RARE BEASTS Read Online Free Page A

huddled in the shadows of a tall hedge.
    “It’s Heimertz, Ellen! He caught me with our stockpile!” Edgar gasped. “He just walked away, but I didn’t know what to do!”
    “Hush, Edgar! Hush! I’m trying to be discreet!”
    Ellen nodded her head toward the yard beyond the hedge, and Edgar peeked around it.
    Leanne Casey and her friend Bruno were chasing his miniature dachshund around the grass, laughing as the wiener dog ran in bigger and bigger circles. With a playful yelp, the dachshund circled the edge of the yard, and as he darted behind the hedge, Ellen lowered her open sack, and the dog ran right into it.
    By the time Leanne and Bruno rounded thebushes, there was nothing to see. They stood dumbfounded in the quiet street, listening for a telltale bark, hearing nothing but silence.
    And so it went, the twins skulking through the neighborhood, emerging from the shadows just long enough to snatch a pet before disappearing again. Soon they had amassed a sizable collection of furry, scaly, and feathered creatures, each in its own gunnysack.
    Before most of the neighborhood kids realized that their beloved animals were missing, Edgar and Ellen had dragged the valuable prizes home.

12. Down in the Basement
     
    Pet huddled in a dark corner among the dust balls and cobwebs, safely out of Edgar and Ellen’s way, as it watched them haul their spoils through the dusty front hall and pile the sacks by the basement door.
    Ellen held the door open with her footie. As Edgar passed by, she slipped a nervous hamster down the back of his pajamas.
    “Tsk, tsk.” Ellen smirked. “Ladies first, Brother.”
    “GAA!” Edgar hopped the entire flight of stone

     
    steps in three bounds, propelled by the hamster racing up and down his spine.
    Ellen squealed with delight, then with horror when the baby ferret Edgar had balanced on her shoulder dove headlong into her pajamas. She reached the cold cement floor in only two leaps, breaking what might have been a rather ugly fall on a squirming Edgar.
    “Very graceful, Sister.”
    “Oh,
you’re
one to talk.”
    One by one, the twins shuttled the sacks down from the hall, keeping a wary eye on each other as they passed on the stairs.
    When they were finished, Edgar and Ellen huddled in the dank basement over the writhing sacks at their feet. Ellen spread out grubby white sheetsstolen from Mrs. Haggardly’s yard to cover long worktables. Edgar removed the decorations from the battered carton, and, like a surgeon laying out his implements in an operating room, he delicately set all the ribbons and ornaments in a neat row.
    “Who might be in here?” Edgar selected a sack and shook out the contents. A kitten tumbled onto the table.
    “Oh, you’re just a plain little kitty now,” he said, removing its muzzle, “but cheer up! Soon you’ll be the talk of the town!”
    Edgar used paint to change the feline’s fur from brown to several shades of blue and purple. He took his time affixing two small twigs to the creature’s head and attached a round red ornament to its nose. What was a cat, now looked like a glitzy miniature reindeer.
    “Hello, little Hamble!” Edgar exclaimed, holding it up so he could look into its mismatched eyes. “Not another one like you in all the world. Definitely exotic! Definitely worth a lot of money!” The Hamble mewed and clawed at its twig antlers.
    “Your Hamble isn’t nearly as exotic as my Uggpron or these Snifflepops,” said Ellen. Edgar turned to see that in the time he’d spent transforming one animal, his sister had placed a grass wreath around a poodle’s neck and dyed the whole animal red, turningit into a little crimson lion, and two once-white bunnies were now decked in glitter and feathers.
    “We’re going to make a fortune!” cheered the twins as they removed the rest of the animals from their sacks. They leashed the creatures to a crusty water pipe so the bewildered menagerie couldn’t run away from the fun.
    Paint and glue and