by M. E. Kerr
Of course it would never happen. That’s why it was an impossible dream.
That New Year’s Eve afternoon, many of the dogs at Critters had impossible dreams. The rumor had spread that Flo Tintree was on her way. One of them would spend the holiday at the Star-Tintrees’, along with Catherine, whose stay had been extended. Mrs. Tintree would select one animal, which she would write a skit about, or a song, or something to amuse and teach the children. It was a tradition.
Who didn’t dare hope that he would be the chosen one?
Marshall, for one. An impossible dream was different from hope, for it was understood that it was just a dream…. But hope was the worst of all evils, for it only prolonged misery.
Everyone was edgy anyway. Holidays did that. Volunteers were busy with their families and sometimes did not show up to walk the dogs.
Visitors were few.
Outside, the winter wind howled.
The critters slept too much and waited, as they always waited, for their fates to change.
Marshall felt the only thing that could change in his life was the lightbulb directly over his cage. It was changed when it went out. Marshall was the only critter to have one, for it was necessary to keep him warm. A cold snake became sluggish and refused to eat.
If Catherine had still been there, Marshall would have bet her that Mrs. Tintree was coming for Posh. As much as Catherine liked to bet, she probably wouldn’t have taken him up on that one.
Not only was Posh the most valuable and rare dog in residence, Posh never stopped barking. Wasn’t there an old saying about the squeaky wheel getting the grease?
26
A Mystery Guest
CATHERINE’S TREATMENT IN THE Star-Tintree house had undergone a radical change ever since she had rescued Peke from the scowling chauffeur of the long white limousine.
“Come and play with me, Catherine,” said Peke, who could not get enough of Catherine now. After all, she was his savior.
“I am played out, Peke. I am not used to running around anymore. My hind legs give.”
Catherine was stretched out on the old thick carpet by the fireplace while Peke stood over her with a chew stick in his mouth.
Flo Tintree was testing the floorboards of the small stage she had built. She said, “When our mystery guest comes tomorrow night, you’ll have to give up your place by the fire, Catherine. I know you’re never warm enough, but the mystery guest does not even have hair.” She was fixing the stage for her performance.
Peke dropped the chew stick so he could ask Catherine, “Do you know who’s coming here?”
“I overheard Ginny tell Nell there’s a new kind of Mexican hairless dog at Critters now. It’s called a fancy long name, xoloitzcuintle. Xolo for short.”
“Bolo, solo, polo—yes, there are words to rhymexolo with. Mrs. Tintree will compose a good song.”
“Why does she bring an animal here just for the New Year’s party?” Catherine asked.
“Because,” said Peke, “she’s a retired schoolteacher. It’s her nature to teach. She likes Sun Lily’s school friends to learn about animals. I don’t know why she can’t invite a more presentable critter. Why do we have to have one with no hair? Why not a soft little bunny?”
“Even if Critters did have bunnies, which they don’t, I would have to chase a soft little bunny,” said Catherine. “That is my nature, just as teaching is Mrs. Tintree’s.”
“Then I would help you,” said Peke, who would do almost anything for the greyhound now.
He had already shown Catherine his hiding place, and even though Catherine had lost the bet that she could find it on her own, Peke had given her his red rubber hot dog.
Catherine had to pretend that she was overwhelmed by the gift of the red rubber hot dog, but the truth was she was underwhelmed by anything she had not won in a bet.
Mrs. Tintree said, “Maybe before I start dinner, I should try out my new song on you. Would you like that?”
Peke barked, and so did Catherine.
She took a slip of paper from the pocket of her sweater and began to sing in a shaky soprano voice.
“I’m partial to Marshall, the one of whom I sing.
Black with yellow crossbands, he is a real king!
See him on his tree branch, looped around and round,
See him flick his tongue, silently, no sound!
Mice are nice for Marshall’s feasts,
He will eat all sorts of beasts.
He can even happily make
Dinner of another snake.
Marshall, I am partial to you.
Marshall, we all say ‘howdy do’!”
Peke’s little eyes were wide with astonishment.
“A snake!” he cried out. “The most loathsome of all beasts!”
“Marshall?” Catherine could still not believe it. Marshall?
27
Goldie?
SAM (“WE’LL SEE”) TWILIGHT was careless with his tools. There they were, out on the aft deck where he had left them in the middle of repairing the rotting wood.
And there, too, was Snack!
His pink legs were perched on the man’s saw. He had a clam in his yellow bill, which he was throwing to the deck. Once, twice, until he finally broke the shell. Then he gobbled down the insides.
Placido’s jaws trembled with excitement. His whole body quivered. His ruff was up.
If wishes could break glass, that gull would be a goner in a nanosecond.
Placido watched him take off, swoop, and sail as he flapped his gray wings. And then … and then … what did Placido see?
He crouched down and fixed his eye on a dog heading toward a boat on the next dock.
Placido knew that dog!
He was on a leash, heeling, while a lady shuffled along toward the big fishing boat called We All Make Mistakes.
“Goldie!” Placido stood up on his hind legs with his paws against the glass.
Then he tried “Rex!”
