The Menagerie #2, Page 4

  Zoe turned to follow a path that wound around the giant lake. Ahead of her was a squat structure with a sloped roof. Snakes were carved all along the outside as if they were crawling out of the woodwork.

  As she reached the building’s front door, Blue stopped abruptly. Logan turned and saw a weird look on Blue’s face.

  “What?” Logan asked.

  “Um,” said Blue. “You know, actually, maybe I should—uh—go . . . investigate . . . something . . . somewhere else.”

  “Oh, come on, Blue,” Zoe called. “We have to feed them right now or else they’ll turn on each other and probably burn down the Reptile House. I promise they won’t bite. They literally don’t even have teeth.”

  “I know,” Blue said, shoving one hand in his pocket and shaking his hair out of his eyes. “I mean, that’s not even why. I just think I could do something more useful—uh, elsewhere.”

  “Whoa,” Logan said. “Something in there really freaks you out. What is it? Some kind of man-eating monster? Like a giant mythical flying crocodile?”

  “Basically,” Blue said.

  “Except for how it’s the opposite of that,” Zoe said, rolling her eyes. “Blue, if you don’t get in here, I’ll steal your phone and text Jasmin about what a great time you had this morning.”

  Blue pointed at her. “Low.”

  He shook out his fireproof suit and started putting it back on.

  “Should I do that, too?” Logan asked, alarmed.

  “Totally not necessary,” Zoe said. “The gloves can be helpful, but they’re really harmless, as long as you feed them on time every morning. Blue, seriously, of all the things in here to worry about—”

  “I’m not worried,” Blue said, muffled through the giant fireproof mask. “Carry on.”

  Zoe shook her head and pulled out her phone. She tapped a few buttons and stood looking at it for a moment, muttering, “Come on, come on.”

  “Are you . . . calling the giant flying crocodile?” Logan asked.

  “No, this is for the basilisk,” Zoe said. She tapped one more button, and her phone started crowing like a rooster. “There.” She hit the button again, opened the snake-covered door, threw her crowing phone inside, and slammed the door behind it.

  There was a pause.

  “Do I want to know what just happened?” Logan asked.

  “That should be long enough,” Zoe said. She opened the door again cautiously, waited a minute, and then stuck her head inside. “Yup.” She glanced back at Logan. “Do you know what a basilisk is?”

  “Some kind of lizard?” Logan guessed. “Wasn’t there one in Harry Potter?”

  “Right,” Zoe said. “Come on, I’ll show you what they really look like.”

  Logan glanced at Blue one more time and followed Zoe into the building. It was really dim inside, like a zoo or aquarium where the only light came from inside the animal cages. It took Logan’s eyes a moment to adjust.

  To his left, taking up most of one wall, was a glass enclosure that radiated heat. Its floor was covered in sand and a few large gray rocks. Conked out on the sand was a perfectly hideous giant lizard who was almost as long as Logan was tall. A spiky crest fanned out around the top of its head like a small crown, and its stumpy legs ended in thick claws. Its scales were grayish-green with white spots as if someone had splattered it with milk. Its eyes were closed and a weak snoring sound came from its snout, which lay on the sand in a puddle of drool.

  “You’re scared of that?” Logan said to Blue. “It looks like some kind of ancient grandpa lizard.”

  “That’s not what he’s afraid of,” Zoe said as Blue made a muffled grumbly noise. “Although Basil is probably the most dangerous animal in the Menagerie.” She picked up her phone and crouched to peer at the lizard through the glass. “If you look a basilisk in the eye, it kills you instantly. If you hear a basilisk hiss, it kills you instantly. If you smell a wide-awake basilisk—”

  “It kills you instantly?” Logan guessed.

  “No, but you’ll regret it for days,” Zoe said. “Trust me, I know. I couldn’t eat for a week the first time I got a whiff of one.” She pulled a lever on the side of the cage and a small door opened in the enclosure wall. A pile of fruit—kiwis, apples, and figs—tumbled onto the sand by the basilisk’s head, but it didn’t even stir.

  “So, the phone thing . . . ,” Logan said.

