Krakens and Lies
Authors: Tui T. Sutherland
For Adalynâ
may your dreams be filled with griffins
Camp Underpaw's Guide to Mythical Creatures
Books by Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland
L
ogan Wilde stared down at the map in his hands. Mr. Sterling's oak-paneled study seemed to be spinning around him.
Dragon Lair
.
Flight of the Griffins
.
Unicorn Safari
.
One week earlier, he had discovered that his little town of Xanadu, Wyoming, contained a secret home for mythical creatures called the Menagerie. Emphasis on
secret
. As in, nobody was supposed to know about it, and anyone who accidentally found out would get their memories wiped with kraken ink.
He'd only been allowed in because he could communicate with the baby griffins and because of his mom's ties to the Kahn family, who ran the Menagerie. But he understood how important it was to hide these endangered magical animals from the world.
The map in his hands represented the exact opposite of all that: a vision of the Menagerie as an amusement park where rich tourists could snap pictures of mermaids, ride a chained-up woolly mammoth, and probably buy yeti-fur blankets and baby pyrosalamanders of their own at the large
GIFT SHOP
marked prominently in the corner.
Logan's heart was hammering in his chest. The Sterlings didn't just know about the Menagerie. They knew all the detailsâthe layout, the animals who lived there. But how? Ruby Kahn had given all the Sterlings kraken ink, which should have wiped their memories of the Menagerie. Why hadn't it worked?
He slipped his phone out of his pocket and snapped a photo of the map. The Kahns needed to see this right away.
It was awkward working with the fake fur and claws of his werewolf costume. Across the hall, he could hear the noise and thumping music of Jasmin Sterling's Halloween party. It was the first party he'd been invited to since moving to Xanaduâand now he needed to find a polite way to bolt out of there two hours early.
“What on earth are you looking at?” Jasmin said from
behind him, making him jump. He'd almost forgotten that she and his friend Blue Merevy were even in the room.
Logan fumbled his phone back into his jacket and tried to roll up the map, but she was already reaching around to take it from him.
“There can't possibly be anything interesting in my dad's boring papers about boring real estate and boring politics andâ” Jasmin stopped, raising her eyebrows at the map. “Oh,
Dad
.”
“What?” Blue asked, leaning over her shoulder to look. Jasmin glanced sideways at him with a smile and tilted it so he'd lean closer to her.
“Isn't my dad so cheesy?” she said. “Remember that Wild West theme park he tried to start a few years ago? The huge enormous failure?”
“Oh yeah,” Blue said, looking at her instead of at the map. “We went with Zoe on opening day.”
“Right,” she said, laughing. “And we all got totally sick on the free root beer, and you fell off a horse that was
barely
moving, and then Zoe nearly locked herself in the old jail cell while I was pretending to be sheriff.” She paused, and a wistful expression crossed her face that was almost an exact match for the look Zoe got whenever she talked about Jasmin.
She misses Zoe, too
, Logan realized. Zoe had had to stop being friends with Jasmin six months ago, when the whole Sterling family was dosed with kraken ink after Jasmin's
brother, JonathanâRuby's boyfriend at the timeâtried to steal a jackalope.
He tried to shoot
PAY ATTENTION, TIME TO FREAK OUT
vibes at Blue, but the blond boy was . . . what
was
he doing? Giving Jasmin a rather goofy-looking grin, for one thing.
“Anyway, look,” Jasmin said, shaking her hair back. “Dad's got another brilliantly terrible idea. A theme park full of imaginary creatures? Who does he think is going to drive out to the middle of seriously absolutely nowhere for some lame animatronic unicorns? I mean, really, right?” She giggled and waved one hand at her Halloween costume. “Maybe you and I can play a couple of the mermaids.”
Logan saw the moment where Blue realized what he was looking at. Even without the terrifying labels, it would have been easy to recognize the Menagerie from the giant lake in the middle of itâthe lake where Blue's father, King Cobalt, ruled over the merfolk.
The normally unflappable merboy jumped back as though the map had snarled at him. All the color drained out of his face.
“Blue?” Jasmin said, turning toward him. “Are you all right?”
