Bernard Pepperlin

by Cara Hoffman

  7

  PPGP

  Bernard awoke with a start. He was no longer on the train but sitting on a lumpy couch in a dimly lit room. Something dark and cold dripped from the ceiling, and the place smelled like pickles. His paws were tied behind his back. The voices of the Pork Pie Gang were all he could hear. They were talking excitedly. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see that beside him sat a number of small animals: a Boston terrier wearing an eye patch, a chinchilla, and a lizard with shining gold eyes. All of them were tied with twine, like Bernard, and all of them looked miserable.

  At least a dozen members of the Pork Pie Gang stood around the room drinking green drinks from small jars, sharpening their knives, and playing darts. Some of them were huddled in conversation, laughing. Bernard listened to what they were saying.

  “And then,” said one of the creatures, “nothing will move. The cars will stand still, the trains will stop on the tracks, the boats will rock in the waves, never reaching the shore . . .”

  Everyone in the gang had the same straight teeth. All of them slouched. Bernard racked his brain, trying to figure out just what these creatures were. The word stoat came to mind. He’d seen stoats back in the garden, but had certainly never seen any eating pickles, or wearing a pork pie hat, or sharpening a knife. Bernard watched them intently. They walked with their hips and bellies thrust out and their noses in the air; their arms and legs were terribly short. Weasels, he thought. They must be weasels.

  “There will be nowhere to run,” the creature went on in a snarling voice. “Every minute will be just like the last. Nothing will grow, nothing will fade, and no one will be able to escape.”

  “And we’ll be able to take anything we want,” said another weasel.

  “Like potato chips and diamond rings and fur coats,” said another weasel. “And pickles and jewel-encrusted watches. We can take all the acorns from the squirrels, put the rats out on the street, and live in their fancy kingdom.”

  The Boston terrier growled a little and shifted on the couch, trying to get comfortable.

  The lizard had a grave, intelligent face. Bernard could tell she was listening to the weasels too.

  “Did they catch you on the train?” Bernard whispered.

  “I broke out of an aquarium uptown,” the lizard said, keeping her voice low. “I’d made it about six blocks before one of these . . . whatever they are . . . caught me.”

  “That’s awful,” Bernard said.

  “It’s terribly ironic,” said the lizard. “I was running for freedom—now I’m here.”

  The dog looked over at them and made a shushing sound.

  The lizard ignored him. “I’m Ivy,” she said.

  “I’m Bernard,” said Bernard. “I was running for freedom too.”

  “Oh!” said Ivy. “Where did you escape from?”

  “A tea party,” Bernard said.

  The lizard stared at him blankly with her smart gold eyes.

  “You escaped from a tea party?” the chinchilla said. “I’d give anything to be at a tea party right now.” She rolled over on her back and tried to loosen the twine around her wrists with her feet. Beads of sweat had formed on her brow. She had a lovely thick coat of soft gray fur.

  The weasels milled around the room, drinking their drinks and sharpening their weapons. If the gang kept ignoring them, Bernard thought, they could gnaw through the twine that bound one another and run for help. He looked over at Ivy, who seemed to be thinking the same thing. She stood a little closer to him.

  Suddenly a door to the street opened and the room was flooded with light. More weasels slunk into the room, a whole crowd of them, eyes squinting beneath their feathered caps. Above the door in glowing letters it read PPGP.

  He could make out a clock on the wall—it was 1:25 p.m.

  What on earth could these animals want from them? Bernard wondered. Mittens hadn’t told him very much about them—just to stay away from them. But what was it they really wanted?

  As if she could read his mind, Ivy said, “They’re going to eat us.”

  “What?” he whispered.

  “They’re going to eat us,” she said again. “Why else would they be keeping us here? We don’t have anything to steal. Weasels eat everything. It’s what they do. But first they hypnotize you by dancing. It’s true. Look it up.”

  Bernard had no idea how he might look something like that up, given their current circumstances.

  The dog began a low growl again. The steady plink-plink-plink of the drip from the ceiling was clearly driving him mad.

  “They’re not going to eat us,” the chinchilla said. “It’s worse than that. We’re a captive audience.”

  Ivy looked up at the chinchilla and blinked.

  “A what?” Bernard asked.

  “A captive audience,” the chinchilla said. “It’s when someone makes you listen to them or watch what they’re doing and you can’t escape because there’s nowhere else you can go, or no way to get out.”

  “Like school?” asked Ivy.

  “Yes, exactly,” said the chinchilla.

  Being a captive audience sounded all too familiar to Bernard. He had been a captive audience to the Mad Hatter and the March Hare for far too long. And his only escape from that endless tea party had been dreaming.

  “It happened to a cousin of mine,” said the chinchilla. “The Pork Pie Gang stole him from a pet store at Union Square, brought him here, and made him listen to their songs.”

  “But they let him go,” Bernard said hopefully.

  “Oh, they let him go,” said the chinchilla. “But he was never the same again. You could barely recognize him. He’d chewed off all the fur on his tail, and he had a wild look in his eyes, like he’d seen a ghost. He told us he wished they’d eaten him instead.”

  The dog shushed them and growled, and wriggled on the couch, trying to get free. His paws were tied tightly and he was beginning to look thirsty.

  Ivy flicked her long tongue out of her mouth nervously. “How long did they hold him for?” she asked.

  “That’s the thing,” the chinchilla said. “He had no idea. My cousin had no idea at all how long he had been gone. He told us it seemed endless. Like one minute lasted a year, and a week lasted a lifetime.”

  The dog whimpered.

  A cold shiver went up Bernard’s spine. He knew exactly what the chinchilla’s cousin meant. They had to get out of there before it was too late.

  The tallest, fattest weasel stood on a chair.

  “Silence!” he shouted.

  As if he had shouted just the opposite, the room went wild with whoops and hollers. The Pork Pie Gang stamped their feet and bashed their clubs on the floor, leaping into the air. Their eyes were wild, and they were grinning their straight-toothed grins from ear to ear.

  “Silence,” they chanted. “Si-lence, si-lence. Gary wants si-lence!”

  Gary glared at them with dark eyes and held up his hand. All at once they stopped their yowling. A hush fell over the room and the only sound anyone could hear was the steady plink-plink-plink from the drip in the ceiling.

  Gary pulled a pen from his pocket and slowly began tapping it against his teeth. It made an ominous toc-toc-toc sound, like a clock. The sound of the tapping joined the sound of the dripping. Toc. Plink. Toc. Plink. Tock. Plink.

  The dog squirmed on the couch, pushing his head into the sofa cushions and whimpering.

  Next the weasels started to whistle a meandering tune. It was haunting and hollow, like wind blowing through a crack in a door. The sound raised the fur on Bernard’s neck.

  This went on for several minutes, before the rest of the weasels took out their ukuleles. Each instrument seemed to be tuned to a different note and they began plucking and strumming in no particular key or rhythm. It sounded like dozens of children jumping on a bed with squeaky springs or opening and closing doors with rusty hinges.

  Then a gang member in a purple pork pie hat, looking just as serious as Gary,
stepped into the middle of the room and began to sing in a high-pitched tuneless rasp, adding her shrieking yowl to the tapping and plucking and squeaking and whistling.

  Zooba zooba zooba zooba zooba zooba zay

  I ate at the diner the other day

  I lost the buttons on my coat

  I went bowling with a stoat

  I punched a hamster in the throat

  I threw a captain off a boat

  I fed a horse some poison oats

  And buttered jam and moldy toast

  And then went surfing on the coast

  And ate a lamb and seven roasts

  And fifteen cats and a bar of soap . . .

  This was too much. Unable to control himself any longer, the Boston terrier started to howl at the top of his lungs.

  The lizard looked from side to side with her big golden eyes, searching for a way out of the Pork Pie Gang’s lair.

  Bernard watched the clock in terror as the second hand stayed right where it was. He counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Still the second hand didn’t move.

  The weasels applauded and laughed in delight at the pain their song was causing. Bernard and Ivy exchanged a look. And he could see they were thinking the same thing: these creatures meant to harm them. Now they were truly running out of time. The dog continued to howl and howl as the Pork Pie Gang closed their eyes and played their ukuleles with abandon.

  I have to stop them, Bernard thought. Using his sharp teeth, he began gnawing through the twine that tied the chinchilla’s paws. Once free, she untied Ivy, who quickly ran over to comfort the dog. Then, working as fast as she could, the chinchilla untied Bernard.

  Without a second thought, Bernard ran straight for Gary, grabbed the cuff of his pants, and swung himself around, scurrying quickly up Gary’s leg until he reached his shoulder. Then he jumped into the air and, with one swift kick, knocked the pen from his hand, sending it clattering across the floor.

  The toc-toc-tocking stopped; the ukulele players stopped plucking; the singer stopped singing; the dog stopped howling; and the hands of the clock started moving once again. For one second all they could hear was the drip-drip-drip from the ceiling, before the entire room exploded in turmoil.

  8

  Bernard Breaks Free

  Gary swiped at Bernard with his sharp claws, but Bernard ducked and then dove from the weasel’s shoulder. He landed on the back of the Boston terrier, who raced for the door, winding his way between the short legs of the Pork Pie Gang and dodging blows from their heavy clubs.

  The lizard, who had climbed up the wall, was now running along the ceiling upside down. The chinchilla had curled herself into a ball along the baseboard unnoticed.

  They all reached the door at the same time and Bernard jumped from the terrier’s back to grab the door handle, yanking it with all his might, but it was locked.

  The Pork Pie Gang was closing in.

  Bernard tried again—this time with the chinchilla’s help. She leapt on top of the handle and pushed with her strong arms while Bernard pulled. Still nothing. The terrier scratched frantically at the door and began to cry.

  Ivy stuck to the wall upside down, watching the weasels close in.

  “I’ll take care of this,” she said calmly. She crawled into the keyhole and the animals heard several clicks and scratches; then the door opened with a pop. She had picked the lock!

  The bright light of day and sounds of traffic flooded the dark room and the animals all burst out into the sunshine, Bernard and the lizard riding the dog’s back and the chinchilla running along the curb with her hand in the air calling, “Taxi! Taxi!”

  The weasels stumbled out on the street after them, squinting in the afternoon sun, but they were too late. A yellow taxi pulled over to the curb at Spring Street and the animals leapt inside.

  The cabdriver wore a wool hat. He had glasses and big brown eyes.

  He pulled back into the flow of traffic and drove several blocks before turning around to address the chinchilla.

  He said, “Where you going, ma’am?”

  Bernard spoke up before she could say anything. “The Empire Diner in Chelsea,” he said.

  The driver turned around, looking confused.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t hear you. There’s some squeaking coming from the back seat. Oh, and that’s a lovely coat, by the way.”

  The chinchilla looked up and started to speak. That’s when the taxi driver stepped on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt by the side of the road, sending the animals tumbling over one another.

  “This is the fifth time this week I picked up a chinchilla in SoHo!” said the driver. “Look, I don’t mean no disrespect. But if you can’t pay with cash or a credit card, and I can’t understand you, I can’t get you where you’re going. Nothing personal, but . . .” He reached across the back seat and opened the door. “Out!”

  Bernard, the chinchilla, the dog, and the lizard hopped out onto the sidewalk, where they were nearly crushed by two men in business suits in a great rush to get into the cab. The animals watched as the taxi pulled away and sped up Third Avenue, joining a sea of traffic that seemed to flow endlessly through the corridor of steel-and-concrete buildings.

  Bernard stood for a minute to take in his surroundings. This part of the city was different from Mittens’s neighborhood, and from the subway. In Mittens’s neighborhood everyone was working; here everyone seemed to be relaxing.

