Ms. Lacey turns to glare at me. “You put bags of dog scat in trees. Here’s some extras for you.” She piles more flyers on the stack and pushes them toward us.
“That wasn’t us,” Renée says. “It was Red, who owns the Pomeranian.”
“At Noble Dog Walking, we pick up after other dog owners: ‘It’s the responsible thing to do.’” I quote Dad at the end. He also says it’s good for business, keeping parks and paths clean of dog doo. Otherwise people will complain and no one will be able to walk animals anywhere. I take the flyers to be polite.
“So,” Ms. Lacey says, “you’re in to buy licences for these two?” She points at the dogs. Pong leaps hopefully for an imagined treat between her fingers.
“No. We’re here because we want to borrow a snake trap,” Renée answers.
Ms. Lacey grins. “A what?”
“You know, something where you lure snakes in with food and —”
She cuts me off. “We don’t have anything like that.”
“What about your squirrel trap?” Renée asks. “That worked really well for us last fall when one came down our chimney.”
“Well, yes, but that was for squirrels,” she answers.
Captain Obvious. “Can’t we use it for a snake?” I ask.
“It wouldn’t work. For one, the trap door shutting might cut the snake in two as it enters.”
Mistake number seven clearly goes to Renée whose bright idea it was for us to walk for an extra hour to the Burlington Animal Shelter because for sure they would have a snake trap.
But then she makes it worse by giving Janet Lacey attitude.
“Okay. Maybe you don’t have a snake trap. But isn’t it your job to catch animals that escape from owners? Especially dangerous snaky-type animals?”
DAY ONE, MISTAKE EIGHT
When Janet Lacey folds her arms across her chest, I swear I can see the muscles ripple right through her shirt. She could probably win an arm wrestle with Attila. She leans heavily on the counter, looking Renée straight in the eye, lifting a heavy eyebrow. “Do you know the location of an exotic snake? If so, we will certainly catch it for you.”
“No, that’s the problem.” Renée throws up her hands in frustration. “We don’t know where he is!”
I take a breath and use my calmest voice. “It’s probably loose somewhere in the owner’s house.”
Ms. Lacey nods. “Well, then, you definitely need a trap.”
Renée turns around and makes a silent scream face that only I can see.
My calm voice goes one pitch higher. “But if you don’t have one, who does?”
“Just make one. Here, let me show you. I think we have a pop bottle in the back.” She gets up and goes into the back office. We hear some rattling and the dogs get restless. Cages of moving, smelly furry things line all the walls, after all. Ping pulls me to the ferret cage and stands on his hinds, whimpering and wagging at the little creature.
Then Ms. Lacey returns with an oversized plastic bottle. “We used to trap snakes all the time as kids.”
I yank Ping back over to the counter. “Sit!”
He drops his haunches.
“So you want to cut this top part off, just below the neck of the bottle, right where it’s wide. Like so.” Ms. Lacey takes a large knife and digs the crooked edges of the blade into the plastic. Slowly, she saws through the plastic.
“Careful!” I can’t help myself.
Ms. Lacey stops a moment to smile at me. “I’m a pro,” she says, then continues.
Renée watches her hands closely. “Nice ring,” she says.
“Thanks.”
“Did you just get engaged?” There’s Renée with those questions again. The ring does look extra sparkly and new on her finger.
“I did …” Ms. Lacey keeps sawing.
But what amazes me is that adults always answer Renée and feed her even more information. It’s as though because she’s smart, they feel they want to help her understand the world better.
“… to myself.” Ms. Lacey grins up at us. “Thought I would buy a nice ring to celebrate.”
“Why?” Renée asks.
“Got tired of waiting for the right guy. You know?” The bottle finally separates into two pieces and she drops the knife on the counter. “So I’m going to buy a house. Maybe have a baby. All by myself. Because I can.” She makes two fists and bends her arms at the elbow, as if to show off her muscles. “Huuah!” she grunts.