“We have to go,” Logan said quickly. “I was just telling Blueâthat's why we're in here, sorry.”
“No!” Jasmin cried, genuinely upset. “Blue, you can't leave
already. You just got here. We haven't danced or anything. And there's, umâthere's red velvet cake! In the shape of a ghost! You
can't
leave before the cake.”
Blue shook his head and ran one hand through his hair. “Sorry, Jasmin. It's, uhâ”
“My cat,” Logan jumped in, right as Blue said, “My mom.”
Jasmin glanced between them suspiciously.
“His mom,” Logan agreed.
“Got bitten by his cat,” Blue blurted.
Logan shot him a look.
You are the worst liar
. Poor Purrsimmon, as if she would ever bite anybody.
“What?” Jasmin said. “Is she all right?”
“Yes,” Logan said.
“No,” said Blue, and Jasmin's eyes went wide.
“His
mom
is
fine
,” Logan said firmly. “He means my
cat
, who is now
missing
, and we have to
find her
, so we need to leave
now
.”
Before this lie gets any more absurd
. He pushed Blue toward the door.
“Are you taking your disturbing sixth grader with you?” Jasmin asked. “Because she just dared Cadence to bite off one of her own fingers, and then got all outraged when she wouldn't. I'm not sure she completely understands that Truth or Dare is a game. Also, she might be a psychopath.”
“Keiko, yes,” Blue said distractedly. “We should get Keiko.”
“This is going to go over well,” Logan muttered. He took
out his fake fangs as they left the study. At least he wouldn't have to wear his uncomfortable costume any longer.
They found Zoe's adopted sister, Keiko, perched on the kitchen counter, chatting to three seventh-grade girls, while Marco Jimenez stood beside her holding two plates of snacks. Keiko took a tiny meatball from one plate and a mini-quiche from the other without looking at him. Her blue fox ears twitched, but no one seemed to notice that they were real.
“Terrible idea,” Keiko said to her fascinated audience. “Getting you together would be an utter waste of time. Violet, stop liking him at once. There are much more useful things you can be doing with your brain than thinking about idiots and how to get those idiots to pay attention to you.”
“Aidan's not that bad,” Marco protested faintly.
“And he's so cute . . .” Violet said.
“He is twelve, and a boy,” Keiko said, as if this were boringly obvious. “He'd require an exhausting amount of training. You wouldn't have any time for soccer.” She speared another meatball.
“What kind of training?” Marco asked. “I'm a fast learner. Just in case you were wondering.”
Keiko gave him a skeptical look and then spotted Logan and Blue heading toward her. Her expression shifted into a glare.
“Absolutely not,” she said, pointing her toothpick at them. “Take those pathetic faces elsewhere. I will rip off your
eyelashes if you try to make me leave right now.”
“It's an emergency, Keiko,” Blue said.
“
You're
an emergency,” she said.
“Seriously, we have to go right now,” Logan said.
“Aw, really? Already?” Marco held up the plates. “Look, she's letting me hold her fancy miniature foods!”
Keiko studied Blue's eyes for a minute, then growled softly. “Help me down,” she ordered Marco.
He hurriedly dropped the plates on the counter, scattering crumbs everywhere, and took Keiko's outstretched hand. She jumped lightly to the floor and patted him on the head. “Think about what I said,” she said to the three girls. “See me in school on Monday if you have any questions.”
Logan turned toward the exit and nearly ran into a woman wielding a gleaming knife.
“Aah!” he yelped, leaping back.
“It's all right, you're safe from me unless you're a cake,” Mrs. Sterling said, smiling. Her gold-rimmed glasses caught the light so it was hard to see her eyes.
“Ohâsorry, Mrs. Sterling,” Logan said awkwardly.
“I'll forgive you this time, young man,” she said, tipping the knife slightly toward him. Her dark hair was swept back from her face and pinned into a bun. Her orange-and-black dress was made from some kind of shiny material and she had on what looked like ten pounds of jewelry, between the diamonds dangling from her ears, the bracelets sparkling on her
narrow wrists, and the giant pearl nestled in a gold-and-silver pendant at her neck.