How to Scare the Pants Off Your Pets

by Henry Winkler

  “Eeuuww,” Breeze said to her friend Sophia on the phone. “I think they have some kind of nasal condition.”

  “It’s their alarm signal,” Billy said to her.

  “Well, it alarms me,” said Breeze.

  The Hoove was the most upset of anyone. He stood on the sidelines, calling directions to Billy.

  “Move quietly. You’re scaring them!” he said.

  “Grady’s trying to protect Beatrice!” he added.

  “Offer them some alfalfa!” he suggested. “Don’t touch their foreheads. They don’t like that.”

  It was a disaster. The two frightened goats tore up the yard, knocking over ceramic flowerpots, jostling all the birds out of the bird feeder, and even managing to ruin Bennett’s hairpiece. And worst of all, they totally demolished Mrs. Brownstone’s prizewinning hydrangeas. All the parents were upset. The three eight-year-olds were out of control. Breeze was grossed out. Billy was frustrated beyond words. And the Hoove was worried sick about Beatrice and Grady.

  By the time the police car pulled up to the Brownstone house, its siren blaring, and two police officers stormed into the backyard, it just couldn’t have gotten any worse.

  “Yay! Police officers!” Teddy yelled.

  “Just like in the movies!” Jack screamed, high-fiving Amber. “Hanging out at your house is so fun!”

  “Where’s the emergency?” Officer Redding asked, urgently looking around to survey the scene while his partner, Officer Otis, inspected the porch.

  “Over there!” Rod called out from his position safely inside the back door. “Those goats have gone wild!”

  Beatrice was pawing at the avocado tree, trying to climb up its sloping trunk. Grady had bolted over to the Hoove and was busy ripping some climbing ivy off the wall of the toolshed. Every time Grady bleated, the Hoove would stroke his back and say, “I’m with you, Big Guy. No reason to panic.”

  “Goats?” Officer Redding said. “I thought you reported a house break-in.”

  “Exactly,” Rod answered. “Those two nasty goats broke into our backyard and violated our property.”

  “Looks like we have a goat emergency on our hands.” Officer Otis laughed.

  “Who’s responsible for these animals?” Officer Redding asked, obviously not as amused as his partner was.

  “I am,” Billy said, stepping forward. “I rented them to clean up our backyard. Goats are very earth friendly, you know.”

  “Well, you can’t have your animals ransacking someone else’s backyard,” Officer Redding answered. “Earth friendly or not.”

  “They ate my hydrangeas,” Mrs. Brownstone chimed in.

  “They’re a menace to society,” Rod added. “You should arrest them right now. I’d come out there and make a citizen’s arrest myself, but I’m boiling my shoes. They’ve been contaminated by goat saliva.”

  “Scaredy-cat!” the three little kids screamed all at once, which prompted Mrs. Brownstone to round them up and send them into the house to watch cartoons.

  “We don’t arrest animals,” Officer Redding said. “We contain them until the proper authorities can be called.”

  As the two officers edged over to the goats, Bennett ran into the house to call Rent-A-Goat. He hoped that if he could get Smiley there soon, the goats could be taken home safely without any authorities having to be called.

  “You collar the fat goat,” Officer Redding said to his partner. “I’ll nab the brown-and-white one.”

  Officer Otis nodded, then snapped a branch off a shrub and approached Beatrice.

  “Here you go, kiddo,” she said. “You look like you have a hearty appetite.”

  Beatrice sensed that this was not as friendly a gesture as it seemed, and looking directly at Officer Otis, let out a loud, panicky bleat. This in turn aroused Grady’s suspicions, and he let loose a series of alarmed sneezes. Officer Redding reached out to grab him, but the Hoove threw himself around Grady’s neck and pulled him backward. Officer Redding pulled harder and so did the Hoove. “Something’s yanking on that goat,” Officer Redding said, looking right at the Hoove. “And it smells like rotten oranges.”

  “He sees you!” Billy called out to the Hoove. “Let go!”

  “He can’t see me,” the Hoove answered. “And I’m not letting go. Trust me, this guy does not have Grady’s best interests at heart.”

