THOTH & MORVEREN
“My friends’ house,” Thoth replied unhelpfully when Danny asked where they were going.
Not exactly a house, not exactly friends, but close enough.
He glanced sideways at Danny while the younger boy mused about Dr. Gupta, wondering unpleasantly what the doctor might have told him about him. Thoth had never been a formal medical student, and his acquaintance with the teacher lay solely in his regular need for medical attention. Whenever Thoth broke something at school (which happened surprisingly a lot, considering he was a scribal student) he was always packed off to Gupta to get himself bandaged and slung up. Gupta was okay. He seemed to like Thoth’s endless stream of questions and debate provocations, and had even expressed an interest in taking him on as a student. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to tattle on a patient, and Thoth’s condition wasn’t exactly a great secret, but… he didn’t want any sympathy either. People, especially adults, were usually only nice to him because they felt sorry for him. The poor problem orphan boy who spent his life in and out of hospital.
Ugh.
In silence, he led Danny through the winding corridors and down spiral staircases to the ground floor, where they exited the castle from one of the back doors almost directly opposite the stables. Thoth veered right to the kennel block, then right again to where a smaller barn backed onto a little field just big enough to house a single pony. The building looked old but clean and well-kept, with the exception of the graffiti on the outside. Judging by the various styles of handwriting, a number of people had etched unpleasant and unimaginative messages into the wood, most of which named Thoth and many of which coupled his name with adjectives such as ‘loser’ or ‘lame’. Birds (‘birdbrain’, ‘beakface’) were a running theme, and several long-necked water birds had been scratched on too. Thoth ignored them as he pulled the latch on the door and pushed it open, stepping gingerly inside.
The barn was a verifiable haven for all walks of animals. Everything Thoth found which was ill, malnourished or hurt wound up here while it was treated, and sometimes took up permanent resident if it found it preferred life here to the wild. Rats and mice were the most numerous, and had almost overrun the place. Five rabbits were cuddled up together in one corner, birds of all kinds soared from the rafters, a couple of chameleons and an assortment of geckos and anoles were clinging to the walls, and a couple of stray dogs were stretched over the entrance, so Thoth had to step over them to get in. A den in the far left housed the fox kit he had rescued the previous year, and a number of glass and wood vivariums backed against the opposite wall contained turtles, terrapins and axolotls. There were a few squirrels, a ferret and a badger running around, too.
Thoth blocked the doorway before Danny could come in, but it was Solarius he glared at.
“No chasing,” he warned the tiger, “no teasing, no bullying, no eating. All animals who come in here come in under a truce. If you can’t handle that, stay outside.”
With that, he stepped to one side to let Danny and Solarius through, and picked his way over to a window on the left-hand side of the building. Several makeshift birds’ nests (composed mainly of bra cups) were sat on the windowsill. Thoth put General carefully into one of the free ones.
“She can stay here if you want, and you can come and take care of her,” he grumbled, hoping Danny appreciated the enormity of that offer. No one else was even allowed in Thoth’s animal house. “Or I can ask some of those guys,” he jerked his thumb up to the ceiling, where several garden birds were watching with interest, “to come and stay with her… wherever you were going to keep her.”
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