Arf

by Spencer Quinn

  “Well?” she said. “Go on.”

  “Theory of the case?” Birdie said. “I guess it’s all about understanding who did what and why.”

  “It was your dad’s idea, right, Birdie?” said Nola.

  “Maybe not his own original idea, but he believed in it.”

  “Birdie’s dad was a hero,” Nola said.

  “Oh?” said Miranda Richelieu.

  “He was a police detective,” Birdie said. “Maybe you knew him.”

  “Certainly not,” said Miranda, backing up a step.

  “No way,” said Mr. Richelieu. “How could we ever—”

  Miranda cut him off. “Merv? I’ll handle this.” She turned to Birdie, gave her a smile. Actually, it was more like just showing teeth. “Birdie, is it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I think it would be best if you removed the dog before he does any more damage.”

  Dog? Damage? What was that all about? Don’t ask me.

  “Thanks,” said Birdie, when we were out on the street.

  “What for?” said Nola.

  “Bailing me out.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did—the comparing notes thing.”

  Nola shrugged. “We’re a team.”

  I liked Nola, but she’d gotten that wrong. Birdie and I were the team. Anyone can make a mistake, and I’m the forgiving type. I gave Nola a friendly bump on the back of her leg, a bump of the no-harm-done kind.

  “Ouch,” said Nola, stumbling a bit, perhaps, but not actually going flat down on the sidewalk. She could be funny sometimes.

  When we got back home, Dr. Rajatawan was just on his way out. “Hi, Birdie,” he said. “Hey there, Bowser.”

  I was a big fan of Dr. Rajatawan. Humans often smell of what they’ve been eating, a fun fact you may not know. Today, for example, Dr. Rajatawan smelled of fried chicken. Hard to top that.

  “Dr. Rajatawan?” Birdie said. “Is something wrong?” How could anything be wrong with fried chicken in the breeze? I wasn’t following this at all.

  “Just checking up on your grandmother,” Dr. Rajatawan said.

  “But I thought it was just dehydration,” said Birdie. Had I heard about that before? I kind of remembered Grammy fainting in the yard a while back, not far from where I was at the moment. I went over and sniffed at the spot, smelled a worm not far below the surface.

  “True as far as it goes,” Dr. Rajatawan said. “She’s in excellent shape, considering.”

  “Considering her age?” said Birdie.

  Dr. Rajatawan paused. “That’s one way to put it.”

  Tiny wrinkles appeared on Birdie’s forehead, normally the smoothest in town. “Is there something else wrong with her? Besides being old?”

  “That’s usually the case when it comes to—” Dr. Rajatawan stopped himself, began again. “Nothing for you to be worried about, Birdie.”

  “But … but you’re getting me worried.”

  “I’m very sorry—not my intention at all.” Dr. Rajatawan glanced at the house. “But maybe you could be a help.”

  “Me? How?”

  “I sense some resistance when it comes to her medications.”

  “All those pills?” Birdie said. “Grammy hates them.”

  “Just as I feared,” said Dr. Rajatawan. “That’s what my visit was mostly about—stressing the importance of taking the exact right pills at the exact right times. I got the feeling she wasn’t quite as … receptive as I’d hoped.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Let’s just say it’s a good thing your mom’s here,” Dr. Rajatawan said. “But maybe in the future if you could just encourage your grandmother, maybe …” His eyes brightened the way human eyes do when a big idea comes along. “… maybe make a game of it!”

  “Make a game of what?” Birdie said.

  “Of taking the pills,” Dr. Rajatawan said. “How good at games we are!”

  “We?”

  “Why, we Americans, of course. This is one of the most amazing things I’ve learned since coming to this country. We know games! So I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  “Um,” said Birdie.

  Dr. Rajatawan jumped in his car, cranked up the sound, and drove off.

  Birdie moved toward the door. “Hey! It’s fixed already,” she said. “Mama can fix anything, Bowser.” I’d have to remember that, and maybe I would have if Rory hadn’t driven up on his bicycle just then. He tried to pop a wheelie as he turned up our walk, but something wobbly happened and he had to put a foot down real fast.

