Pelly could be alive.
Zoe felt weird tingles up and down her arms. If Pelly was alive—if they could get her back—
She glanced down the table, but her mom and the agents hadn’t heard Marco. Ruby was arguing loudly for a later court date, so no one was paying attention to Zoe or the others. Except for Captain Fuzzbutt, whose big brown eyes were watching her curiously from the island of ice.
“In here,” Zoe whispered to the others, pointing at the yurt. She dropped the photos and feather bags back into the evidence box, climbed over the low concrete wall, and slid across the ice to Mooncrusher. Behind her she could hear Logan and Marco and Blue wobbling and crunching carefully between the ice sculptures.
“Blaaaaaargh,” the yeti observed, looking down at her with his arms folded.
“I know,” Zoe said. “I wouldn’t want a crowd like this outside my room, either. Can we use your yurt for a minute?”
Mooncrusher lifted his sunglasses and squinted at her.
“It’s for a good reason,” she promised.
“Blaargh blaargh,” he said, waving one paw at his front door. Captain Fuzzbutt scrambled to his feet and edged out of the way. Zoe kissed the tip of his trunk as he went by, and he patted her on the head with it.
Zoe lifted aside the thick red wool curtain and beckoned to the others. As they ducked inside, Logan and Marco both made strangled “gaack” noises.
Which wasn’t entirely fair. Zoe knew that Mooncrusher kept his yurt as neat as possible. He swept it every day, made the bed in the corner, cleaned up the scraps around his weaving loom, and only watched the small TV at night, when all his groundskeeper duties were done. It wasn’t his fault that he shed like a normal yeti—which is to say, all over the place all the time. Or that he hated to take baths, also like a normal yeti, so the whole yurt smelled like a herd of damp yaks.
Blue sat down on Mooncrusher’s weaving stool. Logan and Marco eyed the furry futon and the furry recliner and opted to stay standing. Zoe peeked through the curtain, making sure her parents and the agents were still occupied and out of earshot, then turned back to Marco.
“Okay,” she said. “Explain. Those aren’t Pelly’s feathers?”
He shrugged. “Those feathers come from an old goose, at least four hundred years old. I can’t really explain how I know. It’s sort of a wererooster thing.”
“I’m sure that’s going to stand up in court,” Logan said. “This is our feather expert, who is twelve and an unregistered werecreature, but he’s going to crack this case wide open.”
“I wonder if there’s a way to verify it,” Zoe said. “Like DNA testing or something.”
“On goose feathers?” Marco said. “Sure, I bet the FBI will get right on that.”
“But they aren’t ordinary goose feathers,” Logan said. “They’re huge and kind of sparkly, like Pelly’s. You can’t just pick up feathers like that on your average farm, right? Nor do average geese live to be a hundred, let alone four hundred.”
“So they must have come from another goose who lays golden eggs,” Zoe said. Seeing Logan’s surprised look, she added, “There are about ten or twelve of them, I forget exactly. Not like Nero, who is the only phoenix in the world.”
“So someone got those feathers from another golden goose and brought them here,” said Blue.
“The blood probably isn’t hers, either,” Logan said. “Which means whoever it is wants us to think Pelly’s dead, but they actually stole her.”
“For her golden eggs,” Blue guessed.
Logan and Zoe exchanged glances. Or because they knew that without those golden eggs, the Menagerie would financially collapse, Zoe thought. Because they hate us, although I have no idea why.
“So all we have to do is track down the thief, rescue Pelly, and clear Scratch, and then we save the Menagerie!” Zoe said.
“No problem,” Blue said. He shot her a wry smile. “At least it’s better than going after a werewolf on a full moon.”
“And now we know where to start,” Zoe pointed out. “We find out where the thief could have gotten the fake feathers—which other menageries have golden geese, and if any of them are that old.”
“How would we check that?” Logan asked. “Do you have some kind of database?”
“Sort of, but ours is way out of date,” Zoe admitted. “The best way to check would be on one of the agents’ tablet computers.”
“So we tell them—” Blue started.
“No!” Zoe said quickly. “We shouldn’t tell anyone yet—they won’t believe us until we find Pelly, and they’ll just have lots of questions for Marco. We need to focus on getting her back before the trial.”
