Critters of Mossy Creek

by Deborah Smith

“I haven’t been elected yet,” I reminded him, scratching behind the ears of a spotted Springer spaniel, sending her floppy ears flying.

  “Unless you run naked through a service at the First Baptist Church, I think you don’t need to worry. You’re the first person in years who’s had the gumption to oppose Dwight in an election. He fights dirty, but you’ve been around long enough to know that. Have any skeletons in your closet? If you do, he’ll dig ’em up and expose them to the world.”

  “I don’t know of any that would make me unelectable. My life’s pretty much an open book. Always has been. There’ve been some women in my past, but I’ve never been married, so it’s not as if I was cheating on anybody.”

  “Good to know, although people tend to like steady family men running their town. We can make that not be a problem, though.”

  “So you’ll back me?”

  “Heck, yeah.”

  We shook hands, and when I made no move to leave, he asked, “Something else I can help you with?”

  I cleared my throat. “I need your expert advice.”

  “As a vet or councilman?”

  “Vet.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What kind of dogs make good mousers?”

  Hank regarded me for a long moment, then his brow cleared. “Jayne Reynolds.” He grinned. “Going to give Amos a run for his money, are you?”

  “Seems Amos isn’t interested in Jayne. Not romantically, anyway.”

  “I guess he hasn’t been exactly subtle lately about where his interests do lie, now has he?” Hank slapped me on my back. “You and Jayne, huh? I can see it. Yes, indeedy, I can. Good for you. I approve.”

  “Well, don’t go spreading it around or anything. I haven’t exactly . . . well, I haven’t . . .”

  “Ah, I see. So you’re trying to win the lady’s heart with a dog? Well, I hate to break the news to you.” He leaned in for a stage whisper. “She’s a cat person. I should know. I’m her doctor. Well, her cat’s doctor.”

  I shook my head. “Her cat’s not doing its job. Jayne borrowed the Ramsey’s cat yesterday, but Emma terrorizied it with sneak attacks, so it didn’t catch a single mouse. They fought so much, Jayne had to take it home.”

  “What makes you think Emma will tolerate a dog any better?”

  “She may not, but she tolerates Ingrid’s Chihuahua. I’ve even seen her licking his head.”

  “True enough. Okay, let me think.” Hank rolled the barrel of dog food back into its closet. After making sure it was sealed, he washed his hands. As he dried them with a paper towel, he said, “It’ll most likely have to be a terrier. The small terriers were the ones bred to hunt vermin. I’d recommend either a Jack Russell or a Cairn.”

  I couldn’t hide my disgust. “Yappers?”

  He shrugged. “They can be. Depends on how well they’ve been trained. Terriers definitely need good training. They can be independent little cusses, with minds of their own. Like any dog, they need regular exercise. It’s better if they have a job to do, but it sounds like this one will. If they don’t have an outlet for their natural instincts, they tend to invent new and fun jobs for themselves, which might not be so fun for their families.”

  “Job?”

  “Well, they were bred to hunt vermin, and this one will have that job, so that’s a good thing. And, boy, are they smart. You can train terriers to do just about any trick. Normally I wouldn’t recommend a terrier for a single woman with a young child. These dogs aren’t exactly tolerant of ill-behaved children. But I’ve seen Matt with Bob. Ingrid’s taught him how to love and respect small animals, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  We paused at the door to the kennel. “Sounds perfect. Where do I get one?”

  Hank thought about that for a moment, then said, “In order for it to be able to do the job immediately, you’ll want a full-grown dog. They tend to be calmer, too. I’ve got contacts. Let me make a few calls.”

  I extended my hand. “Sounds like a plan. Thanks!”

  “To err is human, to purr, feline.”

  —Robert Byrne

  Great Cat Heist

  They say no good heist goes off without teamwork. You’ve got the idea man, the technical specialist, the inside man, and the getaway car driver. And then there’s the fence, of which, I was an unknowing recruit.

  But I’m miles ahead of myself.

  I, Hermia Lavender, have been home on school break from the University of Georgia for a day. I arrived home to an empty house. My mother, Anna Rose Lavender, who will return home tomorrow evening, is right now on a luxurious spa vacation down in Atlanta with her lover, Beau Belmont. No, they are not married—yet. That would imply doing things the conventional way. And my mother is as unconventional as white strappy sandals after Labor Day. She gets points for that.

