THE BEAST ─ five hargreeves

[ 065 ] the most awkward family reunion ever

LXV.

t h e m o s t a w k w a r d
f a m i l y r e u n i o n e v e r

—WHEN ZARA REGAINED consciousness, it was with a sense of an immense passage of time. Confused memories stirred in her—jolting in a car—high jabbering and quarrelling of a crowd—her arms being bound behind her back—a horrible attack of nausea—then vaguely she remembered something familiar—some sense of being in a place she knew well—then more confused dreams and darkness and behind it a mounting sense of urgency . . .

Now at last, dimly, she was herself—Zara . . . And something had happened to Zara; a long time ago, months, perhaps years . . . after all, perhaps only minutes. Surely not more than an hour. Dallas—sunshine—shovels—graves—Lila. Lila, of course, smiling, her eyes sly under the cropped black hair. Lila had showed up, had spoken to her and to Diego, and then—

What had happened? That horrible smell—she could still smell it—nauseating . . .

Chloroform. A simple trick (and hand it to Lila to be as unoriginal as possible). She had chloroformed them and taken her—where?

Cautiously Zara tried to move. She seemed to be tied to a chair—a very hard chair—her head ached and felt dizzy. She was still drowsy, horribly drowsy . . . that smell, the smell of the chloroform, it was maddening . . . she was still half-drugged. Well, anyways she wasn't dead. (Why not?) So that was alright. She squinted her eyes and looked all around in the darkness.

"Kiki!" she called softly. "Kiki, where are you?"

There was no response. She called again. Then, after a moment, a small parrot came sidling in by the wall, her crest well down.

"Poor thing," said Zara, and Kiki flew to her shoulder at once. "You've had it awfully rough, haven't you? Well, don't worry. We shall be quite all right. We've got Diego somewhere, I'm sure. And if we haven't got him, there's always Five, and Five will know exactly what to do."

Her nose began to burn again and she sneezed. Kiki sneezed too, but very discreetly.

Zara smiled. "It's no good, Kiki," she said. "You haven't had a rag of chloroform stuffed up your beak so it's no use pretending you have."

"Chloroform, shloroform, sweep the fluoroform," said Kiki at once, and gave a small cackle of laughter.

"No, I'm not ready yet to laugh at your idiocy, Kiki," said Zara, fumbling with the ropes around her wrists. "Can't you produce a nice bedside manner—quiet voice, and sympathetic nods and all that?"

"Poor Kiki," said Kiki tragically, and nestled as close to Zara's neck as she could. She gave an enormous groan. It sounded like Frankenstein's monster was trying to birth a cantaloupe.

"Not in my ear, for God's sake," said Zara. "Don't look so glum, old thing! I bet Five is looking for us right now. We'll be rescued. Like Rapunzel. And I will be the princess. With a castle. And a legion of admirers. And ever so much gold—"

Footsteps approached outside. There was the grinding of an outsize key in a rusty lock, and the door staggered on its hinges and flew open. In the aperture appeared The Handler, adorned from head to toe in gilded purple velvet. Standing behind her was Lila.