The Menagerie (11 page)

EIGHTEEN

“I
know what you're thinking,” Blue said, appearing at Logan's elbow. “You're thinking, ‘Wait, a mammoth's not a mythical creature.'”

“Way too advanced,” Logan said. “My brain's stuck back at ‘Hey, there's a mammoth on the floor.'” His skin prickled with excitement. “I should ask you guys for a list so I won't keep being surprised by everything.” Blue laughed.

The mammoth snorted and rolled sideways so its trunk flopped over the edge of the pillow. A small, honey-colored tusk poked out on either side of its trunk, and a furry tuft of brown hair hung over its eyes.

“All right, wait,” said Logan. “A mammoth's not a mythical creature. They really existed, like, forever ago. Didn't they?”

“Yup,” Blue said. “One of our best Trackers rescued him from some kind of cloning lab when he was only a month or two old. I mean, where else are you going to put a mammoth, right? I guess the Tracker thought the lab wasn't safe for him.”

“That's not a full-grown mammoth, is it?” Logan asked. From what he could tell, the animal on the floor was bigger than a horse, but not as big as he'd imagined a mammoth would be.

“Nah, the Captain's only two years old,” Blue answered. “He's not even elephant-sized yet. It is not going to be fun the day he crashes through the stairs and we have to explain why he can't come sleep in the house anymore.”

Zoe came in with the glasses and began to set them around the table. “Zoe's his favorite,” Blue added.

Zoe's tense expression relaxed, and she grinned at the sleeping pile of mammoth. “He's the best animal in the Menagerie,” she said. She put the last glass in place, hopped down into the living room, and knelt beside the mammoth. He wriggled closer to her, half dozing as she rubbed his side vigorously. In seconds her jeans were covered in long, brown hairs.

“Oh, hey,” Logan said. Now he recognized the smell in the room competing with the warm-food scents from the kitchen. “That's what your—” He stopped. Maybe it wasn't the best move to tell Zoe how weird her backpack smelled.

Zoe brushed at the fur on her hands with a rueful look. “I know; I'm always covered in this stuff although I roller my clothes like ten times a day.” She shrugged and hugged the mammoth. “Captain Fuzzbutt is worth it, though.”

Logan couldn't help but agree. He wouldn't care
what
he smelled like if he had something like this waiting for him at home.

Captain Fuzzbutt lifted his head and shook it like a dog, his ears flapping. He opened large brown eyes and raised his trunk to poke Zoe's face. The soft end felt around for a minute, then lifted up in the air and turned like a periscope, twitching as if it was sniffing. His head flopped back down, and he rolled his eyes toward the boys.

His gaze landed on Logan and stopped. Suddenly the mammoth bolted to his feet, knocking Zoe sideways. The Captain stared at Logan for another moment, and then, all at once, he charged.

“Fuzzbutt!” Zoe shouted. “Stop!”

Logan only had a moment to see the sharp tusks coming at him and wonder if he'd be the first person in ten thousand years to be killed by a woolly mammoth. A second later he felt the furry trunk circle his waist and lift him straight off the ground. The room revolved as the mammoth rolled him in, and Logan ended up eye to eye with Captain Fuzzbutt.

His fear melted away. The mammoth's expression was clearly delighted.

“Captain Fuzzbutt! Let him go before I demote you,” Zoe commanded. “That's no way to treat a guest.”

Logan was swept with a new wave of dizziness as the creature lowered him back to the floor. The mammoth's trunk patted Logan down, as though making sure he hadn't done any damage. It stopped at Logan's hand and poked his palm.

Logan laughed and held out his fist. The mammoth bumped it gently with the end of his trunk.

“Huh,” Mr. Kahn said from the kitchen doorway. “I've only seen him do that once before.”

Zoe kicked the carpet. “I've never seen him do that. Fuzzbutt is usually totally shy around strangers. I guess you have a special bond with mammoths, too, griffin whisperer.”