  But she lost points when I recently found out my father had not died in a motorcycle accident when I was a baby, as I’d been told. Instead, for over twenty years, my mother hadn’t known how to tell me my father was really the handsome movie star who I’d many times paid eight dollars and fifty cents to watch pursue robbers, solve crimes, and flash his pearly whites on the big screen.

  That’s right, the Beau Belmont is my father. Or Beau Belmondo, as he’s known by millions of screaming female fans.

  If they only knew the man’s heart belonged to my mother and Mossy Creek, the furthest holler from Hollywood, photo ops and red carpet designer couture a movie star can see to putting his heart.

  You might think I put up a big stink after learning the news. I didn’t.

  I’ve accepted that suddenly I have a father. The guy is, well, nice. And he doesn’t have a big head like you’d expect of most movie stars. And I think he genuinely cares for my mother. He’s good folk. Not that I’ve spent much time with him to know. Since I’ve learned about the father, I’ve been in college. It’s become a hiding spot of sorts for me. While I’m there, I don’t have to deal with a father who may or may not have an interest in a relationship with me.

  How does one go about fitting a fully-grown father into their fatherless life? Awkward silences flourish between the two of us. Sheepish smiles and uncertain conversation starts are a given.

  Can a man walk into my life and make up for two decades of my believing I had no father? Of pining for a fatherly hug? The jury is still out on that one. I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out.

  My mother once told me these are my years to gain wisdom. To make mistakes and learn from them. And to be carefree more often than careful.

  I don’t do carefree very well. Attribute that to my mother’s perfectionism. It wore off on me. Sure, when I’m home from school I love to drive down to Bigelow with my best friend Darva for a few drinks at one of the hot nightclubs—but just a few. I don’t like to lose control.

  Anyway, I had the house to myself for a whole blessed day. A welcome change from dorm life and my pseudo-anorexic roommate who counts her rice grains before eating them and won’t exceed six hundred calories a day. “Pseudo” because of the stash of chocolate she keeps in her top bedside drawer. I figure she gets at least a thousand calories daily from sweets alone, so I haven’t started worrying about her yet.

  After sweeping the front porch and breathing in the gorgeous spring mountain air, I decided to step around back and inspect mom’s garden. Carefree, here I come.

  Humming the catchy tune from an old Pink Panther heist movie Darva and I had watched the night before, I did a double-step the cartoon panther always does as he’s coolly walking across the screen. Mercy, but I do have the moves.

  Well, I try. I’m not sure what, exactly, it is I have or what I’m made of, but probably the moves is far down the list. An interest in theater is a given, seeing as how my mother instilled that in me since birth. I can take the stage with grace and have yet to forget a line. I’ve a bit of fashion sense. I don’t mix my plaids with my stripes, and complimentary colors add warmth to my pale complexion. And I can whip up an apricot cobbler
so fierce it’ll give Rosie down at Mama’s All You Can Eat reason to cry.

  I’m finishing my third year at UGA. I’d like to be an environmentalist. Yes, I want to save the world, one forest or toxic waste dump at a time.

  But I’m still uncertain. A twenty-something single girl should be uncertain about some things, right? I mean, I shouldn’t have it all figured out. And given my knack for orderliness, I like to look at the whole picture, piece small parts together and form the bigger landscape. Clues are always good.

  Speaking of clues . . .

  The heist started with Colonel Mustard, in the Billiard Room, holding the Candlestick.

  Wait one moonlit minute. That’s not right.

  I had played the board game Clue with Darva last night. Regarding the game: one must always suspect Colonel Mustard. He’s a wily old fella who stirs up doubt with a sneer and a twist of his handlebar moustache. Mercy, but there are days I feel like the colonel is following me around with all that doubt, especially when it comes to brand-new fathers.

  Okay, here’s how it really began.

  Miss Lavender stood in the Garden, holding the Hoe . . .

  I picked up the small hand hoe my mother must have forgotten, stuffed in the dirt at the garden’s border. The forsythia was in bloom and the egg-yolk-bright flowers lured me to sniff, but the scent was so soft I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the catmint frothing along the garden border.

