The Pet-Sitting Peril (11 page)

Nick squatted down with Fred in his arms, intending to protect the cat while allowing Rudy to get acquainted with him, perhaps touching noses, while Sam held the leash.

Rudy lunged forward to touch noses, all right, and Fred freaked out. Fred knew that Maynard was a friend, but all other dogs were
enemies. He swiped his claws across the end of Rudy's nose; the Airedale yelped and pounced. Fred escaped from Nick's arms and fairly flew to the back of the nearest chair and then onto a bookcase, and from there atop a tall cabinet.

In the confusion, the leash was ripped out of Sam's hands and Nick was knocked flat on his back, with Rudy running right over him in a frantic attempt to capture the cat.

Standing on his hind legs, barking, Rudy was almost able to reach poor Fred, who arched his back, spat, and backed as far away as he could get.

Nick scrambled to his feet. “Down, Rudy! Sit! Sit, boy!”

Rudy was too excited to hear him. He leaped upward, sending Fred into a snarling fury as he first pressed against the wall and then sailed over the dog's head in a performance worthy of a circus aerialist toward the nearest tall object.

Unfortunately, that object was Sam's head. Sam, who had grabbed for the leash and was trying to pull Rudy away, instinctively staggered backward when the cat tried to secure
his position with his claws, and boy and cat went down in a sprawl that carried Mr. Haggard's floor lamp with them.

There was a popping sound, and that light went out. Luckily they'd left the light on in the kitchen, so they weren't in darkness, but they were in chaos.

Nick crawled toward Rudy, who now had Fred cornered atop the TV; Nick had a few horrified moments hoping Rudy wouldn't knock it over, too, and then he got his arms around the Airedale's neck and pulled him away, speaking as sharply as he could considering he'd had the wind knocked out of him.

“Stop it, Rudy! Sit! SIT, darn it!”

Sam, too, had gotten to his knees. He surveyed the damage, looking dazed, until Nick said, “Catch Fred, Sam, and get him out of here. We'll have to put him back upstairs. The key's in my pocket, but I can't get it until you get Fred out of sight.”

Maynard, confused and upset by all the commotion, had retreated to a corner of the couch; now he began to bark furiously.

When it was all over, and Fred and
Maynard had been delivered back to their own apartment—they'd decided that since Fred was obviously upset, he'd be better off in Maynard's company—the boys ruefully examined Mr. Haggard's belongings. The lamp was broken, but Sam was sure his father could fix it for them. There was a rip in one of the sofa pillows; it was on a seam, so Nick figured he could repair that himself if his mother had any thread the right color. Various books and papers had been knocked onto the floor, though none of them seemed a serious casualty.

Sam bent his head and pulled his hair to each side so that Nick could examine his scalp. “It felt like I was gouged with red-hot pinchers. Am I bleeding?”

“Only a little bit,” Nick reported. “Maybe we better see if we need shots or something, with all this scratching. I've got a few marks, too.” The places where Rudy's claws had sunk into his arm were beginning to hurt. “Only if I explain to my mom how it all happened, she'll probably make me quit this job. As it is, I'm at least out the price of a new lightbulb, even if
your dad can fix the lamp. What will we tell him about it?”

“That it got knocked over. I don't have to tell him everything. Boy, we're lucky, the way those animals were leaping around here, that nothing more expensive was broken.”

It was some time before they were able to settle down and go to sleep. Mr. Haggard's bed was different from the ones they were used to, and the old house creaked and groaned as if it were a living thing.

“My grandma's house is like this,” Sam said, curled under the quilts. “Only in her house it didn't seem so scary.”

“It's the wood contracting as it cools off,” Nick offered, not admitting that he, too, found it sort of spooky.

He didn't know how late it was when he was roused by some sound outside Mr. Haggard's apartment.

Nick raised himself groggily onto an elbow, for a moment uncertain as to where he was. Then he heard Sam breathing beside him, and on the floor at the side of the bed, Rudy whuffed a warning.

Nick was suddenly cold, though he was still covered with the quilts to the middle of his chest. “What's the matter, boy?” he whispered.

As if in reply, Rudy whuffed again, and stood up. Nick stretched out a hand and felt the wiry hair bristling on the big dog's neck as a deep rumble issued from his chest.

