Arf

by Spencer Quinn

The door to Grammy’s bedroom was open. Pardo stuck his head inside. I heard a click from somewhere in the walls, and cold air began to flow.

  “What’s that sound?” Pardo said, cocking his ear.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Birdie said.

  “A kind of fluttering.”

  Which I heard, too, goes without mentioning.

  “Oh, that,” Birdie said. “Grammy thinks there must be something caught in the vent.”

  “What vent?” Pardo said.

  Birdie pointed out the grate in the ceiling.

  “Ah,” said Pardo. He looked down at Birdie. I moved into easy-lunging range. Pardo backed up a step or two. “Thanks for the tour—you’re an excellent guide, Birdie.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Pardo,” Birdie said.

  “Vin.”

  We got up bright and early the next morning, me and Birdie, and—

  “Bowser, I’m so tired. Let me sleep!” She pulled the covers up to her chin. I loved that game, and pulled them right back down. “Bowser!” She pulled them up. I pulled them down. She pulled them up. I pulled them down, down and right off the bed, springing one of my best moves on her.

  —and … and where was I? A walk. Right. We got up bright and early and went for a nice walk. Birdie didn’t look the least bit tired to me. In fact, she looked just great, her hair all over the place, sleepy seeds in the corners of her eyes, her face sort of puffy, and a faint line across her cheek where the edge of the sheet had rested. Birdie was the most beautiful human on the planet, no debate about that. I marked a bush here and a hydrant there—very important to lay your own mark on top of all the others—and felt like life couldn’t be better. We went through the center of town, passed the library, and came to a low brick building.

  “That’s my school, Bowser. It starts soon. You’ll have to entertain yourself while I’m gone.” She gazed down at me. “Think you can do that? I’m a little worried about it.”

  Birdie was worried? About me? I never wanted that to happen, not for a single second, which I’m guessing is a very short time. I went right up to the front steps of the school, if that’s what this brick building was, and marked them but good. Birdie had nothing to worry about, not from me!

  “Oh, Bowser!” Birdie gazed at the steps, kind of damp at the moment, and then started laughing. “Sometimes I’d like to do that to the school myself! But don’t tell anybody.”

  Birdie’s secrets were safe with me.

  We went around to the fields behind the building. In the distance was a baseball diamond with a chain-link backstop. There was no one around except one kid, tossing a ball in the air and then hitting it at the backstop with his bat, at least some of the time. Mostly he swung and missed.

  “Rory?” Birdie said when we got closer.

  He turned to us. “I was just looking for you,” he said.

  “You were?”

  “I was thinking of it, anyways.”

  We crossed the infield, reached the backstop.

  “What are you doing?” Birdie said.

  “The thing you told me,” Rory said. “Tryin’ to, is more like it.”

  “What did I tell you?”

  “Don’t you remember? To relax. Watch this.” He held the bat with one hand, resting the barrel on his shoulder. With his other hand, he gave the ball a gentle toss straight up in the air, then got that hand quickly on the bat, raised the barrel off his shoulder, hurried the bat back into cocked position, and took a big swing at the ball.

  And missed. The ball bounced in the dirt once or twice and came to rest against Rory’s foot. I picked it up, which is what I do with balls. Baseballs were my favorite. Given time, I could gnaw my way into their insides, where things got really interesting. I was thinking, What’s wrong with now? when Birdie stooped down and gently took possession of the ball.

  Meanwhile, Rory was glaring at her.

  “See?” he said.

  “See what?” said Birdie.

  “It didn’t work.”

  “What didn’t work?”

  “Relaxing. In my head I was saying relax, relax, relax, and look what happened. I whiffed!”

  “Do you think saying relax, relax, relax in your head is relaxing?”

  “I guess not, but—”

  “And there’s no point in being angry at me.”

  Rory looked down. “Sorry, Birdie.”

  Birdie gazed at him. “Do you even like baseball, Rory?”

