The Pet-Sitting Peril (14 page)

Mrs. Sylvan considered, stroking her pet as she did so. “It's too soon. I don't want her shut up in a box all night. I'll manage all right in the morning.”

“I sure hope she's better,” Nick said with feeling, “and can stop taking the medicine.” And then, because the woman gave him an odd look, he wondered if he'd sounded so fervent about it that she guessed how much he'd hated administering that medication.

It was nine thirty by the time Nick got Maynard back upstairs. He dialed his own number and to his surprise got, not Barney, but Winnie.

“What are you doing still up?” he demanded.

“I was in bed,” Winnie admitted, sounding very young over the telephone. “Barney and Chuck are out in the garage, so I answered the phone when it rang. We made fudge, Nick. It got hard so fast we could hardly get it out of the pan, but it tastes good. I saved you some.”

“That's more than Barney would have done. Thanks,” Nick told her. “I guess Dad's not home yet, then, or Mom, either.”

“No. Mom called and said she was meeting Dad after bowling, and the team was going out for pizza. She's going to bring me a piece.”

Pizza. Nick groaned. The bowling team didn't usually stay out past ten, at the latest, but on the nights when they won big, or when they got beaten so badly they needed something to make them feel better, they sometimes went to the Pizza Palace. Nick knew from experience that it might make it midnight before they came home.

He hadn't realized quite how much he was counting on his father's counsel until he learned that it wasn't available.

Well, Nick thought, it wasn't as if Dad wouldn't be home later. It didn't mean he'd have to spend the night here, only a few more hours. He just wished he was more certain that nothing bad would happen during that time.

Nick swallowed. “Listen, Winnie. Tell Dad, when he comes in, that I need to talk to him.” Nick realized at once that that wouldn't work, because Winnie would be asleep by then. “Get a paper and pencil, and I'll spell out a message. You can stick it up on the refrigerator so he'll see it when he comes in, okay?”

It seemed the best he could do. Nick turned from the phone to see that Maynard had already curled up on the rug before the couch where Fred slept draped over one arm.

Nick turned on the TV and sat down to watch it. There wasn't much of anything on that he hadn't already seen except a horror show about a monster that lived in a pond and came out at night to drag its victims down into the swamp.

It might have been all right to watch if Sam had been with him; tonight, Nick decided, he didn't need anything like this. He got up and turned off the set.

He stood for a moment, looking out at the lighted windows in the house next door. He was glad that Melody's family had moved in, or he'd have been looking at dark, blank windows, making him feel even more alone than he already felt.

Suddenly, across the hall, loud music boomed. Well, that meant Clyde and Roy were home, so he wasn't alone, after all. It made him feel somewhat better.

Directly across from him, Melody appeared in one of the lighted windows. She reached up to draw the shade, saw him, and waved.

Nick waved back, wondering if she thought he was a peeping tom or something. It was embarrassing, to be caught looking into her window at night. And then Melody raised the window and leaned out, so Nick did the same. They weren't really very far apart, no more than four or five yards.

“Hi! Are you still taking care of that cat?”

“Two cats and two dogs,” Nick confirmed. She didn't sound annoyed at finding him there. In fact, she was smiling as if she were pleased.

“Dad says we can get a dog, now that we're settled in one place. Dickie and I have been trying to decide what kind we want. A big one, like that Airedale, or a little one. Which is the best?”

“Depends on what you want. If you're going to walk him yourself, maybe you'd be happier with one Maynard's size. He can't drag you off into the blackberry bushes or jerk you off a curb when you aren't expecting it.”

“Maynard, is that the little one's name?” Melody had a nice laugh. She leaned on her elbows on the window frame. “Funny name for a dog, isn't it? Well, we don't have a yard for a dog, so I guess we'd have to walk him all right. Do you know of any place to get a small dog?”

“There's a pet shop in the mall, but I think they have only pedigreed dogs and they're pretty expensive.” Nick had an inspiration. “I know some people whose dog just had puppies. Dad said we couldn't have one, but maybe they'd give one to you. They aren't pedigreed,
though. The mother is a little bigger than Maynard, sort of a cross between a poodle and cocker spaniel. The pups are real cute.”

