was joking, Melissa,” Zoe’s father answered. “Dinner is ready.”
“Well, that’s hardly the same thing,” Melissa’s voice responded. “Please refrain from joking about forms in the future. Form B7504 is particularly complicated, with several subsections.”
Blue and Zoe exchanged amused looks. Logan jumped as a door opened on the far side of the living room. The blond woman in the perfect suit and pearls came out, still looking as neatly put together as she had earlier that day. She clipped across the carpets in her heels, studying a piece of paper in he
r hand, and nearly bumped into Matthew as he came through the sliding doors.
“The unicorns are out for their moonlight gallop,” Zoe’s brother reported. “And Nero is fully reborn and back to flapping around complaining about his accommodations. He wanted you all to see his new finery, though, so I let him out for a minute.” He pointed toward the window.
The phoenix came strutting past the glass, head held high, looking extremely pleased with himself.
Logan did a double take. The phoenix was wearing a miniature dark-blue hooded jacket that looked suspiciously familiar, apart from being bird sized.
Matthew and Blue hooted with laughter. “I had no idea that would happen,” Matthew said, wiping his eyes. “But it’s awesome. And he loves it, if that’s any consolation,” he added to Logan.
It sort of was, actually, Logan had to admit to himself. The phoenix swept off back to the Aviary, preening as he went.
Matthew sat down next to Zoe and helped himself to half the meatballs. “Also, Scratch ate hardly any of his dinner again, but he says he’s feeling fine.”
Zoe pulled out a small notebook and wrote something Logan couldn’t decipher; it looked like a string of triangles and squiggles, on a long list of other triangles and squiggles.
“Hi, Mom,” Blue said, pulling out the chair beside him. Melissa finally looked up from her paper and leaned in to kiss the top of his head. She froze, staring at Logan.
“Dear God,” she said. “That’s not Keiko.”
“It’s not?” Blue said, pretending to sound shocked. “It looks just like her! Hey, you, how did you get in here?”
“This isn’t funny, Blue,” Melissa said as Logan quickly swallowed his laugh. “You know the rules about inviting friends home.” Her gaze drifted down to the mammoth sprawled across the floor, and her eyes widened. She made a face at the Kahns, like The mammoth is right there! He’s going to notice it any second!
“It’s okay, Mom,” Blue said, tugging her into her seat. “This is Logan. Logan, this is my mom. He knows about the Menagerie. He’s helping us find the griffins.”
The Menagerie Page 9
