by M. E. Kerr
“Peke! Peke!” Sun Lily called out. “Hush!”
Now the chauffeur was heading back from the house.
“I’m going to have to go, Sun Lily,” Jimmie said.
Peke would show the chauffeur what he thought of him. He lifted his leg against the limo’s front tire.
“Get outa there!” the driver yelled, running toward him. He gave Peke a kick that sent him a few feet into the air.
“Help! Help!” Peke yelped.
Sun Lily cried out, “No! No!”
Next thing, Catherine bounded forward with her yellow teeth flashing, just managing to catch the sleeve of the driver’s uniform before he got inside the limo. There was the sound of cloth ripping and a furious chauffeur cursing.
Sun Lily clapped her hands. “Good for you, Catherine!”
“Is your little dog hurt?” Jimmie asked.
“He’ll be all right, thanks to Catherine.”
Sun Lily walked over to the limousine and asked the chauffeur if he was hurt.
“That dog could have taken my arm off!” said the chauffeur.
“But she didn’t. She didn’t even bite you,” Sun Lily said. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t ever kick an animal?”
“You tell Ms. Twilight I’ll go without her if she doesn’t get back in right now!”
“He’s not going to hold the door open for me,” Jimmie told Sun Lily. “He’s terrified of Catherine.”
“I love her so. I wish we could keep her, but Peke doesn’t want her around,” Sun Lily said.
“I had a dog named Dancer,” said Jimmie. “He wouldn’t let any other dog near me.”
The chauffeur honked the horn, a long, loud blast.
Jimmie Twilight said, “I’ve got to split, babes.”
“Good-bye,” Sun Lily said. “Thanks for the music! I’ll see you New Year’s Eve! Good luck being a crumb!”
21
“Where Did the Little Crumb Come From?”
“HI! ARE YOU TRYING out for one of the dancing baseballs?”
“I’m trying out for the cookie crumb,” Jimmie told him.
“I’m Cole Cane.”
“I’m Jimmie Twilight.”
“I was a germ in a toilet once.”
“You’re just saying that,” Jimmie said. “No, I was. I had to sing ‘Whitewater stops the stink in your toilet and in your sink.’”
“You were in a little boat, with a paddle. I remember that ad!”
“Paddle past the awful smell, paddle past the scum as well.’” He laughed. “I’m on my second call for Ballbat,” he said. “Are you with Boss Models?”
Jimmie said, “My agent sent me here. I’m not a real model yet.”
“I was with Boss for a year, but I switched to Ford. I’ve done over a hundred jobs in sixteen months.”
“What kind of jobs?”
“I was the Rope Slacks sailor and the Turton Tuna.”
“‘Be certain it’s Turton.’”
“Right!” said Cole Cane. “I did print ads for Kmart, Gottex, DKNY, and the Gap.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah. Fierce! And I’m up for a Calvin Klein jeans campaign to be shot by Steven Meisel!”
Jimmie said, “I was up for Jane Brain of BrainPower Limited.”
“I was up for the part of Art Smart, but that creep Quick said I looked too loopy to have a thought in my head.”
“He didn’t like me because I said ‘consensus of opinion,’” Jimmie said.
“What’s wrong with saying that?”
“It’s redundant,” Jimmie said.
“Hey, Jimmie, I remember you now. I saw you last year. You danced with this great dog.”
“Dancer.”
“At Radio City! He was something!”
“Wasn’t he?”
“I sing and dance myself, but in commercials. I decided to model rather than act right now, because the money is in modeling. If I save enough money, I’ll go to Yale. I’ll go to the drama school they have there.”
“I think I’m too short to model,” said Jimmie.
“Chase Cutler is short.”
“Who’s she?” Jimmie said.
“She’s with Ford. She has freckles the size of lima beans down her back to her butt, but she covers them with makeup. She does a lot of work. She’s about your age, thirteen, fourteen.”
“I’m eleven. How old are you?”
“Guess.”
“Sixteen? Seventeen?”
