by David Lubar
“Hey,” Brian walked around the car. “Whatcha got?”
“Nothing.” Tommy put his hand behind his back.
“Come on, let me see.”
Tommy looked at me. I shrugged. What harm could Brian do?
“Oh, wow,” Brian said when he’d taken the packet from Tommy. “How very, very cool.” He laughed and started to give the package back. At the last moment, he jerked his hand away. He did this a couple more times.
I could tell Tommy was about to cry. “Come on. Brian, knock it off.”
Brian didn’t say anything, but he held his hand still so Tommy could grab the packet. As soon as Tommy got it back, he went running off to the garage.
A minute later, I heard him calling me. “There’s something wrong,” he said.
I went in to see what the problem was.
“It’s just sand.” He pointed to the jar he’d filled with water.
“Those are eggs. They’ll hatch. You have to wait a little.”
“Smunkies come from eggs?” He looked at me like I’d told him spaghetti grew on trees.
“Yup. You have to wait for them to hatch.”
“How long?” he asked.
“I don’t know. A couple of days, maybe a week. I’m not sure.”
“I bet we can speed it up.”
The voice caught me by surprise. I hadn’t realized Brian had walked into the garage behind me.
“You just have to know what to add.” He looked around. Suddenly, his face lit up. He grabbed a box of plant fertilizer. “This will help,” he said. Before I could stop him, he sprinkled some into the jar.
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” He grabbed a second container and shook something else into Tommy’s jar. He was about to put in yet another powder when Tommy finally pulled the whole thing back, sloshing some of the water.
“Stop it! You’ll kill them.” He snatched a lid from the shelf and put it on the jar. The way his lip was sticking out, I knew his eyes were real close to turning into a pair of miniature waterfalls.
“Tommy, why don’t you put that down and help us with the car?”
“Really?” He looked at me, his face suddenly wiped free of all sorrow.
“Sure.” I shifted my gaze over to Brian, letting him know that he was in big trouble if he said a word.
So we went and changed Dad’s valve-cover gaskets and got all covered with grease and had a wonderful time.
I guess I was wrong about the shrimp taking a while. They hatched during the night. Tommy came running into my room that morning to show me.
“Look—my smunkies,” he said, holding up the jar. “Big smunkies.”
“Yeah, they sure are big.” I watched the shrimp swimming around the jar. They were large enough that I could make out their legs and eyes.
“Maybe I need a bigger jar,” Tommy said.
“No, they won’t grow that much.”
“They might,” he said. “Got a bigger jar?”
“Let’s look.”
We went to the cellar, where we keep all the really good junk, and searched around. I finally found an old jar that must have been left over from when Mom had decided she could save a lot of money by buying really big bunches of everything. She’d gotten this gigantic vat of mayonnaise. It took up almost a whole shelf in the fridge. I think it went bad before we’d had a chance to use up even half of it. I was glad, too. For a while, we seemed to be living on tuna salad, chicken salad, potato salad, and anything else that needed mayonnaise.
“Perfect, isn’t it?” I asked Tommy when we’d found the jar.
“Yeah.”
I carried it upstairs. We filled it with water from the bathtub faucet. Then I lugged it to his room and we poured in the smunkies.
I pretty much forgot all about them after that. Every couple of days, Tommy might mention them. “Smunkies are growing,” he’d say, or, “I’m feeding my smunkies lots of food.”
Then he asked me for a bigger jar. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except he did it when Brian was over.
“Whatcha want a jar for?” Brian asked.
I shook my head, trying to signal Tommy, but he didn’t see me. “Smunkies,” he said. “My smunkies are real big now.”
“Smunkies?” Brian asked, grinning like a true idiot. “Let’s see them. Can we see them? Please? I’d love to get a look at some honest-to-goodness giant smunkies.” He winked at me.
I had a feeling this was not going to turn out well. Tommy ran up to his room. I guess he was so proud and excited, he was eager to show his treasure to anyone. Brian followed right behind, chanting “Smunkies, let’s see those smunkies.”
