Arf

by Spencer Quinn

  “Nothing.” Grammy cocked her ear up to the vent, silent now. A puzzled look appeared on her face. “Hrrmf,” she said and leaned the broom against the wall.

  Birdie eyed the pills. “Speaking of games, Grammy, what do you think about basketball?”

  Grammy got a faraway look in her washed-out eyes. “I was deadly,” she said in a soft voice.

  Birdie’s face lit up. “From the three-point line, Grammy?”

  “Three-point line? There was no three-point line when I played.”

  “No three-point line?”

  “Just another one of those stupid improvements that make things worse.”

  Birdie was silent. I could feel her thoughts, so pleasant, especially since I didn’t seem to be having any of my own just then. “I think you’re right,” she said, “at least about the three-point shot.”

  “Of course I’m right. Takes the team right out of teamwork.”

  “I never thought about that,” Birdie said.

  “And now you don’t have to—all the thinking’s done.” Grammy glanced up at the vent and frowned.

  Birdie cleared her throat. That’s sort of an announcement from humans that something important is on the way. “Funny how we can make up games, huh, Grammy?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Well, for example, we could kind of play basketball in miniature, if we got creative.”

  Grammy’s eyes narrowed. “Spit it out, whatever little plot you’ve got going on.”

  Birdie’s eyes shifted for a second or two. Then she laughed. “Stop, Grammy.”

  “Stop what? Being me?”

  “Oh, no,” Birdie said. “It’s just that I’ve thought of a game we could play. You could play, really, is what I mean. And I’ll keep score.”

  Grammy folded her arms across her chest. “Go on.”

  Birdie cleared her throat again. “You know the way Snoozy tosses jujubes way up in the air and catches them in his mouth?”

  “Just another one of his disgusting habits.”

  Birdie spoke faster. “I thought we could play the same sort of game, only …”

  “Only what?”

  Birdie turned to the desk. “Only with those pills. You doing the … the shooting, and me counting the baskets. Our own little game, Grammy.”

  Grammy’s face got kind of complicated. Around the mouth she looked angry, but her eyes seemed about to cry. Had I ever seen Grammy cry? Not that I remembered, and wouldn’t I remember something like that? In the end, she didn’t cry, and when she spoke she didn’t sound real angry, at least not for her.

  “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” she said. “But I’ll take the stupid pills at the right stupid time.” She shook her finger at Birdie. “And in the normal way. Meaning with a glass of water. I wasn’t brought up in a barn, unlike some others I could name. Now scoot.”

  We scooted. When we were out on the breezeway, Grammy’s door safely closed behind us, I could still hear her. “Snoozy! Jujubes!”

  HOW DID THAT GO?” MAMA SAID, glancing up from her laptop.

  “Pretty good, I think,” said Birdie. Mama looked surprised. Then Birdie said, “What’s the wellhead price?” And Mama looked even more surprised.

  “You mean right now, this very moment?”

  “Um, yeah, sure.”

  Mama tapped at the screen. “Surprised you even know the term.” She frowned. “Good grief—down another two and a quarter. Why is it cratering like this?”

  “Mama? Is something wrong? What’s cratering?”

  “There’s no way Houston’s going to just sit there and take these losses. I can’t believe how fast—”

  Mama’s phone beeped. She checked its little screen and right away lost most of the color from her face.

  “Mama?”

  Mama slowly rose and gathered up her shoulder bag, which was hanging over a chair. “I—I’ll be back in a bit,” she said.

  “Where are you going?” Birdie said.

  “The Lafayette office,” Mama said. “Two-thirty meeting.”

  “But I thought you were off for three weeks,” said Birdie.

  “An unanticipated meeting.” Mama dropped her phone in her bag and headed for the door.

  “Unanticipated?”

  “Not on the schedule.”

  “So … um?”

  “We’ll just have to see.” Mama shot Birdie a quick smile—quick and real small. Then she was out the door. Clunk of the car door, vroom-vroom of the motor starting up, and then she peeled away, coming real close to burning rubber. That’s a special sound that happens when the rubber’s heating up but not yet burning, a faint screech my ears can pick up, don’t know about yours.