“And then they can’t exterminate Scratch,” Logan said. “Right? He won’t be in trouble for the sheep?”
“Some trouble, but not extermination-level trouble,” Zoe said. “The fact that he came back to the Menagerie instead of escaping after eating the sheep will help.” She went to the door and peeked out at the agents. Mrs. Kahn was sorting through the evidence with Ruby; Runcible stood next to them with an impatient expression on his face. The strap of his computer bag crisscrossed his chest, and he held on to it with one hand as he waited. Zoe couldn’t imagine getting his computer away from him.
But Delia . . .
The other agent slipped her tablet into a case and put the whole thing inside her purse, which was brown leather with brass buckles and hung from one shoulder. She unclipped her long dark hair, shook it back, and clipped it up again. Her gray gaze drifted to the dragon mountain caves and Zoe thought she looked a little sad. She’d always seemed so nice—asking them to call her Delia, saying reassuring things about the Menagerie. Maybe she wouldn’t even mind if they asked to look at her computer . . . but just in case, it was safer not to ask.
“We’ll need a distraction,” Zoe said.
“Can we download the database somehow?” Logan asked.
“Not on one of those computers,” Marco said. “Not in a hurry without a particular attachment. Victor has a tablet like that, which, by the way, is totally unfair, because it’s not like he really needs it for high school and I’m pretty sure he just uses it for video games and watching YouTube videos about eating mice.”
“Gross!” Logan yelped.
“Owls eating mice,” Marco pointed out. “Not people. Obviously.”
“Slightly less gross,” Logan amended.
“So you’ll have to get the computer,” Blue said to Zoe. “You know all the menageries. You’ll understand the database better than any of us.”
Zoe rubbed her arms, trying to chase away her goose bumps. “So you guys will be the distraction.”
“I have an idea,” Logan said. He pointed to Riff and Nira, who were stretching their wings and clacking their beaks at each other. “If you can get Agent Dantes to take them back to their den, I’ll put Squorp in charge of being distracting. It’s one of his particular skills.” He grinned.
“Okay,” Zoe agreed. Logan pushed through the curtain, maneuvered carefully through the ice garden, and took off running toward the griffin enclosure on the far side of the lake. As soon as he was out of sight, Zoe climbed on the wall beside Nira and whispered in her ear.
Hmmmm, Nira rumbled. Will this get us thrown off the jury? Because I’m quite looking forward to participating in the judicial process.
Zoe raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
Of course. I’m especially looking forward to the part where someone else watches my cubs for a few hours while I get to use my brain and have adult conversations.
“Oh,” Zoe said, remembering that she still hadn’t had a talk with Riff about being more helpful with the cubs. After the trial. I’ll put it on my to-do list. “Sure, okay. Well, don’t worry, you’ll still be on the jury. But we need your help to get this evidence. I promise you’ll see why during the trial.”
All right, said Nira. But if I get thrown off the jury, you’re babysitting them all day Saturday.
“Deal,” said Zoe.
What are we doing? Riff asked. Something terribly noble?
Yes, dear, said Nira. Just follow my lead. She flapped her wings and paced over to the SNAPA agent. Delia looked up from packing her purse and jumped at the sight of the massive griffin peering down her beak at her.
Escort us home, suggested the griffin in a way that didn’t sound remotely optional. I wish to discuss my cubs’ eating habits.
“Oh, um,” said Delia, glancing at Runcible. “That’s not really SNAPA’s—”
Two of them will eat anything, Nira continued implacably. But the other four are being extremely difficult.
I’m terribly worried, Riff jumped in, clacking his beak. Sage has eaten nothing but pickles for the last two days and Clonk has been demanding chocolate coins instead of lovely fish and Clink is trying to organize a hierarchical system where she gets all the best food first but of course Yump won’t stand for that and then Flurp keeps pooping rainbow-colored poop. RAINBOW POOP, SNAPA AGENT! Pink! And lime green! And fluorescent orange! What sort of dreadful disease is this?!
Delia blinked.
Whoops, Zoe thought. She hadn’t had a chance to warn the griffin parents about the crayons Flurp had eaten while she was hiding in the town library.
