How to Scare the Pants Off Your Pets

by Henry Winkler

  “What’s wrong, honey?” his mom asked as he walked in the kitchen door. “You look so dejected.”

  “I can’t seem to figure out how to help a friend of mine.”

  “Why don’t you invite him over for dinner? We’re having spicy meatballs with red mushroom sauce. That cheers everyone up.”

  “Almost everyone. Spicy meatballs give him gas.”

  Breeze, who was sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework, looked up and made a gagging sound. “Just tell this gas tank, whoever he is, not to come within one hundred yards of this house. You boys and your gas obsession. It’s disgusting.”

  “I’m going to my bedroom until dinner,” Billy said, heading out of the kitchen. “I don’t need to stay here and have the digestion of my entire gender criticized.”

  “Now that you have fresh new paint on your walls,” Billy’s mom called after him, “this would be a good time to get your things organized. Oh, and by the way, do you know someone named Hoover?”

  Billy stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I found this envelope on the back porch. It’s addressed to someone named Hoover.”

  “That’s for me,” Billy said, running to the counter and snatching the envelope. “It’s my new nickname. Some of the guys on the baseball team call me that.”

  “Why?”

  “Uh … because it rhymes with … uh … mover. Yeah, that’s it. Hoover the Mover.”

  Breeze gave Billy a suspicious look. “Call me crazy,” she said, “but of all the words to describe you, mover would be, like, last on my list.”

  “Well I have many sides that you don’t have a clue about,” Billy said. “Live and learn.”

  Before any more questions could arise, he galloped down the hall to his bedroom. He found the Hoove in his closet, lying on his back on the top shelf where Billy kept his sweatshirts and sweaters.

  “Don’t you knock before entering somebody’s personal space?” the Hoove said without even glancing over at Billy.

  “I know you’re feeling bad about Kung Fu,” Billy said. “But if it’s any consolation, that fish turned out to be a major mama’s boy. He only perked up when he saw Daisy. Some fighting fish he is. All show and no bite.”

  “Yeah. He’s got the look, but he doesn’t walk the walk. Or maybe I should say ‘swim the swim … fin the fin.’”

  “I get it, I get it. Oh, by the way, a letter came for you,” Billy said, handing the envelope over. The Hoove ripped it open and orange sparks flew from it, shooting up to the ceiling like fireworks with such force that the blast blew the Hoove right out of the closet and into the middle of the room. When the smoke cleared, the Hoove and Billy stood there amazed as a huge can of soup the size of a large-screen television materialized in the air.

  “Do the Higher-Ups live in a soup can?” Billy asked.

  “They live wherever they want to live.”

  With a loud creek, the top of the soup can opened and letters started to flow out.

  “Look, it’s alphabet soup,” Billy said, actually rather thrilled because that was his favorite kind of soup.

  “Don’t get so tickled, Billy Boy. I have a feeling it’s not such good news. Look what it says.”

  The letters had plastered themselves on the wall of Billy’s room, spelling out the words PROGRESS REPORT in large, doughy noodle shapes, with an occasional carrot or chunk of potato for emphasis.

  “Don’t be negative,” Billy told the Hoove. “Maybe it’s going to say you’re doing better.”

  “No, good news comes in cream puffs or French fries.” The Hoove shook his head and sighed. “Canned soup means you messed up. Every ghost knows that.”

  A small flash of light flickered, and soon, five words written in those same noodle letters appeared: NO SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS. STILL GROUNDED! They were followed by an exclamation mark made from what appeared to be a mixture of overcooked green beans and celery. As quickly as they had formed, they disappeared from the wall.

  The Hoove slumped down on the ground, obviously very disappointed. Billy felt bad for him.

  “Come on, Hoove,” he said. “Let’s talk this through. There has to be a way to get you ungrounded. Maybe the pet thing isn’t the way to go.”

  The Hoove floated out of the closet and over to Billy’s desk, perching himself on the edge of the open top drawer.

  “To tell you the truth,” he sighed, “I was never much of a hit with the animal kingdom. The horses on our ranchero would never let me ride them. In fact, a brown-and-white-spotted mare named Pinto Bean once had the nerve to throw me on the ground right outside this window. All I did was say ‘giddy-up, Gasbag.’”

  “There was a stable here?”

  “Sure. The barn was where the Brownstone house is now. Matter of fact, it’s still a barn when you consider that Rod the Cow lives there.”

  “You must have gotten along with some of the animals,” Billy said. “After all, you lived right here on the same property with them. Didn’t you have a prize pig that won a ribbon at the county fair or something?”

  “You’ve been reading too many children’s books, Billy Boy. It wasn’t like that at all. Most of the animals would just skedaddle when I showed up. Except for Penelope. She was a real sweetheart. She loved to nuzzle.”

  “Penelope?”

  “A goat. We were buddies. I’d feed her a handful of alfalfa, and she’d nuzzle my neck. The little beard under her chin tickled, but I got used it.

  “So you took care of her?” Billy asked, his mind starting to race with possibilities.

  “Yeah. Fed her. Milked her. She followed me everywhere I went. Whenever folks saw me, they knew Penelope couldn’t be far behind. It was a sad day when they took her away.”

  “What happened?”

  “Her appetite got out of hand. She’d eat anything — laundry off the line, leather shoes, the carrots from the vegetable garden. But when she chowed down on my mother’s best dress and left only a zipper and a pile of neatly stacked buttons, that was the end of Penelope.”

  “They killed her?”

  “Again, my friend, you’ve been reading too many books. They gave her away to a grapefruit farm in the Imperial Valley, where we were told she developed a great taste for citrus. Man, oh man, I was heartbroken when she left. Never even got a chance to say good-bye. One day she was my best friend, the next day she was nowhere to be seen.”

  “Hoove, will you excuse me?” Billy said.

  “What’d you do, burp? I thought I smelled asparagus.”

  “No, I mean excuse me from the room.”

  “Was it something I said?”

  “I just have to look something up on the computer. A homework assignment I just remembered. I’ll be back soon.”

  Billy charged down the hall and into the kitchen. Breeze was sitting at the family computer, which they kept on a little desk in the kitchen nook.

  “I have to get on the computer,” Billy said urgently.

  Breeze ignored him.

  “I mean it, Breeze. This is really important. I’ll just use it for forty-five seconds, then give it right back.”

  “That’s not happening, Billy. I’m right in the middle of something more important.”

  “Oh really? I didn’t know tweeting about your new hair color was that monumental.”

  “That’s because your hair is the color of mud.”

  “Kids, stop this bickering,” Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding said. “Breeze, Billy’s only asking for forty-five seconds. Why don’t you let him get what he needs done, then you’ll have the computer back in a jiffy. Besides, you can use the time to help me set the table.”

  Breeze gave Billy a look that would refreeze a melting iceberg.

  “Thanks a lot, creep,” she whispered as she clicked the screen closed. “Look what you started. Next week, you set the table every night. And clear, too.”

  Billy sat down at the computer and Googled the word goat. A million entries came up,
from a YouTube video of fainting goats to a restaurant in Kalamazoo, Michigan, called Goat to a chart with instructions on how to breed goats. As he scanned the long list, his eye fell on just the thing he was looking for. He couldn’t believe his luck.

  RENT-A-GOAT LOS ANGELES, it said.

  He clicked on it, and the site’s home page came up. It showed a picture of a happy-looking goat with a caption that said, “Why Use a Lawn Mower When You Can Use Me?” Billy read on. The site offered goat rental for the purposes of trimming your lawn or clearing your brush or pulling your weeds. It claimed that goats were an environmentally friendly alternative to garden chemicals. Plus, they were an easier way to get the job done than using human labor. Billy grabbed a sticky note from the desk and jotted down the phone number.

  “Here, you can have your precious computer back,” he said to Breeze. In his hurry to get back to his room to make the call, he forgot to close the screen. When Breeze sat down, she burst out laughing.

  “Goats?” she said. “What are you looking up, your ancestors?”

  “I can’t hear you,” Billy called as he hurried down the hall.

  “Why, do you have alfalfa in your ears?” Breeze shouted back.