  Officer Redding turned to Billy. “Who you talking to, kid?”

  “Um … no one,” Billy answered, unable to think of a clever explanation.

  “That little creep does that all the time,” Rod shouted. “I watch him with my binoculars, and he’s always talking to someone who isn’t there. Other strange things happen, too. Like clocks flying across his room and stuff. I think you should investigate him once you get that stupid goat locked up.”

  Officer Redding nodded. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I sense something odd around here.”

  “Hey, who you calling odd?” the Hoove shouted. He let go of Grady and zoomed over to Officer Redding, grabbing onto his pants by the belt and tugging upward, giving him a giant wedgie. The policeman wheeled around and assumed a martial arts position, ready to pounce on whoever had the nerve to wedgie him. But he saw no one.

  “That’s right,” the Hoove howled. “You’re looking at me. I did it. Next time you think about calling me odd, remember that I am King of the Wedgie.”

  “That’s enough, Hoover,” Billy said, unable to contain his words.

  “Who’s Hoover?” Officer Otis asked Billy. She had managed to grab hold of Beatrice, who was trying to escape her grasp.

  “Oh, that’s my son’s nickname,” Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding said. “The boys on the baseball team call him Hoover the Mover. Isn’t that so wonderfully boyish?”

  Beatrice was struggling to escape, turning her head from side to side to loosen Officer Otis’s hold on her horns. She let out a stream of unhappy bleats. It made the Hoove crazy to see that, and unable to restrain himself, he let go of Officer Redding’s trousers and dove directly at Officer Otis’s shoes. In a single motion, he untied both her shoelaces, and then tied them back together in a single knot. When she tried to take a step, she fell over onto the grass and got caught in the hydrangea plant. While Officer Redding and Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding rushed to her side to help her up, Billy got right up in the Hoove’s face.

  “Go to your room,” he whispered. “You’re making this worse. I’ll handle it.”

  “Promise me you’ll protect Grady and Beatrice,” the Hoove said.

  “Okay. Just disappear right now or they’re going to find you out.”

  “How are they going to do that? I’m invisible.”

  “They’re police officers, Hoove. They have ways. Go! Now!”

  Hoover let go of Grady and gave Beatrice a little scratch on the back, then zoomed off across the yard. And with the Hoove gone, Billy was able to give his undivided attention to the task of helping the police officers calm the goats. He wanted to lure them with food, so he told Breeze to go in the kitchen and bring him whatever was in the vegetable drawer. She returned with six carrots, half a head of lettuce, and a bunch of green onions.

  “I don’t want the onions,” he told her. “It might give them gas.”

  “What is it with you and gas?” Breeze said. “Is that the only thing you can talk about?”

  The goats weren’t afraid of Billy, and when he held a few carrots out to them, they came over to him and ate right out of his hand. His mother got some twine from the garage, and officers Redding and Otis tied two slipknots and slipped a makeshift leash over each of the goats’ heads. Within ten minutes, the situation was under control. Grady and Beatrice were happily eating their vegetables, Mrs. Brownstone was picking up the remains of her hydrangea bush, and Rod was inside dictating a report to Officer Redding while Officer Otis took a report from Mrs. Broccoli-Fielding.

  “We’re going to have to take the goats into custody,” she said. “They’ve created a public disturbance.”
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  “What will you do with them?” Billy asked.

  “Take them to animal rescue.”

  Billy remembered his promise to the Hoove.

  “You can’t do that,” he said. “Just give us a few minutes. Please. I’m begging you.”

  Billy shoved the carrots and lettuce into Breeze’s hands.

  “Here, you feed them,” he said. “I have to go in the house.”

  “Eeuuww, these vegetables have goat saliva on them,” Breeze said, immediately dropping them in a pile at her feet. But that was okay with Grady and Beatrice. They weren’t fussy.

  “Bennett!” Billy called as he ran in the back door. “Did you reach Smiley?”

  “He’s on his way,” Bennett said.

  Without a word, Billy turned on his heel and sped out of the house, arriving breathless just as Officer Otis was putting her ballpoint pen in her pocket and his mom was getting up to return to the house.

