The Menagerie #2 (20 page)

“Loser,” snickered a male voice.

“Let's get out of here,” said the other. The video ducked toward the ground, catching a shot of shoes running, and then abruptly stopped.

“The fence burned down and the qilin escaped,” Matthew said.

“Have the counselors seen this?” Zoe demanded. “Or Mom and Dad? I can't believe Geoff and Bryson just left you like that! Plus, taking a video of a mythical creature could get them barred from working for SNAPA for the rest of their lives.”

“No, they only sent this to the other campers,” Matthew said gloomily. “But everyone knows this was all my fault, even though Ashley kept me out of the official report because she's friends with Dad. Zoe, the only way I'll ever get to go back to camp—the only way I'll have a chance of becoming a Tracker—is if I find that qilin and bring her back myself.”

He got up, went to the closet, and pulled out the wind chimes, letting them dangle from one of his fingers. “That's why I took this. It's like a mystical homing device that calls to this particular qilin. So she has to be nearby—she must have followed these chimes when I brought them back to Xanadu—but I haven't even come close to catching her yet.”

Zoe sat up suddenly. “A qilin!” she said. “Aren't those the ones—”

“That can sense guilt,” Matthew finished. “Right. That's the other thing. If I can find the qilin by Thursday, we can bring her to court, and she can prove that Scratch is innocent.”

Roaring suddenly erupted from the ant farm. Logan whirled and saw the two ant-lions grappling, each trying to bite the other one's head off. Without paws and claws, all they had for fighting was their teeth, which they were using to viciously rip at ears and noses and manes. It looked like they were seriously about to hurt each other.

Logan jumped forward, grabbed the jar of ants, and shook a handful into the farm right on top of the battling ant-lions. The fierce little creatures jumped apart and attacked the ants instead, ravenously chasing them down and eating them all.

Logan looked up and found Matthew staring at him.

“You've never seen an ant-lion before?” Matthew asked. Logan shook his head. “So you just knew that was the way to stop them from fighting? Somehow, with your magic powers?”

“It was only a guess,” Logan said uncomfortably. He hadn't even stopped to think about it. It just seemed logically like the right thing to do.

“You know he has some kind of instinct for this stuff,” Zoe said. “So be smart and use him.”

“All right,” Matthew said with a long sigh. He held out his fist to Logan. “Tomorrow, you and me, tracking a qilin. Deal?”

Logan bumped his fist, trying not to look too thrilled. “Deal.”

W
ednesday was too drizzly and wet and cold to eat lunch in the courtyard. Logan and Blue wolfed down their food in the hallway and met Zoe outside the library.

She put a finger to her lips and pointed through the door's window at Miss Sameera. Nobody else was around, and the librarian was fast asleep with her head on her desk. Her hair had escaped its ponytail and was running wild across her keyboard. There were little Band-Aids all over both of her hands, and her ruby-red blouse was missing a few silver bells.

Logan caught Zoe staring at Miss Sameera's cup of chai tea, steaming quietly on the desk. Zoe's hand went to the pocket of her backpack where he knew she kept a vial of kraken ink.

“Don't do it,” he whispered. “We still have no idea what she knows.”

“We know she knows too much,” Zoe muttered.

“I agree with Logan,” said Blue. “No messing with people's heads if we can avoid it.”

“Fine,” Zoe said, blowing her hair out of her face. “But if she starts telling people that she's seen griffin cubs and anyone believes her, don't blame me if we have to end up dosing the whole town.”

“SNAPA can do that?” Logan asked.

“They did it in Parkville, Missouri, when the menagerie there was exposed. I saw a note about it on Delia's tablet next to one of the golden geese.” Zoe's expression grew mournful. “They shipped her away—along with all the other creatures.”

“That's not going to happen here,” Logan told her firmly. “We won't let it.”

Zoe shot him a grateful look, then turned and led the way into the library.

The school library was a lot smaller than the main library in town, with dark blue walls, sky-blue carpets, tall bookshelves, cheerful displays of new books that changed each month, and reading nooks in every corner with beanbags or armchairs. Whenever he walked in the door, Logan felt as if all the books were flinging themselves against a glass wall at him, like puppies in a pet store desperately wanting to be taken home.

Logan followed Zoe to a back corner, where she pushed open one of the big windows that faced the back parking lot. Matthew popped out of the Menagerie's van and ran over. He clambered through the window, scattering raindrops on the rug.

“Shhh,” Zoe scolded him as one of his boots thumped against the radiator. Logan glanced at the other end of the room, but Miss Sameera didn't wake up.

“Why are we sneaking Matthew in the window?” he asked, keeping his voice low even though Miss Sameera was pretty far away. When Zoe had suggested a meeting in the library, he'd imagined Matthew would saunter through the front door like everyone else.

“So he doesn't have to sign in at the front office and give a reason for being here,” Zoe said. “Which might tip Mom and Dad off to the fact that he's not in school, where he's supposed to be.”

“Plus it's the cool stealth Tracker thing to do,” Matthew said, shaking water off his hat. “We're—
they're
like ninjas meets spies meets Indiana Jones.”

“Ninjas climb in school library windows all the time, didn't you know,” Blue said to Logan, deadpan.

“Wearing everything in their closets, apparently,” Zoe said. She looked Matthew up and down. He had on at least two sweaters under his jacket, plus a green scarf and a fuzzy brown hat with enormous furry earflaps. “Are you hunting a qilin or trekking to the North Pole?”

“It's
cold
out there,” Matthew said. “Believe me, I've been searching the woods every day for two months. It gets
really freaking cold
after the first, like, hour.”

Logan winced. He had a feeling Matthew wasn't going to be too happy once he heard Logan's theory.