  “The sound of a rooster crowing knocks them unconscious,” Zoe said. “So we all got rooster ringtones. You should get one, too.”

  Logan liked the way she said that, as if she was sure he’d be sticking around.

  “Once we check that Basil is still breathing—he’s ridiculously old, like four hundred or something—and send his food in, we hit this button,” Zoe said. A panel slid down to cover the glass and hid the basilisk from sight. “It’s soundproof, too, so we can work in here without worrying about him waking up. Although he usually doesn’t, and even when he does he kind of wanders around bumping into the walls for a while before he finds the fruit.”

  Blue was leaning against the wall in a way that looked sort of casual and nonchalant, but also like he might suddenly bolt out the door any minute. Logan turned and scanned the rest of the room, but the other two walls were lined with long tables that only had small cages on them, not much bigger than the terrarium Logan had at home for his mice.

  “Where’s the man-eating crocodile?” Logan asked Blue.

  “Here,” Zoe said, lifting the top off one of the cages and sticking her hand in. A thin red lizard, about as long as a pencil and the same color as a tomato, emerged from the pile of pebbles inside and climbed up onto Zoe’s glove. Its small red tongue flickered in and out and it tilted its head at Logan, studying him with bright black eyes.

  Logan raised his eyebrows at Blue.

  “I never said man-eating,” Blue pointed out.

  “You never said adorable, either,” said Logan. “Are you afraid of all incredibly cute things, or only the ones smaller than your average banana?”

  “Oh, sure, it’s funny now,” Blue said as Zoe started laughing. “Pyrosalamanders are going to kill us all in our sleep one day. Look at that face. It’s got an evil plan.”

  The tiny lizard smiled serenely.

  “Pyrosalamanders?” Logan asked.

  “That’s what we call the fire-eating kind of salamander,” Zoe said. “The kind that counts as supernatural and has to be protected from the rest of the world.”

  “It’s the rest of the world that needs protecting from them,” Blue muttered, eyeing the lizard suspiciously.

  “They can be slightly bad tempered,” Zoe admitted. “Especially if they’re not fed regularly. Sorry we’re a bit late, little guy.” The salamander flicked its tail and stared at her. “But so far no menagerie in history has ever reported a salamander-related casualty.”

  “That’s because they’re biding their time,” Blue said. “Can we hurry up and get out of here?”

  Zoe nudged the pyrosalamander back into its rock pile. She unlocked a box on the table and took out a lighter, then picked up a twig from a pile of branches next to it, set it on fire, and dropped it into the cage. As she set the lid back on top, the salamander darted over to the fire and flung itself into the flames. Wriggling contentedly, it opened its mouth and started gobbling at the fiery air.

  “Whoa,” Logan said.

  “So creepy,” Blue said. “And sinister. Maybe they’re the ones who killed Pelly.” Zoe shot him a look. “Okay, probably not.”

  “I’m worried that it really might have been Scratch,” Zoe said. She moved to the next cage and lit another twig on fire. “How did he open his anklet? And how did he get past the electric fence?”

  “And how did he deactivate the security cameras?” Logan asked.

  She paused, watching the next salamander eat. “You think that’s connected? I thought maybe the update had a glitch in it.”

  “Wouldn’t Matthew have noticed that when he installed it?” Log
an pointed out. “It’s too weird that the cameras stopped working on the same night that the goose was murdered, or eaten or whatever. So is there a creature that can hack computers and also likes to eat oversized birds?”

  Zoe and Blue exchanged glances.

  “Something Mostly Human,” Blue said.

  “You heard my dad,” said Zoe. “He guessed it might be a werewolf.”

  “Could also be a werecougar,” said Blue. “Or a werebear. Weretiger. WERESALAMANDER.”

  “Blue, good grief,” said Zoe.

  Logan closed his eyes and thought about what he’d seen out the window the night before. “It was a full moon last night,” he said.

  “Well, a werecreature like a werewolf can become his wolf self anytime he wants to,” Zoe said. “But it’s true that during the three days around the full moon he has no choice—that’s when they all turn into wolves or whatever whether they want to or not, so they always lock themselves up for the night to be safe.”