  But Billy wasn’t in the mood for bickering with his stepsister anymore. He was a man on a mission.

  He burst into his room and, without even saying hello to the Hoove, grabbed for his phone and dialed the number he had jotted down on the sticky note.

  “Rent-A-Goat,” a man’s voice said. “Smiley speaking.”

  “I’d like to inquire about renting a goat,” Billy said.

  “You tell me what you need it for, I’ll get you the perfect goat,” Smiley said. “We’ve got Charmaine, who is great at keeping your grass trimmed. Grady loves brush and thicket. Clem will eat anything, including poison oak and ivy. He’s got a stomach like a tank. And Beatrice, who, to be perfectly honest, is a good goat, but you got to constantly watch her because she’d just as soon hang out with humans as do her job.”

  “I’ll take Beatrice,” Billy said without a moment of hesitation. “She sounds perfect for what I have in mind. How much would she cost for a weekend?”

  “Well, usually it’s about twenty-five dollars a day, but I can give you a break on Beatrice. She’s a lover, not a worker. Tell you what, you sound like a nice kid. I’ll charge you twenty-five bucks for the whole weekend.”

  “I have to go ask my parents,” Billy said. “But I promise, I’ll call you right back.”

  He hung up the phone and did a little happy dance in his room, pretending to be a head-butting goat.

  “Hoove!” he called out. “I think I got you a goat!”

  The Hoove didn’t answer. Billy wasn’t sure where he was. But it didn’t matter at that moment because Billy was flying high with enthusiasm. He could already visualize the Hoove and Beatrice, nuzzling up a storm. The Higher-Ups would be blown away by his ability to love and nurture and take care of one of nature’s creatures. All he had to do was convince the family that this was a good plan.

  When Billy entered the kitchen, Bennett had just come home from a hard day of excavating plaque off an assortment of molars and was hanging up his white dental jacket on the coatrack.

  “Hello, Bill,” he said. “You’re looking in fine spirits.”

  “That’s because I have a great idea, Bennett.”

  “Watch out, Dad,” Breeze said. “I have a feeling this is going to involve goats.”

  “Actually, she’s right,” Billy said. “We’ve been studying the environment in school, and ways that we can all engage in earth-friendly practices.”

  “I’m so glad to see that you’re being motivated by that unit,” Billy’s mom said as she stirred the mushrooms that were browning on the stove. She was the principal of his school and was very eco-friendly. “I fought to put it in the sixth-grade science program.”

  “And it was a great idea, Mom. What I’m proposing is that we rent a goat — but only for the weekend.”

  “What’d I tell you?” Breeze sighed. “I saw that one coming from miles away.”

  “Turns out goats are an excellent, earth-friendly way to mow your lawn and clear unwanted brush,” Billy explained. “My plan is to bring in a goat and let it tidy up our backyard. Bennett, you wouldn’t have to mow on Sunday. And Mom, a goat could clear that weed patch so you could finally put in the organic vegetable garden you want. All I need from you is twenty-five dollars and I’ll do all the rest.”

  “Goats stink,” Breeze said. “And they make pellets. How are you planning to deal with that, youngster?”

  “I promise I will take care of everything goat-related,” Billy said. “From pellet to smell it.”

  Bennett looked over at Billy’s mom.

  “What do you think, Charlotte? Are you in the mood to host a goat this weekend?”

  “I think it sounds like an excellent family project,” Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding said, nodding approvingly.

  “Wait! Do I get a vote in this?” Breeze whined.

  “Apparently not, but thanks for asking,” Billy answered. Then, turning to his parents, he said, “This is so great, you guys. You won’t regret a minute of it. Just leave everything to me.”

  Billy raced back to his room and called Smiley back.

  “We’re on,” he said. “What’s the earliest Beatrice can be here on Saturday?”

  “She likes to sleep late,” Smiley answered. “But let me see if I can budge the old lazybones by ten. That work for you?”

  “We’ll be ready. And thank you, sir,” Billy said, slamming down the phone with excitement.

  “Ready for what?” It was the Hoove, floating in through the window and catching the very end of Billy’s phone conversation.

  “Where have you been?” Billy asked him. “You missed all the excitement.”

