Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (6 page)

He flipped over another board.

Stronger scent. More excitement.

He moved along the tunnel fast now, nose pushing aside boards as he went, paws digging, pine needles flying out behind him.

With the speed of lightning he continued down the line of boards, his look intent, his ears high.

When there was only one board left, Mud pounced.

“So, Pap, that's what I was doing all day yesterday—making a tunnel. Will you come see it now?

It's the most wonderful tunnel in the entire world.”

“Well, give me a minute. Let me get up.”

Pap stood up in three stages. First he stood in a stoop. Then his back straightened. Then his legs.

“Hurry, Pap.”

“You can't hurry old legs,” Pap said.

“If I don't show someone my tunnel soon, I'm going to bust wide open!”

“Well, I wouldn't want that to happen.”

At last Mud was satisfied. He straightened. His eyes shone.

He lifted his leg on the upended boards. He scratched vigorously with his hind legs, sending dirt and pine needles and grass flying into the air behind him.

Then, mission accomplished, with his tail as high as a flag of victory, Mud headed for the house.

Pap was still waiting for the last stage of his stand—the straightening of his legs—to take place, so he spoke from a stoop.

“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight, Junior. The school hamster was in that cage.”

“Yes!”

Junior couldn't help himself. He smiled. At last he had Pap's attention. And not only his attention! Pap was getting to his feet to see the tunnel.

He was even willing to leave the phone for a few minutes.

“You made a tunnel and you put the school hamster in it?”

“Yes!”

“This was what you were doing yesterday?”

“Yes!”

“When did you put him in there?”

“Yes!” Junior was on such a roll of yeses that he couldn't stop himself. “I mean, I put him in when I got home from school. I couldn't decide whether to put him in the bedroom or the dining room, but I finally chose the bedroom and I think that was the right choice. He was probably tireder than he was hungry. You can't believe how happy he was.”

Junior remembered a phrase his mother used sometimes that fit the occasion. “Pap, he lit up like a Christmas tree!”

“Junior, you are responsible for that hamster.”

“I know! I love being responsible for him! I didn't know how much fun it would be to be responsible.”

“That's one of the reasons teachers do these things—to teach you responsibility.”

“And it does, Pap. I'm—I don't know—I'm more responsible than I ever thought I could be. I couldn't be any more responsible if I tried.”

“When you're responsible for something, Junior, you don't leave it unattended.”

Pap had now straightened all the way and was looking down at Junior sternly from his full height.

“It's not unattended,” Junior said.

“Who's watching it? Vern and Michael?”

“Nobody. That's the beauty of it. It's watching itself. I mean, it's covered with boards—many, many boards. He can't get out, Pap. This is the nicest little tunnel anybody ever made. He was so happy to get—Pap, wait for me!”

Junior followed Pap through the living room.

Something about the fast way Pap was moving made a feeling of dread creep into his happiness.

Junior knew nothing had happened—nothing could have happened to a tunnel like his. It was absolutely escape-proof.

Still, a small dark cloud had appeared directly over the tunnel. Junior needed to see his tunnel to send it away.

On the porch, Junior passed Pap. He paused beside Mud who was scratching a flea behind his left ear.

“Is that your tunnel yonder?” Pap asked, pointing toward the pines.

Junior shielded his eyes with one hand.

He didn't answer. His arm began to tremble.

A chill touched the back of his neck.

For Junior saw the destruction. His hand dropped. Both hands closed, prayerlike, over his heart.

Boards were everywhere. The boards he had laid with such care and pride. These boards had been tossed about as if by a tornadic force of nature. The exposed tunnel was a dark scar on the earth.

“Pap!” Junior breathed the word with such horror that Pap put one hand on his shoulder.

“Now, now, don't get your tail in a knot until we see what's happened.”

“Pap!”

They went down the steps and started across the yard together. Junior tried to break into a run, but his legs weren't strong enough.

