The Purr-fect Scoop

by Coco Simon

  While we waited for our number to be called with our orders, we caught up on the week.

  Tamiko was showing us these pointy lollipops she’d found to use in the unicorn sundaes at the ice cream shop. The lollipops had multicolored swirls that twirled around the top of a stick, which would represent the horn of the unicorn. She’d found a place to get them wholesale, and with the help of her brother, Kai, she had created a PowerPoint presentation for Mrs. Shear on the pros of buying these candies. “I’m all about style, innovation, and the bottom line,” was her pitch. Based on her thrifted punk outfit—a blue ballet tutu over some fleecy red leggings, and an old fake-leopard-print jacket—I’d say she was true to her word.

  “Cool,” I said, “but can we not talk shop anymore? I want to really hear what’s going on with everyone.”

  Allie smiled, because what I really meant was that I wanted to know what was going on with her. It was weird to go from seeing someone every day to only seeing them once a week, and I was really curious about what was going on in Allie’s life.

  “Well, I have some news,” Allie said. “Get it, news? I have the perfect name for my column in the school paper!”

  “That’s so cool!” Tamiko said. “What’s it called?”

  “Get the Scoop!” Allie said triumphantly. “Get it?”

  “We got it!” Tamiko and I said at the same time, laughing.

  “Every week I do an interview with someone in the community,” she said. “Then I ask them about their favorite ice cream flavors for Get the Scoop. And of course I give Molly’s a plug.”

  “Fifty-nine?” intoned the voice over the loudspeaker.

  “Oooh! That’s us!” cried Tamiko, jumping up like she’d just won the lottery. “I’ll get it.”

  Tamiko was back in seconds with a tray piled high with burritos. She doled them out, and we began to unwrap the rolls.

  I’d ordered a California Crunch burrito. The tortilla was filled with shrimp tempura, guacamole, rice, spicy mayo, cucumbers, and crunchy fried onions. My mouth watered as I saw the two neatly sliced halves in the wrapper. I was starting to lift one half to my mouth for a bite when Tamiko’s hand shot out and stopped me before I could taste it.

  “No! We need to post it!”

  My mouth was open and watering for that first delectable bite. “What?”

  “Hello? Social media? Put it down. I need to take photos,” she said.

  Sighing, I placed the roll back onto its wrapper on the table. Allie and I exchanged an amused look as she did the same.

  Tamiko busied herself styling the food and positioning it just so for her phone camera. She’d gotten a yellowtail roll, and Allie’s was the Chicken Firecracker. Tamiko was standing on her seat, trying to get a good overhead shot, when her mother walked by to pick up her order. “Tamiko! What on earth? Get down! Where are your manners?” she said, shaking her head.

  Tamiko grinned, stepped down, and turned to follow her mom to the counter to check out what her parents had gotten. Allie and I didn’t waste a minute. We reached out, grabbed our rolls, and took enormous bites out of them. Then, smiling through our full mouths, we placed our rolls back onto the wrappers.

  Tamiko came right back, smiling, but her smile faded as she looked at the now-messy rolls and then at each of us. She sighed in disgust and said, “Okay, you win. Just eat them!”

  Allie and I laughed and dove for our food again, which we chowed happily. We continued chatting between bites.

  “All right. I was saving my big news,” I said. “Are you ready?”

  They looked at me in alarm. Ever since Allie had announced her parents’ divorce a couple of months before, we’d all been a little skittish. “Oh, relax! It’s not that big—actually, it’s small news. Isabel brought home a pet snake today.”

  “Eeew!” said Allie.

  “Cool!” said Tamiko, both reactions that I could have predicted.

  “I agree with Allie,” I said.

  “What kind?” asked Tamiko, flicking her straight black bangs out of her eyes.

  “A corn snake. Have you ever heard of it?” I asked.

  Tamiko nodded confidently and picked up her phone to scroll. “Corn snakes are really in right now. They’re all over the place. It’s because they come in such cool colors and markings. Was it orange?”

  “Yes!” I said in surprise, though I should have known that Tamiko would know all about anything trendy like this.