Nira smiled an inscrutable griffin smile and put one wing around Delia’s shoulders, steering her toward the lake. We would very much like to hear your opinions.
“I—I don’t really have any opinion about, uh . . . rainbow poop,” Delia tried, but the griffins weren’t letting her slip away. They ushered her along the path, both talking at the same time. Once the SNAPA agent was at the griffin enclosure, the next step would be up to Logan. Zoe turned to Blue.
“Go get a bucket of fish, so it looks like we have a reason to be there,” she said. “Hurry.”
Blue and Marco ran down to the lake while Zoe followed the griffins and Delia. Riff hopped along on Delia’s other side, swishing his lion tail dramatically and expounding on the various eating dilemmas of his six children.
Squorp and Yump are such good cubs, he declared proudly. They’ll eat anything, really anything, and they’re constantly hungry, but then I worry, are we overfeeding them? Or perhaps they’re hungry because we’re not feeding them enough? What do you think? Is twelve hamburgers a day enough? Should we be giving them more broccoli? I never ate broccoli a day in my life and I turned out fine but Zoe had this cookbook that said—
He probably thinks this really is what they need to talk to her about, Zoe thought fondly. Riff was a goof, but no one could say he didn’t love his cubs.
Zoe hung back as they reached the griffin pen, waiting for Blue to catch up with the fish from the lake. She watched as the agent unlatched the gate and swung it open—and three griffin cubs exploded out the door, squawking at the top of their lungs.
Delia shrieked and dropped her purse.
“Quick, catch them!” Logan yelled, running out of the enclosure and chasing Squorp down the hill. Flurp butted Delia’s legs and galloped away. Clonk chased after her, waving his wings like he was hoping if he ran fast enough he’d end up airborne.
My cubs! Riff bellowed frantically. My beautiful cubs! He charged after Squorp, nearly running Delia over.
You let them out, Nira said calmly to Delia. You can get them back.
The agent let out a cry of dismay as Flurp shot past her once more. Delia grabbed for the cub’s tail, missed, and ran after her around the wall of the griffin enclosure.
Zoe bolted toward Delia’s purse, pulled out the computer, and ducked behind Nira’s outspread wings. Out of the corner of her eyes she noticed Blue and Marco joining the chase. The happy yowls of griffin cubs filled the air as Flurp, Clonk, and Squorp charged in circles through the grass, yipping with glee. Nira sat down and examined one of her front paws.
The computer made a little ping noise as the screen lit up. The background was a photo of a smiling couple with a little girl. Zoe guessed it must be Agent Dantes at about age eight or nine, with her parents. She had the same hairstyle and the same wistful expression. Zoe wondered how she’d been recruited to be a SNAPA agent.
She scanned the icons on the home screen until she found one that said “Creature Index.” When she tapped on it, a spreadsheet popped up that listed creatures by name, location, species, and previous homes, with a section for notes on each one. Zoe touched one of the tabs to rearrange it by species, then scrolled down to “Golden Geese.”
There were eleven listed besides Pelly; Pelly’s line was in red, with a note saying “DECEASED; SUSPECTED DRAGON ATTACK” next to it.
Zoe read down the list, trying to memorize it and look for anything surprising. Too bad it doesn’t list their ages, too, she thought. There was one goose at the New England Menagerie with a note that said “DECREASED EGG PRODUCTION. STRESS? PROXIMITY TO DRAGONS?” Another had been relocated to Vancouver from a tiny menagerie in Parkville, Missouri; the note said “MENAGERIE CLOSED DUE TO EXPOSURE; KRAKEN INK ADMINISTERED TOWN-WIDE.”
Zoe shuddered. That could have been them if the griffin cubs had been spotted by someone in Xanadu. Shoot. Someone had seen them—Miss Sameera. Zoe still needed to deal with that.
Come back, my beautiful cubs! Riff bellowed, careening past with his feathers flying. I promise to give you more love and affection!
Zoe focused on the list again. One goose had been sent to the Costa Rica Conservatory after the Amazon menagerie was shut down because of a dragon attack. Five of the geese were in Europe and one was in Mongolia, at the site of the original Kublai Khan menagerie.
And one was at Camp Underpaw in Colorado.
Zoe gasped.
That was Matthew’s Tracker camp.