Legacy of the Claw Read Online Free PDF Page B

it.
    Bailey’s stomach made another leap, this time into his throat. Fairmount Academy’s gleaming ivy-covered marble buildings were pink and orange in the early evening sun, and already a small crowd of students and teachers were gathered near the rigimotive platform to meet them. Bailey had never seen so many different kinds of animals in his life. Most of his schoolmates in the Lowlands were kin to farm or house animals. But here, the platform was packed with lizards and monkeys and large birds as well as sheep and guinea pigs. A pelican perched on the roof of the station, looking protectively at a man with a long nose standing below on the platform, checking off a list as trunks were unloaded onto the platform. Some men hoisted the larger luggage and suitcases from the first floor of the rigimotive onto a cart, where a pair of donkeys waited patiently to take them to the dorms.
    Bailey and Hal hurried down the stairs with Roger trailing behind them. Once outside, they followed the crowd of arriving students off of the platform and through the small station, where bags were being organized and returning students were shouting, hugging, and exchanging high fives. Rabbits, deer, and even one or two bears circled the station yard and scampered up the path to the main campus. The path itself was lined with impressive hedges trimmed to look like a menagerie of forest creatures.
    â€œLooks like everything’s well in hand, boys, so if you don’t mind, I have a parcel to drop off before the rigi moves on without me!” said Roger, clapping them both on the back. From the looks of the chaos in the station, Bailey wasn’t sure
anything
was in hand at all.
    â€œAh, to be young,” Roger bellowed, mopping his face with his ever-present handkerchief. “Don’t get yourselves into too much trouble, boys. If I hear of any misbehavior”—he pointed a meaty finger at Hal, who, wide-eyed, looked like the last boy in the kingdom who’d ever dream of breaking a rule—“I’ll send you home to your mother in the blink of a badger’s eye.” With that, Roger ruffled Hal’s hair and was off, back into the crowd. Hal waved halfheartedly, then turned to Bailey.
    â€œHe says it all the time,” he said, smiling, “but I don’t
think
he means it.”
    â€œWhat did he mean, a parcel?” asked Bailey.
    Hal shrugged. “He’s always got orders coming in for his herbs and plants and things. Probably an order from a Botany professor.”
    Outside the station, the crowd was even thicker and the chaos even less contained. Several sheepdogs ran circles around groups of confused students as the teachers tried unsuccessfully to corral students and their animal counterparts into lines according to year.
    â€œYear Ones over here!” Bailey heard someone shout, but he couldn’t see where the shout had come from, since as soon as he turned, a deer ran through the crowd, and a group of older girls went chasing after it,
ooh
ing and
ahh
ing.
    Bailey turned and saw Taylor approaching with his friends from the rigimotive and some other tall, broad-shouldered boys. They were followed by their kin, a mixed group of cats, dogs, and even a long-eared jackrabbit that made Bailey suddenly a little homesick.
    â€œHey, little brother!” Taylor said, too loudly, as he clapped Hal—too hard—on the shoulder. Hal stumbled forward, nearly losing his glasses. “We were just talking about you.”
    â€œI bet,” mumbled Hal.
    â€œI was trying to tell my friends about Bailey’s adventure on the way here, but I just can’t get the details right.” Taylor grinned at Bailey. “Please tell the story for us, Bailey.”
    Bailey remembered the reaction from those around him on the rigimotive: the laughter, the whispers.
    â€œI don’t want to talk about it,” he said. He tried to push through the group, but Taylor held out a