The Flinkwater Factor (11 page)

2
7

Agent Ffelps

When I got home an hour later, a man wearing a black suit was sitting in our living room drinking ginkgo tea with my mother. My mom is crazy for ginkgo tea.

“Ginger, this is Agent Ffelps,” said my mother. “With two
f
's. He's with the Department of Homeland Security.”

Agent Ffelps smiled. He had a piece of gingko leaf stuck to his front tooth.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Ffelps,” I said.

“Good afternoon, young lady,” he said with the smarmy sort of smile that adults who aren't around kids much think is friendly and reassuring, but really it's just flat-out creepy.

“Excuse me,” I said, and went to throw my bag of dirty clothes down the laundry chute. Mom stopped me with her voice.

“Ginger, dear, Agent Ffelps would like to have a word with you.”

“About what?”

“Don't be rude. Come over here and sit down.”

I came over there and sat down, carrying my bag of stinky clothes. Ffelps turned up the wattage on his phony smile.

“Your mother tells me you had a visitor this morning.”

I did my best to act innocent and bewildered.

“A dog?” Ffelps prompted.

“Oh,” I said. “The
dog
. I thought you meant a person. That's usually what people mean when they say ‘You had a visitor.'”

“Your mother tells me this dog was somewhat unusual.”

“I thought you guys were supposed to be protecting us from terrorists and illegal aliens and stuff,” I said. “Are you working for Animal Control now?”

Agent Ffelps chuckled. “Heh-heh-heh.”
It was the fakiest chuckle I'd ever heard.

“Our national security is everybody's job,” he said. It sounded as if he was reading it off a poster.

“Is this dog a terrorist?” I said.

Instead of answering my question, he pulled out his phone and put it on the coffee table between us. I could see that it was set to record.

“Tell me about the dog,” he said, smiling his smarmy smile.

I tried to mimic his smile. “The
terrorist
dog?”

My mother said, “Ginger. Please.”

“He was a basset hound,” I said.

Ffelps nodded eagerly to show how delighted he was with my cooperation.

“He was wearing this funny collar. It had a miniature recorder on it so that you think the dog is talking. One of those practical-joke things? Like a whoopee cushion?”

“Yes, yes, exactly!” Ffelps was pleased with my line of thought.

“Anyway, I found the switch on it and turned it off. Then I went to take the dog over to Myke Duchakis's, because Myke likes animals. So I figured it might be his dog.”

“The dog is with this, er, Myke Duchakis?”

“Actually, I never got there. We were going past the park and the stupid dog took off after a squirrel. I tried to catch him, but he got away. That was the last I saw of him.”

Agent Ffelps sighed deeply to let me know how disappointed he was in me.

“You should have had him on a leash,” he said.

“I did.”

“Then how did he get away from you?”

“His stupid collar snapped.”

That revived him. “You mean you still have the collar?”

“Not exactly.” I was going to make him work for it.

“Well? Do you have it or don't you?” Ffelps asked.

“No.”

He looked to my mom for help, but all he got was a little shrug and a helpless smile. She didn't like this Agent Ffelps-with-two-
f
's either.

“What do you mean, ‘No'?” he asked me.

“I mean no, I don't have the collar.”

“Then where is it?”

“Agent Ffelps,” said my mother in her most chilling witch-queen voice, “I will thank you not to shout at my daughter.”

Ffelps recoiled as if he'd been slapped. Mom can have that effect on people.

“I didn't
 . . . I wasn't  . . .”

I took pity on him.

“Look, a collar's no good without a dog, right? Besides, I tried turning the switch on and off, but the recorder or whatever wasn't working. So  . . .”

“So?”
He almost screeched.

“So I threw it away.”

Ffelps's eyes bulged. “Threw  . . . it  . . .
away
?”

“Away. It was broken.”

“Where?”
Realizing that he had screeched, he
looked fearfully at my mother, who bestowed upon him her iciest stare. “I mean, where did you leave the collar?” he said quietly.

“In a trash can, of course. I'm not a litterbug.”

“What trash can?”

I told him.

28

Ruff! Roof!

Except I didn't tell him
exactly
.

I told him I'd thrown the collar into a trash can in Flinkwater Park.

“Where? Which one?”

“I don't remember,” I said. “Just some random can.”

Ffelps was on his phone in a split nanosecond, then out the door without so much as a
Thank you for the ginkgo tea, Mrs. Crump
.

