Krakens and Lies

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “Oh my God,” Jasmin said. She scrambled to her feet and stared at the mammoth. “Oh my God.”

  Fuzzbutt trumpeted again, eyeing Jasmin warily.

  “She’s a friend,” Logan said, although a week ago that was just about the last thing he’d thought he’d ever say about Jasmin Sterling. He stroked the Captain’s trunk between his eyes.

  “It’s true,” Zoe said, coming into the room with Blue. She set the smoothie down on the table and came over to lean against the mammoth’s side. “I love her, Captain. She’s safe.” Logan felt the Captain’s breathing start to slow down. He held out his trunk and Zoe took the end of it in her hand.

  “First of all,” Jasmin said, “no one who loves me would ever make me drink whatever that is. And second of all: Zoe! THERE IS A MAMMOTH IN YOUR HOUSE.”

  “I was trying to save your life,” Zoe argued. “And his name is Captain Fuzzbutt.”

  Jasmin stared at Zoe for a long minute. And then she started laughing.

  “Zoe!” she said, wiping away tears of laughter. “Okay, now I know he’s yours. Remember that toy elephant I gave you for your sixth birthday?”

  “Colonel Flopnose!” Zoe said. “Of course I do. She’s on my shelf between When You Reach Me and Walk Two Moons.”

  Jasmin looked at Zoe, and then her eyes started to fill with real tears. “Zoe,” she said.

  A heartbeat later, Zoe was across the room with her arms around Jasmin. The two girls leaned into each other, crying. Blue edged around them and flopped down on one of the beanbags. Logan shifted uncomfortably and focused on patting the Captain’s side.

  “I miss you,” Jasmin sobbed.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” Zoe said. “I’m sorry, Jasmin. I’m so so sorry.”

  “I still don’t know what I did,” Jasmin said, pulling back and wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Was it because of Jonathan and Ruby breaking up? We always knew that would happen.”

  “No, it’s—it was all—this,” Zoe said, waving one hand at the mammoth and the rolling grassy hills of the Menagerie outside the glass doors. “It’s complicated.”

  One of the unicorns chose that moment to gallop past as though its tail was on fire.

  Jasmin blinked several times, then rubbed her eyes hard. “Did I—was that—?”

  “What do we do now?” Blue asked Zoe. He leaned back with his arms behind his head. Logan tried to match his coolness by leaning casually on Captain Fuzzbutt, but the mammoth shifted sideways and he nearly fell over.

  “Don’t kick me out,” Jasmin said. She whirled and grabbed Zoe’s hands. “Don’t stop talking to me again. Please, Zoe.”

  “Maybe she can help,” Logan said. “With your . . . other problem.” Would Jasmin be willing to help them stop her parents? Was it too risky to involve her? He didn’t know her as well as Zoe did. For one thing, he would never have expected to see her cry, and he still felt a little nervous that she might write snide things about them on Twitter later. But if Zoe decided to trust her, he would, too.

  “Yes, maybe I can help!” Jasmin said. “Besides, if Mr. Random over there can be friends with your mammoth, why can’t I?”

  That sounded more like the Jasmin Logan was used to.

  A high-pitched squeal went off in the kitchen, followed by static and then a crackling noise, and then Matthew calling, “ZOE! ZOE! PICK UP!”

  Zoe hurried into the kitchen and grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Matthew?”

  “There’s been an accident at the Reptile House!” Matthew shouted.

  “I knew it!” Blue yelled, surging to his feet. “The pyrosalamanders have escaped! This was their sinister master plan all along! Evacuate the town! Evacuate the state!”

  “BLUE, SHUSH!” Zoe hollered at him. “Matthew, what happened?”

  “It’s Basil.” The walkie-talkie hissed and crackled again. “Something blew a hole in his cage and now he’s gone! He’s somewhere in the Menagerie!”

  Logan saw Zoe turn the color of chalk. He remembered the ancient-looking giant lizard from the Reptile House—the one Zoe had to put to sleep before they could go in to feed the salamanders. He also remembered her saying something about how it was the most dangerous animal in the Menagerie.

  “The what?” Jasmin said.

  Blue took the walkie-talkie from Zoe’s hand. “What about the pyrosalamanders? Are the pyrosalamanders contained?”