  There were birds congregating by the curbside, and rats and mice sharing a picnic lunch. Two young starlings were painting pictures on the side of a building. A pigeon paced back and forth, checking his watch. He looked up with smiling eyes as his friend landed on a street sign and then swooped down to give him a peck on the cheek. The two of them cooed as they walked slowly across the Bowery. The block was packed with different kinds of creatures, all living side by side. You would think in such a place it would be simple to get a cab.

  “Why couldn’t the driver understand us?” said Bernard.

  “Probably because of your accent!” said the chinchilla.

  “What accent?” he asked.

  “He didn’t understand us because he’s human,” said Ivy. “They don’t understand much.”

  This came as a shock to Bernard. “Where I come from, all creatures speak the same language,” he said.

  “All the creatures in England speak the same language?” said the chinchilla.

  “Where’s England?” Bernard asked.

  “So that’s not an English accent?” said Ivy.

  “What accent?” he said.

  Bernard’s new friends stared at him for a moment. Then the chinchilla shrugged and changed the subject.

  “Well, accent or no accent, he should have given us a ride,” she said. “I actually do have a credit card, you know.” She pulled a yellow-and-blue card from her thick fur coat and showed it to the other animals.

  “Um. Yeah,” said Ivy. “That’s a MetroCard. It’s for riding the subway.”

  The chinchilla looked at the card. The word MetroCard was clearly printed across the front.

  “You need a card to ride the subway?” the chinchilla asked.

  The dog sat on the sidewalk and scratched his head. Then he headed west at a brisk trot toward the Hudson River, leaving Bernard, the chinchilla, and the lizard behind.

  “Well,” the chinchilla said, “it’s been nice, but I think he’s got the right idea. I better be going myself.”

  “Wait!” said Bernard. “We can’t just go back to what we were doing. We have to warn people about the Pork Pie Gang.”

  “I got places to be,” said the chinchilla. “That was an hour of my life I’ll never get back.”

  “Time is relative,” Ivy said.

  “What are you talking about?” said the chinchilla.

  “Time is not a universal measurement,” said Ivy. “Look it up.”

  “Well, it was nice meeting you, Bernard,” said the chinchilla, shaking Bernard’s paw.


  “Wait!” said Bernard. “These weasels are dangerous. We can’t let them keep playing those songs. I’m telling you, something terrible could happen.”

  But even as he was saying this, he wondered if it was really true. Nothing had changed out in the world. There were people everywhere going about their day. Cars zooming by; men and women walking fast, carrying packages and bags; window washers working on tall buildings; and construction workers digging deep underground.

  Bernard knew this same motion and commotion was happening on every street and every block, not just in one small corner of the city—New York was filled with busy people and animals, each one with their own life. Maybe New York was too big for anyone to stop it. Out in the enormous city, his triumph in knocking the pen from Gary’s hand and their brave escape now seemed small. Just one simple thing that happened in that moment—not a battle against evil. And now the Pork Pie Gang was nowhere to be seen, having given up the chase when the friends had gotten in the cab.

  Still, the memory of time standing still chilled Bernard to the core.

  “I know it looks like everything is fine,” Bernard said, “and they’re not chasing after us right now. But did you forget what happened in there?”

  “No, but I’d like to,” said the chinchilla as a cool breeze rippled through her fur and sent a plastic bag whirling and fluttering along the street.

  “Listen,” said Bernard. “I have some friends who are trying to fight the Pork Pie Gang. They told me to meet them at the Empire Diner. The queen will be there and we can listen to their plan.”

  “Can’t do it,” said the chinchilla. “I’ve got to pick up my laundry.”

  Bernard and the lizard looked at her.

  “What?” she said. “You think I walk around naked like this all the time?”

  “Please,” said Bernard. “Remember what happened to your cousin? That could happen to all of us. The whole city. It could be teatime on Sunday afternoon forever.”

  “That really doesn’t sound so bad,” said Ivy.

  “Believe me,” Bernard said, “it is! What if the cars stopped moving and the trains stopped running and everyone stayed right where they were?”