“Now, now,” Pap said. “Maybe it's not as bad as it looks.”

But Junior knew it was worse.

He ran, rubber-legged, and got to the trees first.

He began picking up the boards, looking under each one.

“Pap!” Each time he said the word, there was more horror in it.

“Where is he, Pap? Where's Scooty?”

“It don't look like he's here.”

“What happened? What happened?”

Now Junior was clutching his chest the way Pap had clutched his when he had his heart attack.

Pap scratched his head. “Well …”

“But what could have happened? When I left—and that was just ten or fifteen minutes ago, Pap—when I left him, all the boards were in place. Everything was perfect. There was not one single, single crack in one single board …”

Junior moved around the disaster area, examining overturned boards. Tears of misery began to roll unnoticed down his cheeks.

“What happened?”

“Junior, Junior, Junior,” Pap said. “You don't put a hamster in a tunnel like that.”

“Where is he? We've got to find him. Please, please help me find him.”

Junior was flipping over boards he had flipped over two or three times before. He muttered with increasing apprehension, “Not here, not here. Where is he, Pap? Please help me find him. I'm responsible for this animal. If I don't find him, Pap, I can never go to school again, never.”

“You have to go to school, Junior.”

“Not if I don't find him. Help me, Pap!”

Junior broke off and drew in his breath. He bent to inspect a piece of wood. “Pap, there's dog pee on this board.”

Pap braced one hand on his back and leaned over to take a look. As if he saw the direction Junior's mind was taking he said, “Now, Junior, you don't know that's dog pee.”

“And those are dog scratch marks!”

“Junior,” Pap took his shoulder, “now don't go jumping to conclusions.”

Junior shook him off. “And, look, Pap. There is a paw print. Right there by the bedroom! And it's a dog paw print. And it's a big one. It's Mud's, not Dump's.”

Junior lifted his eyes from Scooty's empty bedroom and looked at the porch. Mud lay at the edge of the steps in the afternoon sun, licking his leg.

Junior's eyes narrowed to slits. His heart turned to stone.

He said one word, and that one word was a cold, hard, unforgiving accusation.

“Mud.”

“Dirty rotten murderer!”

“Now, Junior …”

“Dirty rotten murderer, come out from under there so I can murder you. See how it feels to be murdered! See how you like it!”

At the first cry of “Dirty rotten murderer!” Mud had been on the porch. He stopped licking his leg and looked up, interested.

At the second “Dirty rotten murderer!” he lowered his ears and watched Junior's long staggering charge toward the porch.

At the third “Dirty rotten murderer!” he did the only sensible thing for a dog to do. He slipped down the steps and disappeared under the porch.

He had paused for a moment in the cool shadows of the steps to make sure the cry had been directed at him. When Junior's face, distorted with anger, had appeared, he retreated behind an old truck tire.

Junior tried to crawl in after Mud, but Pap held on to his ankles. “Now, now,” Pap said. “Hold on.”

“Let go of me! Let go of me! I'm going to kill that dirty rotten murderer if it's the last thing I do.”

Mud decided to retreat farther. He moved behind the apple crate and lay down to see what was going to happen next.

Mud's vocabulary consisted of eight words—
no
,
supper
,
go
,
bath
,
ride
,
possum, walk
, and
stay
. He loved to hear
supper
,
go
(especially when it was preceded by
let's
),
ride
,
possum
, and
walk
. He hated
no
,
bath
, and
stay
.

But Mud also knew tone of voice. And the tone of voice in which “Dirty rotten murderer” had been thrown at him was not good.

Mud, ears down, listened to the commotion at the edge of the house—Junior's screams, Pap's attempts to soothe.

After a while, Mud got tired and he curled up behind the apple crate for a long wait.

“Push us, Ralphie! Give us a push!”

Ralphie's brothers were calling from inside a Maytag cardboard box. The new washing machine had arrived that morning; and as soon as it had been unloaded, the brothers claimed the box.

