Call Me Alastair Page 15

  I’m surprised. I hadn’t even thought about how I’d eat once I got here.

  “Anyway, I’ll be up here if you need me. Fritz shouldn’t find me under the bed when he wakes up – he’d find you, too.”

  I watch as she climbs inside, fluffs her feathers a few times, and closes her eyes.

  “Thanks, Ag,” I say, grateful for her in a million different ways. Grateful in new and unexpected ways.

  “Oh, you’re welcome.”

  Her sleepy voice slips through the dark like a firefly. “Oh – and Alastair?” she says. “Porky was beside himself when I told him you were coming to stay for a bit. He and Tuna moved into the aquarium next to the bed last week. He says you two can resume those nightly poker games. Just thought you should know.”

  I guess it wasn’t a snake after all.

  CHAPTER 28

  Aggie’s set me up in a cozy, if dusty, corner under the bed, hidden by an old microscope box and a stack of Fritz’s old, discarded picture books. There’s a rumpled shirt, which I assume has been left as some sort of nest for me, an old bird dish for food, and one of Aggie’s gnawed wooden art pieces. She’s even left a book I remember Fritz reading to us, Medical Poems for the Sick at Heart, as a substitute for my old Norton. I just tasted a few pages. It was a cross between antiseptic and rot.

  The next morning when Fritz leaves for his paper route, taking Aggie with him today, I get my first chance to get out and take a look around.

  “Hey there, old buddy!” shouts Porky as soon as I emerge. He does a double take when he sees me, but I try to pretend like the whole fifteen-feather thing is fine.

  “Hello, Porky,” I reply. “Long time no see.”

  “You’re darn tootin’ long time no see! You been off a long while! Hey, Tuna! – uh, I mean, dear! You see who’s here?”

  I’ve been listening to Porky’s missus counsel old Charles the newt through a midlife crisis all morning. How she knows he’s in crisis, I don’t know. He hasn’t got a word in all morning.

  “Hey, Alastair! Good to see you!” she calls, turning back to her charge.

  Porky grins. “Heh-heh-heh. Honey of a guinea pig, isn’t she? Fits right in here. Fritz’s sister’s sure taken a liking to her.” He picks up a hard green food pellet and eyes it for a second before tossing it over his shoulder. He selects a carrot from his food dish instead and continues talking with his mouth full.

  “Fritz – he’s easy. Likes anything with a tail. But Fiona – always pegged her a cat lady. Seems the type.”

  “How’s the pet shop?” I ask.

  Porky whistles through his teeth, and bits of carrot spray the glass. “You missed a fine kettle of goldfish there. Boy, things got pretty weird there for a while.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, sirree! Place was like Port Luna Love when I left! Gerbils pulled off a major coup – it was carnage, just carnage. Babs ran off with some wild rabbit – saw the guy skunkin’ around the store windows for a week, didn’t think anything of it. And remember those tarantulas you let out that once? Well, seems they got a taste for prison break after you gone off.” He scratches his chin absent-mindedly. “Yep. Left the place in Vinny’s hands. Not sure about it, though – guy’s a little soft. Don’t think he’s got the stomach for it.”

  He continues. “Never had a hankering to leave. Thought about life on the farm for a bit. Figured I’d live in the shop for ever, though. Hate to say it, but I’m glad to be done with the place.”

  I stop chewing the sunflower seed Aggie managed to fling across the room and under the bed before she left. “Wait, what? Weren’t you puffing everyone up about getting adopted and finding homes?”

  Porky laughs his low, wheezy laugh. “Yeah, that was me. But that’s what the guy in charge does, right? Takes care of the people around him. Makes them feel good about what’s ahead.” He shakes his head. “I never was sure about it. Heard some stories in my day. Heard some good endings too, but you don’t know about a thing unless you’ve lived it, right? Things can look real good, and they can look real bad. You gotta live it to know which is which.”

  He smiles wide. “But I gotta say, this whole home-and-owner thing? It’s better than I thought.”

  I snort. Bertie’s wasn’t terrible, but I’ll be darned if it isn’t half as good as whatever plan I’ll come up with for my sister and me next.

