The Case of the Vampire Vacuum Sweeper

by John R. Erickson

Chapter Six: Miss Viola Comes to Visit Me

  I had made up my mind to never leave the underside of the bed, and to let Slim suffer the consequences of his foolish behavior. But suddenly he was gone and the siege was over. My guess was that he glanced at a clock, because I heard him say, “For Pete’s sake, she’ll be here in ten minutes!”

  I shot a glance at Drover. He was still shivering.

  “I think maybe it’s safe to leave our drunker, Bover.”

  “No thanks, I never touch the stuff.”

  “What?”

  “I said . . . I don’t know what I said. When I get scared, I’ll say almost anything.”

  “Yes, I noticed. I said—and please listen this time—I said, I think it’s safe to leave our bunker.”

  “Oh good. What’s a bunker?”

  “A bunker is a bunker.”

  “Oh, then maybe it’s safe to leave.”

  “Exactly my point. And I’m going to let you leave first. It’s a small promotion, and it shows that I have confidence in your ability to perform a task.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘Oh boy, a promotion.’ I just hope I can do it.”

  “You can do it, son. Just crawl out from under the bed.”

  “I thought it was a drunker.”

  “Hush, Drover. Just do as you’re told for once in your life and let me give the orders. I have my reasons for sending you out first.”

  “Yeah, that’s what bothers me. What if I run into the Vampire Vacuum?”

  “The rest of us will be right here, backing you up. Now go.”

  “Oh drat.”

  He stuck his nose out from under the bed. He rolled his eyes to the left and to the right. “It looks clear. Slim’s in the living room, throwing junk into the closet.”

  “Great. Nice work, soldier. Let’s move out.”

  I wiggled myself out from under the bed and shook the lint off my coat. Sure enough, the coats was clear. Coast, that is. I made my way past the Vampire Vacuum, gave it a careful sniffing, and joined Slim in the living room.

  Well, at last he had gotten serious about cleaning up his house. After goofing off and wasting valuable time, he was now grabbing entire armloads of stuff—socks, pants, towels, papers, magazines, books, plates, cups—and throwing it into the hall closet. Then he put his shoulder to the door, rammed it three times, and finally got it shut.

  He paused a moment to catch his breath and brush the hair out of his eyes. “John the Baptist had it right: Live in the desert and eat grasshoppers, then nobody’ll ever come to visit.”

  He heaved a deep sigh and ran to the vacuum sweeper. I watched this with great interest and concern, and was ready to hit Escape Speed the moment I saw a grin on his mouth. But there were no grins this time. A small miracle had occurred before my very eyes. Slim had decided to quit goofing off and to clean up the house.

  He dragged the sweeper down the hall and into the living room. He plugged in the cord and started sweeping the floor—and we’re talking about wild, frantic activity, fellers. He had become a sweeping demon, totally dedicated to the task of . . .

  Hmmm. I noticed a small cloud of dust forming at the rear of the sweeper. I cut my eyes from the cloud to Slim, then back to the cloud. It seemed to be growing. Slim didn’t notice. His gaze was frozen in a wild expression, his teeth were clenched, and he was jerking that sweeper pipe up and down, back and forth.

  Something was wrong here. Why was all that dust coming out the back of the sweeper? I barked an alarm. He didn’t hear, so I barked again, louder this time.

  Suddenly, his eyes came into focus. His head came up. He sniffed the air and coughed. Slowly his head turned around and he saw what I had seen, and what I had tried about which to warn him. About. Which.

  Phooey.

  The house was filled with a huge cloud of dust.

  His eyes rolled back in his head. He smacked his forehead with his hand. He jerked the plug out of the socket.

  “Holy cow, I forgot the sweeper bag!”

  Well, I had tried to warn him.

  He stood there for a long moment, as a whole movie of expressions flashed across his face: fatigue, weariness, disgust . . . then irritation, slight anger . . . then wide-eyed, teeth-gritting anger . . . then RAGE!

