The Menagerie #2 (9 page)

“S
o, just to clarify,” said Zoe. “You have literally known that Marco Jimenez was a wererooster since the first day of school, but at no point did that seem like a useful thing to tell the Menagerie.”

“Why?” Keiko said. “So you could do what? Lock him up? Because he's such a menace to society?” She arched her eyebrows at the rooster Logan was chasing around the clearing.

Catching a rooster hadn't sounded quite so difficult in Logan's head. After all, Logan was a lot bigger than the bird. Advantage: Logan.

“Don't let him peck you,” Blue said for the fifth time. “Not all forms of lycanthropy are spread by biting, but we don't know what kind he has.”

Advantage: rooster.

Logan jumped back as Marco flapped his wings at him. He really, really did not want to be turned into a werechicken.

“Why can't we leave him here?” Keiko asked. “You realize you can interrogate him at school in about eight hours.”

Zoe flinched, and Logan guessed she was thinking of how little sleep she'd get tonight.

“We can't abandon him,” he said. “This forest is crawling with dangerous things; you said so yourself.”

“Well, I said werecreatures,” Keiko said with a shrug. “I didn't actually say they were dangerous.”

“Keiko, could you try to be just a
little
helpful, for once?” Zoe asked. “Are they all squirrels and roosters? Is there anything that could have eaten Pelly?”

“I think I have been
extremely
helpful,” Keiko said frostily. “But if you would like to sniff out your own werecreatures, be my guest.” She turned and flounced away through the trees.

“Keiko!” Blue called, hurrying after her.

“You know, I blame your mom for this,” Zoe said to Logan. “It was her idea for us to adopt Keiko in the first place, and why? Because she'd been kicked out of both Japanese menageries. Which apparently didn't set off any warning bells for my parents, oh no.”

“Gotcha!” Logan flung his jacket over the rooster and tackled it. A hurricane of frenzied flapping went off under his arms, but he buried his head in the jacket fabric and waited, and finally Marco went quiet. Logan was able to scoop up the whole bird, keeping it carefully wrapped.

“Now what do we do?” he asked.

“We take him to your house,” said Zoe. She gathered up Marco's clothes and shoes and set off in the same direction as Blue and Keiko. “And when he turns back into Marco, we ask him what he knows about the rest of the pack out here, and hopefully one of them was the werewolf who ate Pelly, and then we can prove Scratch is innocent and save both him and the Menagerie.” She nodded, as if convincing herself. “Yes. That could all definitely happen.”

Logan shivered. It was freezing without his jacket. He was glad to be heading indoors, but—“Wait, my house?” he said. “That's a terrible idea.”

“Listen, Marco might have a reason for being unregistered,” Zoe said. “I don't like it, but if we want his cooperation, we should at least listen to his side of the story first. But if we take him to my place he could get spotted by anyone—my parents, Matthew, Blue's mom, the SNAPA agents—”

“Whereas if I take him home, the only person who might see him is my dad,” Logan said with a sigh. “Okay, fine. I get it.”
Not sure how I'll explain a new pet rooster to Dad, though.

Soon they found a trail to follow, but it was a long, cold walk back to the parking lot. Blue was waiting by their bikes, leaning casually against the wall as if he were posing for a movie poster.

“I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear this,” he said, “but Keiko has stormed off in great outrage and may never speak to us again.”

“I only asked a reasonable question!” Zoe protested. “Mythical creatures are so touchy.”

“I'm not,” Blue said with a grin.

“Guys, how am I supposed to carry a rooster home on my bike?” Logan asked. His jacket had been making sleepy chicken clucks for a while, but he didn't want to let go of it even for a minute, just in case a beak escaped and pecked him.

Blue scratched his head. “Here,” he said, taking off his own jacket. Using Marco's sweater as well, the three of them tied the rooster bundle into an awkward sling around Logan's chest. He still had to hold on to it with one hand, but the other was free to steer. The rest of Marco's clothes went in a plastic bag that Logan could hang from the handlebars.

“We'll ride back with you,” Zoe said. “To make sure you get home okay.”

“I'll be fine,” Logan said. “Go get some sleep.”

Zoe hesitated. Even in the half-shadowed moonlight, he could see the rings of exhaustion under her eyes. They hadn't exactly slept well the night before, trapped in the Sterling mansion's secret staircase.

“Seriously, I'll be fine. Come over in the morning,” he offered. “What time will Marco turn back?”

“Dawn,” said Blue.

“Awesome.” Explaining a rooster in his room would be one problem; explaining a whole seventh grader would be another. Logan really hoped tomorrow morning would be one of the ones where his dad left early and their only communication was a note on the kitchen counter.

He rode home slowly, wobbling and off balance with the weight on his chest, but at least the wererooster didn't wake up. By the time he made it back, he thought it had to be at least two o'clock in the morning. His dad's window was dark. Logan leaned his bike against the garage and looked at the hedges around his own window for a minute before deciding that wasn't going to happen. There was no way he could climb through them without accidentally poking Marco, and he could just imagine how loud that reaction would be.

So he slipped in the front door instead and tiptoed to his room. The glow from Warrior's fish tank cast blue light on his bedroom ceiling. On his bed, Purrsimmon's eyes glinted green as she glowered at him.

“You're not going to like this much, either,” Logan said to her. He carefully unwrapped the sling and carried the rooster, still in his jacket, over to his closet.

Purrsimmon hissed and arched her back, her hindquarters waggling back and forth, ready to pounce. Chasing birds was one of her specialties.

“No,” Logan said firmly. “You leave this one alone.” He kicked all his shoes and sports stuff out of the way and gently put the rooster down on his closet floor. No movement from under his jacket. Quickly he bundled up Marco's clothes and left them next to the rooster.