  “Yes, Blue, they’re all in their cages, half-asleep as always,” Matthew said in an irritated voice. “Can you please try to wrap your mind around the fact that there is a basilisk on the loose somewhere?”

  “Oh, thank Neptune,” Blue said. He saw the look on Zoe’s face and added, “I mean, that’s bad, too.”

  “Basilisk?” Jasmin said. “He didn’t just say basilisk, did he?”

  “We have to find him,” Zoe said, sounding completely panicked. She took the walkie-talkie back. “Do you have any idea where he is?”

  “The hole is in the west wall, so he could have gone toward the dragons or the lake,” Matthew said. “Or . . .”

  “Into the river that leads out of the Menagerie,” Zoe said. She started pacing up and down the living room.

  “Wait,” Jasmin said. “Dragons?”

  “Oh no,” Zoe said, biting her nails. “Oh no oh no oh no. Blue, did the merpeople ever fix the hole in the grate?”

  Blue shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Knowing mermaids, I think we can assume they didn’t,” Zoe said.

  “MERMAIDS?” Jasmin said.

  “Should I call Mom and Dad?” Captain Fuzzbutt made an “oooooorgh” noise and sidled into her path so Zoe had to stop pacing and hug him. “Matthew, what do we do? Oh! The emergency kit!” She ran over to the big table and slid out a hidden drawer.

  “Is it that terrible?” Logan asked. “Can’t you use your rooster ringtones to just knock him out and drag him back?”

  “You have to be at fairly close range for the rooster crow to work, especially because our basilisk is four hundred and practically deaf,” Zoe said, pulling things out of the drawer and spreading them across the table. “If any of us get close enough to use our cell phones, we’ll be close enough for Basil to make eye contact or hiss at us, and then we’re dead.”

  “I am so confused,” Jasmin said.

  “We take care of mythical creatures here,” Blue said to her. “It’s top secret; no one can know.”

  “Well, yeah, that makes sense,” Jasmin said. “Like, my dad would totally freak out if he knew there were dragons next door.” She stopped with a gasp and stared at Blue. “That map—the one in Dad’s study!”

  “Let’s deal with that crisis after we neutralize the killer lizard,” Zoe said. “Matthew! Are you still alive?”

  “I’m inside the Reptile House,” Matthew’s voice came back. “I’m trying to figure out whether a brave Tracker would charge out there and search for it, or whether a smart Tracker would stay put in here.”

  “I vote stay put,” Zoe said into the walkie-talkie.

  “Says the twelve-year-old who’s about to hunt it down armed with what, earplugs and a sleep mask?” Matthew said. “I know you, Zoe. Don’t do something dumb.”

  Zoe regarded the sleep mask in her hand thoughtfully.

  “Basilisks are totally deadly,” Blue said to Jasmin.

  “I know about basilisks,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I read fantasy, Blue.”

  “You stay here, put a blanket over your head, and wear these,” Zoe said, handing Jasmin a pair of earplugs.

  Logan had a funny wave of emotions all at once: pride, that Zoe wasn’t telling him to stay put, which meant she thought he could be useful, but also terror, because deadly killer lizard.

  “Absolutely not,” Jasmin said. “I know what to do with a basilisk. And if there are mermaids in danger, I am so there. I am so there for saving mermaids!” She pulled a compact out of her back pocket. “Besides, I have this. Check me out. Do any of you have mirrors
in your pockets? If so, you clearly never use them. I’m just kidding.” She burst into giggles.

  “Jasmin, this is serious!” Zoe cried. “Do you know what I would do if anything happened to you?”

  “Something appropriately dramatic and grief-stricken, I hope,” Jasmin said. “Now, do you have a rooster?”

  “Of course we do not have a rooster,” Zoe said, and then stopped as if struck by lightning.

  “What do you mean, of course you don’t have a rooster?” Jasmin said. “You have a mammoth and a unicorn and apparently a horde of menacing salamanders. A rooster does not seem that unlikely, in context.”

  Zoe turned to Logan and he saw a gleam in her eye. “Marco,” she said.

  “Yes!” Logan agreed. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of their wererooster friend himself.

  “Oh, poor Marco,” said Blue. “Not again.”