“Cool,” Logan said, reaching up to rub the Captain's forehead between his eyes. He estimated the mammoth was about six feet tall, the same height as both his mom and his dad. Fuzzbutt rumbled low in his throat and patted Logan's forehead with his trunk.

“Yeah,” Zoe said. “‘Cool.' Now you just have to sweet-talk the kelpie. If
she
decides not to eat you, I'm seriously quitting this family and moving to New York.”

“What's a kelpie?” Logan asked nervously.

“Don't ask,” said Blue. “Better if you never meet her. She's nastier than the unicorns.”

“And a smidge more murder-y,” Zoe said, squeezing past the mammoth to get back to the table. “But that's how kelpies are.”

“Nonsense.” Zoe's mom caught the tail end of the conversation as she came through the sliding door from the garden. “She just needs a little more positive-rewards-based training, that's all.” The weird chirruping night noises of the Menagerie disappeared again as she thunked the door shut.

Zoe rolled her eyes at Logan. “You sit there,” she said, pointing to the chair opposite hers. Logan obeyed, and the mammoth flopped down next to him with a thump that made the whole house shake.

Logan's glass of iced tea was already poured, but as he reached for it, Blue offered him the platter of garlic bread. Then there was salad and two giant bowls of pasta, one with meatballs and one without. He noticed that Zoe and her dad took the pasta without meatballs.

“Keiko!” Zoe's mom yelled in the general direction of the front hall. “Dinner!”

“I'm not hungry!” a voice shouted from upstairs. Logan remembered the bad-tempered sixth grader who had been with Zoe and Blue earlier that day.

“Keiko lives here, too?” he asked.

“We adopted her last year,” Zoe said. “Yay.”

“Zoe,” her father said sternly.

“What?” she replied. “I said
yay
.”

“There are turkey meatballs!” Mrs. Kahn called sweetly.

“I hate turkey meatballs!” Keiko shouted back.

Mrs. Kahn sighed. Blue hid a smile.

“She'll eat when she's hungry,” said Zoe's dad calmly. “Unlike Melissa, who could probably starve to death over her calculator and not even notice.” He unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “Melissa, put down Form B7504 and get in here.”

The walkie-talkie crackled, and a female voice said, “Form B7504? Who's been eaten by a grindylow, and why don't I know about this?”

“I was joking, Melissa,” Zoe's father answered. “Dinner is ready.”

“Well, that's hardly the same thing,” Melissa's voice responded. “Please refrain from joking about forms in the future. Form B7504 is particularly complicated, with several subsections.”

Blue and Zoe exchanged amused looks. Logan jumped as a door opened on the far side of the living room. The blond woman in the perfect suit and pearls came out, still looking as neatly put together as she had earlier that day. She clipped across the carpets in her heels, studying a piece of paper in her hand, and nearly bumped into Matthew as he came through the sliding doors.

“The unicorns are out for their moonlight gallop,” Zoe's brother reported. “And Nero is fully reborn and back to flapping around complaining about his accommodations. He wanted you all to see his new finery, though, so I let him out for a minute.” He pointed toward the window.

The phoenix came strutting past the glass, head held high, looking extremely pleased with himself.

Logan did a double take. The phoenix was wearing a miniature dark-blue hooded jacket that looked suspiciously familiar, apart from being bird sized.

Matthew and Blue hooted with laughter. “I had no idea that would happen,” Matthew said, wiping his eyes. “But it's awesome. And he loves it, if that's any consolation,” he added to Logan.

It sort of was, actually, Logan had to admit to himself. The phoenix swept off back to the Aviary, preening as he went.

Matthew sat down next to Zoe and helped himself to half the meatballs. “Also, Scratch ate hardly any of his dinner again, but he says he's feeling fine.”

Zoe pulled out a small notebook and wrote something Logan couldn't decipher; it looked like a string of triangles and squiggles, on a long list of other triangles and squiggles.