But there was no way the dog could see Placido, much less hear him.
Had Goldie found his owner? Could that be Bob’s mother?
28
The Stray
“HOW ARE YOU, SEREFINA?” the fisherman said. “Come on in. Who’s this? Why, he looks just like Elio.” The woman led Goldie inside. “He’s not Elio, though,” she said. “He’ll never be Elio either. I call him Elio, but that’s where the similarity ends.”
The fisherman patted Goldie’s head. “He’s a nice dog, though.”
Goldie wagged his tail and tried to smile.
He could smell coffee. Then he sniffed the man’s pant leg, and it smelled of the sea, the way the beaches he had run along with Bob smelled.
“Where’d you get him, Serefina?”
“He’s just a stray.”
“The good Lord provides. Elio died and now you have another almost like him.”
“He’s not at all like him.” The woman took her coat off. She said, “He can’t sing.”
The fisherman chuckled. “Well, Elio was unusual.”
“I’ll say he was. This dog has no fun in him!”
“Give him time.”
“I will, but it’s hard. Elio understood everything I said, even when I said it in Spanish. I loved that dog like I’d love a son. He was almost human.”
Goldie sat down and sighed. He knew how the woman felt, because Bob felt that way about him. He could only imagine what Bob must be going through now. He couldn’t stop thinking about Bob, remembering his smile, his voice saying, “Rex? Want to go for a walk?”
“Is that Elio’s collar and tags he’s wearing?” the fisherman asked.
“Yes. I don’t want him to run away.”
The fisherman was pouring coffee. He said, “Maybe it would be a good idea to call this dog by another name. You can’t replace Elio. Give this guy a different identity.”
“What shall I call him?” she asked.
“Name him after me, Serefina. Call him Bob!”
; Goldie began to bark at Bob’s name.
“He seems to like the idea,” said Serefina.
“Do you want to be called Bob?” the fisherman asked Goldie.
Goldie barked and barked.
“Bob it is!” said Serefina. “Okay. Bob! You’re named Bob!”
Goldie got up on his hind legs, barking and barking, his paws on the counter, the coffee cup tipping over.
Serefina jumped back.
The fisherman took away the cup and mopped up the coffee.
“He couldn’t help that,” said the fisherman.
“Remember how graceful Elio was? He didn’t have a wrong move in him,” said Serefina.
Goldie crouched down, his tail between his legs.
“I may have an answer to this, Serefina,” said the fisherman. “There is a rather shabby, somewhat ailing woman who is looking for a dog. I didn’t pay much attention to what she said, but she left a phone number. Shall I see if this fellow here is hers?”
“Even if he isn’t hers,” Serefina said, “see if she wants him.”
29
“The Dragon Is Dancing”
THE TALENT, OF COURSE, does not mingle with the audience before the performance. That was always the rule. “But not tonight,” Sam Twilight said. “One of the reasons I took this job was so you could meet some kids your own age. I’ll give you plenty of time to change before our act.”
“Okay,” said Jimmie. She actually felt good. She had slept aboard Summer Salt II with Placido curled up beside her. She had told him her woes, and he had licked away her tears with his sandpaper tongue.
She had told him about being too dumb for the BrainPower commercial, too wide-eyed for the part of crumb, and then the lowest blow of all, too ordinary for face in the crowd.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Ms. Fondaloot had left her with a cleaning bill for hairs on the brown crumb costume and upchuck and hairs on her black cashmere DKNY coat.
“When you tell your father about all of this, don’t blame me,” she’d said. “None of this was my doing.”
Of course it wasn’t Fiona Fondaloot’s doing. None of anything that went bad was an agent’s doing; an agent’s doing was a callback, a sale, a contract, residuals.
Jimmie didn’t tell her father anything, and he was at the point now where he didn’t ask how an audition went. She was glad she didn’t have to admit that she wasn’t even able to get the part of face in the crowd. She had met a girl her age weeping in the john because she had not qualified for back of the head in the same crowd.
“Hey, Jimmie? Come and meet my friends!” Sun Lily was coming toward her.
Treat it like a gig, Jimmie told herself, not like a party.
But she had no lines. She couldn’t say, “A yogin is one who practices mental training or discipline.” She couldn’t say, “Where did the little crumb come from? Not from a Ballbat cookie.”
Then Sun Lily was grinning at her, holding out the Walkman, saying, “I love ‘The Dragon Is Dancing’!”
“You like his music?” said Jimmie.
“We all do. I played the CD for my friends, too!”
The Pekingese and the greyhound trotted after them.
“I can tell you I am fed up with that song,” Peke complained. “Do we have to hear it day and night?”
“I don’t mind it,” Catherine said.
“You don’t mind anything, Catherine. A snake is in the house and you have no reaction. That racetrack damaged you dreadfully, dear.”
“Be nice to Marshall, Peke. He never gets asked anywhere.”
“Oh, what a surprise that is,” said Peke.
“He is a very smart snake. He taught me the word ‘depauperate.’ I bet you don’t know what it means. Want to bet?”
“Why should I know what it means? I don’t talk snake.”
“It means ‘stunted or severely diminished.’”