  Birdie moved over to the table, peered at Mama’s computer. “Just a whole bunch of graphs,” she said. “All these graphs and numbers. They must mean something but …” She sat down, tapped at the keyboard. “Wellhead price … hmm. Says here it’s the price of oil or natural gas right when it comes out of the ground and before any transportation or … Kind of complicated, Bowser.” Birdie gave me a pat. I was under the table by that time, sitting on her feet, which was my go-to position for surfing the Internet. “So if the price is cheaper won’t more people use it? Then they’ll sell more and Houston will be happy? But Mama didn’t look happy.” She closed the computer. No more surfing? A real short session, in my experience. “And all this on top of the break-in.”

  Birdie went to the fridge, took out the jug of limeade, poured herself a glass. Birdie loves limeade, especially the limeade Grammy makes from the limes that grow on our own lime tree, out back. Once, on a day Grammy and I were really getting along—this was earlier in the summer, back when everyone was still calling ol’ Bowser a hero for saving Birdie from terrible danger in the swamp, the details now foggy in my mind—she, meaning Grammy, started to teach me how to bring her any limes that had fallen to the ground. She even put one in her own mouth! And said, “See, like this, for mercy’s sake!” As if I didn’t know how to snap up a lime! The truth was I was playing a little game of my own with Grammy. But then, just as we were getting along so well, me and Grammy with limes in our mouths and maybe at the beginning of a whole new relationship, who should happen by but a squirrel? A squirrel sauntering across our private property and me in charge of security, if you see where I’m going with this. What happened after that is blurry, somehow ending in a taxi ride from Minville, the next town down the bayou. The first and only—so far!—taxi ride of my career, me all by myself in the backseat and the driver glancing nervously in the rearview mirror, for reasons unknown to me. Did the ride turn out to be a bit pricey? I’m pretty sure Grammy said some things to the driver that I’d never heard before. Our whole new relationship didn’t get off the ground, so even to this day we’re pretty much right where we used to be.

  But back to the limeade. The smell of Birdie’s limeade, some now dripping off her chin—how thirsty she got sometimes!—reminded me of lime aftershave, and how the house had smelled so strongly of it after the break-in. And not only lime aftershave, but of cat as well. Cat? Why would—

  “Oh, Bowser,” Birdie said, setting down her glass. “I’m worried.”

  What was this? Birdie worried? I forgot about everything else.

  “It’s like we’re … we’re caught in a trap,” she went on.

  Caught in a trap? Like one of the crab traps Grammy keeps in her own special place on the lake? I’d never heard of anything so horrible. Me and Birdie wriggling around with all those blue crabs? I’d never even had a nightmare that bad. Uh-oh. Now maybe I would.

  “Don’t pant, Bowser,” Birdie said. “If you’re thirsty, go drink.”

  Thirsty? I wasn’t the least bit thirsty, but since I always cut Birdie some slack, I went over to my bowl in the corner and took a sip. And then another and another until I was licking the bowl dry. Right away, I felt so much better, in fact, just about perfect. Birdie knew me better than I knew me! So with her a
round I didn’t need to even bother knowing me, could reserve all my mental energy for other things. What a break!

  “How about a walk?” Birdie said. “We need to think.”

  I needed to think? Wow. Hadn’t realized that. But there’s nothing like a walk. I was already at the door.

  “Don’t scratch on the door, Bowser!”

  If that was happening, I put a stop to it at once. Scratching on the door is a violation of security, and you know who’s in charge of security around these parts.

  “It’s the pearls, Bowser,” Birdie said as we went by the high school. School hadn’t started yet, but I’d heard something about how I myself wouldn’t be going. Just Birdie. I hoped I’d heard wrong. Meanwhile, even though school hadn’t started, the football team was out there practicing, some of them in yellow jerseys, the rest in black. All except for two or three, who wore red.

  “Red for the quarterbacks,” Birdie said. “No hitting the quarterbacks in practice.” Birdie knew everything! What was a quarterback? I had no idea. As we went by, one of the quarterbacks, his face mostly hidden by his helmet and faceguard, seemed to see us.

  “Speak of the devil,” Birdie said. “That’ll be Preston Richelieu.”

  Preston turned our way, made his hand like a gun, and pulled the trigger. Hey! I remembered that from before. Hadn’t liked it the first time.