“Cockapoos,” Melody said. “Will you ask if we can go look at them?”

“Sure,” Nick agreed. “Maybe we could go over there tomorrow. It's only about a mile and a half, if you don't mind walking that far.”

Melody grinned. “Thanks.” She turned her head to call behind her, “All right, I'm coming,” and then waved out the window. “Good night, Nick.”

She didn't close the window behind her, nor did she turn off the light. There were few insects in this part of California, and most people didn't bother with screens. Nick could see into her room after Melody had left it, and though he knew she'd gone somewhere else, it was nice to see a lighted window so close by. If he hollered, anybody over there would surely hear him.

Now why had he thought a dumb thing like that? He wasn't going to holler, was he?

He ate the last of the cookies Mrs. Monihan had left, offering the final bite to Maynard,
who was usually capering around his feet waiting for his share.

Tonight Maynard opened one eye and looked at the half cookie on the rug. He licked at it listlessly but did not eat it.

“Hey, you sick or something? Really sick?” Nick looked uneasily at the little dog. Maynard had thrown up, after all, though dogs sometimes did that without having anything seriously wrong.

“You sure you don't want any?” He held the tidbit close to Maynard's nose, which twitched. Maynard's tail thumped once, but he still didn't eat the cookie.

It was one more thing he'd mention to his father, when the time came. Maybe Dad would come over and look at Maynard. Nick touched the black button nose. It wasn't hot. He didn't know if that proved anything or not. Maynard had gone back to sleep.

Nick sighed. He supposed it was late enough so that he should go downstairs and give Eloise her last dose of medicine. He hoped it was the last one he ever had to give her, that the vet would pronounce her cured.

The music followed him down the dark stairs as he probed his way with the little flashlight. Booming, crashing, throbbing music, the kind his mother said gave her a headache. Clyde and Roy had seemed nice enough, but they certainly weren't very considerate of their neighbors.

Again Rudy didn't whine or claw at the door when Nick went past. He must finally understand that he didn't get to go out, Nick decided, every time he was nearby.

It didn't dawn on him until he had the key in Mrs. Sylvan's door that he was expected to capture Eloise in the dark. True, the bathroom light could be turned on, but Eloise had long since learned that heading for that small room gave Nick the advantage in their battle of wits and strength. Eloise might be a real pain in the neck, but she wasn't stupid.

Resentment against Mrs. Sylvan rose inside him. It wasn't fair that she expected him to do what she wasn't willing to do herself.

He should have told her, he thought. He unlocked the door, listened to make sure Eloise wasn't just on the other side, and slowly eased
the door open, with the light trained on the widening crack.

Nick was halfway into the apartment when the big puff of white fur bolted past him. There was no way he could move fast enough to block her escape.

He muttered a word that his mother had once washed out his mouth with soap for saying, when he was little, and swung the flashlight to follow Eloise's passage. Up the stairs, he saw that much. He said another bad word.

He was about to close the door to the apartment when he saw the cat box. Mrs. Sylvan thought it was too early to put Eloise into it and leave her for the night, but he'd be darned if he was going to chase her all over and get scratched to shreds. If he could corner her, Eloise was going into the cat box.

Nick grabbed it up and ran up the stairs, arriving on the second floor in time to see Eloise make a dash from a perch on the upper railing into the open doorway of the front apartment.

Roy had just opened that door, and he reeled backward with a yelp as Eloise catapulted past
his left ear. Beyond him, in the lighted room, there was another yelp, followed by an oath considerably worse than the ones Nick had used.

“What was that?” Roy demanded.

“Quick, shut the door so she can't get out,” Nick pleaded. “I've got to catch her in this box.”

Clyde was still swearing, and when Nick entered the door he saw why.

Clyde was kneeling to paint on a huge canvas laid flat on the floor. Eloise had landed in an area freshly painted scarlet—Nick couldn't quite make out what it was supposed to be—and now there were bloody-looking footprints across not only the canvas Clyde was working on but the top one of a stack of three more alongside it.