Then she picks up the top piece of the bottle and sits it upside down on the bottom piece so that the neck becomes the end of a funnel. “See how?” She lifts the top again. “Pile some earth on the bottom. Then put your live mouse or rat inside. Top back on, like so. Duct-tape the edges to keep it on nice and snug.”
“Live mouse?” Renée repeats, wincing.
“Are you actually going to throw yourself a wedding?” I blurt. I can’t believe I asked that.
Ms. Lacey looks at me. “Of course. The presents will help with the house.” Then she turns to Renée. “Yes, a live mouse. The snake comes in, swallows it, and gets too fat to fit back through the opening.”
Renée grips the counter. Her voice squeaks a little. “But why can’t it be a dead mouse?” she asks.
“Are you going to wear a white dress and everything?” Clearly, I’ve spent too much time with Renée.
Ms. Lacey grins again. “The works. I deserve the best.” She spreads her fingers as if to admire her own ring.
“We have plenty of dead mice.” Renée leans forward on her hands. A cat ready to pounce. “Why can’t we use those?”
“They like their prey fresh. And movement attracts the snake. Punch a lot of little holes around the bottle, too, so the smell gets out.”
“And the mouse can breathe!” Renée insists.
“Yeah, and that, too.” She passes me the large bottle.
“Thanks. So I guess we need to trap a mouse first,” I grumble. “Can we use the squirrel trap for that?”
Ms. Lacey cups a hand to her ear: “Did I hear someone say they want to adopt Mickey?” Then she winks. “Do you promise to give him a good home?” she asks us. “Here, give me that.” She takes back the bottle and stabs it a few times. “Come with me.”
Together we walk over to a little cage up against the other wall.
This one gets Pong’s interest. He sits down tall in front of it. Ping yaps with excitement.
“Careful, don’t let the dogs near there.” Ms. Lacey points to a big white splotch on the wall. “Just repaired the drywall. Had a little trouble with the sheep last week.”
“Sheep?” Renée and I repeat at the same time.
“Someone found him wandering. You’d think those things were docile. Man, you’d be wrong.”
Nobody’s anywhere near the drywall, anyway. The dogs behave pretty well considering all the interesting smells and sounds surrounding us.
Pong lifts his ears and tilts his head as Ms. Lacey dabs her thumb into a jar of peanut butter on the shelf below. Then she reaches into the cage. After a moment, a small brown mouse shakes himself loose of the cedar chips and crawls up Ms. Lacey’s fingers. “He’s been here since before me.” She scoops him up, dumps him in the bottle, and puts the top back on. “Old timer. And they only live two or three years, max.” We return to the front counter where Ms. Lacey places the bottle in full view. She tapes the lid on and heads for the back.
Mickey stands up with his small pink hands planted against the plastic wall. His nose twitches like crazy and his glossy eyes ask questions. His satellite ears seem to listen to us for answers.
“Awww. He’s so cute,” Renée says.
Ms. Lacey returns with a zip-lock bag of tiny pellets. “Mouse chow.” She plunks it down beside the bottle.
Mickey eyeballs the bag, nose still twitching.
&n
bsp; Ms. Lacey drops a few pellets down the hole and Mickey grabs one right away. “He’s an active little guy. Your python should find him irresistible.”
“Is there any way we can get him back out?” Renée asks. “I mean, once the snake swallows him, can we make it cough Mickey back up?”
“Nah. You’d have to slice the snake open. And that would just be cruel.”
Renée turns quiet. This is a mistake, I know it. She’s already too attached to Mickey. We’re never going to catch King this way.
“That will be ten dollars,” Ms. Lacey says.
Mistake eight, I sigh. Reaching into my pants pocket, I fish for some coin. “I only have five.” Maybe I can still stop this from happening.
“Good enough.” Ms. Lacey scoops the change. “Sign here.” She passes me a form.
I borrow her pen.
“Usually, we ask your parents to sign since you’re underage. But I’ll sign for you.” I watch her diamond flash as she scrawls something. She smiles up at me.
