by Emily Ecton
Butterbean choked back an indignant bark. “Hey, that belongs to Mrs. Food!” Butterbean sniffed the earring. It smelled just like her. Well, Mrs. Food with a whiff of birdcage.
“Yes. Well. You remember that day she lost it? After she’d gone out, I spotted it in between the sofa cushions. I planned to return it if she looked for it again, but she never did. So I decided it was mine.”
“Oooh, silvery,” Polo said.
“Ooohhh,” Marco echoed.
“It is very shiny,” Butterbean agreed. “It must be valuable.”
“One earring?” Walt said, shaking her head. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“It’s a start,” Oscar said stiffly. “Now what do you have, Walt? You must have something much better than a paltry earring.”
“You could say that,” Walt smirked. “I have an unexpired credit card, and THIS!” She whipped a pair of socks out from behind her back.
“OOOH.” Butterbean’s nose quivered. “Are those… socks?”
“Not just any socks, Butterbean,” Walt said dramatically. “COMPRESSION socks.”
“OOOH.” Butterbean edged closer to sniff. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” Walt admitted. “But I heard Mrs. Food say that they are WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD.”
“Hmm.” Oscar examined the socks. They looked like regular socks to him. “And you think she meant that literally?”
“Don’t you?” Walt looked shocked. “Add it to the list!”
Oscar hesitated, then made a note. “Assets so far: one earring, a credit card, and um, special socks. Now. Marco? Polo?”
Marco and Polo exchanged glances, and then Polo gave Marco a tiny shove forward. He was holding a small piece of corn in his hands. “I have this corn. But see? It’s shaped like a rat head. Isn’t that interesting?”
“It looks like Marco!” Polo piped up. “Show them, Marco!”
Marco gave the rat equivalent of a blush and then held the piece of corn up next to his face.
“You have to squinch up your eyes to see it,” he said shyly.
Walt, Oscar, and Butterbean squinched up their eyes.
“Oh yeah…” Butterbean said. “I see it. That’s the nose there. It looks just like you!”
“Right,” Marco said, embarrassed. “I was just thinking, it’s not every day you see a piece of corn shaped like a rat head.”
Walt and Oscar exchanged a look.
“That’s true,” Oscar said.
“Striking,” Walt said. “But I don’t know how much of a market there is for rat-head corn.”
“Put it on the list,” Polo said, waving her paws at Oscar. “It’s an asset.”
Oscar sighed. “Yes. One rat-head corn. Done.”
“I don’t have anything that good,” Polo sighed. “I just have two things. A thimble and a piece of string.” She pushed the thimble and a long piece of red string into the middle of the circle. “I don’t know what you can do with them. I was thinking maybe a thimble hat, but it kept falling off.”
“Right,” Oscar said. He was looking more and more depressed with each new item. “String. Thimble. Check.” He sighed heavily. “Butterbean?”
“Oooh, I’ve got so much good stuff,” Butterbean started. She opened her mouth to go on, but the sound of a key in the lock made her snap it shut again.
“Quick! Back to your regular places. Act normal!” Oscar screeched, leaping for his cage. He’d just reached it when the door opened, and everyone froze midscramble.
“Hey, guys, just forgot my…” The girl trailed off as she stared into the room. She’d expected the animals to be startled or excited when she came in, but she hadn’t expected… this.
The two rats were lounging casually against the wall of their aquarium, except for some reason it looked like they were on the outside of the cage instead of the inside. The bird was perched in his cage as usual, except it looked like he was holding the door shut with one foot. And the dog and cat were sitting bolt upright and staring at her. Blinking innocently. Like they were hiding something.
They were the weirdest pets she’d ever seen.
“My, um, bag. I left my bag from before. So. See you guys tomorrow.”
None of the animals moved. They all just stared. The girl swung her bag over her shoulder, accidentally catching one of the sparkly buttons on her sweater and ripping it off. Five sets of eyes watched it fall.
Polo had to be physically restrained by Marco, who covered by grinning like a maniac.