“I’m fourteen.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Thanks.”
Ms. Fondaloot arrived and put a protective arm around Jimmie’s shoulders. “Don’t let Cole Cane make you nervous,” she whispered to Jimmie.
“He doesn’t.”
“I knew him when his mother was taking him around to cattle calls for background crowds. Now he’s hot, but he’s not that hot!”
“I like him.”
“He and the chorus have all the lines, but never mind, cupcake. Work is work.”
“I don’t say anything?”
“I warned you! This is what happens when you speak out of turn! You’re the crumb, cupcake. You just stay put, and remember to keep your head inside until the chorus sings. Then you poke your head out whenever you hear the words ‘like some.’ You look ashamed. You duck your head back inside. Got it?”
“Why can’t I say ‘like some’?”
“Because it’s not in the script!”
“No lines at all?”
“What do you want, cupcake? You might have had a job with Mr. Quick. But you had to go and say ‘consensus of opinion’!”
Jimmie was zipped up into her costume while Cole got into a baseball suit and cap. Three girls dressed as dancing baseballs were standing by an oversized cookie package.
Cole Cane picked up a ball bat.
After Jimmie got her head all the way under the brown velvet, someone shouted “Action!”
The dancing baseballs began to sing.
“Where did the little crumb come from?
Not from a Ballbat cookie!
It was not from a Ballbat peanut butter big fat raisin cookie …”
Then Cole Cane sang out in a deep voice (for someone fourteen!):
Raisin cookie eaters don’t
Ever leave a crumb!”
Then the chorus:
“Like some!”
Jimmie’s head popped up.
“Like some!”
Jimmie’s head disappeared.
As the chorus began all over again, a voice called, “Cut!”
Then another voice came through the bullhorn. “The cookie crumb’s eyes are too wide and too big!”
“Squint, cupcake!” Ms. Fondaloot shouted.
“There’s no time for that. Next!”
The wardrobe woman was hustling Jimmie out of her costume.
“This has animal hair on it!” the woman complained.
“How could it have animal hair on it?” Ms. Fondaloot said. “I have no animals!”
“Fiona, it’s the last time you take something home from wardrobe!”
“Next!” came the shout again.
A redheaded girl was waiting for the brown velvet costume.
On her way back to East Hampton in the StarStretch limo, Jimmie wrote:
Dear Diary,
Dad is right about one thing, I guess. I don’t have such a normal life when it comes to meeting boyfriends. I will probably never see Cole Cane again. Not that it matters all that much. In the R.W. so far I’ve only met one boy, and he’s way into animals. I mean, way, way in. I’d have to crawl around on four legs to get his attention, if I wanted it…. Shall I tell you that I didn’t make it even as a cookie crumb?
22
Secret Powers Cats Have
“HERE, RAGS, KITTY KITTY kitty!” Mrs. Randall called.
Rags was up in a tree in the blue of late afternoon, looking down at her. “Where are you, Rags?” He closed his eyes, and his tail swished. H
e concentrated on Rex.
He used all the secret powers cats have to try and send his message to the dog.
Rex, this is Rags, I’m a mess!
I’m desperate and under great stress!
Mrs. Randall called louder, “KITTYKITTY-KITTYKITTY! RAGS!”
Avoid all gloves red—
You don’t want to be dead!
Rex, you come home now, Rags said!
23
“Your Nose Is a Peanut.”
GOLDIE, WHO WAS ONCE Rex, was now Elio. But Goldie, who was once Rex and was now Elio, did not know what the lady wanted when she sat down at the piano and played “Chocolate.”
“‘Bate, bate, chocolate, tu nariz de cacahuate.’ Sing along, Elio! Come on! ‘Uno, dos, tres, Cho! Uno, dos, tres, Co! Uno, dos, tres, La! Uno, dos, tres, Te!’ Elio, come on! Sing along!”
Goldie kept wagging his tail and looking up at her expectantly. What did she want?