  “What a jerk!” Birdie said, not loudly. “Think he knows anything?”

  Nothing. Preston knew diddly-squat, as far as I was concerned. We turned a corner, headed down a dirt road, a little patch of blue bayou shining at the end.

  “The sheriff thinks the pearls got taken, Bowser, but they didn’t get taken,” Birdie said. “Which we know, thanks to you.”

  Wow! Really? Tell me more.

  “So he needs to know, because … because all sorts of things. Like why would the Richelieus report a theft if there was no theft? And what’s the connection with the break-in at our place? It’s important, Bowser. But what are we going to do?”

  Take a quick dip in the bayou? That was the only solution that came to me at the moment.

  “It’s only ’cause of Rory that we know the pearls are supposed to be missing,” Birdie was saying. “If we just up and tell Sheriff Cannon, Rory’ll get whupped, and the DA in Lafayette’ll stop supporting the sheriff, and we’ll end up with Mr. Santini from the campground as the sheriff. That would be bad. I happen to know he hates kids, won’t allow family campers on his property.” She gave me a sideways look. “Not fond of dogs, either.”

  Not fond of dogs? I tried to figure out what that meant, couldn’t quite get there.

  “So we need a way for the sheriff to … to find out on his own! That’s it, Bowser!” She turned and gave me a very vigorous pat. “You’re a genius! That’s the solution. Now we just fill in the blanks.”

  What was this? I was a genius? Sounded good. I hoped to find out what it meant one day. By this time we were walking on the path by the bayou. Up ahead rose the Lucinda Street Bridge. The food truck was gone but a kid was fishing from the top of the bridge, a skinny kid with a dark tan and a Mohawk haircut.

  “Hey, Junior,” Birdie said as we walked onto the bridge.

  “Hey,” said Junior Tebbets, jiggling his bamboo pole.

  “You fish without a reel?” Birdie said.

  “Why not?”

  “Catching anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “What’re you fishing for?”

  “Catfish.”

  “What bait?”

  Junior peered over the railing. His line hung straight down, disappeared into the water. “Mouse.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Dead mouse,” Junior said.

  “You’re using a dead mouse for bait?”

  “Like, wouldn’t it be kind of cruel to hook ’em live?” Junior said. “Found this one under the truck when my dad drove away.”

  “Under the food truck?” Birdie said.

  “Scooped it right up. Everyone knows catfish go for stinky things.”

  “Then everyone knows wrong,” Birdie said. “Shiners is what they like.”

  “Shiners?” Junior jiggled the pole. That made tiny waves down in the bayou, but no fish appeared.

  “Hang on,” Birdie said. We hurried down off the bridge. Why? I had no clue, but when Birdie hurries I hurry. In moments we were on the dock that starts up along the bayou just beyond the bridge and not long after that we came to Gaux Family Fish and Bait. We woke up Snoozy, asleep on the porch couch, Birdie giving him a little push toward the door, and then Birdie grabbed a small pail full of tiny silvery fishes, and we were back to the bridge in no time. Who was more fun than Birdie?

  Junior turned to us. “Thought maybe I had a bite there for a sec—”

  Birdie took his bamboo pole and with one little flick of her wrist whipped the line up out of the water in an easy slow-motion sort of way. Something not-too-pleasant-looking dangled from a hook at the end of the line, but it fell off in midair and plopped into the bayou.

  “There goes my bait!” Junior said.

  “Small mercies,” said Birdie.

  “Small mercies? What does that mean?”

  Birdie shrugged. “Something my grammy says.” Birdie reached into the pail and grabbed—gently but firmly—a little silvery fish, wriggling and squirmy. She held it out for Junior. “Here,” she said.

  “Here what?” said Junior.

  “Hook ’im up,” Birdie told him.

  “How?”

  “You don’t know how to hook up a shiner? What you want is to slip the hook in under the lower jaw like so, and make the point come through about”—grunt—“here. Haven’t really hurt the shiner, meaning he’ll be more lively.”

  “What makes you so sure you haven’t hurt him?” Junior said. “Looks kind of painful to me.”

  Birdie flicked the bamboo pole, and the shiner, now hooked to the end of the line, arced down into the bayou, making a small splash and then swimming underwater and out of sight.

