Read Online The Menagerie by Tui T. Sutherland - Free Book Online Page A

hips. “Nero, where’s my dad?”
    A gorgeous bird with fiery red and gold feathers strutted out of the trees. It was about the size of a pheasant, with dramatic trails of wispy plumage cascading in all directions. The goose stared balefully at it.
    â€œYou don’t have to humor me!” the new bird declared. “I know where I’m not wanted!” A few of its tail feathers brushed the giant nest.
    â€œYou stay away from my nest,” the goose hissed. “I will never forgive you for last time.”
    â€œYou see?” Nero yelped. “Unloved! Unappreciated!”
    â€œDon’t be silly,” Matthew said. “We all love and appreciate you.”
    â€œSILLY? Are you calling my feelings SILLY?” The red bird flung his wings out dramatically, and the goose snapped at him, barely missing his feathers. He sidled a few steps away from the nest without pausing his rant. “This is what I mean! No one cares about me at all! I could just DIE, and no one would even NOTICE.”
    â€œNero, stop!” Zoe shouted.
    Too late, Squorp cried.
    The beautiful red bird burst into flames.

ELEVEN
    â€œN O!” Logan yelled. He leaped forward, yanked off his hooded jacket, and threw it over the fire. Flames burst right through the fabric, taller than him, and he staggered back in the face of the blazing heat.
    â€œWhat do we do?” he shouted to Zoe. She looked too astonished to react. A large palm frond was lying beside the nest, and Logan snatched it up and began beating at the fire. They’d had a fire scare at his apartment in Chicago once, soon after Mom left, when something got stuck in the toaster and small flames started shooting out the top. But this time there wasn’t a fire extinguisher under a nearby sink.
    And then, all at once, the fire collapsed and went out. The only thing left was a pile of charred black ashes as high as Logan’s knee.
    â€œOh, no,” Logan said. He crouched beside the ashes, feeling sick. The palm frond slipped out of his fingers. “That beautiful bird.”
    â€œWe should videotape this,” Matthew said to Zoe. “Nero hasn’t gotten a reaction like that in about six hundred years. It would totally make his century.”
    â€œNasty, horrible creature,” Pelly the goose spat from her nest. “Did you see that? He deliberately tried to set my nest on fire.”
    â€œI can’t believe you did that,” Zoe said, her thin hands fluttering toward Logan. “I mean—your jacket . . .”
    â€œIt’s not important,” Logan said. He could feel heat coming off the ashes, with curls of smoke that smelled like vanilla and dates. “I can’t believe we just watched something amazing die. Are they terribly endangered?”
    â€œWell, in a way. Nero’s the only one in the world.” Zoe’s dad stepped through another vine curtain on the far side of the nest. “But he’s all right, young man. He’s a phoenix. He’ll be back.”
    Logan blinked as Mr. Kahn crouched beside him and stirred the ashes with a stick. “See?” Zoe’s dad said. “There’s an egg in here.” A shimmering golden-white eggshell glinted through the black ashes. “Nero will be reborn from that in about . . .” Mr. Kahn checked his watch. “Half an hour.”
    â€œSo if you could hang out beside the egg until then, sobbing with despair, it’d be really great for his self-esteem,” Matthew suggested.
    â€œI’m not sobbing with despair,” Logan said crossly. He thought someone might have mentioned this was a magical regenerating bird before he’d burned up his jacket. Dad was really not going to be psyched about that.
    â€œIt used to happen only every five hundred years,” Mr. Kahn explained, “but over time Nero’s worked out how to speed it up. He’s quite an expert at incinerating himself