RARE BEASTS Read Online Free Page B

glitter flew about the basement. The twins gleefully decorated the pets as if they were Easter eggs, singing a little song while they worked.
“We’ve got rare pets, so place your bets
On how much each little critter nets.
People will come on private jets,
Phone their accountants, hire new vets.
So dump more glitter, squirt more glue,
Color them purple, orange, blue.
Soon they’ll be ready for their debut
And we’ll rake in the revenue!”
     
    Puppies and kitties. Bunnies and birds. Hamsters, gerbils, lizards, and a chicken. Dozens of pets separated from their loving owners, trapped in the dank basement, each undergoing its own unique and terrible transformation.
    Oh, the horror!

13. A Little Night Music
     
    It had grown very late by the time Edgar and Ellen completed their exotic collection. The twins would have danced and pranced to celebrate had they not been so tired from a long day of scheming and pilfering and disguising.
    They secured the leashes and spread pages of the
Nod’s Limbs Gazette
on the floor so things wouldn’t get too messy during the night. Then they turned out the basement lights, leaving the animals alone at last, and wearily climbed the many flights of stairs to the attic bedroom.
    “Please, no snoring and snorting tonight, Brother,” said Ellen as she shuffled across the room.
    “Sweet dreams to you, too, Sister,” sneered Edgar, as he headed toward his stained pillow and mattress.
    As they were about to crawl into their ironframed beds, they noticed a steady, groaning noise rising up from the world outside. The twins climbed up the ladder to their observatory in the attic-above-the-attic and peered out through the telescope at the neighborhood below.
    It was chaos. Gathered in sad little groups under the streetlights, children cried and screamed and moaned, lamenting the loss of their precious pets. Their parents, unable to enjoy their usual quiet evenings at home with nightcaps and news programs, were out searching for the missing animals, shouting their names and screaming curses, adding to the din of the children’s wails. This tuneless chorus of misery and despair, this sad song of pain and heartache, lasted well into the night.

     
    The echoing lament lulled Edgar and Ellen to sleep, and they slumbered peacefully.
    They had a big day ahead of them.

14. The Exotic Animal Emporium
     
    While the rest of the neighborhood woke to hopelessness and mourning, the likes of which Nod’s Limbs had never known, Edgar and Ellen leapt out of bed. Today they were going to get rich!
    They abandoned their morning routine of tracking down Pet and roughly scouring its matted hair with their toothbrushes, and instead slid down flight after flight of banisters, cackling all the way to the back door and out into the garden. Strains of accordion music drifted from Heimertz’s shed, and theywere thankful that the caretaker was occupied.
    The twins needed something to transport their magnificent menagerie around town. Edgar led his sister to the center of the garden, where they cleared away the tangles of witchgrass and knotweed that hid an old, rusted cart. The dry brown stalks and stems poking through the wheels and twisting around the axles made it clear that Heimertz hadn’t used it in a long time, if ever, and it took some effort to free the long cart and roll it to a flat patch of dirt.
    Edgar and Ellen returned to the attic and grabbed a few large pieces of cardboard and some paint. They also dragged down an old puppet theater they had stolen the previous year from Mrs. Pringle’s kindergarten class during nap time. The cloth puppets had long since been chewed apart by rats and moths, leaving nothing but a giant wooden box with a burgundy velvet curtain closed across its stage.
    Outside, they hoisted the theater onto the cart. Edgar took some cardboard and painted a sign that read EXOTIC ANIMAL EMPORIUM , and beneath that RARE BEASTS FOR SALE , and Ellen nailed it to the top of the little