“Hi, Mom,” Blue said, pulling out the chair beside him. Melissa finally looked up from her paper and leaned in to kiss the top of his head. She froze, staring at Logan.

“Dear God,” she said. “That's not Keiko.”

“It's not?” Blue said, pretending to sound shocked. “It looks just like her! Hey, you, how did you get in here?”

“This isn't funny, Blue,” Melissa said as Logan quickly swallowed his laugh. “You know the rules about inviting friends home.” Her gaze drifted down to the mammoth sprawled across the floor, and her eyes widened. She made a face at the Kahns, like
The mammoth is right there! He's going to notice it any second!

“It's okay, Mom,” Blue said, tugging her into her seat. “This is Logan. Logan, this is my mom. He knows about the Menagerie. He's helping us find the griffins.”

“What?” Melissa popped right back up again. “But the forms! The confidentiality agreement! The outsider-inclusion-and-intruder-override application! The background check!” She pressed her hands to her perfectly smooth hair. “We're in enough trouble with SNAPA. If they find
him
here on Sunday . . .”

“Relax, Mom. He's helped us get three of the cubs back already,” Blue said.

“Well, I hardly—” Logan started, and Zoe kicked him under the table.

Melissa sat down, looking a little less panic-stricken. “Really? Three already. That's promising.” She served herself a bowl of salad and then picked out all the cucumbers with her fork, carefully putting them in a separate bowl. Blue had done the same thing, Logan noticed.

“Sorry about this, Logan,” said Mrs. Kahn, “but we have to go over our SNAPA list during dinner.” Logan realized everyone had a notebook next to his or her plate except for him and Blue.

“There's a lot to get done before Sunday,” Mr. Kahn said, rubbing his forehead exactly the way Zoe always did. “Somebody please tell me you fixed the security camera over the roc's nest today.”

He sighed into the silence and made a note. “I'll do it after dinner.”

Logan reached for his iced tea. A bowl of shredded cheese intercepted his hand halfway.

“The sauce is even better with cheese,” Blue insisted. “Seriously, try it.”

“Okay,” Logan said. He looked across the table as he sprinkled the cheese and noticed Zoe staring at him and Blue oddly. “SNAPA seems kind of scary,” he offered.

“Oh, yeah,” Blue said. “Lots of rules, especially for merpeople.”

“Rules are there for the protection of the animals
and
humanity,” said Melissa.

“But even you have to admit not all of this seems necessary,” said Zoe's mom, waving her notebook. “They're being unreasonably hard on us, considering the jackalope is perfectly safe and sound.”

“Like the den for the Chinese dragon we never got,” Matthew said through a mouthful of spaghetti. “It's only been a few months since we were expecting it, after all. I don't understand why we have to convert that space into something else already.”

“SNAPA doesn't like us much,” Zoe said glumly.

Melissa shook her head. “And if they find out about the griffin escape, they will shut us down with no hesitation.” She took one meatball and started slicing it into small pieces in her salad.

Shut down the Menagerie? Logan's heart sank. But he'd just found them. He couldn't imagine going back to normal life now that he knew griffins and unicorns and dragons were out there somewhere.

“Didn't something like that happen in the Amazon?” Zoe asked Melissa. Her dad gave Zoe a sharp look.

“Oh, yes.” Melissa took a tiny bite of tomato. “It was terrible. One of the dragons went mad and killed a couple of people. It only takes one bad creature to ruin everything. The whole place had to be closed. You can't
imagine
the paperwork that must have been involved.”

“What happened to the rest of the animals?” Zoe pressed.

“Who's ready for dessert?” Zoe's dad stood up in a hurry. “Pear cobbler, anyone?”

“Well, of course they terminated half of them,” Melissa said, focused on her salad. “If they were too big to move or too much trouble. Only the most endangered ones can be saved after something like that. Here, for instance, the phoenix and the goose and the kraken would be worth saving, but probably not the griffins or the dragons.”