The Menagerie #2 (22 page)

“Give me a boost,” Zoe said to Marco, setting Carlos's clothes on the ground. He cupped his hands and helped her climb onto the Captain's back. She grabbed handfuls of the mammoth's long brown fur to pull herself up, hoping it wouldn't hurt him. At last she reached the top of his broad, shaggy back and cautiously stood up with her arms out for balance. Captain Fuzzbutt shuffled a little closer to the wall and she reached up to grab the top of it.

It took some maneuvering and kicking and a lot more arm strength than Zoe would have given herself credit for, but finally she made it to the top of the wall, and from there it was easy to climb onto the tree branch.

There was a spot on the branch above the Menagerie side where the bark was worn down, as if something had been attached to it. Zoe leaned to look down on the far side and thought she saw two divots in the muddy earth, where a ladder might have rested against the wall.

“Meet me outside,” she called to Marco and Carlos. “Thanks, Captain! See you later!”

The mammoth saluted with his trunk and gave the cub a friendly pat on the back that sent the bear rolling down the hill toward the Aviary. With an
oops
expression, Captain Fuzzbutt trotted off toward Mooncrusher's yurt.

Zoe clambered along the branch and slid down the tree, wincing as splinters dug into her hands. Carlos and Marco caught up to her soon after, and the bear cub started vigorously nosing around in the pine needles.

He made a whuffling noise and trotted off, nose to the ground, leading them through the trees until they reached the road. Tire treads in the dirt showed that something bigger than a car had been parked here recently.

The bear sniffed the air, sat down, and started turning back into a boy.

Zoe grabbed his clothes from Marco and flung them at the cub, then covered her eyes.

“Why is he turning back?” she asked Marco. “We haven't found Pelly yet.”

“The scent trail ends here,” Carlos answered for himself. “I can't smell goose anymore—only truck. And this truck soon gets mixed up in all the other car smells on the road so I can't follow it. Sorry.” She heard him scrambling into his clothes.

“That's it?” Zoe said. “You can't tell me any more than that?” She'd been so sure this would lead them straight to the missing goose. Now what were they going to do?

“She was definitely drugged,” Carlos said in a superior, detective sort of voice. “I could smell something sleepy about her.”

“You
smelled
something sleepy?” Marco echoed skeptically. “That's not very scientific. You mean you could smell chloroform or something?”

“
I
don't know what it was,” his brother said, brushing himself off. “Sleepy, chemical, weird, whatever. Can we go back inside and meet some dragons now?”

Zoe sighed and pulled out her phone to take a picture of the tire tracks. There was a message she'd missed from Logan.

“Oh!” she said happily, scanning the text. “They found the qilin! They're on their way!”
That gives us some breathing room. We can use the qilin to prove Scratch's innocence before the trial tomorrow, and then concentrate on finding Pelly after that.

They waited in the garage with Carlos hopping impatiently from foot to foot. To set a good example, and because it seemed entirely possible that Carlos could annoy a dragon into breathing flames at him, Zoe put on her own fireproof suit and made him and Marco wear them as well. For some reason, Carlos found this excessively thrilling.

“We could get set ON FIRE!” he yelled at his brother.

“AWESOME!” Marco shouted back.

“Or maybe we'll get EATEN!” Carlos hollered, bouncing off the walls.

“Your brother has a strange idea of fun,” Zoe said.

“You're telling me,” Marco agreed.

The family van came chugging up the driveway, rumble-coughing, and rolled into the garage. Logan and Blue hopped out of the back and held the doors open as a delicate creature jumped daintily to the ground and peered around the concrete room. Her eyes met Zoe's and Zoe felt instantly calmer.

“Whoa,” said Marco.

“Isn't she gorgeous?” Logan said, stroking her neck.

“DRAGONS!” Carlos shouted. “Dragons dragons dragons!”

“Quit being embarrassing or you're going home right now,” Marco ordered.

“You're not the boss of me,” said Carlos. “You're just a bird. A
farmyard
bird.”

The qilin stepped forward and gently touched each brother's hand with her nose. They both went quiet, looking at her.

“The dragon is in one of the mountain caves,” Matthew said to the qilin. She nodded and stepped to the door, waited for Zoe to open it for her, and then set off across the Menagerie. The others all followed, although Blue stopped to put on a fireproof suit and had to run to catch up.

Zoe felt her excitement growing as they climbed the mountain path. They'd fixed Matthew's problem and now they were going to save Scratch.

“Are we sure this is going to work?” Blue asked, his voice distorted by the fireproof helmet. “I mean, Kiri doesn't talk, so how does she indicate if someone is innocent or guilty?”

“Their horns change color,” Zoe said, pointing. “Yellow if the person is innocent, blue if they're guilty.”

They climbed past the first set of caves, where Firebella was sitting with her tail coiled around her claws, glaring down at the Menagerie.

“Hey,” Zoe said, pausing as the others scrambled quickly past. “Firebella, how come you didn't set off the intruder alarm for Carlos?” She pointed at Marco's brother, who had stopped to stare in slack-jawed awe.

The black dragon narrowed her eyes at the werebear. “Worth not my voice nor energy is intruder so puny.”

“Hmm,” Zoe said. “Okay.”

“She called me puny!” Carlos whispered in delight as Zoe dragged him behind her to Scratch's cave. “She noticed me!”

Scratch lifted his head mournfully as the qilin stopped in front of him. He didn't look like he'd gone inside during the rain; his scales still glistened damply and his waterlogged wings drooped. He also looked skinnier, and Zoe guessed he was too miserable to eat. She knew that feeling.

“It's okay, Scratch,” Logan said. “We've brought Kiri to help.”

“What do you think?” Matthew asked, crouching beside her. “You can see that he's innocent, right?”