  “Uh, hi, Birdie,” he said. “Hey, Bowser.”

  Rory’s a pal, somewhat taller than Birdie. Just like her, he had a strange jumble of teeth, some big, some little. His hair was all over the place, maybe because of bicycle wind. What else about Rory? His father’s the sheriff, for one thing. Is that important? I didn’t know then, although now I do.

  “Hi,” Birdie said.

  “Hi.”

  After some silence, Rory said, “How’s it goin’?”

  “Okay,” said Birdie. “You?”

  “Not bad.”

  Then more silence. This was how their conversations usually started, and often ended, too. Rory adjusted one of the rubber grips on his handlebars. Birdie watched him doing it.

  “Baseball still going on?” she said.

  “Two more games.”

  “Long season.”

  “Uh-huh.” Rory got busy with the rubber grip on the other side. He took a deep breath. “I’m in a slump.”

  “You’ll come out of it.”

  Rory looked up quickly. “Yeah? How do you know?”

  Birdie shrugged. “That’s what a slump means. It’s like a hill, a valley, and another hill. You’re in the valley.”

  “What if there’s no second hill?”

  “Then it’s not a slump.”

  “Meaning I just suck?”

  Birdie gazed at Rory. He didn’t look happy, but Birdie laughed anyway. And then Rory started laughing, too. They laughed and laughed. Humans can be very difficult to understand.

  “Want to come in?” Birdie said. “Have some limeade?”

  “Sure,” said Rory, getting off his bike. “Heard you got broken into.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But nothing got taken.”

  “That’s right. How do you know?”

  “My dad was on the police radio. We have it on in the kitchen while he’s at work. He’s worried about robbers from the city. Sometimes they hit small towns—it happened over in Cleoma last year.”

  “You know the Richelieus?” Birdie said.

  “I know who Preston is.”

  “Quarterback of the Hornets.”

  “Woo-woo. And one of the best pitchers in the state. Scouts come to watch him.”

  “So?” Birdie said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “He’s kind of a jerk.”

  “You’ve met him?” Rory said.

  “Nola and I went over there.”

  “How come?”

  “Because they got broken into and so did we.”

  Rory nodded. “Yeah. My dad thinks you musta surprised them—the robbers, I mean—which is how come nothing got taken from your place.”

  Birdie shook her head. “We didn’t surprise them—Bowser would have known.”

  My tail rose up to the sky.

  “Uh, my dad didn’t mention Bowser,” Rory said.

  Birdie shrugged.

  “But the good thing,” Rory went on, “is you didn’t lose anything. The Richelieus lost a pearl necklace.”

  “What?”

  “Worth a lot of money, Mrs. Richelieu told my dad. She’s real upset.”

  A PEARL NECKLACE?” BIRDIE SAID. HER voice rose, and so did her lovely little eyebrows. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah,” said Rory. “But don’t tell anyone.”

  “Huh?”

  “Because no one’s supposed to know.”

  �
��You know.”

  “But I’m not supposed to. It’s only ’cause I overheard.”

  “So?”

  “So last time it got my dad in trouble. I overheard then, too, same way.”

  “Overheard what?”

  “That time? It was something about Solange.”

  “Solange Claymore?”

  “Uh-huh. She was getting mixed up with—whoa!” Rory’s eyes opened wide, one of those signs of an alarmed human. “I almost did it again!”

  “Once you start you have to finish,” Birdie said. “Isn’t that one of the rules in your family?”

  “Rule three,” said Rory. He bit his lip. “But I can’t, Birdie. Don’t make me.”

  “Then explain better.”

  “How?”

  “Start with the part about getting your dad in trouble.”

  “With the DA over in Lafayette.”

  “Is he your dad’s boss?”

  “It’s a she. And my dad has no boss.”

  “Why not?”