He'd spent the night reading about qilins in the books Zoe had loaned him, instead of doing his English homework. But Matthew had been training to be a Tracker his whole life. Surely he had thought of everything Logan had. Wouldn't he hate Logan coming in with a bunch of suggestions, implying Matthew had done it all wrong?

Zoe plunked herself down on a beanbag and looked up at Logan. “I can tell you have an idea,” she prompted him. “Just say it. We need that qilin before the trial tomorrow.”

“Unless we can find Pelly,” Blue pointed out.

“That's why I think we should split up,” Zoe said. “After school, you and Logan and Matthew look for the qilin, and I'll take Marco to look for Pelly.”

“How is Marco going to help?” Matthew asked, looking ruffled. “He's not a Tracker.”

“By bringing along his werebear brother with the amazing sense of smell,” Zoe said. “We just need one feather that is really Pelly's, and I'll see if Carlos can follow her scent out of the Menagerie.” She exhaled. “If he can be helpful, maybe we'll never need to bribe Keiko again.”

“The feather outside the Aviary!” Logan said. He pulled out his camera phone and showed Zoe the photo he'd taken of the feather on the grass. “I bet that one's really hers. I've been wondering why it was around the front of the Aviary if her kidnapper or murderer or whatever went in and out through the back door. I bet somebody made it look like they used the door by the roc so we'd think it was a big predator, but really they drugged Pelly and took her out the front. So maybe you can use that feather, if it's still there.”

“Good idea,” she said, nodding.

Matthew rubbed his hands together and breathed on them to warm them up. “I'd better get back to the woods.”

“Wait,” Zoe said. “Logan, where would you start looking?”

“Um,” Logan said awkwardly. “Actually, I think—I think she's probably not in the woods.”

Matthew stopped stamping his feet and stared at Logan. “Are you serious? Do you know how much time I've spent tramping around out there?”

“I know, sorry,” Logan said. He pulled out a map of Xanadu that he'd printed off the internet. Zoe and Blue leaned forward to look at it.

“The one thing all the books say about qilins is that they won't harm any living things,” Logan said. “They even walk across grass without crushing it.”

“Right,” Matthew said. “That's one reason they're impossible to track—they literally don't leave any tracks. Of course I'd accidentally release the one creature that can't be found.”

“Also, they won't eat living things,” Logan said. “They'll only eat plants if they're already dead.” He pointed to the woods on the map. “Right now there are plenty of leaves that have fallen off the trees in the forest, but it wouldn't have been like that when she got here in August. So I don't think she would have gone to the woods then—she'd have found somewhere with food she could eat. Right?”

Matthew smacked his own forehead. “Obvious. I'm an idiot.”

“No, no,” Logan said. “I just thought, maybe if she found a place to hide, with food, she'd probably stay there. Right? Especially if it's indoors, since it's getting colder.”

“Tell me about it,” Matthew muttered. He took the map from Logan and studied it. “Hey, this is from the Wild Wild Xanadu website.”

“Is that what it's called?” Logan asked. He'd found the map on a website advertising some kind of Wild West tourist attraction nearby—a whole reconstructed town from the outlaw days, like Deadwood, although Logan hadn't found anything about it anywhere else. The site hadn't been updated in a while, but it was the best overall map of Xanadu he'd seen.

“It was Mr. Sterling's big idea to make Xanadu famous, back before he was running for mayor,” Matthew said. “People call it Wild Wild Xanadu as a joke. It opened for like a week and was a huge failure.” He turned the map sideways. “So we're looking for somewhere with a lot of dead plants that a qilin could eat.”

Blue tilted his head curiously at the map. “Like the dump or something?”

“No, qilins like clean spaces,” Matthew said. “Anything elegant.”

“Maybe something that reminds her of her original home in China?” Logan asked. “And the plants don't have to be rotting or anything. I figure it can mean plants that aren't growing anymore—like flowers that have been picked.”

“A florist!” Zoe said.

“Or fruits and vegetables,” said Matthew, starting to pace.

“A supermarket!” said Blue.

“A vegetarian restaurant!” said Zoe. “Okay, really any restaurant.”

“That's it!” Matthew cried. Across the library, Miss Sameera stirred, and he lowered his voice in a hurry. “Veggie Monster Café. The best vegetarian Chinese restaurant in Wyoming.”

“Possibly the only vegetarian Chinese restaurant in Wyoming,” Zoe said wryly. “Dad and I love that place.”

“There's a garden out back with several spots where a qilin could hide,” Matthew said. “And the whole place is decorated with Chinese art and Buddhas and looks kind of like her enclosure at Camp Underpaw. I can't believe I didn't think of that sooner.” He punched Logan's shoulder lightly. “All right, fine. I'll write you a reference for the camp application.”

Logan tried not to let his grin cover his whole face. “Thanks,” he said.

“I'll go check it out now,” said Matthew. “But if I don't find her, I'll pick you up here after school.”

“Sounds great,” Logan said. He was relieved that Matthew wasn't mad at him—plus now hopefully he'd get to see a trained almost-Tracker in action.

“This is weird,” Matthew said, leaning against the van in the restaurant parking lot. Light rain misted down over him and Logan and Blue. “Tracking is an outdoor thing. Like jungles and waterfalls and arctic landscapes and deserts. Not supermarkets and florists and Chinese food.”

“Well, now that there are probably more supermarkets than jungles, the animals have to go somewhere, right?” Logan said.

“But wouldn't someone have seen her in the last two months?” Blue asked.

“Qilins can choose who sees them, more or less,” Matthew said. “Like, they're only supposed to appear to good-hearted people, but the problem is that qilins tend to think almost everyone is good-hearted. But I bet she's been extra-cautious because of what happened at camp.” He sighed. “I hope I haven't ruined her faith in people forever.”