  “I thought you were tough,” Birdie said.

  “Me?” said Junior. “I’m an artist. Can you read music, by the way?”

  “No.”

  “Because it’ll be good if someone in the band reads music.”

  “Who’s in the band?”

  “So far? You and me. There’s plenty that wants to join, of course, but I’m picky when it comes to—”

  “Shh.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t scare the fish,” Birdie said, her voice low.

  “What fish?” said Junior, gazing down. No fish to see, just the line hanging motionless, the water smooth and undisturbed.

  Birdie wasn’t gazing down. In fact, her eyes were half-closed, her head turned slightly, like she was listening for something. “That’s it, Mr. Catfish,” she said, sort of like she was talking to herself. “Just settle down for a nice big chomp.”

  “You’re acting weird,” Junior said.

  Uh-oh. Had Junior just said something mean about Birdie? If so, it was my job to—

  “Yeah,” said Birdie, her eyes opening, her voice starting to rise. “Just … like … that!” And then, with a tremendous heave, both hands on the pole, Birdie heaved, and from up out of the bayou rose an enormous fish, thrashing back and forth at the end of the line. “Grab on!”

  “Me?”

  “I’m going to throw you in, Junior.”

  Moving real quick, Junior grabbed on to the pole, skinny muscles straining in his skinny arms.

  “Pull!” Birdie said.

  Junior pulled. Birdie pulled. I ran around in small circles, very fast. The fish topped the bridge railing, got swung around, came slowly down to the pavement.

  “Wow!” Junior said. “What’s it weigh?”

  “Don’t know,” Birdie said. “Let’s take it to the shop and—”

  She paused. A big red cruiser with black trim was passing under the bridge from up the bayou, the engine doing a slow and powerf
ul THROOM-THROOM-THROOM. First the bow appeared—you work at Gaux Family Fish and Bait for any time at all, as I have, and you learn boating lingo—then the cabin, followed by a console with a man at the controls, face hidden by the brim of a big straw hat, and finally a deck at the stern. A woman sat on the deck, a drink in her hand, her purse beside her. She seemed to be watching the man, possibly in an annoyed way, to judge by her eyes, both of them gooped up with so much makeup I could smell it. Hey! It was Miranda Richelieu. And now I could see the man’s face, a heavy sort of face with thick eyebrows: her husband, Merv.

  Miranda opened her purse, took out a pack of cigarettes, lit one up.

  “Junior,” Birdie whispered. “Have you got a camera?”

  “A camera?”

  “Shh! A phone. Quick, Junior! Anything to take a picture.”

  “Nope,” said Junior, also whispering. “Picture of what?”

  “The purse.”

  “What about it?”

  “Look inside!”

  “I see a gold lighter.”

  “Under it!”

  Junior squinted. “Maybe a … necklace?”

  “Made of?”

  By now the cruiser was some distance away. Junior squinted harder. “Hard to say.”

  “Pearls?” Birdie said.

  Junior shrugged. “Maybe pearls. What’s the big deal? My mom has a pearl necklace. And my stepmom.”

  The red cruiser sped up, rounded a bend, and disappeared from view, its spreading wake petering out on the banks of the bayou.

  “And my stepmom before her,” Junior said.

  JUNIOR WENT TO PICK UP THE CATFISH, BUT it slipped from his hands and flopped back down.

  “Between the gills, Junior,” Birdie said. “Get hold between the gills.”

  “These things here?”

  “Yeah. You act like you’ve never fished before.”

  “I’ve fished plenty,” Junior said. “I just don’t know all the names.”

  “Learn the names of what’s around,” Birdie said, but so softly I barely heard it myself.

  “Huh?” said Junior.

  “Nothing,” Birdie said. She scooped up the catfish. Junior slung the bamboo pole over his bony shoulder. We started off the bridge, the catfish still wriggling a bit, but its smell starting to change from living to something that was not, a change I pick up on right away. Meanwhile, the Lucinda Street light switched to green and a motorcycle came through the intersection and drove onto the bridge. The motorcycle, dusty and dented, with a dusty and dented guitar case strapped on the back, slowed as it passed us. The driver turned to look our way. “You kids see a boat go by?” she called out over the engine noise.