Page 79 of Darling Beasts

I finally managed to open mine and was rather stunned when dos Santos answered right away. “Gabby?” he said as I put him on speaker. “Did you hear the good news? Stuart’s wife is out of the hospital, and with a clean bill of health.”

“That’s amazing,” Raj said, and I looked at him. He reminded me this was Stuart from the message boards, the one with the fishy wife.

“Oh. Right. Yeah. Great news.” I turned my attention back to the phone. “We need help. It’s urgent.”

Dos Santos made a noise, like sucking his teeth. “It’s a Friday evening. We need to have a serious discussion about boundaries and respecting other people’s time.”

“This isn’t about you!” We thumped over something, and my internal organs clanked. I told him about the flare and described the bird, or as much as I’d been able to take in. Squat, round body. Shaggy black feathers. A head that was turquoise, with a yellow neck and red wattle. “Basically, a cross between a turkey and a beefy, colorful emu,” I concluded. “He also had this thing. Like a helmet situation?” I put my hand to my forehead in the shape of a ball.

“You mean a casque?”

“Sure. Okay.”

“There he is!” Raj took a hard left toward a small to medium-sized cornfield.

“Oh my God, the cobs!” I said. The mystery was solved.

“Is the bird double-wattled?” dos Santos asked as Raj released his foot from the gas.

“It looks that way,” he confirmed.

“Oh,” dos Santos said. Or maybe it wasuh-oh. “Any chance you can take a picture? Wait! Don’t get too close. I’ll sendyouone. Tell me if it matches what you’re seeing.”

This was going to take a minute. I was barely hanging on to one bar out here and had only twelve percent battery left. Meanwhile, Raj inched us forward, following the bird as he bounded through the corn.

“Yes! That’s him!” I said when at last the pixels coalesced.

“Look,” Raj said, pointing. “He’s checking out the scarecrow.”

“Aw. That’s cute.” I tilted my head and watched as the bird gently tapped the scarecrow with its beak, as if to ask,Hello, are you real?It made me a little teary, to be honest.

“GABBY!” dos Santos barked. “That is a cassowary. Do not go near it.”

“He seems more rascally than mean,” I said as Raj drove us closer. “Also lonely. He probably doesn’t want to be here, and I don’t blame him. When I tell you the vibes are off—”

“Gabby!” dos Santos snapped again. I was getting awfully sick of the sound of my name. “This is serious. You are in the presence of the only bird that’s killed a human.”

“Owls have killed humans. Haven’t you seenThe Staircase?”

“This is not a joke. Cassowaries are extremely dangerous.”

“Calm down. He’s not interested in us at all.”

“They can run up to forty miles per hour and have been known to cut people open with their—”

I didn’t hear dos Santos finish the sentence because the cassowary made a horrible gurgling sound. He craned his neck, then triple hopped. After releasing another gurgle, he leapt forward and proceeded to disembowel the scarecrow with his feet. Three seconds later, all that remained was a pile of hay and scraps.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” I yelled.

“What the fuck!” Raj agreed.

“They’re related to the velociraptor,” dos Santos said.

“THAT INFORMATION WOULD’VE BEEN HELPFUL EARLIER.”

“Shhhh,” dos Santos hissed. “Keep your voice down. You claim he’s not interested in you, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Raj pulled out his phone, and I began to spiral. Was I about to be gutted in a cornfield by a dinosaur? Right before Dad’s cocktail party?

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