“Okay, Zeb, here’s what’s up; we need to do some reconnaissance,” Zeb cocked his head to one side and let out a questioning chirp. Sallie reached over and rubbed the flat plane between his ears. “Sorry. It means we need to go back to the menagerie and do some spying, try to figure out the best way to steal that amulet from the Horrible Woman. As far as I can tell, she uses it to steal life force from kids with blue eyes- and that’s probably why she doesn’t age. Although why she keeps you in animal form to do it, I have no idea…” She gave her head a violent shake, as though to bring her mind back on track. “But that doesn’t matter! What matters is figuring out how to get the amulet and either use it or destroy it. So that probably means another late night for me.” She hesitated, and then continued. “It… might be best for you to stay here, Zebbie. I don’t want to give her a chance to get you back.”
Zeb let out a string of lemur epithets and flung himself onto his sister, wrapping his arms firmly around her neck. His tail tickled her nose and Sallie couldn’t help but grin into his fur.
“Well I didn’t think you’d take me up on it, but I thought I’d better offer. Now let go so I can breathe!” Zeb released his stranglehold, still grumbling. Rather than return to where he’s previously been sitting, however, he moved to sit on her stretched-out legs and glared at her as though daring her to leave him behind.
“Right. Well, we know that she stays with the menagerie at night- or was the night I rescued you an exception?” Zeb shook his head to the negative. “Good. At least we don’t have to worry about tracking her anywhere else. We just have to figure out whether or not she ever takes that amulet off. Did you ever see her without it?” Again the negative head-shake. “Rats. Well, maybe she takes it off to sleep. Or shower.”
Quick as a flash, Zeb darted forward, poked Sallie in the chest, and was out the windowsill and into the tree before she could react. He opened his mouth in a grin.
“Zebbie, what are you-” but again he darted forward, plucked at the front of her shirt, and darted away again. This time he shook his fist at her meaningfully. Sallie was utterly confused.
“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” She guessed. Zeb made and impatient noise, sprang forward, snatched the pen out of her hand, and sprang away- again, all before she could react.
“Why are you stealing my pen, you weird little- oh!” She suddenly felt very foolish. “You’re saying it doesn’t matter if she takes it off or not, aren’t you? You think you’re fast enough to steal it!” Zeb nodded his head vigorously, climbed down out of the tree and held her pen out to her. Sallie took it and stared at her lemur-brother while biting her lip.
“I don’t know, Zeb. That seems awful dangerous. If it’s so easy to steal from her, why didn’t you just do it before?” Zeb shrugged his shoulders, an awkward gesture in his current form, and began bathing his tail. “And anyway, didn’t she put you to sleep the night I rescued you from the menagerie? What’s to keep her from doing it again if she sees you?”
Zeb paused in his grooming, pointed at her chest and let out a noise that sounded like ee-aow!
“Me? You- what? You expect me to distract her while you grab the amulet or something?” Zeb nodded and gave a little chattering purr.
“Well how am I supposed to do that?” Zeb stared at her hard, then returned to his tail.
“Great,” muttered Sallie, “Just great. You’re the one with a plan, and I’m the one who doesn’t speak lemur.”
***
In all the excitement of finding Zeb again, Sallie forgot that it was a three-day weekend; she didn’t remember until Mommy happened to mention it at dinner that evening.
“Any big plans for your day off, sweetie?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t grunt, dear. I asked if you have anything special planned for tomorrow, since you don’t have to go to school.”
“Oh, um,” Sallie’s mind whirled. She had thought she’d have to wait until Friday to break back into the menagerie, but not having school in the morning meant that she could try again tonight! “Nothing really: thought I might go to the library for a while.”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time there, lately,” Daddy said as he cut into his grilled portabella. “Working on a project? Or just found a new obsession?”
“Er- new obsession,” she said. “I’ve been reading about our town’s history in the newspaper archives. Today I found some articles from back in the 1800s!” She knew this would go over well with her father, an amateur history sleuth himself: plus it had the added benefit of being somewhat true.
“Excellent!” Daddy beamed. “That’s my girl.”
“Well don’t get so caught up in research that you neglect your homework,” Mommy said.
“Yes ma’am.” Sallie shoved a giant fork-full of potatoes into her mouth in an attempt to avoid further discussion. It worked, because Daddy turned to Mommy and asked if she was making any satisfying progress on her latest piece, which led into a long conversation between the two of them about the properties of red glass. Sallie spent the rest of the meal silently planning that night’s adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment