Arf

by Spencer Quinn

  Did Birdie have questions? I had no idea. But she didn’t speak a word. The sheriff sighed again. I heard him move off the breezeway. Then came the sounds of him getting in the cruiser and driving away.

  “Just a spanking, Bowser? Would Rory have even mentioned it if that was all it was?”

  BIRDIE WAS DROPPING HER TOOTHBRUSH into her backpack when the phone rang in the kitchen. We went to answer it, Birdie doing the actual talking. I stood right beside her, easily hearing Nola on the other end.

  “Hi, Birdie.”

  “Hi.”

  “You’re sleeping over at my place?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want me to come get you?”

  “Why would I want you to do that?”

  “You sound a little funny.”

  “Funny how?”

  “I don’t know—scared or something.”

  Birdie’s grip tightened on the phone. “I’m fine,” she said. “We’re on our way.”

  “See you.”

  “Bye.”

  Birdie hung up. We went back to our bedroom. Birdie picked up the backpack and then—and then let out a huge sigh and sat on the bed, which was not what I expected. After that came another surprise. Birdie shifted around and lay down. Lying on the bed? Wasn’t it a little early for that? And weren’t we sleeping over at Nola’s? I could hardly wait to get to that piano—no, Bowser, no. I put that out of my mind, once and for all, and hopped up onto the bed beside Birdie. If it was time for sleep, I’d take a crack at it. I closed my eyes and immediately saw the Claymores’ piano. I opened my eyes back up.

  Birdie’s eyes were open, too. She was gazing at the ceiling. Right above was the vent where she’d hidden the photo of Miranda and her pearls. Then she’d taken it out and given it to the sheriff. I tried to put everything I knew about the pearls into one tidy package and got nowhere. In fact, I had the feeling of going backward, knowing less and less instead of more and more. Ol’ Bowser was cool with that! I snuggled closer to Birdie.

  She rested her hand on my side. “No loose ends,” she said. “No loose ends. But all we’ve got is loose ends.”

  Was this about her sneakers? She wasn’t even wearing them, still had on the flip-flops. So we had no worries in the loose ends department. But Birdie didn’t seem right to me. She looked hot, like she wasn’t feeling well, her forehead damp, her cheeks flushed.

  “Grammy says I’m like my dad, but if that was true wouldn’t I be able to figure this all out?” Birdie went on gazing at the ceiling vent. At least her eyes were aimed in that direction. But they had a faraway look in them, so maybe she wasn’t—

  All at once she sat up, so fast it scared me. “Bowser! I’ve got the craziest idea!” She bounded off the bed, out the door, and down the hall to the kitchen. She turned out to be a pretty good bounder, but when it comes to bounding, me and my kind are in a class of our own. So it was no surprise that I reached the kitchen first, and was already waiting by the door when Birdie flung it open. We raced outside, across the breezeway—where the smell of our snaky friend was stronger than ever, really something I had to investigate as soon as I had time—and headed into Grammy’s side of the house.

  We burst into Grammy’s room. Birdie peered up at Grammy’s ceiling vent, the one where Grammy and I could hear fluttering, but Birdie could not. How Grammy hated that fluttering sound, although it didn’t bother me. I remembered her shoving the broom in that vent in a very angry way. I always kept my distance when Grammy had a broom in her hands. Not that she’d ever do anything bad to me, but why tempt her?

  “Do you see, Bowser?” Birdie said. “It’s like a test if we are like each other, me and him. When I had to hide something, where did I put it? And what if when he had to hide something, his mind worked the same way? Don’t forget he was in this house before he died, Grammy away on the boat. Kind of like now. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

  I most certainly did not. Meanwhile, exciting things were happening, involving the chair from Grammy’s desk, Grammy’s bed, and Birdie climbing way, way up. We were playing this game again? Who was luckier than me?

  “No, Bowser, don’t—”

  CRASH.

  Oh, the fun we were having! Hurry, Birdie, hurry! Get that chair back on the bed so we can clamber back on top together and—

  “Bowser, sit!”

  Sit?

  “On the floor, not the bed.” On the floor? But how could I play the game while sitting on the floor?

  “If you don’t sit, I’ll have to put you outside.”