  “Unless they’re new,” Blue said. “Or unregistered. Or both.”

  Logan picked up a twig and held it for Zoe to light, then dropped it in the next cage. “Could a new werewolf have found the Menagerie?”

  “Yeah, maybe by smell,” Zoe said. “Our deflector works best on humans, less well on other animals.”

  “Your what?” Logan said. He blinked. He couldn’t remember what he was asking about.

  “I think it’s safe to say the intruder alert failed,” Blue said. “Sorry, Zoe.”

  “I know,” she said with a sigh. “Scratch definitely wasn’t on watch like he was supposed to be. Maybe he fell asleep.” She brightened. “On the other hand, that means there’s a good chance it was someone outside the Menagerie instead of someone we know. If a werecreature snuck in here, then Pelly’s death wasn’t our fault. If we can prove that, maybe SNAPA won’t shut us down.”

  “Tonight is the third night of the full moon,” Blue pointed out. “If there is a werewolf wandering the area, this is the last night he or she will have to change.”

  “Then I know what we’re doing tonight,” Zoe said. The firelight reflected in her eyes like dancing sprites as she looked at Logan. “We’re going to hunt a werewolf.”

  SIX

  Logan’s dad was nowhere to be seen when Logan got home around one o’clock, after helping Zoe groom the griffin cubs. Logan fed his pets, took a shower, made himself a sandwich, and sat down at his desk to try to concentrate on homework. The Bill of Rights had a hard time competing against a dragon accused of eating a golden goose, though.

  And the death stare he was getting from the cat wasn’t much help, either.

  “Purrsimmon, I said I was sorry,” Logan offered. “I know I was gone for a long time, but I was doing something important.”

  She twitched her gray-and-white tail with an expression that said, Oh, I’m SURE YOU WERE.

  Logan gave up and opened his notebook to a blank page. He wrote Questions at the top and then:

  How did Scratch get out of his anklet?

  Did any of the birds in the Aviary see what happened? He still hoped Nero could tell them something, whenever he wasn’t in the middle of a meltdown.

  The unicorns would have been galloping around the Menagerie at night—did they see anyone go in or out of the Aviary?

  If it was a werewolf, how did he or she get access to the computer system?

  And why specifically go to the trouble of shutting down the cameras, sneaking into the Aviary, and eating just one very important bird?

  Logan tapped his pencil against the edge of his desk. Next to his computer, his Siamese fighting fish swished grandly around in circles, which was sort of how Logan’s brain felt.

  There was also still the mystery of how the griffin cubs had escaped the Menagerie on Thursday night. The unicorns had unlocked the griffin door and encouraged the cubs to run away. But that didn’t explain why there was a hole in the river grate big enough for the cubs to squeeze through. Maybe someone had done that to help the griffins slip out, but who, and why? And was it connected to Pelly’s murder?

  Is someone trying to get the Menagerie in trouble?

  He studied his list of questions. After a moment, he wrote:

  Where is Mom?

  He stared at the paper. That was the most important question—and the most impossible to answer.

  The front door clicked open. Logan scrambled to hide his notebook under the other books on his desk right before his dad popped his head into the room.

  Jackson Wilde was tall—over six feet tall, just like Logan’s mom—with a shaved head and a huge smile, and he often joked that people in Wyoming kept mistaking him for Michael Jordan. He was about as laid-back as a person could be without being asleep. He never yelled at Logan; he never even got mad at slow traffic or shouted at the TV when their Chicago teams were losing.

  He liked to tell people he was raising Logan free-range-style, like a chicken who was allowed to roam around the farm and do whatever it wanted, right up until the farmer decided to eat it. Dad thought that last part was particularly funny and occasionally poked Logan to see if he was ready to be Christmas dinner.

  The postcard from Mom had seemed to confuse Dad more than upset him. Although they’d never talked about it, Logan was pretty sure Dad had uprooted the two of them from Chicago and moved out here to Wyoming so he could look for her.