“Come on, Brian,” I said. “Don’t mess with anything.”
He turned back toward me. “Hey, relax. I just want to see these smunkies.” Then he laughed.
“Don’t ruin anything, okay?” I asked.
“Hey, you can trust me,” he said.
We went into Tommy’s room. The jar was on the floor next to his bed. Looking from the top, you couldn’t really see anything. Tommy flopped to his knees and pointed to the side of the container. Brian and I joined him.
My jaw dropped. Inside, so crammed they almost couldn’t move, were Tommy’s smunkies. But these were not little specks—these were huge! Some of them were half as big as my fist!
“Cool,” Brian said. “Check them out.” He unscrewed the lid of the jar and reached in.
An instant later, he screamed and pulled his hand back. He was always being such a jerk; I figured he’d do something like that.
“It’s got me!” he screamed. He waved his hand and danced around the room like he was in pain.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, not impressed. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
I started to walk from the room. Brian was still screaming. Then he started smashing his hand against the wall. “Hey, stop it, you’ll break something,” I said.
That’s when I noticed the red blotches splattered over the paint on the wall. That’s also when I started to get scared. Before I could do anything, Brian stumbled into the jar and knocked it over and the rest of the smunkies got loose.
Whatever they were, they moved fast.
In a second, they were all over Brian. I did what I could to help him. I grabbed one and tried to pull it off, but it was like grabbing a rock. The thing was hard, and sharp.
“Smunkies …” Tommy said, standing and watching Brian smash himself into the wall.
I grabbed Tommy and ran from the room, slamming the door behind me in my panic. I took him downstairs. Over our heads, there were a couple more crashes, then silence.
“Stay here,” I said to Tommy. I really didn’t want to go back, but I had to see if I could help Brian. He was a total jerk, but he was my friend. I went up the stairs, feeling like I was walking on explosives, ready to turn and flee at the slightest sound. I half expected a wave of smunkies to come rushing down the steps, leaping at me and dragging me to the floor.
I made it upstairs.
Tommy’s bedroom door was still closed. There was no sound, at first. When I got closer, I heard whimpering and groaning.
“Brian?” I called. I knocked on the door. It was such a stupid thing to do that I almost laughed at myself. I opened the door.
Brian was lying on the rug. He looked pretty chewed up, like someone who’d decided to use sandpaper for a washcloth. But he was alive. “You okay?” I asked.
“I’ve been better,” he said. He slowly rose to his knees.
“Where are they?” I asked.
He jerked his hand over toward the wall. There was a jagged hole right above the baseboard. I knelt down and peeked inside, expecting to get a smunkie in my face. The hole went through to the bathroom. There was a wet, pink trail—maybe bits of smunkie slime, maybe bits of Brian. But I could see where it led.
I went out through the hall to the bathroom to make sure. The trail led into the tub. Then the trail led to the drain. They were down there, somewhere
. I could imagine them, all those smunkies, resting after a nice lunch of Brian bites, doing smunkie things, maybe talking smunkie talk and planning smunkie plans.
“Smunkies gone?”
I turned toward the door. It was Tommy. He looked so sad.
“They’ll be back,” I said.
That cheered him up. But it didn’t do much good for me. Not when I thought about all those smunkies out there in the pipes all around the house.
“Back in the jar?” Tommy asked.
I looked at the tub and the sink and the toilet. I looked at the walls. “No,” I told Tommy. “I’m afraid not. I think it’s our turn in the jar.”
PRETTY POLLY
“This is so cool,” Karen said. She couldn’t believe what her father had done.
“It sure is,” her dad said. His silly grin showed that he didn’t really believe his own actions, either.
“Where’d you find it?” she asked.
“That old pet shop in town. I couldn’t get over the price. These things usually cost a couple hundred dollars. The owner let me have everything for fifty dollars. Imagine that—just fifty bucks.”