  “Is there literally a single more useful thing he could do in his entire life?” Zoe asked, pulling out her phone and heading into the kitchen. “He’ll be the hero, he’ll love it. And we’re not even in school, so his mom can’t yell at him.”

  “Marco knows about this place?” Jasmin said. “Okay, now I’m seriously offended. Marco?”

  “There’s . . . a little more to him than you might expect,” Blue said.

  “Like he owns a rooster, you mean? Yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

  Logan and Blue glanced at each other. Logan wasn’t sure whether it would be okay with Marco for them to reveal his secret.

  “Sure, okay, he owns a rooster,” Blue said, in his “I’m lying, but obviously, so now we both know it and let’s move on” voice.

  Jasmin pulled out her ponytail, shook her hair loose, and then pulled it back up again like she was preparing for battle. “Well, I’m ready,” she said. “Point me at this basilisk.”

  “We have to figure out where he is first,” Logan said. “Right, Blue?”

  “Let’s check the video monitors,” Zoe said, barreling through the room toward Melissa’s office. “Marco’s on his way. Blue, where is your mom?”

  “She had a meeting at the bank this morning,” Blue said. “I think we’re the only ones here.”

  “Except your dad!” Zoe said, alarmed. She stopped at the door to Melissa’s office. “They’re right there! The basilisk could be at the lake already! We have to warn them!”

  “I’m on it,” Blue said. He hurried out of the room and they heard his footsteps thumping up the stairs. Logan pointed questioningly after him.

  “They have a communication device linked up in Blue’s room,” Zoe explained.

  “Does the basilisk’s power work on the creatures?” Logan asked as he and Jasmin went after Zoe into the office. He scanned the bank of screens and shivered. “Are the griffins safe?”

  “It only works on people-creatures, not animals,” Zoe said. “Although it can make the talking ones kind of sick and sleepy for a while by looking at them.”

  “Oh, wow,” Jasmin breathed, leaning over Zoe’s shoulder to study the screens. “No way. That is really a dragon.”

  In the top left screen, Clawdius was sitting outside his cave, frowning down at the Menagerie. Smoke spiraled up from his nostrils and he looked decidedly concerned. After a moment, he took a step backward, and then another, and then he backed all the way into his cave and vanished in the dark.

  “I bet he knows Basil is loose,” Zoe said. “Thanks for the warning, Clawdius! Sheesh.”

  “Dragons,” Jasmin said, shaking her head. “So unreliable.”

  “That’s what Blue always says!” Zoe said. “Oh, you’re joking.”

  Logan was searching each screen for anything that looked like a person-sized iguana. There wasn’t a lot of movement in the Menagerie at the moment. The griffins were all inside their cave—maybe their parents could sense the danger, too. Inside the Aviary, the birds were fluttering around, but the basilisk probably wouldn’t get in there. There was no sign of Mooncrusher by the ice garden, and nothing moved in the Dark Forest.

  No sign of the basilisk anywhere.

  “Wait,” he said, leaning forward. “Zoe, look. Is that—is one of the islands in the lake—it looks like it’s swimming. That’s not the kraken, is it?” He suddenly remembered his first day in the Menagerie, when he’d thought he’d seen one of the two islands move. He’d forgotten about that until now.

  “No, it’s just the zaratan,” she said distractedly.

  “Oh,” Logan said.

  Jasmin caught his eye and grinned. “Just the zaratan,” she said. “Obviously.”

  “I should have guessed,” he said, smiling back.

  “Me too,” she said. “I just had him over to tea, after all.”

  “Are you guys being sarcastic?” Zoe asked, glancing over her shoulder at them.

  “Not at all,” Jasmin said innocently. “Everyone knows what a zaratan is. I think we learned about them in between polynomials and semicolons.”

  “Okay, smart aleck,” Zoe said. “It’s a giant turtle, like, really giant, and it can live for about a thousand years. They’re really good at acting like islands and staying inconspicuous.” She zoomed in on the shot of what looked like a mossy green island slowly perambulating across the lake. “Wait. Do you guys see what I see?”

  Something long and gray was draped across the zaratan’s shell.

