Krakens and Lies (8 page)

Jasmin shrieked and bolted toward the front door. Blue lunged and seized her around the waist. She yelped and kicked the air.

“It's okay!” he yelled. “Zoe's just being crazy! Don't panic!”

“I'm not being crazy!” Zoe cried. “Jonathan told Ruby that you have some awful terrible disease! This will cure you! I promise!” She advanced on Jasmin with the smoothie.

“Do NOT MAKE ME DRINK THAT,” Jasmin shouted. “Zoe Kahn! I will seriously bite you! Blue, put me down! GET THAT HORRIFYING SLUDGE AWAY FROM ME! I don't know what you're talking about! I am NOT SICK! There's nothing wrong with me! I SWEAR BY THE SECRET BOOKS OF WONDERLAND, ZOE!”

Zoe stopped, shaking. When she and Jasmin were eight years old, they'd been in love with
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
and
Through the Looking-Glass
. They'd written their own “secret untold stories” of Wonderland together and hidden them under Jasmin's bed. No one else knew about those.

“You're . . . not sick?” she said.

“I am
definitely not sick
,” Jasmin said. Blue lowered her to the ground but kept his arms wrapped around her. “I have no idea why Jonathan would say that, but he's the worst and you know it. I'm super-healthy. I'm beyond healthy. I'm Wonder Woman, okay?”

Zoe folded both her hands around the glass. “Are you sure?”

Jasmin gave her a quintessentially Jasmin exasperated look. “I would
know
if I had a terrible wasting disease, wouldn't I?”

“Maybe your parents haven't told you for some reason,”
Zoe said. “Maybe you should drink this just in case.” She took another step forward.

Jasmin broke out of Blue's arms and ran.

But since Blue was between her and the front door, she darted past Zoe instead. She tore through the kitchen into the living room . . . and crashed straight into the side of a woolly mammoth.

C
aptain Fuzzbutt trumpeted and stamped his feet in a panic, flinging all the blankets off at once.

Jasmin was knocked back onto the floor. She looked up at the mammoth and screamed, which sent the Captain into an even bigger tizzy. He flapped his ears and shuffled backward, nearly trampling Logan's foot.

“It's all right,” Logan yelped, dodging out of the way. “Captain, shhhhh. Jasmin, he's harmless.”

“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.