  “Naw, it’s true,” says Porky. “Sure, the days don’t look so different: You eat, sleep, fix your fur and squeal a bit, chat with the neighbours, and such…”

  “A dream,” I mumble.

  “That’s not the dream part,” says Porky, giving me a reproving look. He steps back, squints his eyes, and looks me up and down. “You know what the difference between you and your sister is?” he asks.

  “Feathers?” I offer, half-serious.

  “Naw,” says Porky, shaking his head. “You think you got the short end of the perch. Always so sure everyone’s plotting against you, always looking for some bird-brained notion of the perfect life. You talk in your sleep, you know.”

  At the mention of “bird-brained”, I feel the few feathers I have left ruffle and prick with irritation.

  “Gratitude!” shouts Porky. “Aggie’s got gratitude! You can get hung up on all the things you don’t have, or you can be thankful for what you do got. It’s all in the way you eyeball it.”

  I stalk back under the bed. I do not need to be lectured by a guinea pig. But Porky calls after me, and I can’t block out the sound of his voice.

  “You gotta know when to stop looking for the next best, better thing! You gotta know when you got it good! Stop grabbing for something that’ll always fly away from you and never let you catch it. Sometimes you gotta open your hand to what’s right there for the taking!” He shouts louder as I get further underneath. “Sometimes it looks shabby, but really, it’s a doggone good gift, and you were just too stubborn to open it!”

  Then, from his aquarium, he tosses one of his food pellets, and it rolls under the bed and stops at my feet.

  “Open your hands, Alastair!”

  I don’t even have hands.

  That night I dream I’m in the pet shop. Our old heat lamp shines on three eggs wrapped like gifts before me. I unwrap the first. Inside is an empty pie plate with a few scattered crumbs. I unwrap the second egg. Another pie plate, this one overflowing with bubbling cherry. Halfway through eating it I realize, it’s a Chocolate Cherry Crumble. I cough and gag as the chocolate begins to make me sick. I stumble to the last egg. Inside is another pie. Like the one Bertie made me. I eat the whole thing in one bite and then stare in horror as the empty pie plate turns into a giant chocolate palm tree … that proceeds to eat me in one bite.

  Must’ve been a bad sunflower seed I ate.

  CHAPTER 29

  A week goes by without fanfare. I haven’t made any headway on a new escape because, thus far, Fritz is annoyingly responsible about latching Aggie’s cage.

  I’m still floating though, being so near to Aggie much of the time. But today she leaves with Fritz for school and his Pet Pals fund-raiser. Since she left, I’ve been anxious to hear how it went.

  Bertie had said she’d be there with bells on. She’d beamed when Fritz told her about two teachers planning to get their dogs trained over the summer for next year. And when Fritz had said Aggie had been spending time with a fifth-grade class that had a classmate with cancer, she’d wiped a tear and said she wouldn’t miss this day for the world. I can almost picture her, pocketbook beside her, that stray pink curler she always forgets at the back of her head.

  Part of me – a very small part, of course – wonders how she is, and if she’s OK.

  Hours later, Fritz and Aggie return. I hear them downstairs, but it’s dark before Fritz’s heavy footfalls sound on the steps. He tromps into the room, opens and shuts Aggie’s cage door. I hear him pour pellets and seed, then get water from the bathroom down the hall to fill her water dish. For the longest time neither say a word. The sile
nce begins to grate on my nerves.

  I wonder, did Bertie wear her “fancy dancing attire” (aka the boa)? I’m willing to bet she did…

  She didn’t try to take over school announcements, did she? Soon as Bertie sees a microphone…

  Was there jitterbugging during band lessons today?

  Just some things one likes to know. No real reason.

  Eventually, the quiet is broken by the sound of Fritz turning on the glowing box to his favourite show. The sound of Letizia Tortelloni’s soothing voice fills the room.

  “After we season, the next step is to sear the roast. This gives the meat a nice crust.” Letizia goes through each step carefully. I listen as she checks the roast, takes its temperature, pulls it out to rest. I think of Bertie’s roast, the one I made off with. Letizia copies every step, right down to the horseradish garnish Bertie used “to perk it up a bit”.