She’s going to marry herself, wow. “Thanks.” In a kind of a trance, I take the bottle and walk to the door, Pong close at my heels, Ping barking behind me.
“Wait!”
We turn back.
“You forgot your flyers!” She holds out the stack. “Our cats need homes. After this week, we have to make some hard decisions.”
“You don’t mean you’ll put them down, do you?” I ask.
Her smile droops. “We have to find homes!” she repeats, and waves the flyers.
Renée dashes to the counter and grabs them. We stuff them all in our pockets.
“Our felines thank you.” Ms. Lacey waves and calls. “Bye Mickey. I’ll miss you.”
What kind of person marries herself?
DAY ONE, MISTAKE NINE
On the way back, Renée passes me the bottle with Mickey in it. “Here, you carry him.”
Makes sense since I walk the easier, quieter dog. Tucked under my arm, the mouse won’t get bumped around. For once, Renée doesn’t have much to say.
Trying to get her out of her mood, I chuckle. “Imagine buying yourself an engagement ring.”
“Nobody else will ever buy her one.” She doesn’t look at me, just keeps marching. “That woman has no heart.”
“She likes cats.”
“She doesn’t like cats. If people don’t adopt them on Monday, she’s going to put them all down!”
“She didn’t exactly say that. Anyhow, she likes snakes.”
“Like Medusa. Snakes grow on her head.”
“Good one.” But Renée still isn’t smiling, and even Ping has trouble keeping up with her.
“That’s it.” Renée punches her hand in the air. “We have to get people to adopt every last one of those cats.”
“For sure. We’ll give out those flyers. Talk it up.”
Ping’s tongue hangs out. Pong’s panting hard.
“Why don’t we go down by the creek and sit for a while?” I suggest. “The dogs look exhausted.”
She sighs. “Fine.”
“Fine,” is not “Sure!” or “Great!” but the dogs and I do need a rest and there’s a small park area around the creek, which will be perfect.
The red and gold leaves of the trees along the sidewalk hide the little gully. But I know where to find the set of stairs that leads down to the creek. I hesitate to take Pong down. The metal grating on each step looks sharp and pokey. “Not sure what that’s like on paw pads,” I tell Renée. “Let’s just go down the hill.”
I begin to slide, and Pong pulls me. Finally, I end up on my butt, keeping Mickey’s bottle close to my chest till I reach the bottom.
A cement pipe, large enough for a Smart car to pass through, carries the water underneath the street, then over a brick ledge and down into the creek, mini-waterfall style. The water bubbles and gurgles around some rocks, a few of which have words written on them. I’m tired and just slump down on a large flat rock, placing Mickey in his bottle beside me. I loosen my grip on Pong’s leash, and he sniffs among the bushes surrounding the water.
Ping, as usual, acts crazy, leading Renée around the stones, snuffling into the brush till he finds the perfect spot and begins to dig, throwing dirt up behind him.
“Hey, Attila,” Renée suddenly calls. “What are you doing over there!”
Her brother struts out of the cement pipe, dipping his head to clear it. His mohawk stands about a foot up, though, so it brushes the ceiling. He’s wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt, which he’s pushed up, and it’s not all that warm. His arm muscles strain against the sleeves. In his hand, he grips a spray-paint can. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
I stand up again, and Pong and I stroll over to have a look. Inside the pipe is a painting of a three-headed serpent, each head with a red tongue flicking out. The body is a vibrant green with spots that are a sunset gold. My mouth drops open. “That’s amazing. So lifelike.”
“It’s a mythical creature,” Renée grumbles. “There aren’t any live ones.”
“Yes, that’s true. But each head looks real …” His serpent actually looks like a ball python, ten times as big, maybe, with triple the number of heads, but otherwise, exactly the same spots and colours. “Say, Attila, do you use real models for your work?”
“Nah! Sometimes something real inspires me. You know, something catches my eye. I may use a photo. But no models.”