  Outside? Had I ever heard anything worse? I sat on the floor, as close to the bed as I could get, and not actually sitting if sitting meant you had to have your butt right down.

  Birdie got the chair set up on the bed, climbed up, reached high, and got one hand on the grate to the vent. “Now I hear the fluttering, loud and clear. Sounds like …” She poked her fingers through the grate. “I feel something but I … Maybe if I give it a little tug …” Birdie’s fingers curled through the squares in the grate and she gave it a tug. Not a hard tug, but the grate popped out and Birdie lost her balance, Birdie, grate, and chair all tumbling down onto the bed. And that wasn’t all. One more thing also came tumbling down. It landed smack-dab on Birdie’s chest. She took it in her hands, eyes wide.

  “The notebook!”

  Birdie gazed at the notebook like it was something amazing. It did not look amazing to me. It looked like the notebook Grammy kept in the kitchen, the one with all the phone numbers inside, even though Birdie told her she didn’t need it, the phone remembering all the numbers by itself. Or something like that. Way over my head. The point was that this notebook that had fallen out of the vent was just a plain pocket-size paper notebook with spiral rings along the side, nothing special. Birdie sat up and opened it.

  “This is his handwriting,” she said, her voice strange, so soft, almost nothing but a breath. “It’s … it’s strong, Bowser. All the letters are strong.” She turned a page. “He writes little notes to himself—‘flowers for Jen. Weekend at the beach? Check if Ma’s free to watch Little Miss Fearless.’ ” Birdie glanced my way. “Little Miss Fearless—do you think he meant …”

  She went back to the notebook, turned another page. I felt a small breeze, smelled the outdoors, had a notion that we’d left the door open to the outside. An outdoor breeze for sure, carrying the usual outdoor smells, plus the scent of our snaky friend. Birdie’s eyes went back and forth, back and forth. Then she went still.

  “ ‘Theory of the Bolden Case.’ Oh, Bowser!” She held the notebook with both hands, neither of them quite steady. “ ‘Bolden—developer—but money lending at 30%’s his real biz. 95k last Sept. to Merv and Miranda Richelieu of Cleoma. Imp.—she’s a Pardo. Resort hotel project in Biloxi—financing fell through. 95k plus 30% due year from loan. Check out crazy bird-watcher with apt. on Friedrichs Avenue.’ ”

  Birdie looked up. “Friedrichs Avenue? Wasn’t that near where they found Mr. Bolden’s body, floating in the river?” She turned another page.

  “ ‘Not crazy, but dementia, poor thing. Loves pelicans. Takes thousands of pictures of them, including Exhibit A. She didn’t notice the non-pelican part, even when I pointed it out.’ ”

  “Exhibit A?” Birdie said. “What does he mean?” She turned one more page and … and a photograph fell out.

  Birdie picked it up, read something along the top. “ ‘Exhibit A.’ ” Then she gazed at the photo. So did I. A pelican stood on a lamppost, a wide river in the background. Under the lamppost stood two men. One was twisted around, his face not showing, maybe starting to fall. The other man had a gun in his hand. You could see the flash. You could also see his face, with its thin, dark mustache, and that golden dome of hair.

  “Oh, Bowser, do you see what this means?”

  I did not, but somehow I knew it had to be very important. I blocked out everything so I could think my very hardest, and that was how I was—blocking and thinking—when a voice spok
e from the doorway of Grammy’s room.

  “It means nothing good for you.”

  Birdie and I both wheeled around. There in the doorway stood Vin Pardo. I hadn’t heard him? I hadn’t smelled him, hadn’t heard him, had let him come into our house? This was the worst moment of my life.

  Birdie rose. I stood right beside her. Together we were unbeatable. Now my job was to make sure that was true. “You killed my father,” Birdie said.

  Pardo shook his head. “I think of it as self-defense.”

  “Self-defense? You shot him in the back of the head.”

  “He was going to take me in for the Bolden … matter. There’s a death penalty in this state, in case you didn’t know. Making it self-defense in my book. And a bloodsucker charging thirty percent had best know how to back it up. Therefore, also a kind of self-defense.”

  Birdie tucked the photo into the notebook, clutched it in one hand. Her other hand was on my back. I felt it curl into a fist.