Karen’s mother walked into the room. She didn’t say anything for a minute or two. Finally, she asked, “What about Whiskers?”
“The cat will get used to it,” Karen’s dad said. “And Karen and I will take care of it. You won’t have to do a thing. Right, Karen?”
“Right.” Karen looked at the spectacular bird her father had brought home. She was pretty sure it was an African gray parrot. “Does it talk?”
“The man said it did,” her father told her.
The parrot looked at Karen, cocking his head to the side and staring at her with one eye. Then, as if to answer her, he said, “I’m a good boy. I’m a good boy.”
Karen laughed and clapped her hands. She thought it was truly cool to have a talking bird in the house. A soft and furry creature brushed against her leg. She looked down at Whiskers. “Don’t worry, kitty-kit, I still love you.”
“Mrrreww,” Whiskers answered.
Karen picked up the cat and said, “Look, this is your new friend.” For an instant, Whiskers stared at the parrot. Then he hissed, leaped from her grip, and ran out of the room. Karen shrugged and turned to her dad. “The bird needs a name.”
“Why don’t you do it?” her dad suggested.
Karen thought for a moment. All the obvious choices came to mind. She didn’t want to call the bird “Polly” or “Crackers” or “Pirate.” Then she had an idea. “What about ‘Safari’?”
Her dad nodded. “I like it.”
“I’m a pretty bird,” Safari said.
“Yes, you are,” Karen agreed.
That night, as she lay in bed, Karen heard a strange noise. She sat up and listened to a scratching coming from downstairs. She went to the living room. The sound, soft and insistent, drifted from Safari’s covered cage. Karen lifted the blanket.
Safari clung to the door of the cage, biting at the latch with his beak. He stopped. He turned his head and looked at Karen. Then he lifted his left claw until it pointed straight at her.
“Kill you,” the bird said.
Karen gasped and stepped back. The edge of the blanket dropped from her fingers, falling over the cage and hiding the bird. She turned and fled to her room. Minutes later, as she sat huddled in bed, she convinced herself she had been mistaken. The bird couldn’t have said those awful words.
In the morning, Karen went right to the cage. She lifted the cover. “Pretty parrot,” Safari squawked. “I’m a good boy. I’m pretty.”
“Yes, you are,” Karen said, feeling the tension drain from her body.
That night she heard the sound again. She rose from her bed and walked—as if in a dream—to the living room, drawn there by the soft skritch of a hard beak probing and testing a metal latch.
As she had done the night before, Karen lifted the blanket. Moonlight from the window fell onto the cage, making it seem larger than anything else in the room. Safari opened his beak, releasing his grip on the bars. “Kill you soon,” the bird said.
Something brushed Karen. She jumped, and a scream came halfway out her throat.
“Mrreoww.”
“Whiskers,” Karen said as she grabbed her cat and ran from the room. She shut her door and climbed back into bed, hoping that sleep would rescue her from the images that were frozen in her mind. But sleep was a long time coming.
“Dad,” she said at breakfast. “About Safari …”
Her dad smiled. “Isn’t he great? I’ve been counting. He’s already said over thirty things. Isn’t that amazing? He can even sing. And he can make some animal sounds. I can’t believe how smart he is.”
“Great,” Karen said.
That afternoon, she went to the pet store. As she opened the door the strong scent of cedar wafted over her. Inside the shop, a man was giving food to a hamster in a large glass tank. “Yes?” he asked. “Let me guess—you want to buy a turtle?”
Karen shook her head.
“What about a hamster?” He held up the animal. “They make wonderful pets.” He smiled.
“My dad bought a parrot here … .” She wasn’t sure what else to say.
The man’s fingers opened, allowing the hamster to squirm back into the tank. “No, it’s a mistake. I don’t sell birds.” His fingers clenched into fists. Scars ran across the back of both hands—deep, ugly scars.