  She held up a photo. “Like this?”

  I nodded and shivered, thinking of it living in my house. “Yup.”

  “They’re really beautiful,” said Tamiko. “So after all these years your parents finally let you get a pet, and it’s a snake?”

  I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Well. Actually. Um . . .”

  There was a pause.

  Allie looked at me carefully. “They don’t know, do they?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “But Isabel’s going to tell them, right?” pressed Allie.

  I grimaced. “I guess not. She thinks they’ll make her get rid of it, so she wants to keep it a secret.”

  Tamiko winced. “Yikes. That’ll be hard. The one thing about pet snakes is that they always escape. Then everyone will have to know.”

  “Oh no! I hope not!” I said with another shudder.

  “Wait,” said Allie. “How can she not tell them? I mean, it’s another living thing in the house. Plus, your parents are vets. They’d want to know about an animal living with them.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what she’ll do.”

  “But she should tell them. Or you should.”

  “No way, Sunday Sister! I’m not telling them!” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “Isabel would kill me! She’d put the snake in my bed!” I laughed.

  Allie folded her arms now. “They should know. You can’t hide a living creature in a house without permission, especially when it breaks your parents’ main rule about no pets. It’s wrong.”

  I sighed. “I know, Allie. But what can I do?”

  “Nothing!” said Tamiko. “Just stay out of it. It will all work out! You don’t want to get in trouble too.”

  But Allie was shaking her head. “Whatever you do, just don’t lie to your parents. Lies make everything worse.”

  Famous last words, I thought later as my parents sat Isabel and me down in the living room for a family meeting before bed.

  Phew, I thought. Isabel told them immediately, and now we’re going to have the “no pets” talk again and find a new home for Naga. But I was wrong.

  “Girls, we need your help,” my mom began. “A client brought in an abandoned mama cat today with three tiny kittens.”

  “Awwww,” I said. “How old?”

  “We think they’re around five or six weeks old,” said my dad. “They’re about the size of my hand.” He held one hand up.

  My mom continued. “We’re going to foster them, but we don’t think it’s a good idea for them to stay at the clinic since we aren’t housing any animals during the construction. The renovation is making too much of a mess. If we brought them home after they have their checkups on Monday—assuming they pass and are healthy—would you be willing to look after them while you’re here and we’re at work?”

  “Totally!” I cried, jumping on my mom to hug her. “That would be so fun! Oh, can we keep one kitten? Please?”

  My mom shook her head. “Sorry, but you know the rule. . . .”

  “No pets,” we all intoned, except maybe Isa. I didn’t dare look at her to see if she was saying it too, but she did look uncomfortable when I glanced at her a moment later.

  I thought this was the perfect time for her to make the announcement about Naga, so when my mom went to get her phone to show us pictures of the kittens and my dad went to grab himself a cold drink, I stared daggers at Isa until she raised her eyes and looked at me. I wiggled my eyebrows and tipped my head toward the kitchen, where our parents were, as if to say, Tell them ab
out the snake now, but Isa just defiantly looked away.

  I sighed heavily, making a big coughing noise with the back of my throat, trying to get her to look at me again, but she wouldn’t. All right, sister, I said inside my head, hoping she’d hear me through some twin telepathy. You’re on your own.

  My mom returned with her phone and her reading glasses, and my dad with his water, and they called me and Isa over to the sofa to snuggle in and scroll through the pics.

  I oohed and aahed over every photo, but Isabel was pretty quiet.

  “What do you think, Izzy-boo?” My dad called Isabel by his baby nickname for her. “Cute?”

  Isabel sighed. “I’m just not that into cute and fuzzy stuff anymore, Dad.”

  My dad made funny wide eyes at her. “What? Since when? Just a few weeks ago you were begging us to keep that shih tzu! Anyway, who’s not into cute and fuzzy? Next thing, you’ll be telling me you hate rainbows, and cupcakes, and pony rides!”

  Isabel was trying hard not to smile, and she stayed serious long enough to say, “I do hate those things.” But my dad dove over and tickled her until she screamed with laughter, yelling, “Mercy! Mercy!”