  It suddenly occurred to Logan that his dad might know a lot more than he’d ever let on. Maybe he even knew about Mom’s real job—tracking and capturing mythical creatures for SNAPA. Logan had always thought his dad would never lie to him, but maybe he’d been lying to Logan as much as Mom had.

  “Hey there,” Dad said. “You finally made it home. I was beginning to think Blue’s parents must be cooler than I am, but then I realized, well, that’s impossible.” He grinned.

  “Where were you?” Logan asked.

  “Running.” Dad checked the pedometer on his wrist. “Yup. Farther than last week. Let’s not admit it’s because I got lost again.” He paused and squinted at Logan.

  “What?” Logan asked.

  “You okay? Usually I say running and you immediately tell me how much more fun it would be with a dog.”

  “Well,” said Logan. “It would be.” Before Friday, getting a dog had been his main goal in life. Now he felt like there were several bigger things to worry about.

  His dad waited for a minute, as if expecting more, then said, “Okay. How about I shower and then we make nachos for the Bears game?”

  “Sure.” Logan turned to his computer and then swiveled back. “Um. I kind of ate all the hamburger meat, though.” Or rather, he had fed it to a couple of hungry griffin cubs.

  “There’s more in the back of the freezer,” said Dad.

  Logan rubbed the back of his head. “No . . . I ate that, too.”

  Dad raised his eyebrows. “When did you have time to eat fourteen hamburgers if you were with Blue all weekend? No, don’t even explain. I was always starving when I was your age, too. We’ll just use beans.” He laughed and headed off to his room.

  Logan waited until he heard the shower running. Out in the living room, his dad had left his phone and wallet on the coffee table. Logan hesitated, looking at them for a moment. He didn’t want to spy on his dad, but if Dad knew something about Logan’s mom and wasn’t telling him . . . how else would Logan be able to help find her?

  He picked up the phone and scrolled through the call history, but the only numbers he recognized were his own and his grandparents’ in Arizona. A couple of names appeared over and over, including Mr. Sterling, Jasmin’s dad. But that wasn’t a surprise—Logan had heard them talking to each other the night before, in Mr. Sterling’s library, about something to do with Dad’s work.

  He was about to put the phone down when it suddenly started ringing. Startled, he dropped the phone on the floor, snatched it up, flung it on the table, and bolted back into his room.

  The phone stopped ringing.
Logan could hear his dad singing Adele over the sound of the shower.

  He snuck back into the living room and quickly flipped through the business cards in the wallet. His dad worked for the wildlife department, so most of them were other government people.

  Then his eye caught on a name he’d seen in the phone history.

  Mark Zembolobel. Private Investigator.

  Hmm. Logan saved the number from the card in his own phone and put everything back the way he’d found it. As he turned to go, he noticed the town newsletter on the floor, folded up, as if it had fallen out of his dad’s pocket. The Xanadu Bee was a pretty goofy weekly notice printed up by the town hall and distributed in places like the library. The font made it look like an old-fashioned WANTED poster and the “news” usually involved a production of The Unsinkable Molly Brown at the high school or an old lady winning a rose-growing prize.

  But today one of the headlines jumped out at Logan.

  COYOTES?! bellowed the bold font.

  Logan scooped up the newsletter and took it to his room.

  Two minutes later, he dialed Blue’s number.

  “I know where we should start looking tonight,” he said as soon as Blue answered. “The town thinks there’s a coyote loose in Teddy Roosevelt Park. The Bee says they’ve found half-eaten rabbits all along the hiking trails. Could be a werewolf, right?”

  “Or it could be a coyote,” Blue pointed out in his sensible voice.

  Logan’s dad’s phone started ringing again.

  “Hang on,” Logan said to Blue. This time the shower stopped, and Logan heard his dad hustle into the living room.

  “Wilde,” said his dad. A pause. “Seriously? That’s the fourth one this week. We gotta catch this thing. Give me the address, I’ll check it out.” Another pause. “Okay, see you there.”

  “I’ll call you back,” Logan whispered. He strolled into the living room as if he was on his way to the kitchen for a drink. His dad was typing a note into his phone, wearing a towel around his waist.