  Meanwhile, Aggie is silent. The only noises Fritz makes are the little mmms and oohs and that looks goods, he says quietly to himself.

  “Next up, we look to the fruits of the cherry tree!” the box blares.

  Cherry trees, huh. Even Letizia’s got that crazy story.

  “It’s my crostada,” says Letizia. “It’s like your American pie, no? Like your cherry pie. Except we add the chocolate.”

  I wonder if it’s like Bertie’s Chocolate Cherry Crumble.

  Fritz yawns and snaps off the glowing box before the show ends. “I’m tired, aren’t you?” he asks Aggie, who squawks a small reply.

  I hear him open a drawer, and his hands rustle around inside. He changes his clothes and flops into bed, and the springs wail above me. He turns over a few times, each time sighing loudly. When the sheets stop rustling and the only sigh is that of a timid breeze through the trees, Fritz speaks finally.

  “Weird, wasn’t it, Aggie? That Mrs Plopky wasn’t there? It wasn’t raining. She promised she wouldn’t miss this time…”

  Aggie squawks sleepily in reply.

  Fritz turns over again. “But that doesn’t bother me as much as the other thing,” he adds, and a new silence opens a dark chasm in the room. From the shelf above the newt aquarium, a cricket trapped in its container strikes up its fiddle, and I sit listening, waiting for the second part of that sentence.

  What other thing? What could be so very bothersome?

  Minutes later I get my answer.

  “It’s those newspapers outside her door,” Fritz says, worry creeping into his voice. “She hasn’t picked up her newspaper in a week.”

  Medical Log, June 12

  •Age/Weight/Height/Status: Same/same/same good.

  It’s getting close to the Fourth of July – my favourite holiday – and my birthday. Mrs Plopky and I are supposed to celebrate by going to the Burger Den just like me and Grandpa always did.

  But I’m not sure where Mrs Plopky is right now.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about what she said about the whole Grandpa thing not being my fault, and how things happen that we can’t do anything about, and about how life is like a pie.

  I wanted to find out how to make a pie. Letizia Tortelloni had some recipes. I watched all those episodes.

  “First, the dough! You mix! Gentle. Gentle, mia patatina, my little potato. Too much and it’s tough like meat! Now roll. Into the plate to bake. Now for the filling. Add your sugar, and yolk, and boil the milk. Perfetto!”

  That’s what she said on that episode, anyway.

  I’ve thought a lot about it. I think what Mrs Plopky means is that life has ingredients and lots of steps. Ingredients can be things like your family and friends, or maybe your interests, maybe even your heart. And I think those steps are things like your past, your plans, even your mistakes. I think she’s saying you put it all together and try to make a good dessert out of it. As best you can.

  It’s like what Letizia Tortelloni says: “Ah, you take a chance. You mix the anchovy with the cheese, the pistachio with the peas. Who knows what you get? You try.”

  I think Grandpa would’ve liked Mrs Plopky.

  I hope she gets back from wherever she went. I’d like to treat her to the Burger Den. And I don’t even care about the Red, White and Bear Bl-urger. (July Fourth is the only day they serve it. Ketchup, mayo and grape jelly on a burger. It is so delicious.)

  I mostly want to tell her thanks.

  And make sure that she’s OK.

  Signed: A concerned citizen

  PS. One more concerning thing is this: all the food Aggie is eating and wasting lately. I wouldn’t mind so much; it’s not like Aggie knows better than to throw stuff on the floor. But she’s also eating more. A lot more. But it seems like she’s getting a little skinnier every day.

  I don’t get it.

  CHAPTER 30

  One week turns into two, then three, now six.

  I’m still trying to figure out how to pick that stupid lock on Aggie’s cage.

  In addition, there’s still no sign of Bertie. Every time Aggie joins Fritz on his paper route, she comes home with some sort of update:

  “Somebody put a box outside the door for her newspapers. There are forty-two of them inside. I counted.”

  “Fritz knocked on her door today, but no one answered.”

  “All the flowers in her window boxes have turned brown.”

