The Menagerie #2 (13 page)

“What about Carlos?” Marco asked as he set two glasses of lemonade on the coffee table.

Marco's mom pointed up the stairs just as the sound of a TV popped on, loudly clashing with the Taylor Swift still playing from the bedroom. “Asking your brother to do chores always involves at least half an hour of stomping around in front of the TV first. So we have a moment. Tell me about the place Horace came from.”

Zoe explained the Menagerie, SNAPA, and the rules about Mostly Humans. Logan loved feeling like an insider—like someone who knew what was going on and how to help. Although he wished he had more ideas for Scratch's trial. Thursday was way too soon.

“Well, perhaps it would be nice to join an official community,” said Marco's mom. “I'll talk to my husband about it. Thank you for being so honest with us.”

“We need to ask you about something, too,” said Zoe. “Marco said you saw some kind of predator in the woods last night.”

“Was it a werewolf?” Logan asked.

“Absolutely,” said Mrs. Jimenez with a shudder. “Carlos has the best sense of smell of any of us, and he confirmed it—it looked like a wolf, but it smelled half-man. Marco, when he told us that, I was so worried for you. I've heard that werewolves are much nastier than other werecreatures. He might eat you even if he could tell you were part human. But don't worry, your dad has a wonderful idea.” She got up, went to the sideboard, and started rummaging through a pile of plastic shopping bags.

“I have a wonderful idea, too,” said Marco. “DON'T MAKE ME TURN INTO A ROOSTER IN THE FLIPPING WOODS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.”

“Oh, no, this is a much better plan,” said his mother. “That werewolf will be in for a surprise if he comes after my little rooster.”

Marco snorted.

“So it was male?” Zoe asked.

Marco's mom nodded. “Carlos and Elena and I all saw the wolf. And Nina thinks she saw him while he was still in human form.”

Logan sat up. “Did she say what he looked like?”

“She only saw him for a moment, and she wasn't sure he was a werecreature, but how many other people could be running around the woods in the middle of the night?” asked Mrs. Jimenez. “I can call her in here to describe him for you. But let me show this to Marco first.” She pulled out a small vial half-full of sparkly silvery powder.

“Ma,” said Marco. “I can already tell you I hate this plan.”

“What is that?” Blue asked.

“Silver dust,” she said. “Werecreatures are powerfully allergic to this stuff.”

“
Including me
,” Marco pointed out.

“But listen,” said Mrs. Jimenez. “This will keep you safe. You just turn into a rooster a little before midnight, one of us sprinkles this all over your feathers—”

“NO MOST DEFINITELY NO,” said Marco.

“And no werewolf will want to come anywhere near you!” she finished cheerfully. “Safe and sound.”

“And sneezing for twelve hours straight!” Marco said. “And covered with hives the next day! No thank you!”

“It's a wonderful plan,” she said again, tucking the vial into her purse.

“No means no, Ma!” Marco threw his hands up in the air. “And guess what?
Regular
wolves will still eat me! Also coyotes! Also bears! Why can't I just stay here?”

“Because then your brothers and sisters will want to stay home, too, and your father and I can't supervise you while we're in animal form,” she said. “And I don't like poultry indoors.”

“Maybe he could come to the Menagerie,” Logan suggested. “Isn't there somewhere he could change safely there?”

“YES,” said Marco. “THAT IS THE PLAN I AM OKAY WITH.”

“I think that would be fine,” Zoe said distractedly. “Can we please talk to Nina about the werewolf? I'd like to know what she saw.”

“NINA!” Mrs. Jimenez bellowed out the door.

Marco's sister came skipping up onto the porch. “WHAT?” she bellowed back.

“Tell Marco's friends about the boy you saw in the woods.” Her mother patted her head.

“Well,” Nina said, “he was totally cute. He looked like he was in high school. And he was in a big hurry. And he kept looking around like he didn't want to be seen. And he was carrying something. And he had a scar on his arm and his face.”