  His eyes opened wide. “Do I like baseball?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s what you’re asking me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So …” Rory shook his head. “So you don’t even know me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Asking a question like that. Baseball is … I don’t know. Everything. And I suck at it.”

  Birdie put her hands on her hips. Then she blew a little puff of air through her lips, making a soft vibrating sound.

  “How about I throw you some BP?” she said.

  “BP?”

  “Batting practice,” said Birdie.

  “I know what BP is! I meant, like, you?”

  “Why not me?”

  “You don’t play baseball, for one thing,” Rory said.

  “I’m not playing baseball,” Birdie said, giving Rory a look I’d never want her to turn on me. “I’m throwing BP. Yes or no?”

  “Um, yeah, sure, I guess.”

  Birdie strode to the mound, baseball in hand. I followed close behind, in fact as close as close could be.

  “Who’s gonna catch?” Rory said.

  “Bowser,” said Birdie. “Bowser will catch.”

  “From there?”

  “You’ll see. Get in the batter’s box.”

  Rory stepped into the batter’s box, took his stance. Birdie’s eyes narrowed down to two slits of blue sky, sort of beautiful and scary at the same time. “What’s with your hands?” she said.

  “What about them?”

  “Shouldn’t they be higher?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I saw a show about Ted Williams. His hands were up higher.”

  “Who’s Ted Williams?”

  “Never mind. Just get them higher.”

  Rory raised his hands. Birdie went into her windup, reared back and threw the baseball. Rory swung the bat but the ball was already by him.

  “Hey! You’ve got a good arm!”

  Birdie ignored him. “Bowser,” she said. “Fetch.”

  Fetch? Maybe the best human invention out there. I raced to the backstop, scooped up the ball, and roared on back to the mound, offering the ball up to Birdie. She wiped it on her shorts, started into her windup.

  “Whoa!” Rory said. “How come you can pitch?”

  “Hands up higher,” Birdie said. And then the ball was on the way. Rory swung a little quicker this time, didn’t miss by as much.

  “Bowser. Fetch.”

  But I was already there, and practically halfway back to the mound. Birdie took the ball, wiped it off, gave me a nice pat. “You’re a natural-born superstar catcher, Bowser.” She straightened up, gazed in at Rory. “That’s better,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “Your hands.”

  Rory glanced up at his hands. “Yeah? I wasn’t even thinking about them.”

  “Don’t think,” Birdie said. “Don’t think about anything.”

  “Don’t think about anything?”

  “That’s the secret.”

  Wow! The secret was to not think about anything? I’d known it practically my whole life!

  “Here we go,” Birdie said, and she threw another pitch. Rory swung and—CRACK. Well, maybe just crack, but he got the bat on the ball, which flew on a line out to the grass beyond the basepaths. “Clean single to right,” Birdie said.

  “Hey! That’s the first solid contact I’ve made in—”

  “Just shut up and play.” As for me, I was already back, delivering the ball. Ol’ Bowser, natural-
born superstar catcher. “Batter up,” Birdie said.

  Crack.

  Fetch.

  Crack.

  Fetch.

  CRACK!

  “More like it,” Birdie said.

  We walked home, me in the middle, Birdie and Rory on either side. It was getting hot and their faces were pink, especially Rory’s. Rory had the bat and his glove. I had the ball.

  “How come you don’t play sports?” he said.

  “Fishing’s a sport,” said Birdie.

  “Yeah, but I meant soccer, basketball, that kind of thing.”

  “Those are after school,” Birdie said. “I help out at the store after school.”

  “Oh,” said Rory. “Too bad.”

  “I don’t think it’s too bad,” Birdie said. “And I like fishing.”

  We walked in silence for a while.

  “Then how come you know how to pitch?” Rory said.

  “I used to play catch.”

  “Yeah? Who with?”

  “Grammy.”

  “Your grandmother plays catch?”

  “Not anymore. When I was little. When she was young she used to strike out grown men for money.”

  “Huh?”

  “At the parish fair in Houma. You paid a dollar. If you got a hit you won a stuffed bear. No one ever won a stuffed bear off Grammy.”

