The Griffin's Feather by Cornelia Funke

Author:Cornelia Funke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2018-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.

Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Wherever they were, it seemed that they had reached their destination. The monkeys untied Ben and threw him into something that swayed back and forth so menacingly that he felt around for something to hold on to. He got his fingers into twigs woven together, and when he took the blindfold off he saw that he was kneeling in a round cage like a basket. Beside him, Barnabas was polishing his glasses as if he wanted as clear a view of their unfortunate situation as possible, and Hothbrodd, cursing, bumped his head when he tried to sit up. As far as Ben could make out through the woven twigs that surrounded him, their basket prison was hanging from the roof of an enormous nest made of mud. He counted more than twenty such baskets of various sizes. One of the monkeys who had brought them here pushed two lorises into a basket not much larger than a calabash, and then, like his companions, he swung himself up to the wide opening leading to the outside air on a liana. The basketwork of the cages consisted of twigs only loosely interwoven, even under his feet, and far below, Ben saw three dog-sized creatures with scorpion bodies and the heads of jackals. They were passing the time by attacking one another with their pincers.

“Darn it all, Greenbloom! Darn it, darn it, darn it!” cursed Hothbrodd, looking at the twigs that imprisoned them. “Why did I let myself be persuaded to come to this island with you? May the frost giants carry you off!” He flung himself against the interwoven twigs so angrily that the cage creaked dangerously, and Ben glanced in alarm at the scorpion creatures beneath them. “A troll doesn’t belong in a cage! Certainly not a cage hanging in the air!”

“I’m really sorry, Hothbrodd,” replied Barnabas, but he wasn’t looking at the troll as he spoke, he was staring, like Ben, at the scorpions down below.

“Jackal scorpions! Fascinating! They’re even larger than I imagined them. And the armored exoskeleton and stinger really are made of gold! The griffins must have brought them from Mesopotamia with them! They served the kings there as guards and hounds for hunting. These specimens may well be more than two thousand years old!”

“Oh yes? And what’s their favorite food? Let me guess,” growled Hothbrodd. “Troll and human flesh?”

“I’m afraid you’re right about human flesh,” said Barnabas, without taking his eyes off the scorpions. “But I think they’ve probably never tasted troll. And their liking for human flesh is presumably because the Mesopotamian kings fed their enemies to the scorpions. I assume that by now these creatures will have adapted their diet to this island.”

“Unless this Kraa throws poachers who don’t pay up to them,” murmured Ben. He was probably not alone in adding in his thoughts: “Or his prisoners.” He looked at the other cages.

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