  He wouldn’t stop until he got her to yell, “I love kittens!”

  She was gasping and laughing along with the rest of us when he finally let her go. I hadn’t seen her laugh like that since the previous spring, I think.

  “I thought so!” he said, mock-indignantly.

  She jumped to a chair far away and said, “But I really hate them!”

  My dad fake-lunged at her, and she shrieked with laughter, then said, “Okay, okay. I love them! No I don’t!” They joked back and forth for a few minutes, and we all were laughing.

  It was the most fun we’d had as a family in a while, and the kittens weren’t even at our house yet. Going upstairs for bed, I wanted to tell Isa that this would be the perfect time to tell our parents about Naga—while everyone was in a good mood and feeling close, and before the secret had gone on too long. But when she said “Good night, Sisi” upstairs, using my childhood nickname again, I couldn’t quite bring myself to say anything about her secret.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LATE AGAIN-NO EXCUSES

  After lunch on Sunday—as I was simultaneously working on my science project, despairing about all the extracurricular stuff I had to do the following week, sending e-mails about the school food drive, and sorting my laundry—Isa appeared in my doorway.

  “Sierra, can you help me for a minute?” She spoke quietly, even though our parents had gone to work right after church that morning.

  “Is this about our little friend?” I asked, peering over the top of my notebook at her.

  “Ha-ha, very funny, but yes. I need to put some newspaper in the bottom of her tank. I forgot to get it from downstairs yesterday, and then I couldn’t grab it once Mom and Dad were home.”

  I sighed. “I don’t like being part of your sneakiness,” I said, dropping the notebook to my side. “But I’ll help you again.” It felt good to be needed by Isa (and, let’s face it, also to have her owe me one). Plus, I’d rather do anything other than my homework.

  I swung my legs off the bed and knocked over a pile of laundry as I did. “Ugh.”

  “Come on, hurry! You never know when they’ll be back on Sundays!” she pleaded.

  I waded through a pile of my gear for mountaineering club, and two shopping bags full of cans that I’d collected for the food drive, and out my door to the hall.

  Once we were in her room, Isabel shut the door behind us and went quickly to her closet. She’d rearranged her furniture to hide the extension cord leading into her closed closet. It was pretty clever the way she’d done it, actually. No one would notice. And since our parents had declared us old enough to clean our own rooms the previous summer, there was little chance my mom would be doing anything in Isabel’s closet, or maybe even her room, for a long time.

  Isabel opened the door, and a golden light spilled out. It was almost magical.

  “Wow!” I said, drawn to the tank where a heat lamp radiated warm light.

  I knelt to look inside. The water bowl and lamp and some other equipment were all neatly set up, and Naga was curled inside her little hiding cave.

  “Hi, Naga!” I said, trying to promote interspecies friendship as well as family harmony.

  “Okay, I’m going to take her out now,” said Isa. “Do you want to do the newspaper, or do you want to hold her?”

  “Uh . . . duh! Newspaper!” I said. “Nothing personal, but I am not into slimy critters.”

  Isabel sighed and said, “Fine, but she’s nice to hold. She’s not slimy at all. She’s dry and cool, and her skin is very smooth.”

  I snorted. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Isabel knelt down and removed some heavy books that were on top of the tank lid. Then she removed the lid and reached in. I couldn’t even watch, I was so sure that Isabel was going to get bitten. I looked away and asked, “Is Naga a big reader?”

  “Huh?” said Isabel.

  “The books?” I prompted.

  “Oh. Those are to keep her from escaping. Snakes are really good at pushing out through the tiniest cracks. You have to always assume they could get out. I read that on the internet.”

  I shuddered. “Great. Just what I want in a neighbor. So, what do you want me to do with the paper?”

  “Okay. Just rip it into long strips, please. Uh-huh, yup. Just like that.”

  I tore the sheets into long strips and placed them in a growing pile. “How many pages?”

  “Mmm. I think, like, five?”

  “Five!”

  “Well, I don’t know. Let’s see.”