  Rory gave Birdie a look. Her eyes were straight ahead so she didn’t see it, but I did. It was a real interesting look in a way I can’t explain.

  We came to a corner. “Guess I’ll head home,” Rory said. “Um, thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “Think I could have my ball back?”

  “Bowser?” Birdie said.

  She wanted on opinion? On whether Rory could have the ball? That was an easy one. No. I backed away, the ball clenched firmly between my jaws, powerful jaws in case I haven’t made that clear.

  “It’s kind of gunked up, anyway,” Rory said.

  Gunked up? I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Rory went off one way, and we went off the other, the baseball in our custody. The day was a total win so far. But Rory hadn’t gone far before he stopped and turned. I got a tight grip on the ball.

  He raised his voice. “Hey!”

  We stopped, too. “What?” Birdie said.

  “Remember when I said I was looking for you?”

  “You said you were thinking of looking for me.”

  “Right,” Rory called. “On account of I had something to tell you.”

  “What about?”

  “The pearls.”

  Birdie’s eyes opened wide. “What did you say?”

  Rory cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “The pearls!” A woman across the street, wearing a bandanna and trimming a hedge, looked our way.

  “I heard you the first time,” Birdie said in a sort of loud whisper. We moved quickly toward Rory. “What about the pearls?” she said, keeping her voice low.

  “They turned up,” Rory said.

  “Shh. Turned up?”

  Rory nodded. “Mrs. Richelieu called my dad first thing this morning. She found them in her laundry hamper.”

  WE’VE GOT A BIG PROBLEM, BOWSER,” Birdie said as we walked back through the center of town.

  What a surprise! I’d never have guessed we had a problem of any size, not with all the fun we’d had so far, and the day still young.

  “Mrs. Richelieu’s pearls were never gone, which of course we knew already, meaning you and me.”

  Wow! I’d known that? What a brain I was turning out to be! Totally unexpected and not even necessary, icing on the cake. Although I’m no expert on cake, my whole lifetime experience involving just one all-too-brief taste, paws up on the kitchen counter, followed by a less-than-pleasant scene with Grammy, not nearly brief enough for me.

  “For one thing,” Birdie was saying, “it now means both break-ins had the same MO—nothing stolen. That simplifies things, except what’s the sheriff going to think when he opens the envelope and sees that photo?”

  What was the sheriff going to think? Had I ever heard a tougher question? I didn’t even know what I was thinking right now! I checked and found no thoughts present in my mind. Whew.

  “He’s going to think the laundry hamper story was a total lie,” Birdie continued. “Not only that, but someone wanted him to know the truth about the pearls. Who was that someone? That’ll be question one.”

  I waited to find out the identity of that mysterious someone, so curious that the baseball almost slipped from my mouth. I clamped down, got it back under control, nice and tight.

  “The sheriff’s going to want to talk to the Richelieus. But first he’ll want to be prepared. Know what that means, Bowser?”

  It sure better not mean taking my baseball. Other than that, I had no ideas.

  “His first step,” Birdie said, “will be tracking down whoever sent that photo.” She gazed down at me. Oh, no! She was worried, easy to see from the tightness of her face, especially between her eyes. “Do you think there’s some way of tracing the photo, Bowser? There’s a time stamp on it. And maybe he can figure out that it was taken from the Lucinda Street Bridge. And … and … oh my god! Bowser! There’s a surveillance camera on that bridge! Do you see what this means?”

  We were going fishing with Junior Tebbets again? That was my best guess.

  “It means …” Birdie smacked her forehead. I’d never seen her do that before, never wanted to see it again. No one smacked my Birdie, period, and anyone who tried would pay. “It means, Bowser, that we have to get the photo back before the sheriff sees it. Otherwise, he’s going to come after us instead of solving the break-in. Not to mention poor Rory.”

  And then, with no warning, she took off down the street at full speed! Therefore, I took off, too, although not at full speed or anything close. Birdie was fast for a human, but is that really saying much?