  I tell Aggie she probably went to Florida to visit Henry. Now that she doesn’t have to worry about me, she can travel. Tiger can fend for himself. And—

  With no need to replace poop papers at the bottom of my cage, she probably stopped collecting her newspaper. Why bend over and pick things up when you could throw out your back? And—

  Her eyes are as bad as Delores’s. She probably doesn’t realize the flowers dried up.

  Aggie remains unconvinced.

  But I can’t consider alternatives.

  Meanwhile, life under Fritz’s bed has been going swimmingly. Well, sort of.

  OK, not at all.

  I rarely get out because, with school out, Fritz doesn’t leave the room for much more than his paper route in the morning and his newly reduced, once-a-week shift at Pete’s. There’s been talk of a new pet store in town that’s stealing all the big-ticket customers.

  To add to my frustration, my bad wing’s been acting up ever since I rolled down Bertie’s fire escape, and Fritz turns over about eight hundred times a night. I get mere minutes of sleep. And, not to be uncouth, but there’s an issue with the lack of lavatory space under here. Things are starting to, uh … pile up. Also, I’m hungry. And not just for eating material other than Fritz’s old picture books. I’m hungry for actual food.

  It’s not that Aggie hasn’t thrown scads for me to hunt and gather. The problem is I don’t often get to it before Fritz cleans it up, scolding Aggie for being unusually messy. What I do get is a smattering of pellets that have fortuitously rolled under the bed, some rubbery bits of apple, and leftover cucumber slime. And absolutely, positively, no, not one cherry.

  There is only one thing worse than listening to the sound of your own growling stomach.

  It’s listening to Aggie’s.

  “You feeling OK there, Ag?” I ask.

  “Oh, I’m OK. Just a little sleepy.”

  Fritz has left Aggie home the past two days. He doesn’t take her on his paper route when it rains – only it’s not raining. We’ve had nothing but sun-dappled July days with a whiff of a breeze – perfetto.

  Not that I’ve seen them. Porky’s keeping me up to snuff on things like the weather and how many carrot missiles have not made it under the bed.

  Aggie puffs her feathers and hunches over on the perch. “I think I just need an extra nap today,” she says. “I should be better after that. Just as soon as I get rid of this little cough.”

  And here we have a new problem.

  Because ever since I landed safely under Fritz’s bed, I’ve been plotting the next escape. It’s not like I’ve been busy. Other than throwing together a few scavenger hunts for dead flies a
nd admiring the dust bunnies, I’ve had plenty of time to plot. I’ve had ALL the time to plot.

  I’ve thought about dropping Fritz’s From Acne to Zygomycosis: Every Medical Malady from A–Z dictionary on his head and knocking him unconscious while Aggie and I shoot out the broken screen. Or…

  Knotting Fritz’s dirty socks together to make enough rope to tie him up (saving one to stuff in his mouth, of course) and flying out of Dodge. And…

  Hypnotize him, scrape together a raft made of sticks, and steal into the sewer system to Key West.

  Each plan seems as plausible as the next. No problems there. (Just as soon as I figure out the lock thing.)

  The problem is that cough. The frequent naps. The problem lies in the fact that with Aggie feeling the way she does, we both know she’s not up to a daring escape just now.

  Truthfully, I’m not up for one: I’ve got about seven feathers to fly with, and my stomach sounds like a trash compactor.

  If I’m being honest?

  I’m a little tired of plotting. It’s exhausting.

  But who knows?

  Couldn’t be a bad sunflower seed. I haven’t eaten one in days.

  CHAPTER 31

  It’s mid-morning, and Fritz is snoozing away above me. He bought a new slide set yesterday and spent half the night muttering to his microscope about the dangers of uncooked meat. I’m trying to get a little shut-eye myself when I hear a shuffling sound nearby.

  “Alastair?” Fritz must have left Aggie’s cage door unlatched after he stumbled back in from delivering papers and refilled her dish.

  “Yeah, Ag? Coming back for that cashew you sent over earlier? I saved it for you. I know they’re your favourite.”

  “Alastair – now’s our chance.”

  “Our chance for what, exactly?” I ask as Aggie steps into view. “To raid the birdseed bin?”