  A thicket of raspberry my mother hadn’t thinned out last fall resembled a brown mass of razor wire. The shrub shivered. I gave it a double take.

  I didn’t have time to let out a yelp when the beast charged from behind it.

  It was orange. It was stout. It snarled and beat the ground toward me. I turned to make escape when the excruciating pain of vicious talons entered my thigh. I was hit!

  More surprised than frightened I was being attacked in my own garden, I wobbled and fell to my knees. Shaking my right leg, I tried to disentangle the creature from my thigh. It clung. And meowed.

  The cat wasn’t in the mood to disengage its talons—okay, claws—from my jeans. The beast now only clung to the fabric, and not my skin, so I was able to lumber back to the porch, where my passenger promptly ejected itself from my leg and proceeded to sniff out the territory.

  “Do not pee on my mother’s chrysanthemums,” I warned. “Who do you belong to? No tags or collar. You look well fed and your coat is shiny. Bet you shed at the mere sight of black velvet, eh?”

  The cat meowred in reply. I smiled. I’ve always wanted a pet.

  I live in a dorm. No pets allowed. Though I can’t be certain my roommate’s fuzzy pink slippers aren’t considered part of the animal species. They’ve yet to growl at me, but do tend to trip me up often during middle-of-the-night mini-fridge raids.

  “Sorry,” I said as I opened the screen door, “you’ll have to stay out—”

  The creature had gumption. It zipped past my ankles and headed inside, down the hallway, and toward my mother’s antique velvet sofa.

  ooo

  I plucked a few orange hairs from the emerald green velvet. The cat had disappeared, and no amount of whistling or cajoling would bring it out of hiding.

  I wandered into the kitchen to look for the milk in the refrigerator. I’m not cruel. A treat would probably lure the critter out. Yes, I know if you feed it you can never get rid of it. But was I responsible after I returned to school?

  Heh. I wonder if Beau Belmont is allergic to cats?

  So I have a wicked bone in my body. Just the one. And it hasn’t been scratched lately. I didn’t know how to up and have a conversation with the man. Hey, how’s it going? Father any more kids you don’t know about lately? But sending in a pinch-hitter might work. Though I was doubtful a cat could open a line of communication any better than I could muster.

  There he was again, Colonel Mustard and his doubt. I wonder if a good ole thwap with a candlestick would do the trick?

  “Here, kit—”

  The closing fridge door revealed a charging orange streak of cat. I cringed and braced myself.

  I barely avoided spilling milk as my new fashion accessory attached itself to my thigh. No pain this time. The talons—very well, claws—hooked neatly into a denim pant leg without slashing skin.

  I gave my leg a shake. “What’s with you? If you need human contact, there are better ways. Like sitting on said human’s lap, for instance.”

  But no matter how much I did the hokey-pokey and turned myself about, the critter had no mind to disengage. I poured the milk into a bowl, and as I performed a sliding, stretch/split to place the treat on the floor, the cat ejected itself. While it slurped milk, I petted its silky orange coat.

  “You definitely belong to someone who cares. But who?”

  Last time I’d been home was Christmas vacation. I have developed a tendency to visit only once a year. Awkward father situation, don’t you know. I couldn’t recall anyone in the neighborhood with a cat. There was Bob the Chihuahua down the street. Cats could kick that puny dog’s—well, you know. But then the cat had better high-tail it out of there before Bob peed on it. That dog was one loose spigot.

  “Maybe I should put up posters at The Naked Bean and the library.”

  The cat meowed. I interpreted the slightly peevish tone as, “Is this all you got, lady?”

  “Fine. I need to run out for some groceries this morning. I’ll see what I can find for you.”

  ooo

  The lot at Mossy Creek’s Piggly Wiggly was small, but I am never surprised people can’t be bothered to push their carts back into the store. I collected four wobbly-wheeled carts, and shoved them toward the automatic doors, which did not slide open even as I waited patiently.

  This day was just filled with unpleasant minor catastrophes.

  I narrowed the evil eye on the electric sensor above the door. Okay, the nuisance eye. I don’t do evil. (Just wicked.) The door opened, and I pushed the carts through.