“What's the matter?” Sam asked sleepily, and then, when he came more fully awake, his voice changed to a sharper tone. “What's Rudy growling at?”

“I think there's someone in the hall,” Nick said.

His heart was beating so hard it was a wonder he could hear anything else, but he did.

Footsteps sounded faintly through the wall, until Rudy actually barked, a great, deep bark such as only a very large dog can produce.

The footsteps ceased, and the boys waited, holding their breaths, Nick's hand on Rudy's head to quiet him, for whatever was going to happen next.

“Maybe it's just those guys upstairs, coming home late,” Sam whispered.

“Rudy's used to them by now. He doesn't bark at them. Besides, whoever it is didn't go up the stairs; they're right on the other side of this wall, in the hallway.”

They didn't hear any more, however. Whoever had made the sounds realized he'd wakened the dog and was being more careful. After a time Nick felt the tension go out of him, at least most of it did.

“What time is it, anyway?”' Sam asked, keeping his voice very low.

“Turn on the light, and we'll see.”

It was a quarter past three on Sam's watch. Somehow neither of them wanted to turn the light off and go back to sleep. Nick got up to
get a drink, and Sam trailed along into Mr. Haggard's tiny kitchen, where they decided to make cocoa.

“I'd make a sandwich if I saw anything to make it out of,” Nick observed, looking in the cupboard. “There's a can of chili. How about some chili?”

So they heated that, and gave Rudy an extra couple of dog biscuits, huddling on the couch with Mr. Haggard's lap robe over their bare legs because it was cold in the room.

Rudy lay at their feet. Once he lifted his head to listen, cocking his head to one side. Immediately Nick's stomach muscles tightened again and he put aside his empty bowl, straining to listen too.

Far away, through several doors and up the stairs, they heard the yapping of a small dog.

“Maynard,” Sam said unnecessarily. “Nick, there's gotta be someone prowling around, or the dogs wouldn't keep acting funny, would they? If they act like this every time somebody who lives in the house moves around, nobody'd ever get any sleep in this place.”

“I don't suppose people walk around in the
middle of the night very often. The dogs might just be barking about that, even if it's somebody they know,” Nick said, his voice sounding hollow. “Maybe we should go check on Maynard. Maybe it isn't a person, at all, but Fred's turned on the stove again or something. Maynard might bark if there was smoke. Dogs do that all the time.”

For a moment neither of them moved. Nick almost wished he hadn't mentioned checking; he had no desire to unlock the door of Mr. Haggard's apartment and go out into the hallway.

Upstairs, Maynard barked again. Rudy rose from his place on the rag rug and went to the door, putting his nose to the crack. By now they ought to have been getting used to that
whuffing
noise he made, not quite a bark but more than a whimper.

Nick moistened his lips. “I guess we really better see what's the matter with Maynard,” he said, hoping Sam would contradict him, wishing he'd stayed at home tonight instead of letting one of Barney's friends sleep in his bed.

“Yeah. Let's get dressed and go see,” Sam agreed.

They debated whether to take Rudy with them or leave him locked in the apartment. “Let's take him,” Nick decided.

The streetlights had been repaired, but when Nick opened the door the windows in the front doors glowed with muted reds, golds, greens, and blues that did nothing to diminish the blackness. Mr. Griesner turned off the inside lights when he went to bed, and Nick felt oddly nervous crossing to flip the switch beside the front door, even with Sam right behind him.

The hallway was quite ordinary with the light on. Maynard had stopped barking now, but Rudy pushed against Nick's leg, quivering with eagerness to do something.

“The outside door's locked,” Nick observed, trying it. “There couldn't be anybody inside that didn't have a key. I guess we'd better check on Maynard and Fred, anyway.”

They delayed long enough to put Rudy on his leash, then mounted the creaking stairs, the dog eagerly leading the way.

“I'd have nightmares, living in this house,” Sam muttered as one step gave a particularly loud protest under his weight. “I hope that's all that's
the matter with Maynard, that he's having a bad dream.”