“Hang on,” said Zoe. “That's not a werewolf. Apart from the totally cute part, that sounds like my brother.”

Nina shrugged. “That's who I saw.” She skipped back down the steps.

“Zoe,” Logan said slowly. “Is there any chance . . . ?”

Zoe's eyes widened as she realized what he was suggesting. “No!” she said. “No way!”

“Maybe way,” said Blue.

“Matthew is not a werewolf!” she cried. “That's crazy! Someone would have noticed by now!”

“Not if he got bitten this summer,” Blue pointed out. “At Tracker camp. Where he got some mysterious scars.”

“That was a griffin situation,” said Zoe. “He said he made a griffin mad.”

“Maybe he made a werewolf mad instead,” said Logan. “Zoe, it's possible, right?”

She bit her lip, thinking. “I guess it is possible he took those chains and the tranq gun for himself . . . ,” she said slowly. “But why wouldn't he have told someone if he got turned? And if he is—well, there's no way he would have hurt Pelly. That's crazy talk. No, the werewolf has to be somebody else.”

“There's one way to find out,” said Logan. He turned to Mrs. Jimenez. “Is there any chance we could borrow some of that silver dust?”

“C
an't I just put a tiny bit on his hand or something?” Zoe asked Marco.

“No!” he protested. “It has to be a lot of exposure so you can be sure.”

Zoe felt the weight of the ziplock bag in her jacket pocket. Was she really about to do this to Matthew?

They all stopped at a red light. Marco had retrieved his bike so they could ride to Zoe's. She was really nervous about bringing home yet another random guy from school, but Mrs. Jimenez wanted him to report back on the werewolf situation, and Zoe's parents had said it was okay for him to come see the Menagerie. They didn't know about her Matthew suspicions yet.

“And we mixed it with glitter because—?” Logan said.

“Glitter bomb!” Marco cried. “Awesome, and then if he gets mad, you can be like, oh, sorry, I was just glitter bombing you, which is obviously hilarious. Glitter bomb is totally the way to go.”

Zoe had never heard of glitter bombs, but apparently it was a thing, throwing glitter all over people to protest something. She thought it sounded kind of cool—like, a sparkly way to make a point without violence—but she was pretty sure Matthew wasn't going to be thrilled about it. That's if he
wasn't
a werewolf; if he was, and this exposed him, he'd be even less thrilled.

But why wouldn't he have told his family? There couldn't be anyone in the world more understanding of mythical-creature stuff than the Kahns. Was he worried that being a werewolf meant he couldn't be a Tracker?

Zoe didn't know if that was true. In some ways, having wolf abilities would probably make tracking easier. But there might be some SNAPA rule about it, and being a Tracker had been Matthew's dream his whole life. He wouldn't let anything get in the way of that.

But if he's a werewolf, we really need to know so we can help him
, she thought. She pictured him alone in the woods, wrapping himself in chains and shooting himself with a tranq gun. Poor Matthew! There had to be a better way to deal with it.

Then again, when Mrs. Jimenez saw the wolf, there were no chains and it wasn't tranq'd. So what happened?

Maybe it wasn't Matthew after all.

“Keiko!” she blurted suddenly. “If Matthew were a werewolf, Keiko would have smelled it.”

“But would she have told us?” Blue pointed out. “She didn't tell us about Marco. It's more likely she'd keep that in her back pocket to blackmail him with whenever she wanted something.”

“True,” Zoe said with a sigh.

“Keiko with the long braids who plays soccer?” Marco asked hopefully. “She's a werecreature, too?”

The light changed and they set off again.

“No,” said Blue. “Different kind of shape-shifter, sorry.”

“Still,” said Marco. “That practically makes us soul mates, right?”

“Oh my gosh, Marco,” Zoe said. “You are so barking up the wrong tree.”

“Or crowing,” said Logan. “Crowing up the wrong tree.”