The qilin gazed at Scratch for a long moment. Slowly a weird feeling started creeping over Zoe—a sick feeling, coated with violence, as if she was remembering something awful she'd done and didn't want anyone to know about.

The qilin's horn began to glow faintly blue, then stronger and stronger. The color of guilt.

“Doomed,” Scratch pronounced with a long, smoky sigh.

“That's impossible!” Zoe cried. “He didn't eat Pelly! We know she's still alive!” She turned to Matthew in alarm. “Why is she wrong?”

“I have no idea,” Matthew said, looking ill. “Kiri, try again. We're sure he's innocent.”

Kiri stamped her foot once. Her horn stayed blue.

“I think—” Logan said in a choked voice. “Perhaps—well, the stuff I read last night wasn't totally clear. But my guess would be that the qilin reads someone's own feelings of guilt and innocence along with their memories. They don't answer specific ‘did he do this or that?' questions . . . they just sense whether they're guilty of
something
. So she's probably sensing how ashamed he feels about the sheep he ate.”

“Also failure as alarm system,” Scratch put in gloomily. “Deep-full of regret for always is poor doomed Scratch.”

“But this makes things worse than ever!” Zoe said.

Matthew ran his hands over his head, looking frazzled. “Maybe we could hide her again until after—”

“INTRUDER! INTRUDER! INTRUDER!”

Zoe had never been up the mountain, this close to the dragons, during an intruder alarm. Firebella's bellowing sounded loud enough to blow out her eardrums. Zoe clapped her hands to her ears, but the suit's helmet got in the way. The others had all buckled to the ground, trying to block out the noise as well.

“Make it stop!” Carlos yelled.

“Good-bye, ears!” Marco shouted. “I will miss you!”

Zoe could barely hear them over the blaring voice of the dragon. She staggered back to the path and climbed down as best she could with her mind reeling from the clamor.

Firebella paused, mercifully, and glowered at Zoe.

“Please stop!” Zoe called. “You said Carlos wasn't worth warning us about.”

“Not the intruder is small human of bear smell. New these intruders are. Coming this way are these intruders.” She cocked her head. “Excellent job required by Firebella for these intruders.” Without any more warning than that, she began bellowing again. “INTRUDER! INTRUDER! INTRUDER!”

Zoe's head was pounding with the noise. What did Firebella mean? New intruders—multiple intruders—were coming this way?

She turned to look down the mountain and saw a group of adults climbing toward them: the two SNAPA agents, her parents, and two strangers.

She ran back up the mountain and waved her hands wildly at Matthew. They had to hide the qilin. Not to mention both Matthew and Logan, who were not in fireproof suits. The Menagerie had enough trouble without further protocol violations, particularly when it came to the dragons.

Matthew blinked at her in confusion, but Logan jumped forward right away. He pointed into Scratch's cave and she nodded.

Except the qilin wouldn't go.

Kiri planted her hooves and shook her head at Matthew as he tried to coax her into the cave. Zoe wasn't sure if it was the smell of dragon, or whether she was determined to have her guilty verdict noticed, but she wasn't budging.

Zoe leaned over one of the boulders and saw the heads of the SNAPA agents passing Firebella. Mr. Kahn signaled to the black dragon, and she went silent with a haughty sniff.

Logan saw the look on Zoe's face and grabbed Matthew. They bolted into Scratch's cave, disappearing into the dark moments before the adults arrived.

Mrs. Kahn saw the qilin first. She stopped with a gasp.

“Zoe!” she said. “Where did this come from?” She hurried forward and circled the qilin, who blinked serenely at all the newcomers.

“That's the qilin from Camp Underpaw!” Delia cried. “The one who's been missing for the last two months!”

“Matthew found her,” Zoe said quickly. She wanted to make sure he got credit for that—it was his one shot at getting back on the path to being a Tracker one day. “He's been looking for the qilin ever since she ran away, and he just found her today, so we brought her here . . .” Her voice faltered. She knew they were all staring at that blue horn.

“Proof,” said Runcible in a steely voice. “Right there for all to see.”

“Now hold on,” said Zoe's dad, a little desperately. “You know as well as I do that qilin judgments are known for being unspecific. A qilin's horn is not sufficient proof in a court of law, especially in cases with capital punishment.” He glanced at one of the newcomers, and Zoe took a good look at them for the first time.

One of the strangers matched the other SNAPA agents—he wore a suit and looked like someone had pinched his face into a severe expression it could never fall out of. He was long and skinny with a long nose; a long, skinny neck, and even skinnier legs; and his skin was slightly sunburned, so he looked a little like a disapproving flamingo.

But there was nothing funny about the other stranger. He was tall, almost a foot taller than everyone else, and he wore black from head to toe, including a hooded black coat and black leather gloves. His face was entirely covered with a mask, showing only his dark eyes. He was like a shadow come to life. The only light anywhere around him was the glitter of the sun reflecting off a thin silver chain around his neck, holding an X-shaped key that fell at about the middle of his chest.

Zoe knew immediately who this must be.

The Exterminator. The one who was here to execute Scratch.

“Oh, we'll still have the trial,” said Runcible, stepping forward and patting the qilin triumphantly on the head. “We'll let the jury look at the qilin tomorrow and decide. Tell your brother thank you for saving us the trouble of flying in a caladrius bird. This will do quite nicely. Quite nicely indeed.”

Zoe sank onto one of the boulders, wishing her mammoth were there, wishing she could run back to her room and cry, wishing she could start this whole day—this whole week—over again. The Exterminator stood there, glowering with dark purpose.

The qilin had only made things worse. And there was no way to track Pelly.

Tomorrow, Scratch was going to die.

“G
ood morning!” Jasmin sang out right behind them.

Logan saw Blue nearly jump into his locker, but he got ahold of himself and turned around with his usual easy smile.