“You don’t know Spanish, is that it? Okay. ‘Stir, stir, chocolate, your nose is a peanut. One, two, three—’ Can’t you sing with me?”
Earlier that day when a visitor had rung the bell, Goldie had raced around looking for something to retrieve. For that was his way when he lived with Bob. He would find something to carry to the door whenever a caller came. A bone, his leash, a glove, a ball.
He had found a pillow and carried it proudly to greet the lady’s visitor.
“What are you doing, Elio?” she cried out. “Put that down! That’s my good pillow! You are a bad boy!”
Goldie did not understand why she had not smiled at him or said to the visitor, “He’s greeting you.”
Now she brought her hands down hard on the piano keys and sighed. “You just don’t sing, do you?”
Sing? A dog sing?
She was trying so hard to be a good owner, making a bed for him near her own, brushing him, hugging him.
“My Elio could sing!” Her voice broke. She was near tears.
Goldie sat there looking at her. He had never known a singing dog, nor a Spanish-speaking one. Elio must have been a very smart dog!
A small Christmas tree with blinking lights stood on a nearby table.
She shook her head sadly. “Oh, my poor, poor baby. My Elio.”
Goldie knew what she was going through, for he longed for Bob. He wouldn’t even have minded if Bob’s baby sister had toddled up to him and pulled his ears. He just wished he were home.
Then the lady looked down at Goldie and said, “Do you want to go for a walk?”
He jumped up and shook his head.
She had put a collar with tags on him, and the tags jingled.
She got out a leash, and they set off from the trailer.
They went down a long path and came to water.
It was not an ocean. It was quiet water.
Goldie could remember the sound of the ocean, the waves slapping the beach. The Randalls loved Long Island, and before they’d moved here, they’d visited every summer. Bob would let him run free along the sand. Goldie would take off! But he would always look over his shoulder to be sure Bob was coming.
“Not so fast, Elio!” said the lady.
He felt the jerk to his collar that told him he was doing something he shouldn’t, so he slowed up.
He heard her sigh again.
He knew that sigh well from hearing it in Critters. It was the sigh of longing for someone who was gone forever. Dewey, the Irish setter, had sighed that way again and again, and Marshall had told Goldie that Irving used to sigh that way.
Goldie kept his face down against the cold afternoon wind, and they plodded along.
Goldie remembered how Rags sometimes went out and climbed the tree in the front yard.
Bob’s mother would call Rags and call him, and all the time the cat would be sitting up on a high branch looking down at her.
Then Goldie would be let out to look for her.
He would sit under the tree, barking.
“So that’s where you are, Rags!” Bob would say.
And later, when Rags finally came down and they all went inside, Rags would say—But then the strangest thing happened in the middle of this memory of Rags.
Goldie could hear Rags saying something. It was not Rags’ usual crabby tone scolding Goldie for some offense. It was Rags telling him to avoid all gloves red.
Goldie gave a bark of alarm.
The lady said, “Do you hear something, Elio?”
Goldie barked again.
“What do you want?” She sounded irritated.
She jerked his collar again.
The vision of Rags up in the tree disappeared, and so did the sound of his mewing advice.
Goldie heeled obediently as they walked along by the bay. He could not see the brown Bronco chugging very slowly along the parallel road.
24
A Future with Lot Lice?
PLACIDO LOOKED AS THOUGH he were drooling over Snack, which he did most mornings, but there was something more important on his mind than the taste of seagull. In fact, he did not even know what seagull tasted like, whether it would be more like chipmunk or closer to bluejay. But Placido knew very well what it was like to be returned to Critters, and that was where his thoughts were, suddenly, as the New Year approached. His one eye was on Snack, but his attention was on the conversation behind him, between Jimmie and her father.
“With BrainPower out of the picture, there’s nothing holding us here, Jimmie. So after New Year’s, why don’t we sail down to Miami?”
“Couldn’t I be a clown again?” Jimmie asked. “I love sculpting balloons and running around in those floppy shoes with the false nose and the polka-dot jumpsuit.”