The girl hesitated at the door. “I was just by myself, so… I thought you might want some company? I could hang out here, if you want. Or not.”
She waited. Surely at least one of the pets would do something close to normal pet behavior. But nope, just staring and blinking and lounging.
Her shoulders sagged. “Okay, then. It was just a thought. Um. Bye.” She gave a little wave as she slipped through the door, locking it behind her.
“MINE!” Polo shrieked as the door closed, wrenching herself loose from Marco’s grasp and throwing herself at the sparkly button. “Isn’t this the most beautiful thing EVER? It’s like she wanted me to have it!” She held it up so it caught the light. “She made eye contact with me. She wanted to be my friend. It’s practically a GIFT! For ME!”
“Better let her have it. She’ll fight you for it,” Marco said under his breath.
“We were such good actors!” Butterbean said, tail thumping. “I don’t think she suspected anything was up. We all looked so casual! Hey, Oscar, maybe we could be in MOVIES!”
“Right,” Walt said, shifting uncomfortably and watching the door. That leaving-the-bag trick wasn’t an accident. She wouldn’t be surprised if the girl made another appearance. That girl was definitely suspicious. Something was up with her anyway. Walt didn’t think they had a lot of time. “So show us what you’ve got, Butterbean. Anything good?”
“Well, yeah, lots.” She pushed her pile forward. “Check it out. I’m rich.”
Oscar hopped forward and sorted the pile with his foot. “Hmm. A broken calculator, a comb, a nickel…”
“Canadian,” Walt sniffed.
“Five cents, Canadian. A chewed-up toothbrush and a… Butterbean, is this a piece of toast?”
“It sure is! From two weeks ago! I’m saving it.”
“Hmm. Toast. A bar of hotel soap…”
“From when she went away for TWO DAYS. I saved that, too. It smells lemony.”
Oscar didn’t even dignify that with a response. Riches weren’t “lemony.” He pushed the soap aside and continued. “A bottle cap and… underpants?”
“I have my own UNDERWEAR!” Butterbean forced herself to stay seated. They were in a serious situation. She had to keep her cool.
“And that’s valuable how?” Oscar said. He wasn’t trying to be a jerk. But it was a pair of underpants.
“Oh come ON!” Butterbean rolled her eyes at him. “People are CRAZY for underpants. They NEVER let you play with them. And they ALWAYS have them. These must be super valuable.”
“She has a point,” Walt agreed. “Mrs. Food never lets me NEAR her underpants.”
Oscar looked skeptical. “Noted. Is that all?”
“Isn’t that ENOUGH? I’ve got some great stuff here.” Butterbean looked offended.
“It’s great stuff, Bean. Except maybe not the underpants and the… um… toast.” Oscar looked queasy. “But…”
“But it’s not stuff that helps us out a lot right now,” Walt said. “Not like my credit card. And compression socks,” she finished, under her breath.
“So,” Oscar sighed. “It looks as though our hopes of becoming independently wealthy are over. Which is unfortunate, because I don’t think there are a lot of job opportunities for birds right now. But nevertheless, I will—” He stopped suddenly, cocking his head. He hopped forward and tilted it to the other side.
“Oscar?” Walt said. She hoped he wasn’t losing it. The stress was enough to make a
ny bird crack.
“Butterbean?” Oscar said, taking another hop closer. “Butterbean, what is that?”
Butterbean looked around with a panicked expression on her face. “What is what? My soap?”
“Not your soap. Under your tail.” Oscar’s eyes glittered.
Butterbean leaned down and inspected her tail. “OH!” She laughed and scooted her butt an inch to the side. “That’s just my coin. I wondered what had happened to it!”
“You were sitting on it.” Oscar hopped over to the coin and eyed it with interest.
“Not on purpose. It’s small.” Butterbean looked offended.
“OOOOOhhhh,” Marco said.
“Shiny,” Polo said.
“It looks like gold, Butterbean,” Oscar said, picking it up and putting it down in front of Walt. “Walt, do you know what this is?”