Eloise, still fleeing her pursuer, skidded to a stop in a corner and turned to arch her back and spit.

For a moment Nick was too distracted by the damage done to Clyde's painting to notice. “Oh, no! Oh, gosh, look what that stupid cat's done!”

“Do you know what I had to pay for this
canvas?” Clyde demanded, sitting back on his bare heels. “Not to mention the paint. And the fact that a guy said he'd buy it if I could get another sunset like the one I sold his neighbor.”

Nick couldn't think what to say to that. Was he responsible? Or was Mrs. Sylvan? If he had to pay for the canvas and paint, let alone the lost value to the painter, he'd never contribute another cent to the Disneyland fund for the rest of the summer.

“Hey,” Roy said, staring down at the result of Eloise's flight, “you know, that's kind of interesting. You got another canvas, man, you can do another sunset. But stand up and look at that. Cat footprints in bright red. You suppose you could get her to walk in the blue paint and add some contrasting prints?”

Clyde stood up and surveyed the canvas. “Maybe you're right. It is . . . different, isn't it?”

Nick watched the two of them in amazement. Were they serious?

“With those to use to copy, I could do the blue ones myself,” Clyde said, almost under his breath. “Or black. I think it would be more dramatic with black.”

He dropped back to his knees and began twisting the cap off a tube of acrylic paint.

Nick gave up. As long as they didn't expect him to pay for damages, he didn't care how crazy the picture turned out. He began to edge toward Eloise, who was more or less trapped in a corner of the kitchenette.

Nick wondered if he could rush her and capture her without getting scratched. There ought to be extra pay on a job that required bleeding.

“Hey, kid, you're going about that wrong,” Roy informed him.

Nick noticed for the first time then that Roy hardly looked like a hippie at all tonight, except for his long hair in the ponytail, which was tied with a red bandana handkerchief. He wore new jeans and a colorful western shirt with a suede vest. And he was no longer barefooted; on his feet were a pair of the most elaborately tooled cowboy boots imaginable, with little heels and sharply pointed toes that almost made Nick wince to look at them.

“What you do, see, is entice the cat into the box, not try to pop it over her. She'll tear you
to shreds if you do that. See how she's looking at you?”

“I tried enticing her when I first met her,” Nick said tiredly. “She's suspicious of everything I do.”

“Here,” Roy offered, reaching for the cardboard cat container. “Let me try. I'll put something in there to tempt her, and we'll just let her take her time getting it. Let her wander around, if she wants to. Maybe she'll make some more of those neat footprints. Put out some more paint, Clyde, in case she walks back in your direction.”

Nick had no objection to trying Roy's method, though he wasn't too hopeful that it would work. At the moment, pressed against the wall with her back arched and ready to strike at anything that came within her reach, Eloise didn't seem likely to be caught in any trap. She was a tough customer.

Even half a fish stick rescued from the garbage didn't immediately lure Eloise into the box laid on its side before her, though they saw her nose quiver as the scent of it reached her.

“Leave her alone for a while. Pretend you aren't paying any attention,” Clyde suggested.

“Only stay ready to leap when she gets her head inside the box,” Roy added. “Hey, man, you're making better footprints than the cat did. That's going to make a fantastic painting.”

Nick turned then to watch Clyde as he painstakingly reproduced the red footprints, only in black, making approving sounds to himself. At least he wasn't going to demand to be paid for a ruined canvas, Nick thought.

Clyde nodded absently, bent over his work. “Maybe I'll enter this one in the Art Fair. What do you think?”

“Sure, why not? Last year one of the prizes went to a ceramic tongue, twice normal size; this has more class than that. Who knows, you might win a prize. Five hundred dollars, if you take first place.”

Clyde, Nick now observed, had also added new garments to his wardrobe. Jeans, already with a smudge of red paint on one knee, and one of those flowered shirts like you saw in the commercials for Hawaiian holidays.

“Well, we only got about two hundred bucks
left, after we bought the car and everything,” Clyde said, rocking back on his heels to examine his handiwork. “Hey, look, I think she's going for it.”