  You won’t believe what he did. A crazy gleam flashed in his eyes. He gathered up the sweeper and all its parts, stomped straight over to the back door, and threw the whole works out into the backyard. He closed the door with a bang, dusted his hands together, and gave me a grin.

  “By grabs, next time I clean this house, I’ll do it with a good old honest broom, and I’ll leave them lying, cheating vacuum sweepers to whoever wants ’em.” He coughed and fanned the air, which was pretty muchly solid dust. He shook his head and stared into the fog with the look of a beaten man. “Boy, I really done it this time. I hope Viola’s running late ’cause . . .”

  At that very moment, we both heard the same sound, the hum of a motor in the distance, followed by the rumble of a vehicle passing over the cattle guard.

  Once again, Slim’s eyeballs rolled back into his head.

  “Why didn’t I just tell her that I ain’t got any coffee? I don’t know how these things happen to me.”

  He limped into the bathroom to do something about his appearance, which was pretty awful. Even I could see that. I mean, his hair looked like a buzzard’s nest. He had lint in his beard and a layer of dust on his forehead, dust on his glasses, sweat rings on his shirt, and a hole in his jeans.

  I felt sorry for the poor guy, but what could I say? He’d chosen to chase his loyal dogs around the house with a vacuum sweeper, and now he would have to pay the pauper.

  I barked the alarm and ran to the door to greet our visitor.

  When Drover heard a car pulling up to the front door, he started barking too. Or whatever you call that thing he does. It’s not a deep manly bark, but rather a high-pitched yip-yip-yip. He came half­way down the hall, yipping his little head off.

  “Hank, someone’s coming! I think it’s a car. Alarm, alarm! Alert, alert! Car on the place, car on the place!” At last he noticed me sitting beside the door, watching his performance. “Oh, hi Hank, I heard a car coming and thought I’d better do Alert and Alarm.”

  “Yes, I see.”

  “Are you proud of me? I was the first one to pick it up, wasn’t I?”

  “Drover, I hate to be the bearer of bad news.”

  “Oh good, ’cause I hate bad news, and I’m scared of bears.”

  “Nevertheless, it’s my duty to inform you that your Alert and Alarm was a full two minutes late.”

  The smile wilted on his mouth. “Oh darn. Now I’m all upset and disappointed. I thought I’d done so well.”

  “I’m sorry, son, but we’ve had that vehicle on Earatory Radar from the very moment it pulled off the county road and entered our property.”

  “No fooling?”

  “Yes. And I can even tell you that it’s being dri­ven by Miss Viola. Furthermore, I can tell you that she’s come to borrow a can of coffee.”

  He stared at me in amazement. “How’d you know all that?”

  “It’s all in the ears, Drover. It comes from years of practice and drill.”

  At that point I turned my attention to other matters. There was a knock at the door. I began to wonder why Slim didn’t come out of the bathroom to let Miss Viola in. Then I heard an odd sound coming from the bathroom door—several odd sounds, actually. The first was the squeak of the door knob turning, followed by a rattling sound. This was followed by a loud whack, as though someone had . . . well, kicked the door.

  None of this made sense to me, but then I heard Slim’s voice. “This dadgum door! I can’t get the dad­gum door open. Come in! Viola, come on in and make yourself at home!”r />
  Oh, so that was it. He was trapped in the bathroom. Gee, this wasn’t Slim’s lucky night.

  The front door opened a crack and Miss Viola stuck her head in. “Slim? Yoo hoo, Slim, are you here?”

  We heard his voice inside the bathroom. “Come on in, Viola. I’ll be right with you.”

  She came in and closed the door. She was wearing a long coat with a fur collar, and some kind of furry hat on her head. My goodness, she was pretty. Her eyes were sparkling and she had a smile that seemed to light up the whole room.

  I’ll tell you, fellers, there’s just something about a woman’s presence that can change a shack into a palace.

  I rushed over to greet her. So did Drover, the little stupe, even though he should have known that she hadn’t come to visit him. I got there first and managed to position myself between him and Viola. Then I went into Adoring Looks and Worship­ful Wags.

  “Hello, Hank. I see that you managed to talk Slim into letting you in the house. Hi, Drover.”