  “ ’Cause he’s elected. So the people are his boss, kinda. But the DA’s a big backer of his, and what if she switched to someone else? Like maybe Mr. Santini.”

  “Mr. Santini who owns the campground?”

  “Yeah, but he was a cop in Houston and the DA’s from there and knew him back then. And she got real mad the last time—it blew up the whole case.”

  “A whole case against Solange?”

  “She was just a little part of it. What happened was—whoa! Stop making me, Birdie.”

  “I’m not making you do anything.”

  “You already did.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did.”

  Birdie’s back stiffened. I could feel my own back doing the same, although my back never really stiffens. Our backs—meaning the backs of me and my kind—are much more relaxed than yours, if you don’t mind me saying so.

  “That’s not true, Rory, and you know it.”

  He raised a hand. “All right, all right. No need to go to Code Red.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did. And if you mention”—Rory’s voice sank real low—“the pearls and my dad finds out—which he will, take it to the bank—then I’ll get a whupping.”

  Birdie backed up a step. “Your dad whups you?”

  Rory looked down. “No, not really. Except once or twice.”

  “Including the Solange thing?”

  “Nope. Didn’t whup me then ’cause I didn’t know it was wrong. But now I do.”

  “So he’d whup you?”

  Rory nodded.

  “Like how?”

  “What do you mean, like how? You never got whupped?”

  Birdie shook her head.

  “Guess that’s the upside of not having a dad,” said Rory.

  Silence. A strange silence that seemed to press down from above. And then, in a quiet voice that somehow sounded powerful, like it had picked up that pressure from above, Birdie spoke. “What did you say?”

  “I take it back,” Rory said, real quick.

  “Go away,” Birdie said.

  “Aw, Birdie, it’s just that you got me so—”

  “Leave.”

  Red splotches appeared on Rory’s face. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, closed it, and gave Birdie a mixed-up sort of look, part angry, part hurt, part I didn’t know what and maybe he didn’t either. Then he pushed off and pedaled away very fast, standing on the pedals instead of sitting on the seat.

  We went inside. Mama was at the kitchen table, working on her laptop. She glanced up. “Hi there, Bir—Hey! What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Birdie said, heading toward the hall, me right beside her, which I’m sure you knew already.

  “Whoa, right there,” Mama said, rising and taking Birdie by the arms in a gentle way. “Your face sure isn’t saying nothing, sweetheart. It’s saying plenty.”

  Birdie looked away.

  “It’s the break-in, isn’t it?” Mama said. “I understand. I feel the same way. It’s a violation. You know what a violation is?”

  Birdie nodded.

  “Understanding also means moving on,” Mama said. “Can’t dwell on it, otherwise we’d just be extending the violation. Do you see what I mean?”

  Birdie nodded again.

  “But I sure hope the sheriff catches whatever scummy person did this,” Mama said. “And he’s optimistic. He sees patterns in the two break-ins, patterns that point to a gang over in Lafayette.”

  Birdie looked up at Mama. “What patterns?”

  “He didn’t go into that. But he did say we shouldn’t be afraid of a repeat performance. Has that been worrying you?”

  Birdie shook her head.

  “Because that’s not how these gangs operate. They hit random places, grab what they can, and take off down the road, never to return.” Mama gazed down at Birdie. “Any questions?”

  “No.”

  “I think I still see a question or two,” Mama said.

  “Impossible,” Birdie said.

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve got a poker face.”

  Mama laughed. “Not to me you don’t.” She wrapped her arms around Birdie and squeezed her tight. “Not to me you don’t.” Mama’s eyes closed. Birdie’s, still open, looked worried. I moved in to break up the hug, my only thought at that moment, but when you have a time-tested thought like that in your repertoire you don’t need any more.

  “How about looking in on Grammy?” Mama said, after I’d gotten our positioning all sorted out. “She’s having a little rest.”

  “In the middle of the day?” Birdie said.