Nick realized, when they reached the upper hall, that he was trying to smell smoke, and that there wasn't any. There was no sound behind the door of apartment three; either Clyde and Roy were asleep and hadn't heard anything, or they hadn't come in yet.

“Maybe you better keep Rudy out here,” Nick suggested, fitting the key into the door across the hall. “So Fred doesn't break anything more, trying to get away from him.”

Maynard met him with ecstatic yapping, throwing his small body against Nick's legs. Fred, curled in a big chair, opened one eye and then closed it again when Nick turned on the lamp.

There was nothing wrong in the place that Nick could see. The stove was still off, the way it was supposed to be. He pushed aside the curtains and stared out at the house next door. It stood dark and silent, its occupants sleeping. “Nothing going on over there to make him bark,” Nick said, and dropped the curtains back into place.

He knew the back door that opened onto the outdoor stairs was locked, but he tried it anyway. There was a bolt that hadn't been secured, and he slid that into place just to make certain there was no access from the alley.

“Come on, let's go back to bed,” Sam called, and Nick rejoined him.

“Okay. I can't find anything to get Maynard excited. Maybe they both heard something we didn't hear, outside.”

Neither of them mentioned the footsteps they'd heard earlier in the lower hallway. That was what had started the whole thing, waking them up and disturbing Rudy.

Nick checked the doors again before they went to bed. He didn't feel much like sleeping; he was more than ever aware of every sound in the big old house. He didn't hear any more footsteps, and finally Sam began to breathe regularly in sleep beside him.

Somewhere in the distance a siren rose and fell. He didn't know if it was a fire truck or an ambulance or a police car, but it sent chills through him so that he moved closer to Sam's warmth. Rudy slept on, undisturbed. Apparently
Rudy was used to sirens, or didn't pay any attention to sounds that far away.

What was he going to do tomorrow night, Nick wondered, if Sam couldn't stay with him again?

  •  •  •  

He didn't have nerve enough to bring the subject up right away. They walked the dogs, put out fresh food and water, and then both headed for their own homes for breakfast, after deciding that another can of chili wasn't exactly what they wanted so early in the morning.

In the daylight they laughed about being scared during the night. Nothing had happened, had it? They'd heard some unexplained sounds, and that was all. In the bright sunshine the old house was just an old house, nothing sinister about it.

Sam didn't say anything about meeting Nick again that day. They walked together part way, and Nick almost called after him when Sam left to go toward his own home, but something kept him from it. Nick hated to admit he was a coward, even to his best friend.

Well, he thought, trudging up his own walk,
night was a long way off, and he had plenty of time to talk to Sam again. Besides, there was no law that said he
had
to stay at 1230 Hillsdale tonight. He didn't have to stay every night. But if he didn't stay tonight, he ought to go tomorrow. Maybe today he'd just walk Maynard an extra time, during the afternoon, so that the pets wouldn't be alone for so long each day. After finding that stove burner on, he felt as if he ought to check fairly frequently, anyway, just in case Fred accidentally turned it on again.

The Reed household was the same as usual. Mrs. Reed was making waffles for breakfast, with delicious little sausages. It wasn't the right time to discuss last night with anybody, Nick decided, not with everyone making plans and hurrying to get ready for church. Molly was wiping up Winnie's spilled orange juice, the phone was ringing with a call for Charles asking him to come in early to work an extra shift, and Mr. Reed trying to talk all of the boys into helping with the painting.

“Charles can't today, if he's going to work
two shifts. How about you, Barney? Surely you don't have any lawns to cut on Sunday.”

Barney had just taken an enormous bite of syrup-soaked waffle and had to chew before he could reply, but his face was eloquent.

“Hey, Dad, it's not written on my schedule, but I have plans for this afternoon. Important plans!”

“Oh? Something you can't change? I really need help with the painting, kids; it's a big job, painting the whole house. Your mother intended to help with it on weekends, but with Grandma in the hospital she has to spend most of her free time over there, which leaves it up to me and you. All of you.”

“Well, this is important to me,” Barney said. “I met this . . . this kid I'm going to play tennis with. I promised. A new kid in town, who doesn't know anybody else in town to play with. And I don't know how to get in touch to cancel or anything, even if I wanted to. I haven't had much time to do anything for fun so far this summer.”