  We ran down Gentilly Lane, to a blue metal box not far from our house, the same metal box that Birdie had dropped the envelope into the day before. She pulled open the little door and peered inside. “Can’t see a thing,” she said. “Must be a kind of chute and all the letters fall down to the bottom. Wonder if my arm’s long enough to …” She stuck her hand in the opening, then noticed some writing on the side of the box. “ ‘Daily pickup—7:30 a.m.’ ” She stepped back. “It’s gone, Bowser. We’re too late.” She let go of the little door, which banged shut on its own.

  Then we just stood there, the hot sun high in the sky.

  “What are we going to do?” Birdie said.

  First, find some shade. Second, lap up nice, cool water. And since we’re so close to home, practically right across the street—and home had plenty of shade and water—what was wrong with the two of us heading on over there this very minute? I made a little sidling move in that direction, but Birdie didn’t seem to get the hint.

  “What happens to the mail?” Birdie said. “You put it in this box and then the mailman comes and puts it into your box at home, but what happens in between? They have systems for everything so …” She snapped her fingers. What a sound! It sent a little shiver right though me, all the way to my tail and back again. Do it again, Birdie, do it again!

  But she did not. “The post office!” she said, and started up on a long, impossible-to-follow explanation about post offices, and mail, and sorting, and maybe even something called the pony express, which didn’t sound promising to me, ponies being a kind of horse and therefore unreliable. Meanwhile, we were on the move again, back toward the center of town. We passed Claymore’s General Store, got waved at by Mrs. Claymore, out sweeping the porch, and entered a building with a cool stone floor. The place smelled strongly of paper and glue. There was no one inside except the woman behind the counter.

  “What can I do for you?” the woman said.

  “Um,” said Birdie. “It’s about a letter.”

  “You need stamps?”

  “No. I already mailed th
e letter. I’d like to stop it. Get it back, kind of, before it gets to … to where it was going.”

  “You want an intercept?”

  “I guess so.”

  “No problem,” said the woman. She reached for a sheet of paper on a shelf, slid it across the counter. “Just fill in Form 1509. And I’ll need eleven dollars and fifty cents.”

  “Today?” Birdie said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’ll need the money today?”

  “Can’t process the form without it.”

  Birdie gazed at Form 1509. Her eyes went back and forth. “All these questions,” she said.

  “Answer as best you can.”

  “What about this one?” Birdie said, pointing out something partway down the page and turning it so the woman could see.

  “That’s where you put your reason for the intercept.”

  “My reason?”

  “Like you forgot to write the address,” the woman said. “Or—”

  A mailman, easy to identify from his uniform and the sack of mail over his shoulder—me and my kind get to know mailmen very well—came out from a room behind the counter and said, “Phone’s for you.”

  “You can get started,” the woman said to Birdie. “I’ll be right back.” And she disappeared into the room behind the counter. The mailman opened a little swinging door and came into the lobby. He took a step or two toward the door, then stopped and patted his pockets.

  “Forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on,” he said to Birdie.

  Oh, no! The mailman’s head was screwed on? That didn’t sound like a good arrangement to me, in fact, kind of scary. I hunched down and backed away from him. Meanwhile, he laid his sack of mail on the counter, went through the swinging door and into the back room. His head remained attached the whole time, and I relaxed at least a little bit.

  Birdie stared at the sack of mail. She shot a glance at the front door to the post office. Closed, no one coming in. Then she looked my way, like she wanted something from me. Anything, Birdie, anything at all. As for the particulars of what she wanted, I had no idea, but maybe she got it anyway, because she strode right up to that sack of mail in two steps and stuck her hand inside. That was exciting! I trotted over to her and rose up, getting my front paws on the counter. Side by side we rummaged through the mail, Birdie doing the actual rummaging, her face practically inside the sack. The only sound in the post office was the rippling of envelopes and the beating of Birdie’s heart, way too fast, in my opinion. All at once she whipped out a letter, and held it in the light.