The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase by Greg Cox

Author:Greg Cox
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

14

Oregon

The Large Animals Room was a zoo, in more ways than one. Pens, enclosures, pools, and tanks held a variety of exotic beasts from myth and legend, including myriad leviathans, chimeras, shape-shifters, and hybrids, all of whom appeared to be in an uproar as Jenkins arrived at the menagerie after traversing the Library with unseemly haste. Ordinarily, the animals resided as peacefully as on the Ark, but the goose’s erratic antics had clearly stirred them up, as evidenced by the golden egg resting on the floor in front of Nessie’s tank. A chorus of roars, howls, barks, wails, trills, chirps, hisses, lows, whinnies, and miscellaneous caterwauling assailed his eardrums and his patience. He hadn’t heard such a hubbub since that time the banshee clans had challenged the Sirens to a sing off. It was going to take a considerable quantity of bones, biscuits, sugar cubes, and chew toys to calm this troublesome brouhaha, not to mention precious time that he could ill afford to spare at the present moment. Not for the first time, he wished that the Library’s budget allowed for a full-time zookeeper.

But if wishes were horses, he thought, I’d probably be tending them, too.

“Hush! HUSH!” he called out in his most stentorian tone. “Everyone settle down. Nothing to see here.” He placed the offending egg in an empty nest while making his way toward the well-stocked feed cabinet. “Everyone be patient and we’ll get this all sorted out in no time. Just wait your turn.”

A Questing Beast yipped vociferously.

“I said, patience … and that means you, Glatisant.”

The Beast sulked petulantly in its stall. Its elongated neck retracted.

“That’s better.” Jenkins was wondering where just to begin when he noticed belatedly that two of the pens were missing their occupants. The King of Beasts no longer presided over his regal den, while the Unicorn had vacated his stall, leaving a feed bucket full of oats and honey. Neither animal had been caged, as this had never been necessary before, so Jenkins was at a loss to explain them wandering off—until he remembered another nursery rhyme:

The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown …

“Oh dear.” He chided himself for not anticipating this; as with the errant goose, the Lion and the Unicorn had clearly been affected by the breaking of the Mother Goose Treaty, which meant that they had almost surely bolted from the Large Animals Room in pursuit of a crown.

No, he corrected himself, not merely a crown. The Crown.

There were many priceless examples of royal headgear in the Library’s custody, from the helm of Hades to Anastasia Romanov’s cursed tiara, but for Jenkins, a one-time Knight of the Round Table, only one crown was truly the Crown:

Arthur’s Crown.

The other animals would have to wait. A more immediate priority moved to the top of his to-do list as he hurriedly exited the Large Animals collection and proceeded with all deliberate speed toward another wing of the Library, where the Crown occupied a position of honor.

If anything happens to that Crown, he fretted.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.