  “And what about Drea? Was that self-defense, too?”

  “She took a swing at me with her guitar,” Pardo said. “So I’d have to say, yeah. Self-defense. And all so unnecessary. If it hadn’t have been for that blogger … but Drea read it and then when she got hold of the safe-deposit box she … Well, you know the rest. You’re a troublesome girl. When I got wind of your batty old granny getting stuck on the boat for the night, I set up the early morning Lafayette interview—clear that pathetic mother of yours out of the way, too. Skip the whole house-buying charade, cut to the chase. Weren’t you supposed to be at a friend’s by now? I should have known.” He held out his hand. “I’ll have that notebook. Just toss it over.”

  “You talk about my family like that?” Birdie stuck the notebook down the front of her T-shirt.

  Pardo’s eyes got real hooded and nasty. “Let’s not make this unpleasant. Just give me the notebook and … and you’ll never be bothered by me again.”

  “Ha!” said Birdie. My favorite human, no doubt about it.

  Pardo’s eyes got even more hooded and nasty, reminding me of snakes I’d seen.

  Birdie tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go. We were right up against Grammy’s bed. “Get out of here,” she said.

  “I surely will. But I’ll have that notebook first.”

  Birdie shook her head. Just a small movement, but how much I loved her at that moment!

  Pardo reached into his pocket and took out a gun. “The notebook,” he said.

  This bad man had a gun? He was pointing it at Birdie? And she was starting to tremble? Just a little, but I saw it. That trembling was unbearable to me. I charged. After that, everything happened real fast. Did I bound across the room? No question about that. Did I spring at Pardo? Definitely. But just as I was about to lay him out and lay him out good, he swiveled the gun in my direction, not quick enough to point at me, just quick enough to swipe the barrel across my face. I went flying into a corner, couldn’t see right, tasted my own blood. Then came the sound of Pardo—a big, dark shadow—barging across the room. He lunged at Birdie, grabbed her, flung her over his shoulder, and ran down the hall toward the breezeway door.

  “No! No!” Birdie screamed.

  I got to my feet, gave my head a shake—clearing my vision a bit—and took off after them. Maybe not taking off at normal Bowser speed, but at least I was moving. Moving and growling: Real bad news was in Vin Pardo’s future.

  Meanwhile, he was at the breezeway door, Birdie still over his shoulder, kicking and shouting. He flung the door open with one hand, burst outside, and started across the breezeway. And the door? It slammed in my face just as I reached it. I was in and Birdie was out? Out and in horrible danger? I howled. It was all I could think of to do. But in the middle of my howling, I happened to notice something about our door that I must have seen many times yet never thought about, namely how it had a window at the bottom and a screen at the top. Were screens something you could jump through? I’d never tried. Now was the moment! Ol’ Bowser leaped the most important leap of his life, up and through that screen, ripped right through it.

  I flew through the air, somehow howling and barking and growling all at the same time. And then—THUMP! I came down hard on Pardo’s back. We all fell to the breezeway floor, fell in one big wrestling, fighting heap. The heap rolled and rolled, a heap that was all about kicking and scratching and biting, me doing the actual biting. I sank my teeth into the back of Pardo’s leg and wasn’t letting go, not ever. But how strong he was! With one hand he kept raking me across the face with that gun barrel, over and over, my blood flowing all over the place. And his other hand? He’d gotten it around Birdie’s neck and was starting to squeeze. She wriggled and thrashed and squirmed, but got nowhere at all. Oh, the look in her eyes at that moment! Please let me forget. Like she was about to die. Please let me forget. But her eyes? When they started going glassy? There would be no forgetting.

  Then came some noise from under the breezeway, an irritated kind of noise. A moment after that, our snaky friend put in an appearance. Was it long and thick, or what? You’d never want to see a snake any longer or thicker. You’d never even want to see this one, take it from me. It slithered across the breezeway floor real fast—just one or two lightning-quick slithers—and glided right over Birdie’s face. The look in its eyes! The exact opposite of Birdie’s. There was nothing in them I could understand at all. Oozing savage life: Let’s leave it at that. The snake’s huge triangular head passed right over Birdie’s face, over Pardo’s hand, still squeezing Birdie’s neck, and then it opened its terrifying mouth, exposing those snaky fangs. Snaky fangs that it plunged deep, deep into Pardo’s forearm. The rest of the snake, from the head down, seemed oddly relaxed. Crazy, but that was the scariest thing of all.