“I want you to go to boarding school, Jimmie. It’s what Mom would have wanted for you: a good education. We have her insurance money now, and she would want you to use it that way.”
“I’m getting a good education on the Internet.”
“Ms. Fondaloot told me you had some trouble at the BrainPower audition. She said you needed to hit the books more.”
“You told me to count my victories, not to think about saying ‘consensus of opinion.’ That’s all I did wrong, Daddy.”
“Have you written your essay about something unique in a country? I’ll bet you haven’t even thought of what it will be.”
“It will be the Great Wall of China,” said Jimmie. “It took ten years and one million people to build it.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“I’m going to write about it as soon as New Year’s is over.”
“Okay. But in Florida I’m going to get a regular job. You can’t be all by yourself every day.”
“I’ll have Placido.”
“I told you that we have to talk about that cat.”
“He likes me, Dad. At night he curls up on my bed and purrs.”
“Honey, I think he should probably go back where he came from.”
“I was just getting used to him.”
“That’s why I think he should go back right away. It’ll be harder the longer you wait.”
“I’ve gotten to like him.”
“He’s all right for a cat, but we have to be realistic.”
“Whenever you said that to Mama, remember what she always said? She always said, ‘Why?’”
Sam Twilight smiled. “Yes. That was what she always said. But I don’t have her to help me make decisions anymore. I just remember that she always spoke of how hard it was to be from the circus around civilians.”
“She always called them lot lice, Daddy! She hated the way they looked down on her because she didn’t have a good education.”
“Right you are. She didn’t want you to go through that.”
“But why do I have to give up Placido?”
“What will we do with him when you go to boarding school?”
“Who said I was going to boarding school? That’s not definite! Why are you telling me these bad things right before I have an audition?”
“I don’t want Placido to go back to Critters!”
“When I got him for you, I was remembering how much Mom liked Siamese. And I was sure you’d land BrainPower and we’d stay up north. But now I have to rethink everything.”
Placido decided to jump down to the sun spot and roll over in an adorable pose, paws out, whiskers brisk, tail still, eye rolled back.
“Look, Dad.”
“I see him. But every time I put Dancer’s picture back, he swats it down the crack where your frog landed, minus its tongue. Placido doesn’t come when he’s called. He doesn’t eat until he feels like it. He’s never around to greet us when we come back here. For Christmas I paid six ninety-eight for the CatnipJumper at Pets Galore and he didn’t even look at it. What about the catnip mouse you bought him? He smelled it once. Period.”
It had no smell was why. The catnip in those toys was probably put there way back in the year I was with my first owner (whom I never discuss), thought Placido.
“Daddy? There’s the limo. Just promise you haven’t made up your mind yet about any of this.”
“We’ll see,” said Sam Twilight.
Placido jumped to his feet and headed under the table. He was despondent as he thought, We all know what “we’ll see” means. We all know what a sneaky reply “we’ll see” is.
25
To Dream the Impossible Dream
WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! How could one endure the endless barking coming from the pig-faced Posh?
Marshall slithered over to his water bowl and wound himself around it into a neat little coil of king snake. Walter had brought him another live rat, sat with him while he got it down, and told him that soon he would be going to New York City to live with his father. It would be dreadful to lose Walter, for not only was he a dear friend, but also Walter knew more about snakes than anyone at Critters did. He knew, for instance, that Marshall was a very good swimmer and that even water snakes feared him, for if he was hungry, he went right in after one.
Despite the fact that Marshall was a pragmatic realist, very occasionally he allowed himself to daydream. It was the same dream over and over, delightful and impossible, a dream of a young, knowledgeable boy coming to Critters to adopt him. As the new year was about to begin, Marshall added a flourish or two. The boy would be Walter. Walter had prepared a vivarium where he lived with his father at Ritzy Riverview Apartments. He was at Critters to collect Marshall and take him to live there, in the company of exotic plants and soft green moss, with a real stream winding through it.