  I tore in silence for a minute. Once I had a decent pile of three ripped sheets’ worth of strips, I asked, “Should we start with this?”

  “Fine.”

  I reached into the tank to lift out the little cave, and then I saw it. The dead mouse was sitting there in the tank, under where the cave had been, its little feet curled up in front of its chest and its little buckteeth sticking out of its snout. I shrieked, dropped the cave, jumped up, and ran to the door, in full body shudders.

  “Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh!” I cried.

  Isa smirked. “It’s just a little mouse. And it’s dead!”

  I shivered. “Yuck. That is so nasty! Snakes are so gross!”

  “Kittens could eat baby mice too, you know!”

  “Yes, but not on a regular basis. And they eat them in the wild, if at all, so you never have to see it happen.”

  Isabel sighed. “Do you want to hold Naga over there, and I’ll finish the tank myself?”

  “Gosh. I just don’t know which is worse, the dead mouse or the slippery snake!”

  “Thanks a lot,” said Isabel, and by the wounded look on her face, I knew I’d gone too far.

  “I’m sorry, Isa. I didn’t mean it. I know you like her a lot. . . .” I took a huge breath, and then I said, “I’ll hold the . . . Naga. Just tell me what to do.”

  Isabel brightened. “Really? Okay. Thanks. Look, just put both hands out together, kind of cupped, like this.” I followed her directions. “Right. Now I’m going to put her into your hands. Please don’t drop her. She could get really hurt if you drop her. Okay? She’s just a baby.”

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” I said as she placed Naga into my hands. Naga’s body was cool and dense, kind of heavy for her size, and Isa was right: she wasn’t slimy at all. Her skin was smooth like a stone, almost, and the muscles under her skin were strong and firm. Her head moved around as her tongue darted in and out of her mouth. She explored my wrists and sleeve and then settled into a perfect coil in the palms of my hands. “I cannot believe I’m holding a snake right now!” I said in shock.

  Isabel was working quickly, but she glanced back at me. “Good job. Stay strong. You can do it.”

  “Why do they do that licking thing with their tongue going in and out?” I asked.

  “It�
�s how they smell,” replied Isa.

  “And she’s not going to bite me, right?”

  “I promise,” said Isa, deftly distributing the newspaper strips across the bottom of the tank.

  “How do you know so much about snakes?” I asked.

  Isabel shrugged. “From reading about them. And my friends at school.”

  “Do they have pet snakes?” I asked. I didn’t really know any of her school friends. They were all pretty new friends, since she’d stopped hanging with me and my friends a year or so before.

  “Some do, like Thomas and Reed.”

  I’d never heard of either of those people, but I didn’t want to ask right then. I was enjoying the closeness of the moment with Isa and didn’t want to wreck it. It felt like Team P was on the verge of rekindling, and I didn’t want to jinx the reunion.

  I looked down at Naga, now asleep in my hands. Her skin was incredible up close—an alternating pattern of dark red, black, and light orange bands that gave an overall impression of the color orange but up close was intricate and beautiful.

  “She’s really beautiful, Isa,” I said softly.

  Isabel looked up at me and smiled. “I think so too.”

  I took a deep breath. “If you want to play this right, though, you’re going to have to tell Mom and Dad. Because if they find out on their own, they’ll be too mad to let you keep her. Why would you risk that?”

  Isabel repositioned the cave and, I imagine, the mouse-icle, back in the tank and then reached out her hands for Naga. I handed her over, surprised by how I missed the weight of her once I’d let her go.

  “I just don’t want them to say no,” she said quietly. “I have to choose my time very carefully—”

  Time! Oh no!

  I raced to my room to look at my phone. 12:50! And Mrs. Shear wanted us to be at Molly’s by 12:45 for a one o’clock shift! I was already five minutes late!

  Hurriedly I pulled on my socks and threw a tunic over my leggings and tank top. Hopping in place as I rushed my sneakers on, I called to Isabel, “I’m late. I’ve got to go to work! Shoot! I am going to be in so much trouble for being late again!”