“Ha-ha!” Marco chortled.

“I'm confused about something,” Logan said. “How much do you remember when you're a werecreature? And how much can you control what you're doing?”

“It depends on which kind you are,” said Marco. “With us, because it's genetic, we've been practicing since we were born, so we're still pretty much ourselves and can remember most stuff. But newly bitten werewolves have much less control.”

Poor Matthew
, Zoe thought again.
But I still can't imagine him hurting Pelly.

They rounded the corner into the Kahns' driveway and Zoe saw a strange car parked in front of the house, behind the sleek black one that the SNAPA agents drove everywhere. As they got closer, she saw that it was a rental car.

“Who's that?” she said to Blue, nodding at the car as they rolled their bikes into the garage next to the old blue van. “Do you think SNAPA sent more investigators?”

“Maybe,” he said.

Marco stayed on his bike, glancing at the cars. “Um,” he said. “You know, actually, maybe I should stay off this SNAPPER's radar for now.”

“SNAPA,” Zoe corrected him. “They're not all so bad . . . well, Agent Dantes can be nice . . . but they are pretty strict about rules.”

Marco made a face. “I think I'll go home. Call me when you know about the werewolf thing?” He nodded at Logan. “I put my number in your phone when I borrowed it before.”

Logan looked surprised and pleased in a way that made Zoe want to hug him. It was as if people being friendly startled him every time.

Marco rode off, and Zoe took a deep breath, steeling herself for the serious grown-up frowns that might be waiting inside the house.

But the new visitor was much, much worse than more SNAPA investigators.

Zoe heard her voice as soon as she opened the door to the kitchen.

“—shouldn't be surprised this place fell apart without me. Dad,
what
are these? Are these
nonorganic
strawberries? I only eat organic strawberries now. And you'll have to hide those cookies. I don't eat carbs anymore, but you can't expect me to have any willpower when so many stressful things are happening. ZOE!”

Her sister came barreling through the kitchen and flung her arms around Zoe, picking her up as if Zoe were still five years old.

“
Ruby?
” Zoe wriggled free. “What are you doing here? What about college?”

“Oh, Hampshire can survive without me for a few days,” Ruby said, waving her hands airily. Her ruby nose stud twinkled in the light, matching her deep red fingernails. “As long as I'm back by the time rehearsals start for
Ontological Uncertainties
. But I had to come when I heard about all the disasters happening here. Nobody told me your
hair
was one of them, though. Are you doing something different? It looks awful. And I'm pretty sure we've talked about the utter wrongness of this shirt before.”

Zoe touched her hair self-consciously and avoided looking at Logan. The only thing she'd done differently that morning was forget to brush it, and the truth was, that probably happened more often than it didn't.

“Poor, poor Scratch,” Ruby went on, fluffing Zoe's hair and making hopeless dismayed faces at it. “Of course I simply had to fly back to help.”

“Using the emergency credit card,” said Zoe's dad from the corner where he was studying a folder full of spreadsheets. “Again.”

“One of our dragons being tried for murder is
clearly
an emergency,” said Ruby. “And I am
clearly
the right person to defend him. After all, I am pre-law.”

“More like pre-pre-pre-law,” said Matthew as he closed the fridge door and twisted open a juice bottle. “You're barely halfway through your first semester of college.”

“And I thought you wanted to be an actress,” said Zoe.

“Yes, but my Diction and Dialect class is superb,” said Ruby. “It's the perfect preparation for playing a lawyer. I'll be marvelous, wait and see. And luckily I got here in time for the voir dire tomorrow.” She patted her blond pixie cut and stared daggers at Logan. “
Who
is
that
? Zoe, didn't we talk about this?” She gave the secret stash of kraken ink a meaningful look.

“Ruby, this is Logan,” Zoe said. She braced herself for an embarrassing lecture about bringing boys home, but like a miracle, the dragon alarm suddenly went off and drowned Ruby out.