  “There he is,” Zoe yelped. “He’s on top of the zaratan. Oh, man. The mermaids really are in danger. I hope Blue reached his dad.” She started biting her nails again. “Basilisks are good swimmers. He could slide off the zaratan and swim out through the river any minute. If he gets out into Xanadu—”

  “Stop that,” Jasmin said, swatting Zoe’s hand away from her mouth. “How do we get to it? Is there a boat?”

  “There is,” Zoe said. “But we should wait for Marco. But do we have time to wait for Marco? What if Basil escapes before he gets here? But we can’t go out there by ourselves; it’s way too dangerous. What would Abigail do?”

  It took Logan a moment to realize that (a) Zoe was talking about his mom and (b) she wasn’t asking him, she was talking to herself. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples furiously.

  “Who’s that?” Jasmin asked, pointing at one of the screens. “Is she a mermaid?”

  With a sickening drop in his stomach, Logan saw Keiko sauntering out of the Dark Forest and along the path around the lake. She was wearing her white kimono. Her fox tail was out and swishing along proudly behind her.

  “Wait,” Jasmin said. “Zoe, isn’t that . . .”

  “Keiko!” Zoe yelped. “I am the worst sister ever! I completely forgot about her!” She leaped up. “We have to go get her. With her fox hearing, she might even be able to hear Basil from where she is now.”

  To her credit, Jasmin did not ask a million fox-related questions. She just raced after Zoe as Zoe hurtled into the living room and started grabbing earplugs for all of them.

  “Jasmin, won’t you please stay here?” Zoe asked.

  “No way,” Jasmin said. “Can you remember the last time you were able to stop me from doing something?”

  “Fine,” Zoe said. “Logan, what about you? You don’t have to do anything this dangerous. I promise it’s not in the Menagerie contract.” She shot him a smile that didn’t at all hide how worried she was.

  “You know perfectly well I’m coming with you,” he said, and felt that rush of warmth again at her grateful expression.

  “Blue!” Zoe shouted up the stairs. “Basil is on the zaratan and might be near the mermaids and Keiko is down by the lake and we’re going to rescue her so come with Marco as soon as he gets here, okay?”

  “Okay,” Blue called back, as if Zoe had said “pork chops for dinner tonight.”

  Zoe stuck the earplugs in her ears and slid open the glass doors. Outside it was chilly and a little windy. Logan could see ripples scudding across the lake, which reflected the overcast gray sky. It felt like the weather was saying, “Yes,
now it is November, suck it up.”

  Just like it had looked on the video screens, the Menagerie was eerily silent. No yelps of playful glee from the griffin enclosure; no splashing and catcalling from mermaids sunning themselves in the lake; no raucous squawking from the Aviary. A strange, skin-prickling aura of doom hung in the air.

  Logan fitted the earplugs into his own ears and wondered if they would really work. They looked like they’d been lifted from some airplane overnight flight kit.

  Jasmin stared around her with wide eyes as they hurried down the hill, going straight through the grass instead of following the path the golf cart usually took. She mimed This place is huge! at Zoe, and Zoe shrugged as if to say, Eh, it’s okay, but no secret passages like your house has.

  As they reached the lakeshore, Logan glanced out at the water and, with a shiver of horror, realized that the zaratan had vanished. Maybe it had figured out what was on top of it and submerged itself.

  But that meant the basilisk was nowhere to be seen.

  He reached to grab Zoe’s sleeve, but just then she spotted Keiko coming toward them.

  “Keiko!” she called, waving her arms frantically. “We have to get back to the house! Right now!” Logan was alarmed to realize he could hear her fairly clearly, although muffled somewhat by the earplugs.

  Her adopted sister stopped on the path several feet away and frowned. “Is that Jasmin Sterling?” she shouted. She sounded like she was speaking through a voice distorter, but she was still audible. Logan hoped that a basilisk’s hiss was much quieter than a truculent sixth grader.

  “Keiko, the basilisk has escaped!” Zoe cried. “We have to get out of here!”

  Keiko’s eyebrows shot up, and then, very suddenly, she was gone. A beautiful glossy red fox sat in her place; she eyed them archly and then went scampering up the hill toward the house.

  “Whoa. So, that was amazing,” Jasmin said, her voice reaching Logan as though she were miles away and underwater. “Is she a kitsune or a werefox?”

  “You do read too much fantasy,” Zoe said with delight. “And also I love you. Now we run back to safety.”