  Somehow the runt managed to worm his way under my legs, and when he heard her call his name, well, I guess he decided that he actually belonged there and was welcome to stay. He wiggled past me and had the nerve to jump up on her leg.

  I was shocked and embarrassed. He should have known that jumping up on guests, and especially lady guests, was crude, rude, uncouth, and socially unacceptable. I mean, jumping up on cowboys and pawing their clothes with dirty feet was okay, but doing it to a lady? No sir. They don’t go for that kind of stuff.

  He should have known better. Hadn’t I taught him any manners? Apparently not, although I had tried. I was shocked and . . .

  But on the other hand, she didn’t shriek or kick at him or push him away, and in fact she reached down and patted his head, and it suddenly occurred to me that he was butting into my business . . . and that I, uh, needed to do something to save her from his silly displays of phony affection.

  I mean, Drover hardly even knew Viola, where­as she and I had been dearest friends for a long time. If any dog was going to jump on her, it ought to be ME, not Mister Hide-Under-the-Bed.

  And so it was that I followed the only course of action available to me, the one dictated by hospitality, good manners, public health, and true friend­ship. I vaulted over the top of Drover, stepped on his nose, and threw myself into her awaiting arms—where I, and I alone, deserved to be.

  After all, she had come to visit me, right?

  Chapter Seven: Slim Gets Trapped in the Bathroom

  “Oops, sorry Drover, you can run along now.”

  Heh heh. His nose had come in pretty handy as a stepping stone, to tell you the truth. I never could have made it all the way into her loving arms if he hadn’t been there. That just goes to prove that we all have our function and purpose in this life.

  Well, I guess I had put a little more oomph into my Adoring Leap than I had supposed. It caught her off guard and sent her staggering backward several steps. She tripped on Slim’s boot jack and might have gone all the way to the floor if she hadn’t bumped into the wall and caught herself.

  “Here, here. Down, boys, contain yourselves.” She laughed, straightened herself up, and began taking off her coat and hat. Then, suddenly, she froze. She seemed to be staring at . . . something on the ceiling. “Am I getting cataracts? Or is this room filled with . . . dust?”

  Oh. She was looking at the light bulb. Yes, the light bulb and the halo of dust particles that surrounded it.

  She coughed and fanned the air and looked down at me. “Is it dusty in here? What happened?”

  Well, that was a little hard to explain with wags and barks, and there wasn’t time for it anyway, for at that very moment we all heard the bath­room door rattling. Miss Viola pulled a little white hanky out of her purse and covered her nose with it. Then . . .

  “Slim? Is that you in there?”

  “Yes ma’am, it sure is, and this is a little em­barrassing.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Well . . . see, I come in here to clean myself up before you got here and I forgot that the dadgum doorknob was stripped out. It’ll close but then you can’t get it open. Threads are stripped.”

  “Oh my.” She tried to cover a little grin with her hanky but I saw it. “How annoying.”

  “Right. Well, I meant to fix it six months ago but I never got around to it.”

  “Oh dear.” She bit down her smile and shook her head. “And now you have company and you’re locked in the bathroom.”

  “Yes ma’am, it sure looks that way. I may have to bust down the door.”

  Her eyes sprang open. “Oh don’t do that. Surely there’s an easier way. Can you climb out the window?”

  “Dunno. Let me check.” We waited for several minutes. “No, it’s painted shut, won’t budge.”

  “What about the hinge pins? Can you drive them out and take the door off the hinges?”

  There was a moment of silence. “That might work, only I ain’t got the tools to do it with, and there’s no way you can slip me a hammer and screw­driver under the door.”

  “Could you do it with a table knife? Just be patient, Slim, and don’t do anything drastic. I’ll find a table knife and slip it under the door.”

  She left her coat and hat on the couch and went into the kitchen. Naturally, as her Chosen Escort, I followed. Drover tried to follow but I, uh, talked him out of it.

  “Buzz off, Drover, you’re not invited.”

  “But I think she likes me and . . .”