  “Call off animal rescue,” he panted. “The goat’s owner is going to arrive any minute now.”

  “I can’t authorize that on my own,” Officer Otis said. “I’ll have to check with my partner.”

  They stood there for a minute waiting for Officer Redding to join them. He was standing at the back door of the Brownstone house, finishing up a conversation with Rod. When he came over to join them, Officer Otis told him about Smiley coming to claim the goats.

  “That works out pretty well,” Officer Redding said, turning to Billy, “because I actually have a few questions to ask this young man here. According to Deputy Brownstone …”

  “Deputy?” Billy said. “Since when is Rod Brownstone a deputy?”

  “Well, technically he isn’t, but he asked that I call him that and I don’t see any reason not to. He’s got a keen sense of law enforcement, that one does.”

  “Yeah, too keen if you ask me,” Billy said.

  “Anyway, Deputy Brownstone has reported a series of unexplained events going on at your house. Flying clocks. Floating objects. Lights going on and off when no one is home. Unexplained bolts of lightning. Do you know anything about that?”

  Billy was glad that his mother had already reached the back door, so she couldn’t hear this conversation. She could always tell when he was lying.

  “No, sir,” Billy said. “Everything here is totally normal.”

  “So you think Deputy Brownstone is making this up?”

  “I can’t say, sir. All I know about him is that he’s a big snoop and is afraid of lizards.”

  “Well, let’s just say that I’m going to be keeping an eye on things here,” the policeman said. “Deputy Brownstone seems like a credible source to me.”

  “What does that mean?” Billy asked. Actually, he had a pretty good idea what it meant, but he was stalling for time so Smiley could arrive.

  “It means that he doesn’t seem like a liar to me. And since my job is to protect the citizens of our community from everything — seen or unseen — I’m going to be patrolling this street very carefully from now on.”

  Billy gulped. Poor Hoover. First he was grounded by the Higher-Up authorities. Now he was being stalked by the Lower-Down authorities.

  Officer Redding called animal rescue, who said they’d have a truck out there in half an hour. Luckily, Smiley’s truck pulled up just fifteen minutes later and he convinced the officers to let him take custody of the goats. He promised that he would watch them carefully and see that they didn’t cause any more disturbances. Billy apologized to him and tried to explain what had happened. But Smiley didn’t seem too upset. He just loaded Grady and Beatrice into the car and shook Billy’s hand with a firm squeeze.

  “Goats,” he said, climbing into the cab of his truck. “You gotta love ’em.”

  When Billy went back into the house, his parents wanted to talk over what had happened, but Billy was in no mood. He was desperate to make sure the Hoove was okay and to warn him about the police patrol. They were going to have to make some new rules. So he told his parents that he had to take a shower before he could talk, because he was covered in goat-beard hair and it was making him itch. No parent could say no to that.

  Billy went to his room and found the Hoove pacing back and forth nervously.

  “Hoove, we have to talk about those police officers,” he began.

  “How are Grady and Beatrice?” the Hoove interrupted. “They didn’t get hurt, did they? Poor kids, they were so scared.”

  “They’re fine,” Billy reassured him. “I told you I’d protect them, and I did.”

  “You’re a champ, Billy. So, can I go see them now?” The Hoove flipped on his jaunty newsboy cap and floated quickly over to the door.

  “No, Hoove. You can’t see them. They’re gone.”

  The Hoove came to a sudden stop and turned to face Billy. He looked puzzled.

  “What do you mean, they’re gone? I thought we had them for the whole weekend.”

  “The police were going to send them to animal rescue, so we called Smiley, and he came right away and picked them up.”

  “And you didn’t come tell me they were leaving? You didn’t even give me a chance to say good-bye?”

  “I’m sorry, Hoove. It just happened so fast and …”

  “What is it with me?” the Hoove said. “I just can’t catch a break. First they took Penelope from me. And now this. I cared about those goats, Billy Boy. They liked me. I mean, really liked me. They didn’t care if I was a ghost or a real boy. It didn’t matter one bit to them. We were just friends.”

  “Hoove, I know you feel bad.”

  “Do you? Do you know how it feels to be all cooped up for ninety-nine years? To be constantly punished for just being you, for wanting to have a little fun? Do you know what it’s like to lose every friend you’ve got?”

  “I’m your friend, Hoove. You haven’t lost me.”

  “Some friend. You didn’t even tell me the goats were going. Just snatched them out from under me.”

  “But I didn’t realize …”

  “Yeah, well you just violated the Hoove’s Rule Number Five Hundred and Thirteen, which I happen to have just made up right here on the spot. Friends gotta realize important stuff about each other.”

  Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and Breeze barged in without waiting to be invited, as usual.

  “Who are you talking to?” she asked.

  “Myself,” Billy answered, too tired to make up a story.

  “That’s so wrong in every way,” Breeze sighed. “Anyway, weird one, the parental units want to talk to you in the kitchen. Like immediately. They sent me to find you. So now that I’ve found you, I’ll be leaving. Ta-ta. Oh, by the way, there’s goat saliva on your shirt.”

  As soon as she was gone, Billy turned to continue his conversation with the Hoove, but he had disappeared. Billy went to the closet and tried to open it, but it was locked from the inside.

  “Open up, Hoove,” he said, pounding on the door. “Come on. We can play Monopoly. Or Nerf golf. Anything you want.”

  Billy knocked until his knuckles were bright red, but there was no answer. The Hoove was inside, hurt and angry, and he wasn’t coming out. Not for Monopoly. Not for Nerf golf. Not for Billy.

  Hoover Porterhouse III was alone in the closet, and he wasn’t coming out for anyone.

  At last, Billy gave up and walked reluctantly to the kitchen. He dreaded the lecture he was sure to get from his mom and Bennett. It wasn’t his fault that the goat situation had gotten so out of control, but he had a bad feeling he was going to get punished anyway. If they made him pay for the damage done to the Brownstones’ backyard, he’d have no allowance until he was thirty-seven years old.

  He found his parents huddled near the back door. Bennett was holding a cardboard box and his mom was looking at something inside. They didn’t even glance up when he walked in, so he decided to launch into his own defense before they had a chance to accuse him.

  “Hey, guys, I’m sorry about the goat incident. But I
think we can all agree that I’m not actually responsible for what happened out there,” he said.

  “We’re going to have to discuss a suitable consequence for your irresponsible behavior,” his mom said.

  Billy tried to read his mom’s expression as she turned to him. Was this the face of an angry woman who was about to take away his allowance forever? Billy held his breath, waiting to hear what his punishment was going to be. But oddly enough, she changed the subject.

  “Come see what we’ve found” was all she said.

  Billy walked over and looked in the box. Inside was the gray-and-white cat with a pink nose and long white whiskers, the same one he had seen hiding in the hedges the day that Berko escaped. Since then, Billy had noticed that cat wandering around the neighborhood, licking itself on the branch of a tree or poking around for tuna fish cans on trash pickup day. No one knew who it belonged to, so everyone on the block just assumed it had been orphaned or left behind by a family who moved away. People were definitely feeding it regularly because it was plenty fat, especially around the middle.

  “What’s that cat doing here?” he asked.

  “When the goats were on their rampage, she must have gotten very frightened,” Bennett answered. “We found her hiding under the patio table on our porch, shaking like a leaf.”

  “Poor, sweet thing,” Billy’s mom added. “She looks so nervous. I’m sure she’s never seen goats before.”

  “Which leads us to the discussion of consequences,” Bennett said. “We need to discuss the goat fiasco.”

  Billy took a deep breath and prepared to hear his punishment.

  “We’re not angry with you, Bill,” Bennett went on. “But we do feel that you need to demonstrate more responsibility toward the animal kingdom. You didn’t anticipate the problems those goats could face, and as a result, you put those two fine animals at risk.”

  Billy’s mom nodded, getting that principal look on her face — the one that says, “I understand what you’re going through, but someone has to be the adult here and that someone is me.”

  “Bennett and I have what we believe is a great idea. We think you should look after this cat until she feels better,” she said. “That would show us that you’ve come to understand how much we humans need to take care of our animals, whether they be goats or scared little cats.”