Peke wrinkled up his nose and shrugged. “Why would anyone say ‘depauperate’ when ‘stunted or severely diminished’ means the same thing?”
“Because, Peke, it’s good to have a big vocabulary.”
“You will do anything to be liked, Catherine,” Peke said. “Your heritage, as you presume to call it, has taken its toll. Mine has made me particular. You might even say that I am a wee bit snobbish, since I am descended from Lootie, who was Queen Victoria’s dog.”
“So you keep telling everyone, Peke. But I thought you were from China, the same as Sun Lily.”
“No, my ancestors were. Then when the British sacked Peking (from whence came our name), they chose us as a gift fit for the queen,” said Peke with another smug sniff of his nose. “And others of my ancient Asian ancestors were palace pooches who hung out with the emperor.”
“You think too much about how aristocratic your ancestors were,” said Catherine.
“You never can think too much about that, Catherine…. But I do not find you a depauperate companion,” Peke answered, his mouth curling up with pleasure at his own cleverness.
“C’mon, Catherine and Peke. Keep up with us,” Sun Lily called out. “Walter Splinter is here too,” she told Jimmie Twilight. “You know him, don’t you?”
“The boy from Critters?”
“And guess what! His father is here. His father is famous. We heard his father broadcast from Israel just the other night, and now he’s in our house. Turn right, Jimmie. We’re going down the back way.”
“Where to?”
“The basement. My grandmother is going to put on a little show. She does it every year.”
“What kind of a show?” They were heading down the stairs.
“It’s always different.”
“Oh, this one’s going to be different, that’s for sure,” Peke muttered to Catherine.
Sam Twilight appeared behind them on the stairs, heading for Mrs. Tintree’s performance himself.
Sun Lily looked over her shoulder at Jimmie and said, “What about Jimmie Spheeris? Was he as famous as Walter’s father?”
“Was he, Dad?”
“No, Spheeris wasn’t that well-known. Now he’s sort of a cult personality.”
“Like Elvis Presley?” Sun Lily asked.
“He was never that big. But you can find him on the Internet. There’s a web page for him, even though he’s dead.”
“Guess what, Jimmie.”
“What?”
Whatever Sun Lily said, Jimmie couldn’t hear it, for when she opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, the noise of the party drowned out her words. Sun Lily ran ahead of her.
When Jimmie looked down, a thin length of something that looked like a hose with eyes peered back at her, a tongue darting out, flicking.
Then “Eeeeeeeeeeek!” Jimmie cried out. “A snake!”
Sun Lily was cupping her mouth with her hand, laughing, saying, “I just tried to tell you to watch out, there’d be a snake.”
Jimmie jumped away from the stairs while the dogs ran past her, barking.
“A snake!” Her heart was pounding.
“He’s big, too,” said Sam Twilight.
Sun Lily said, “He’s a king, but Grandmother says he’s not a king of any country. He’s just a king!”
30
“The One of Whom I Sing”
“HE CAN EVEN HAPPILY make
Dinner of another snake.”
But Marshall had dropped down into his wood chips, and stayed there, soon after the girl had screamed “Eeeeeeeeeeek! A snake!”
“Marshall, I am partial to you.
Marshall, we all say ‘howdy do’!”
Applause.
Applause, even though no one could see Marshall. Only a few very watchful members of the audience had seen him at all.
“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” Mrs. Tintree exclaimed. “I think all this fuss over him has frightened him, but he’s there. You can just about see his yellow crossbands.”
Then, buried in the wood chips, Marshall heard a familiar sound.
It was Catherine
barking at his cage. “She went all the way to Critters for you, Marshall. The least you can do is show yourself.”
“Want to bet I won’t?” Marshall answered her.
“Please get the dogs away from his cage!” Mrs. Tintree called out. “I believe he is frightened of the dogs.”
Then, miraculously, Marshall felt warm fingers reach for him, and he heard Walter say, “Would you like to meet my dad, Marshall?”
All the screams, crude remarks, and unpleasant noises a snake had to endure when he appeared in public filled the recreation room of the Star-Tintree house. But Walter’s loving hands were warm and sure.
31
The Gig
THEY USED A DOWNSTAIRS guest room to get into their costumes. Sam Twilight was wearing a sheet around him, and he would carry the scythe that was resting against the wall. In the circus he had often been the clown chased by the skeleton. On his face was a mask frozen into a look of horror. A papier-mâché skeleton was fastened to the back of his wide red-silk trousers. The polka-dot arms of his costume flapped as he raced ahead, looking over his shoulder, only to find the deathly figure still in pursuit of him. Kids loved that act.
Jimmie had changed to her Twinkle Toes tutu and was lacing up her dance shoes.
“How do you like these young people, Jimmie?”
“The only one I’ve really had a chance to talk with is Sun Lily.”
“And?”
“And she’s fine, Dad. Stop worrying about me.”
He walked over to the bed and sat down, shaking his head. “I could see your mother in you tonight.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s not really a compliment, Jimmie.” He cleared his throat the way he always did before he said something he didn’t enjoy saying. “I see now that we really do have to sell Summer Salt II.”