It was going to be a really, really weird morning. Logan felt bad for Marco, waking up in a strange guy's cramped closet. The two of them had barely ever spoken before. He hesitated, glancing around his room, and grabbed a Post-it note from his desk.

Don't panic! We're friendly. We just want to talk.

He stuck that to the inside of his closet door and left his flashlight on, propped up on Marco's shoes and pointing at the note.

He couldn't think of anything else to do, so he closed the door on the rooster and went to bed.

“COCK A DOOOOODLE DOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Logan struggled awake through a fog of confusion.

“COCK A DOOOOODLE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO- OOOOOO!”

Logan squinted at the window, where the dim gray light still had that presunrise feel.
What evil neighbor decided to get a rooster?

His bedroom door flew open. His dad stood in the doorway, blinking wildly.

“Did you hear that?” Dad asked.

“Hear what?” Logan rubbed his eyes.

“A
rooster
,” his dad said. “It sounded like it was coming from
in here
.”

That woke Logan up in a hurry. He forced himself not to look at his closet.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” he said. “It's my new . . . alarm clock.”

“Good lord, Logan,” said his dad. “I know you sleep like the dead, but we'll be run out of town if you let that thing go off again. I'm pretty sure it woke all of Xanadu.” He peered around the room. “Wait, what new alarm clock?”

“Blue loaned it to me,” Logan said quickly. “He warned me it was loud, so I put it in the closet.”
Aaargh, why did I say that? Don't look in the closet. Don't look in the closet.

“Well, please give it back.” Dad yawned hugely. “If you're still having trouble getting up, I'll rearrange my meetings so I can always wake you. Deal?”

“Don't worry, Dad,” said Logan. “I can get up. I'll return the rooster today. Uh, the rooster clock.”

“The things they think of,” Dad muttered, starting to close the door behind him.

There was a giant thump from inside Logan's closet.

Dad swung the door back open. “What was that?”

“Nothing!” Logan said quickly. “Must have been Purrsimmon.”

The cat chose that moment to saunter delicately around the corner of the bed, sit down on the floor, and lick her paws. She gave Logan an arch look that said,
Don't you drag me into this. Especially after you deprived me of rooster chasing and made me spend the whole night with a bird just out of reach, you monster.

Dad stared at the cat for a moment. Then, shaking his head, he finally closed the door and went back down the hall to his own room.

Logan flung his covers off. His clock said 6:50 a.m.

There was another muffled thump from inside his closet. It sounded like someone trying to get dressed in a cramped space in the dark.

“Marco?” Logan said. “Hey. I don't know if you know my name, but it's Logan, from school. We were worried that something in the woods might eat you, so I brought you back to my house.”

His closet door creaked open and Marco's disheveled head poked out. His dark hair stuck up in tufts like wild feathers.

They stared at each other for a minute.

“That's what
I
always say,” Marco blurted. “I mean, who would take a defenseless rooster to the woods, right? I keep saying, what if Carlos eats me, and Mom is all, but he would never, and then I'm like,
you
don't know, you're, like, a
porcupine
, and he's, like, a
bear
, and he doesn't like me when we're
people
, so why risk your kids eating each other, like, can't I just stay in my room and be a rooster in there? What's the worst I could do? Poop on my sheets? Guess what, Elena already did that, and she wasn't even a squirrel at the time, she was just potty training and mad at me, which by the way, is the worst, don't ever live with a three-year-old.”

He took a deep breath. “Oh my God, I'm starving. I'm missing the pancake breakfast right now. Do you think they're worried? I don't; I bet they're eating bacon and laughing about how I'm probably lost in the woods because roosters have no sense of direction, like, we shouldn't
need
a sense of direction, guys, because we don't
belong in the woods
, hello, and none of them are thinking, hey, maybe something ate Marco, even though that is obviously what happened. I'm
starving
. Can we have pancakes? It's like the only good part of the whole thing, so I should at least get pancakes. With a side order of corn, if you have any, please.”

“I—um, I don't know,” Logan said. “But we should stay in here until my dad leaves. I have no idea how to explain you.”

Marco toppled out of the closet and lay on his back on the carpet, groaning at the ceiling. “Okay. But you might have to explain my corpse instead, just to warn you. When will he be gone?”

“Soon, I think,” Logan said. He could hear his dad clattering around in the kitchen, which usually meant he'd be out the door before Logan. “Did you say something about your mom? And a bear?”

“Not fair,” Marco moaned. “I'm too weak from hunger to keep secrets.”

“I think the rooster's out of the bag,” Logan joked.

“Ha-ha!” Marco chortled. “I get it.”

“Logan!” his dad called.

“Back in the closet!” Logan whispered. “Quick!”

Marco flopped sideways like it was too hard to move.

“Hey,” Dad called again, his voice coming closer. “If you're ready to leave in five minutes, I can drive you to school.”

Logan stepped over Marco and stuck his head into the hallway. “No thanks,” he called back. “I'll take my bike. I might go hang out with Blue again after school.”

His dad laughed. “All right, but if his parents get sick of you, you can bring him back here anytime. I'll be home for dinner tonight, if you want to invite him over.”

“Um,” Logan said. “Okay, maybe.”

“If I promise not to cook?”

“I'll ask. Bye, Dad.” Logan was about to duck back into his room when the doorbell rang.

He ran, but Dad got there first.

Zoe and Blue were standing on the front steps. Logan reached the door just in time to see his dad's eyes widen when he spotted Zoe.

“Oh, hey, guys,” Logan said. “Dad, this is Blue and—”

“Zoe,” said his dad. “Zoe Kahn.”