  “Well, she’s supposed to be having a little rest,” Mama said. “Orders of Dr. Rajatawan. But he … he doesn’t have quite the right way with her.”

  “How come he wants her to rest?” Birdie said. “I thought he was just worried about the pills.”

  “That too,” Mama said.

  “What’s wrong with Grammy? Tell me!”

  “I don’t want you to worry.”

  “That only makes me worry more.”

  Mama laughed. Then her face got all serious and she said, “Grammy’s heart’s not getting the job done quite how Dr. Rajatawan would like.”

  “But won’t the pills fix that?” Birdie said. “If she’ll only take them in the right way?”

  Mama gazed down at Birdie. From the look in Mama’s eyes, I thought tears were on the way, but that didn’t happen. “That would help, for sure,” she said, her voice a little thick, like something had clogged her throat.

  We crossed the breezeway, me and Birdie, entered Grammy’s side of the house, and came to her bedroom door. I could hear Grammy moving around on the other side, moving kind of briskly. I’d always thought rest meant not moving briskly, but I might have gotten that wrong. Birdie knocked.

  “Come in, for pity’s sake, child,” Grammy called.

  Birdie opened the door. “How’d you know it was me, Grammy?”

  “Think I don’t know your knock?” Grammy said. She glanced over from what she was doing, which involved a broom and a small grate in the ceiling above her bed. Grammy stood beside the bed, up on her tiptoes, sort of shoving the end of the broom handle into the square spaces in the grate, and grunting with the effort. Cool air flowed out of the grate. Was Grammy trying to make it flow faster? That was my only idea, but a pretty good one, as I hope you agree.

  “Grammy?”

  “What now?”

  “Um, what are you doing?” Birdie said.

  “Exactly what it”—grunt—“looks like.”

  “Sticking the broom handle in that thingy?”

  “Vent is the”—grunt—“word. That ‘thingy,’ as you put it, is an AC vent. Learn the names of what’s around—don’t they teach you that in school?”

  “I don’t think so,” Birdie said.

  “Should have known,” said Grammy.

  “Is something wrong with the vent?”


  “Would I be going to all this effort if it wasn’t?”

  “No, Grammy. But aren’t you supposed to be resting?”

  Grammy stopped what she was doing, came down off her tiptoes—she was barefoot, maybe a fact I should have mentioned before, especially since her toes seemed all swollen and bruised—and turned to Birdie. “Not you too. Don’t even start. And as for you,” she said, suddenly looking my way, “sit!”

  I sat. Sort of. There’s an almost-sit I can do that allows for a tiny bit of movement at the same time. It seemed to be good enough. Birdie glanced at Grammy’s desk, crowded with pill bottles.

  “What games do you like, Grammy?” she said.

  “Games? Games? What kind of nonsense question is that?”

  “You must like some sort of game,” said Birdie.

  “Where does it say that?”

  “Nowhere, I guess. But … but you like fishing, for example.”

  “You think fishing’s a game?”

  Birdie looked down. “No.”

  “Darn straight. Nothin’ more serious than fishing. This family has depended on fishing since … since I don’t even know when. That’s how long!” Grammy got back to work, poking the broom handle in the vent.

  “What’s wrong with the vent?” Birdie said.

  “You don’t hear that infernal racket?”

  “Racket?”

  “Coming from the grate.”

  Birdie cocked an ear up toward the grate, shook her head.

  “Like something’s fluttering around in there?” Grammy said.

  I heard that fluttering, loud and clear. Meaning Grammy and I were hearing something and Birdie wasn’t? That bothered me, and was still bothering me when I heard a click from somewhere below the floor and the cool air stopped flowing, the fluttering sound stopping as well.

  “You really don’t hear it?” Grammy said. “Been like this since that thunderstorm last week.”

  “Thunderstorm?”

  “Don’t tell me you slept through it.”

  “I must have.”

  “That last boom shook the house like the roof was fixin’ to fly right off.” She gave Birdie a look. “Wasted on the young.”

  “What is, Grammy?”