Walt leaned forward. The coin was small, with a tiny antelope or gazelle on the front. “I know enough to know it’s worth a lot,” Walt said. “I’ll have to do some research to make sure. But it’s definitely valuable.”
“That’s what I thought.” Oscar fluffed up his feathers. “Butterbean, where did you get this? You need to tell us everything. Now.”
“I was in the lobby,” Butterbean started. “It was a while ago. Maybe a few weeks? Or days? I’m not sure. I was waiting to go up in the elevator, and Mrs. Food was talking to Mrs. Third Floor. Then the elevator opened, and Biscuit came out with her owner.”
“Haircut Biscuit?” Polo asked.
Butterbean shook her head. “Different Biscuit.”
Oscar narrowed his eyes. “Did Biscuit’s owner drop the coin?”
“No, it was the other person in the elevator. Some guy. No dog.”
“What do you remember about him?” Oscar wished he had a lamp that he could shine on Butterbean while he asked questions. He’d seen that technique on the Television, and it always seemed to work.
Butterbean shrugged. “Nothing. He dropped the coin. And I picked it up and brought it home and hid it with the rest of my stuff.”
“Any smells?” Walt said.
“Cologne. Lots of it. It made me sneeze.” Butterbean wrinkled her nose at the thought.
“Have you smelled it before?”
“Yes, in the elevator.”
“So he’s a resident of the building,” Oscar said slowly, tapping his wing against his beak thoughtfully.
“So? What do we care who the guy is?” Walt twitched her tail. If her memory was accurate, that coin was a South African Krugerrand, worth hundreds of dollars. Walt didn’t know anyone with hundreds of dollars.
“We care because now I know what we’re going to do,” Oscar said impatiently. “Reconnaissance begins tomorrow. Butterbean, get your sleep. You’ve got a big day ahead of you.”
“Okay…” Butterbean didn’t know what reconnaissance was, but she didn’t like the sound of it. It sounded hard.
“Reconnaissance? For what? We got the coin! We’re set!” Walt said.
“We are not, as you say, set,” Oscar said. “But if all goes as planned, we will be. We’ll never have to worry about money or our future again.”
Walt glared at him.
Oscar sighed. “Walt, if we sell this coin, the money will last us only a short time. But a coin like this, it’s not the sort of thing you just drop in a lobby. Not unless you have a lot of them. If I’m correct, the man who lost this coin has a lot of them.”
“So?”
“So we’ll take them. We’re going to pull off a heist.”
6
WHEN THE GIRL ARRIVED THE next morning, they were ready. Oscar had worked out their assignments late into the night, and they’d gone over their roles just as the sun was coming up.
“Butterbean, walk duty.”
“Check.” Butterbean’s tongue flopped out of the side of her mouth. Oscar ignored it.
“Polo, you’re with Butterbean. You know what you have to do. Marco, general surveillance.”
“Check!” Polo and Marco said at the same time. Then they giggled.
“Jinx!” they said at the same time.
“Jinx!”
“Jinx!”
Oscar frowned. This was no time for giggling. He cleared his throat. The jinxing stopped. “Walt, entrance and exit facilitation. Logistics.”
“Check.” Walt licked a paw.
“I’ll be monitoring the feeds and assisting as needed.” Oscar paused. “Check.” (He just wanted to say “check” too.)
Oscar patted the remote with one wing. The Strathmore apartment building had security cameras that residents could watch on the Television. Oscar had never been a fan—watching people come in and out of the building was not his idea of fun—but it was exactly what they needed to pull off a successful heist. If there was a stash of treasure hidden in the Strathmore, they would find it. And it would all be his.
Oscar cringed at himself. Theirs. Not his. Theirs.
“She’s coming,” Walt said from her post by the front door. “Polo? You know what to do.”
“This seems weird.” Polo laughed nervously, scurrying over to Butterbean. “Hope you’re not ticklish.”
Polo slicked her forehead and side fur down, then leaned up and grabbed a long piece of the hair on Butterbean’s underside. Luckily, since Butterbean was a short dog, it wasn’t that hard to do.
Polo hesitated. “Wait…”
“Do you need a boost?” Marco whispered.