“Why do you always have to do this?” Renée demands, throwing her arms up toward the pipe. “You’re going to get in trouble again. Mom and Dad will fight …”
Attila frowns. “I can’t resist the large surface.” He throws his arms up, too, almost in the same way as Renée. Family thing, I guess. “I have things inside me that are too big for a little square or rectangle. They must come out on something as big as the idea itself.”
“But it’s against the law!” she says.
“Nobody will even see. Look at those rocks. People write messages on them all the time. That’s graffiti, too.”
Pong and I stroll closer to them. Flat and softball-sized, they aren’t as big a canvas as Attila’s pipes and bridges. I need a job, the message on one reads. Not that artistic. On another, two rocks over, it reads, Harry loves Salma. Those words have a heart around them. Another reads, Blue Jays Rule, even though they didn’t even make the series this year. Another one stops me, it’s so sad: I can’t marry you.
Renée points out another one with her foot. “Hey, this one sounds good!”
10:15, Saturday, Oct 20. Freedom!
“Wow, precise,” I say.
“We were in the park walking around, then,” Renée answers, sounding more like herself again. “Saturdays always mean freedom. Even to adults.”
“Here, why don’t you guys try?” Attila holds out two black markers.
I grab one. Renée resists for a few moments, but he pushes it at her. “You must have something you want to get out from inside you.”
I kneel down and the dogs gather around to lick my face. I pat them, scrub at their heads, loving the way they nudge me for more. Renée stares at Mickey.
Finally, I duck away from the dogs for a moment, find a potato-sized rock, and write in bold black letters, Noble Dog Walking forever!
I remember a time when there was no Noble Dog Walking service and Dad and Mom worked around the clock away from home, Dad in air traffic control. I hated it; I was scared all the time. I don’t ever want to go back to that. But writing it in bold black letters makes me feel as though I’ve put a powerful wish out into the universe. I can see how painting big, huge things on bridges and water towers is a rush for Attila.
Renée frowns, chooses a slightly bigger stone, and then writes: I want to keep Mickey.
“Who’s Mickey?” Attila asks.
“This mouse,” she answers.
“Besides which,” I add, “we need Mickey to catch our missing snake.”
“Really? Stephen Noble, if you think you’re going to take this cute little mouse to feed some big ugly snake, then you are sadly mistaken.”
So number nine is a sad mistake.
“All we need is movement and smell to lure King into our trap, right?”
I nod.
“Well, then, we can use one of those frozen mice as a lure. We just need to be a little creative.”
DAY ONE, MISTAKE TEN
We return Attila’s markers and set off again for the Bennetts by a slightly different route. Good for developing the dogs’ intelligence, and there are lots of Halloween decorations the way we’re walking this time. Huge shaggy spiders hang from cotton spiderwebs on hedges and trees. Skeletons dance from porch lights. A few witches seem to have flown into garage doors and flattened themselves.
Pong strains to reach a haystack with a pumpkin-head scarecrow sitting on it. I step forward to grab him before he sprays it, and a voice groans, “Get off my grave!”
I jump.
Renée giggles and snorts.
I notice a waxy pair of hands reaching from the grass and edge back.
“If you think that’s good, you should see Reuven’s Frankenstein. When you walk up his path, he sticks out his arms and moans.”
“His dad collects bottles on recycling day. Didn’t think his family could afford high-tech decorations.”
“They found the monster in the trash. Reuven fixed it up,” Renée answers.
“Whoa, he’s such a genius making stuff. Wonder if he’d partner with us next science fair,” I say. He left his last project in his backpack in the computer lab. Because a bomb threat was sent to the school, a police robot came, mistook it for that bomb, and blew it up.
We cross the street to the Bennetts’ house and the dogs slow down, knowing what’s coming. I unlock the door, open it, and Renée has to drag Ping in. “C’mon, you’ve had a two-hour walk!”
The Snake Mistake Mystery Page 4