  Pardo screamed a scream I never want to hear again. It shook the sky. He scrambled off Birdie, got to his knees, batted the gun at the snake’s head to no effect. Then he put his finger on the trigger, about to use the gun for shooting instead of clubbing. Which was when I snatched that gun away. The Pardos of this world shouldn’t have guns. A no-brainer, in my opinion.

  “Get it off! Get it off!” Pardo punched at the snake with his free hand, his eyes wild and bugged-out and red, face all twisted. At last the snake let go and slithered away, not back under the breezeway but across the driveway and toward a vacant lot, which was very considerate.

  Pardo struggled to his feet. He glanced around, spotted the gun in my mouth, took one step in my direction, and grabbed his chest. Then came a kind of gagging, gurgling cry. He sank to the ground and didn’t move again.

  A heavy silence seemed to fall over the whole town. Birdie raised herself up on her knees, her face as white as bone. She was shaking and panting and crying, but she got it together to gently wipe the blood off my face. The shaking and panting and crying began ramping down. “Who’s the bravest dog in the whole wide world?”

  That was an easy one. I gave Birdie my most affectionate kind of lick.

  Nola came running down the street. “Birdie! I saw a huge cottonmouth right on the sidewalk! What—” She saw the scene in our front yard and stopped dead.

  Birdie rose to her feet. She stood straight and tall.

  So many things happened after that! No way I can be trusted to remember them all or get them in the right order. I’m pretty sure someone said that the snakebite, although poisonous, hadn’t killed Pardo. He’d died of a heart attack, brought on by plain old fear.

  Birdie got in big, big trouble for poking around against Mama’s orders. At the same time, everyone treated her like a hero, maybe confusing the kid. Mama’s face shining with pride while she gave Birdie what for? Confusing to me, for sure. I myself didn’t get in any trouble on the poking around issue, ended up being a hero and nothing but. Ever gnawed on an antler treat? That was just one of my rewards. And it came from Grammy!

  The sheriff paid us a visit and explained how he’d arrested Merv and Miranda Pardo for being accessories after the fact
in two murders. Merv had already confessed that Pardo had killed Birdie’s dad up in Cleoma but taken the body to New Orleans just to be tricky, Pardo being a tricky guy. The kind of guy who’d fake a second break-in to put the sheriff off track. The kind of guy who’d pay back a loan with murder. Had Birdie’s dad hidden the notebook because he knew he was in danger? Or because he was just that way? Mama said because he knew he was in danger. Grammy said he was just that way.

  The sheriff also told Birdie he was sorry about a bunch of things I couldn’t keep clear in my mind. “That’s all right,” Birdie told him.

  Mama had been sorry, too. “What a fool I’ve been!”

  “Oh, no, Mama! Don’t ever say that. Don’t even think it.”

  And Grammy had picked Birdie right off the floor—even though she was so old and not much bigger than Birdie—and hugged her tight. “Now I can die in peace,” she said.

  “That’s a long, long time away, Grammy.”

  “Just thank you, darling,” said Grammy. Was there a tear in Grammy’s eye? Maybe just for the briefest moment.

  What else? Mr. Santini had a cookout down at the campground to kick off his sheriff campaign and we were the guests of honor, me and Birdie. Junior Tebbets wrote a song all about me and Birdie and how we’d solved her dad’s last case and done lots of other things that were already getting hazy in my mind, but she refused to sing it, so he just played an extremely long drum solo instead.

  Rory hit a home run in his very last at bat of the season. He brought over a big bouquet of wildflowers that same day. The next day Junior came by with an even bigger one. Those bouquets bothered me after a while. I began making plans to get rid of them.

  Many thanks to my family for their love and just plain existence; to all the people at Scholastic, notably my brilliant editor, Rachel Griffiths, and the wonderfully supportive Alan Boyko and Jana Haussmann; and to my tenacious agent, Molly Friedrich. And there’s no leaving out my tireless (although often caught napping) researchers, Audrey and Pearl.