The Menagerie by Tui T. Sutherland Page A

were fast.” He held out his hand, and, looking surprised, Logan high-fived him.
    â€œLet’s get inside and close up,” Zoe said, reaching for the garage door button.
    Out on the road there was a muffled engine rumble-cough, and a pair of headlights came swinging around the corner into the driveway.
    Logan looked like he was about to grab a weapon. Zoe took his elbow and pulled him to the side wall. “It’s okay,” she said. “That’s our van.”
    The Kahns’ battered gray-blue van rolled into the garage, and she hit the button to close up behind it. The sound of the door thunking into the concrete made her feel a lot better. Now at least there was something between her and all the people who might destroy the Menagerie.
    Her mother turned off the engine, but the van kept shaking, and now they could hear the muffled squawking coming from inside.
    Logan put his hands over his ears. “Oh, man , she is mad ,” he said. He lowered his hands again and looked at them ruefully. “Of course that wasn’t going to work.”
    So there’s one upside to not being able to hear the griffin cubs, Zoe thought, but it didn’t cheer her up.
    Her dad climbed out of the passenger side, smiling. “Got one!” he said.
    â€œSo did we,” Zoe said. She loved the look on her dad’s face—proud but not surprised, as if he’d had no doubt she would come back with a griffin cub. “Matthew took her inside. Wait—wasn’t Matthew supposed to go to the bank with you?”
    â€œWe couldn’t find him,” her dad said. “And we were in kind of a hurry. It’s the big one, by the way.” He lifted the smallest dragon harness off the wall and began tightening the straps to make it as small as possible.
    â€œDo we really have to harness her?” Zoe asked.
    â€œAWK AWK AWKAWKAWKAWKAWK!” bellowed the unseen griffin cub. From the banging inside, Zoe could tell she was crashing her cage into the sides of the van.
    â€œI think that’s a yes,” said Blue.
    â€œI don’t understand,” Zoe’s mom said, hopping out on the other side of the van. “Why isn’t she happy to be home? We’re all so nice to her here.” Mom’s hair was a mess, and there was a rip in her flowing daisy-patterned shirt, as if she’d tried to hug the cub and it had strongly objected.
    â€œWell, escaping was her idea,” Logan said in a strained voice. He had his hands to his head like he was trying to hold his skull together. “She’s hollering ‘MY TREASURE! MY BEAUTIFUL TREASURE!’ over and over again. Plus some creative things about what she’s going to do when she—”
    A sudden silence made him stop midsentence.
    They all stared at the van.
    â€œThat’s good, right?” Zoe’s mom said hopefully. “That means she’s calmed—”
    Scrabble. Scritch scratch scrabble scrabble. The sound of claws on metal . . . on the sides of the van itself. Which meant the griffin was not inside the cage anymore.
    Scratch scratch scratch scratch SCRAAAATCH.
    â€œUh-oh,” said Zoe’s dad.
    The black griffin cub exploded out of the van with such force that one of the back doors fell off, crashing loudly to the floor. She was the largest of the cubs, already the size of a small pony. In the confined garage, it was like a rocket set loose in a Looney Tunes cartoon, zooming wildly around the room.
    Zoe threw herself to the floor, covering her head. Her parents and Blue did the same thing as the griffin shot from wall to wall with shrieks of anger. She slammed into the hooks of dragon harnesses and frantically clawed them all to the ground. One of her wings whacked into Logan and knocked him over as well. With another leap she landed on the tool cabinet, sending drawers of nuts and bolts and screws clattering into sharp metal puddles.
    â€œAWK AWK AWKAWKAWK!”