  Hey, it’s a talent.

  Captain Crunch and milk were first on the list. I turned down an aisle and walked right into a frantic set of limbs and springy blonde curls.

  “Darva! I’m still convinced it was Colonel Mustard—”

  “Mia!” She gave me an abbreviated hug. “Forget the colonel, we need to talk.”

  “We talked six hours last night. More talk?”

  “Emergency talk.”

  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Darva so agitated. Her curls sprang up and down in blonde perpetual motion. Normally subdued and a bit of a follower, Darva worked part-time as assistant stage manager at the theater with my mother, and was up for directing the next staging of Bye Bye Birdie. Darva was always the first to suggest we start drinking soda after a few tipples at the bar. Once in second grade, Luke Henry had teased me about not having a daddy. Darva had shot back that his daddy was already on wife number three which shut him up properly. A rare moment in Darva daring. We’ve been friends ever since.

  She tugged me down the Baby Goods aisle, and the sweet smell of powder and baby wipes curled up my nose.

  “Can you keep a secret?” Darva asked. Her wide blue eyes shifted down the aisle, then the opposite direction. “Please, Mia?”

  Now, normally best friends would do anything for one another. Borrow clothes, take the blame for the cigarette butt forgotten on the porch steps, lie about being sick when really we skipped to watch the matinee horror flick, sneak into the boy’s locker room—keep secrets. I’ve done them all, and Darva has reciprocated.

  But my life had changed since the big reveal. Secret had become a nasty word to me. I don’t like secrets. I don’t like knowing them, making them, or keeping them.

  For a girl who’d thought her father dead for twenty years, I’ve come to believe that’s a very reasonable reaction.

  “Hush your mouth, Darva, you know how I feel about secrets.” I walked past the brightly colored plastic packages of diapers and feigned interest in a squat jar of creamed peas. �
�Ask me anything but that.”

  “But, Mia.” Darva did the big sad eyes so well. Attribute that to her role as Juliet to a string of handsome Romeos three years consecutively at the Mossy Creek theatre. “Oh, lordy, I forgot. I shouldn’t ask you. I know the whole thing with your father—”

  I turned abruptly. Darva dropped her anxious grimace, and lowered her eyes, nodding. “Sorry. I mean, just . . . sorry.”

  Silence isn’t always golden, sometimes it can be loud, uncomfortable and bright chartreuse. I hate uncomfortable silence. But I wasn’t willing to stick my foot any deeper into this bucket of paint.

  “We good for a movie tonight?” I asked, hoping to reclaim our easy camaraderie.

  “Sure. Right. Maybe. We’ll see how things go today. I’ve an errand to do—” Darva’s eyes went wide. She clasped her pink-polished fingers together before her O-shaped mouth.

  I knew that pose. Handsome male in the vicinity. I whipped my head around to spy a hunky young store clerk limping down the cereal aisle, wielding a ticket gun, unaware he was being checked out by two single young females.

  Jason Cecil? I believe he graduated from Mossy Creek High a year behind Darva and me. His mama was Trisha Peavy Cecil. Last time I saw Jason he was thin and wore his pants loose on his hips like some kind of geeky pocket protector gangster. He wasn’t handsome in a conventional way, but he had put on a wallop of good-looking muscle since high school. Since he was obviously injured, I wondered if he’d been hurt playing on one of Mossy Creek’s new community league soccer teams.

  “So,” I began, thinking to wheedle out the dirt on Darva’s latest crush, but she had slipped back into the nervous twitter. Blonde curls boinged.

  “I’ll call you later, Mia. Bye.”

  “Right. Uh . . . bye?”

  Huh. That girl was acting strangely.

  Was it because of Jason or my refusing to hear her secret?

  ooo

  Cato greeted me in his usual manner. Claws to denim. Besides cat food, I had also picked up some rubbing alcohol to tend my wounds.

  The name fit. Cato. Like in the Pink Panther films. Inspector Clouseau’s wily assistant was always jumping out from behind things to surprise him with an attack. Unlike the bumbling Inspector, though, I didn’t fight back. Instead I found a few calming strokes under Cato’s chin caused him to relax and disengage, and to nuzzle against my ankle.