  “I was going crazy all locked up in here,” the Hoove said, “so I tried to go out for a spin, but I couldn’t get farther than the shrubs. That stupid invisible wall wouldn’t let me through.”

  “Hoove,” Billy said with a smile, “I think I finally found your wall buster. And believe it or not, her name is Beatrice.”

  Ten o’clock Saturday could not come soon enough for Billy. By that time, the Hoove had driven him officially crazy, floating from room to room and complaining nonstop that he was bored and had nothing to do. He was like a cooped-up lion prowling around the house, his mood growing worse with each passing day. Billy had tried to interest him in getting involved in a craft project like building a LEGO city or painting a model car, the kind of projects his mother always encouraged him to do when he was home sick. But the Hoove laughed at LEGOs and had no patience for that kind of thing.

  “Maybe engaging in building plastic castles from little blocks is amusing to the likes of you,” he told Billy, “but it definitely does not float my pirate ship, if you get my drift. Hoover Porterhouse the Third was born to be out and about, to strut my stuff in the public arena.”

  “But how, Hoove? You’re invisible,” Billy pointed out.

  “And you’re annoying,” the Hoove snapped.

  Being grounded had not helped his disposition one bit. He was as prickly as a cactus and twice as thorny. Billy hoped that the sight of the goat would rekindle the Hoove’s warm feelings for Penelope and motivate him to take such good care of Beatrice that he’d really impress the Higher-Ups. He spent hours and hours preparing the Hoove so he’d know just what to do. He checked out a book from the library on goat tending and read it to the Hoove every night. They reviewed what kinds of hay goats like to eat, how to use a goat brush to scratch their backs, even how to trim and polish their hooves. But the question with Hoover Porterhouse was not if he knew what to do, but if he was willing to do it. He was one stubborn ghost, that was for sure.

  By nine o’clock on Saturday morning, Billy was up, showered, and dressed with a clean T-shirt on and his hair slicked back with some of his sister’s mousse.

  “May I point out,”
the Hoove said when Billy emerged from the bathroom all scrubbed and ready, “that we are entertaining a goat, and not a young lady?”

  “I want to make a good impression on Beatrice,” Billy said. “And you should, too. She’s going to have to trust you so she’ll let you take care of her for the weekend.”

  “Well, then, excuse me while I put on my tuxedo and white gloves,” the Hoove answered. “I didn’t know goats were so fussy about fashion.”

  “Now remember,” Billy said, ignoring the Hoove’s sarcasm, “you have to be very responsible while Beatrice is here. Close the gate when she arrives so she doesn’t escape. And put down some straw in the garage so she can lie down and relax when she’s finished with work. And always keep her water bucket full.”

  “What am I, a farmhand?”

  “You’re grounded, that’s what you are. And if you want to get ungrounded, this is your chance to strut your stuff, as you would say. So give it all you’ve got.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the Hoove said. Although he sounded bored, Billy felt that he was actually listening to his advice. He was just desperate enough to do what he was told.

  When Smiley’s truck pulled up, it created quite a stir in the neighborhood. It was a red truck with the words RENT-A-GOAT printed in big white letters along the side. The bed of the truck was filled with hay, and behind that, a horse trailer with a pink canopy was attached. Along the side of the canopy it said, “Call Smiley: He’s Sure to Get Your Goat!”

  Billy dashed out the front door with Hoover floating right behind him, but before he could reach the truck, he was met by Rod Brownstone storming over to their front lawn, his binoculars draped around his neck. His little sister Amber, still in her bunny-rabbit pajamas, trailed behind.

  “What’s the big idea?” Rod snarled. “Wild animals aren’t allowed in this neighborhood.”

  “That’s a goat, Brownstone,” Billy said. “It’s not exactly wild.”

  “Oh yeah, well, you’re a goat,” Rod snapped back with his usual quick wit.

  “I’ll handle this,” the Hoove said. He zipped up right next to Rod’s melon-size head and yanked three times on his fleshy earlobe before sticking his finger into his ear and wiggling it around like a mosquito was buzzing around in there. Then he did the same thing on the other ear.