  “She was just being polite, but then you threw yourself all over her and knocked her into the wall, and I don’t think she’s gotten over it yet.”

  “But I thought . . .”

  “It wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, Drover, but it was crude and rude, and what you need to do right now is to go stand in the corner for fifteen minutes and think about Manners for Nice Dogs.”

  “Yeah but . . .”

  “Good-bye. We’ll have a test on manners later in the evening.”

  “Oh drat.”

  He left, hanging his head and looking pitiful. I couldn’t feel sorry for him. At his age, there was no excuse for a dog to be totally ignorant of manners and culture and civilized forms of behavior.

  And besides that, I wanted Miss Viola to myself, heh heh.

  We went into the kitchen. She stood in the center of the room, the cup of her left hand holding her right elbow and the cup of her right hand holding her chin. It was a thoughtful pose.

  There for a second, I couldn’t imagine what she was finding in Slim’s kitchen to be so thoughtful about, but then I remembered. Slim had spent so much time chasing me with the vacuum sweeper that he hadn’t gotten around to cleaning it.

  I sat down at her lovely little feet and assumed a thoughtful pose just like . . . well, no, it wasn’t just like hers. All that chin-and-elbow stuff doesn’t work for us dogs, but it was a pretty good thoughtful pose. And together, we took in the sight of Slim’s kitchen.

  The sink: The faucet had several drips, I noticed, and Slim had tried to patch one of them with electrician’s tape. The sink itself was a nice mellow shade of brown and it was heaped with unwashed dishes. Viola leaned forward and took a closer look. I don’t know what she saw, but it caused her lip to curl.

  The counter: Tracking Slim’s activities in the kitchen was as easy as tracking a buffalo, because he had left a complete history of his work on the counter. There were two empty bean cans, four empty Vienna sausage cans, an empty jar of peanut butter; three Saltine cracker packages, as well as a number of crumbs and cookie wrappers; and a whole assortment of drips and spots of every color you could imagine.

  After pondering these mysteries, Viola noticed two pots on the stove. She leaned forward, lifted one of the lids, and peeked inside. A second later, the lid slammed down on the pot, m
aking a crack that caused me to jump. She bolted upright and a shiver passed through her entire body, and she said, “What is that?” She peeked again. “Oh. Red beans, covered with white hairy mold. Yuck!”

  Yes, it was shameful. Shocking. Outrageous. All at once I began to re-examine my position on Staying Inside the House on Cold Winter Nights. The woodstove was nice but maybe I needed to factor in the risk of catching some dreaded disease that might court shut my career.

  It was something to ponder.

  Cut short my career.

  Miss Viola’s shivers passed and she spent a moment rearranging her face. She even worked up a smile. “Well! We need to find a knife, don’t we? Where would he keep his knives?” She spotted a drawer beside the sink and pulled it out. She bent closer and stared into it, while keeping a safe dis­tance away, just in case something might jump out at her.

  Not a bad idea, actually, considering the mouse population at that time of year. They moved inside during the winter, don’t you see.

  She reached inside the drawer and pulled out . . . hmm, how odd. She pulled out a small pipe wrench.

  “Slim, did you know you had a Stilson wrench in your silverware drawer?”

  From inside the locked bathroom, we heard him say, “Huh. I’ll be derned. I’ve been looking for that thing for six months. Reckon you could hurry up with that knife? I’ve read all the wallpaper twice. Don’t look too close at my kitchen. It’s kind of a mess.”

  Miss Viola and I traded wise glances. Yes, we had noticed.

  She found a kitchen knife and slipped it under the bathroom door. It took Slim about three minutes to pry out the hinge pins. Then he removed the door and was a free man at last.

  It was kind of a funny scene. I mean, here was a bachelor cowboy, wearing a clean shirt and his hair slicked back and his teeth brushed and smell­ing of bay rum, coming out to greet his lady friend. But to tell her hello and welcome her to the house, he’d had to remove the bathroom door.

  I’ll bet that hasn’t happened many times in history.

  Oh yes, and he was barefooted and had a rag tied around his wounded ankle.