The door slammed, and my mother looked at me with one perfectly plucked eyebrow perfectly arched, silently inquiring as to what had
really
happened with Redge and his collar.

“You don't want to know,” I said.

I heard later that the DHS descended on Flinkwater Park like a horde of black-suited
raccoons, upending every one of the fifty-odd trash receptacles and sorting through the bottles, cans, picnic scraps, and bags of dog poop. Naturally, I had put the collar in the last trash can they would check—the one in the women's restroom. They did find it eventually, and although the collar was no longer functional, I'm sure they were relieved to know that it had not fallen into the hands of terrorists.

I also heard that two of the DHS agents spotted a tall, ragged, manlike creature running through the woods. They pursued the strange beast but were unable to capture it. For the past several days DHS teams, outfitted in SWAT gear and full camouflage, have been combing the park in search of the Flinkwater Sasquatch.

But they never did get catch it. Or Redge.

That night Myke and I sneaked out after midnight and met Billy and Redge at the culvert down by the river. We walked Redge up to the overpass, where a pickup truck driven by one Gerald Ruff, roofing contractor, was waiting. Redge hopped into the cab of the truck without hesitating. He was so glad to be out of that sewer he would have gone with anybody.

“Remember,” I said, “keep him out of sight for a few weeks. And give him a new name.”

“Don't worry,” said Gerald Ruff. He reached over and scratched the dog's ears. “How about I call you Ruffie, boy? You like that?”

“Ruff! Roof!”
Redge barked.

Gerald Ruff beamed.

“A talking dog,” he said. “Who'da thunk it?”

Epi
sode Three

The Zealous Zombie

29

Kissless

Several days after the talking-dog incident, at precisely 6:12 a.m., I was lying awake in bed considering a somewhat disturbing factoid. Before the end of the summer I would officially turn fourteen, and I had never kissed a boy.

I had done my research. The first kiss is an important milestone in a young woman's journey through life—a special moment that deserves to be enjoyed and treasured for all her days on earth. My week of being grounded was finally over, and I could see no reason to delay. By the end of the day, I decided, I would be kissed.

I did not realize at the time that my plans would be ruined by a foul-mouthed monkey, the Department of Homeland Security, and a zombie.

First thing I did when I got up was to make a flowchart.

1) Identify Kissable Boy

2) Find Romantic Kissing Spot

3) Lure Kissable Boy to Kissing Spot

4) Employ Feminine Charms

5) Place lips in approximate vicinity of Kissable Boy's lips

6) Close eyes (or not—in movies they usually close their eyes, but it seemed silly to experience such an Important Milestone in a state of blindness)

7) Experience First Kiss (with or without eyes open)

8) Treasure First Kiss for all of Eternity

Step 1 was easy—only one boy met my requirements: Billy George, my future husband. I'd been thinking about kissing him for a very long time.

Steps 2 through 8 were less certain, especially step 4, the part where I had to make Billy
want
to kiss me. The problem was that to Billy, the big-chested avatars on his tablet were just as real as my slight-chested flesh-and-blood self. Which put me at a disadvantage.

I am very observant, however, and I was aware of the many enticement techniques that have been practiced by women ever since we were living in caves. You know, the lipstick, the eyelash batting, hair touching, perfume wearing, cleavage exposing, and so forth. Such strategies might seem rather blatant, but where Billy was concerned, the more blatant the better. I might even have to resort to extreme measures,
like cornering him and saying “Kiss me or else”—a tactic of last resort. But I wasn't ruling it out.

I needed practice. A beta test, as engineers like to say.

I'd been meaning to visit Myke Duchakis anyway. I hadn't seen him since we'd saved Redge from being euthanized, and I was wondering what he was up to. Probably plotting to free the rest of the experimental animals in Area 51.

His mother answered the door and looked me up and down, checking to make sure I wasn't smuggling in another orphaned creature.

“Heavens, don't you look  . . . special!” she said.

I had done a little work on myself. Specifically, I had put on a tasteful amount of lipstick and a touch of eyeliner. Maybe more than a touch. And I was wearing a scoop neck T-shirt that showed a bit more of my upper chest than usual—

Mrs. Duchakis leaned toward me and sniffed. “You smell nice too,” she observed.

—and a generous dab of my mother's perfume.

“Is Myke home?” I asked.

She regarded me with a sad little frown, then sighed and stepped aside.

“Lord save us from hormones,” she muttered as I went past her and headed for the menagerie.