They were now poised at the top of the hill in the side yard, begging to be pushed over the top.

“Mom'll be home any minute,” Ralphie said, glancing at the street.

“No! No! She won't be back till after lunch!”

His brothers' voices, muted by cardboard, rose with enthusiasm.

“You're sure?”

“We promise.”

“Well, I won't push you—”

“P-LLLLEASE.”

“I won't push you, but I'll get you right to the edge and you can do the rest. That way you'll be pushing yourselves, all right?” Ralphie thought this might come in handy later, as an alibi, if the downhill plunge didn't end happily.

“All right!”

Ralphie worked the Maytag box to the crest of the hill and stepped back. “Okay!” he shouted. “You can push yourselves if you want to. I can't stop you.”

The Maytag box came alive as the brothers worked to get it over the top of the hill. There was a long moment while the box paused in midair. The brothers screamed with anticipation.

Then the box went over.

And as it plunged down the hill, end over end, Ralphie's mother's station wagon turned into the drive.

Ralphie stepped back, holding up his hands to show he had had no part in the activity.

The station wagon would have hit him if Ralphie had not jumped out of the way. “Mom!”

Ralphie's mother leaped out in her clown suit.

“Ralphie, if your brothers are in that box, your life as a happy person is over!”

“Dirty rotten …”

Junior was still at it.

“Junior … Junior.”

So was Pap. Pap was stroking the top of Junior's head in a soothing way, as if he were trying to peak his hair into a cap, but Junior didn't even feel the pats.

“Junior … Junior … Junior …” Pap said, but Junior was so far gone he couldn't hear his own name.

In a firmer tone Pap said, “Junior, stop yelling and listen to me.”

Junior shook his head from side to side in silent, violent refusal.

“Junior, now you don't know he did it.”

Maggie had come home from school by this time, and she was sitting on the steps eating a banana.

“Oh, Pap,” Maggie said. “Face the facts. Your precious Mud ate Scooty. Mud had pine needles in his fur and dirt on his nose.”

Pap didn't answer.

In the silence that followed, Junior threw back his head and wailed, “Sthcoo-oo-ooty.” He had been crying so long that his nose was stopped up, and he could no longer talk right.

“Junior, stop howling,” Maggie said sensibly.

“We'll go to the mall tomorrow and get another hamster. All hamsters look alike.”

“No, they d-dunt. They dunt!”

“Oh, all right, they dunt,” Maggie said.

Maggie threw her braids behind her shoulder and stretched out her legs.

“I remember when I was in second grade we had a class guinea pig named Gimpy and Jimmy Lee Atkins took him home for the Christmas holidays and when Gimpy came back he was a different color.”

“Don't talk!” Junior said.

Maggie went on calmly. “Jimmy Lee claimed he had used his Dad's Grecian Formula comb on Gimpy by mistake, but—”

“I asked you not to talk!”

Junior couldn't bear to hear ordinary conversation, as if nothing had happened, when his whole world had come to an end.

“Junior, you have got to accept the fact that Scooty is gone, and that yelling at Mud is not going to bring him back.”

At that, a wave of anguish washed over Junior so great that he banged his head against the side of the house.

“Dirty (thunk) rotten (thunk) murderer (THUNK).”

He never even felt any pain.

“Stop that, Junior, you're going to give yourself a headache,” Maggie said.

Maggie was used to taking a motherly role with Junior. She'd been doing it since the day he was born.

One time last year she'd seen a picture in her geography book—they were studying Asia—and the picture had been of real young girls carrying babies on their backs. She had looked at the picture and she had remembered the feel of Junior's tiny hands around her neck because that was the exact way she had carried him.

“Junior … Junior,” Pap said. He slid one hand to Junior's forehead to protect it from future blows. “Junior, give it up.”

“I won't give it up! I'll never give it up. Never! Never! Never!”

“No, Ralphie!”

“Mom, please.”

“I said NO!”