“A boost? She’s not tall,” Polo scoffed.
“I know I’m short, okay?” Butterbean muttered. “Rub it in, why don’t you.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s not that. It’s… my button! I can’t leave my button!” Polo looked panicked.
“It’ll be fine. Nobody will take it,” Marco whispered, looking at the door. He could hear noises coming from the hallway.
“No, I need it!” Polo was sounding frantic. Marco had seen her that way before. The last time, she’d spent half the day digging in the corner of the aquarium, and all of their cedar chips had ended up in a dune on top of their food dish.
“But you can’t hold a button and hold on to Butterbean at the same time!” Walt said impatiently.
“Here,” Marco said. “How’s this?” He grabbed Polo’s red string and looped it through the hole in the button. Then he tied it quickly around Polo’s neck. “Okay now?”
“Thanks,” Polo sighed. “I just… I didn’t want to leave it.”
“I get it,” Marco said. “I feel the same way about my rat-head corn.”
“Great, problem solved, now get up there!” Walt said, eyes on the door.
Polo patted the sparkling button around her neck and then grabbed Butterbean’s fur again. In one quick motion, she pulled herself up so she was hanging under Butterbean’s tummy.
“I’ve… I’ve got a rat on me,” Butterbean whispered.
“It’s the plan, remember? You agreed to this. It’s what we have to do,” Walt said.
“Yes, but… I have a rat,” Butterbean said. “On me.”
“Don’t make any sudden moves. Your hair is kind of slippery,” Polo said from her position under Butterbean’s stomach.
“I condition,” Butterbean said.
“I can tell,” Polo said. “I just hope we can pull this off.” She hoisted herself up higher and grabbed on tighter with her feet.
A key turned in the lock.
“Showtime,” Walt said under her breath.
Walt had given them all a little acting advice, so they looked much more natural than they had the night before.
Butterbean was standing in the middle of the living room, positioning herself in a way that didn’t show off the rat on her tummy.
Marco was sprawled on top of a pile of cedar chips in the aquarium, doing his best to look like two rats.
Oscar was sitting on his perch reading the clean parts of yesterday’s paper.
Walt was sitting on the coffee table, licking her foot an
d watching the door. All in all, they were doing an admirable job of looking casual. (Except for Butterbean, that is. But they were hoping she just looked like she really needed to pee, and not like she had a rat suspended from her stomach.)
“Hey, guys.” The girl peered into the room. “Doing okay this morning?”
In her best impression of a regular house cat, Walt ignored her completely.
Oscar hopped on his perch and raked his beak against the bars of his cage. Butterbean wagged her tail enthusiastically.
“Hey!” Polo said in a muffled voice. “Watch it with the tail!”
“Sorry,” Butterbean whispered. She stopped wagging and let her tongue loll out of her mouth instead.
“How ’bout I take you out first and then check on the others, okay?” The girl clipped Butterbean’s leash onto her collar.
“Just as we planned,” Walt said softly. “You know what you have to do, Butterbean! Good luck, Polo!”
Butterbean waddled slowly to the door, trying her best to ignore the weird weight on her stomach. “Wow, you okay?” the girl asked. “Really need to go, huh?”
Butterbean attempted a smile, but just managed to look constipated.
The girl bent down to pet her and then frowned. “Hey, wait. What is—”
“Walt! Distraction!” Oscar said quickly.
Walt stopped licking her foot and started hacking up a hairball.
The girl stood up quickly as Walt convulsed on the edge of the coffee table.
“Um. You okay, cat? Walt?”
Walt’s hairball splatted onto the carpet.
“Okay, so all better now.” The girl looked grossed out. “I’ll take care of that when we get back. Come on, dog.” She tugged the leash and hurried Butterbean out into the hallway.
As the door swung shut behind them, Walt leaped to her feet. Sprinting across the room, she scooped up Butterbean’s rawhide chew and pushed it into the gap, preventing the door from closing completely. The girl didn’t notice.
“Bingo,” Walt said. “Tape, Oscar?”