“But he said—”
“I don’t sell birds!” the man shouted. “I hate birds! They’re awful creatures. Stop bothering me. Get out.”
Frightened, Karen backed up a step. But she forced herself to speak again. “Help me,” Karen pleaded. “Please.”
The man shook his head. His face softened for a moment. “I can’t.”
“Please.”
“Get out!” he screamed again. “Get out! Get out!”
Karen fled.
At home, in the light of day, Safari was still speaking harmless sentences. Karen stayed away from the living room.
That night, she tried not to hear the skritch from below. It’s just a parrot, she told herself.
Skritch.
It can’t hurt me.
Skritch.
It’s only a stupid bird.
Skritch.
“It can’t do anything to me,” Karen whispered. “It can’t even get out of the—”
Click.
Karen jumped from her bed and rushed across the room to shut her door. Whiskers, who’d been asleep on her blankets, looked up, let out a “Mrewww,” then dashed past her feet and out into the hallway.
“Stop,” Karen called. She raced after her cat. She heard the light pat-pat of paws running down the stairs. She followed Whiskers into the living room. The cage was still covered. Karen lifted the blanket.
The door was unlatched. The cage was empty.
“Kill you now,” Safari promised from somewhere overhead.
Karen heard a flap and flutter. She ducked. Safari shot past her face. Karen stumbled into the couch and grabbed a pillow. The parrot was swooping toward her again. She swung but missed as the bird darted to the side then shot back toward her head. A claw slashed at her eyes.
The bird flew past, then turned and attacked again. Karen threw the pillow. It hit the bird. Safari fluttered to the carpet. For an instant, the bird didn’t move. Then it rose and attacked her again. Karen tried to dodge. She stumbled, took a couple of steps, then tripped over the pillow.
She fell hard, headfirst, then rolled to her back. Above, the bird was diving straight at her. She swung her arms and braced for the ripping pain of the claws and beak.
A flash of black flew across her vision, brushing her face. Whiskers hit the parrot from the side. His jaws clamped on the neck of the bird.
Karen shivered as she heard a sharp crunch. Whiskers dropped the parrot on the carpet.
“I can’t let you get in trouble,” Karen said. She had to put the bird back in the cage. She couldn�
��t let her dad think that Whiskers had done this. But she couldn’t bear the thought of touching the body.
Karen saw the blanket on the cage. She took it off and dropped it over the bird. She grabbed the lump beneath the coarse wool cloth. It was awful, but she thought she could do it, if she did it quickly.
Karen went to the cage and managed to get the body of the bird back inside without touching it. She closed the latch and put the blanket in place.
“Come on,” Karen said to Whiskers. She returned to her room and shut the door, then crawled under the covers. Whiskers jumped to the foot of the bed.
“It’s over,” Karen whispered.
Her cat licked his left front paw.
“You’re my favorite,” she told him. “You always were.”
Whiskers cocked his head slightly, as if amused, and stared at Karen with one eye.
“Kitty?” Karen said. She scrunched back against her pillows. “Pretty kitty …”
Whiskers opened his mouth and hissed.
JOIN THE PARTY
Dan wished Saturday didn’t exist. The school week was bad enough. But the existence of Saturday meant the existence of Saturday night. That’s when Dan really felt it most. Walking through town, hearing other kids having fun, enjoying parties or playing games or just hanging out and talking, Dan felt like he was on the wrong side of a glass barrier.
Usually, he stayed home and watched television or read a book. Sometimes, he went for a walk. This Saturday, as spring ended and the airwaves filled with summer reruns, Dan decided to go out. The moment he opened the door, he heard laughing and shouting. One house away, at the Emersons’, kids were playing in the pool.
It should be easy, Dan thought. All he had to do was walk up to Nicky Emerson and say hi and start talking. That’s all. They’d been neighbors for years, but they never did anything together. That’s the way it was. Dan didn’t know why. Most of the time, he didn’t even really mind. At least, not too much.
