by Joan Carris
With extreme care, hating every step, he climbed the pile of wood stacked beside the grill. Pigs are not meant to climb, he thought. We hate climbing. Do pigs do tricks on balance beams? Do we ever ride bicycles? Of course not. All four hooves belong on the ground.
At the top of the stacked wood, he poked his head into the grill. Ashes, hunks of old charcoal, bits of wood, all the normal stuff. He stuck his head in farther, until his snout smarted with pain. Underneath the stone chimney was something bulky.
Ernest inched forward until he got the thing in his teeth. It tasted of wood ashes, charcoal, and dirt. It smelled of smoke, the puppy, and milky formula.
I did it! he exulted. He raised his head joyfully, the blanket gripped in his teeth. As the logs gave way and tumbled to the ground, Ernest tumbled along with them. But he never let go of the red blanket.
When the logs stopped rolling, Ernest picked himself up, gave the small blanket a few good shakes, and headed for the house. He was tucking the blanket into the basket when Grampa came into the kitchen.
Grampa saw the blanket right away. “Look what our Ernest has found!”
Gabby flew in behind him, echoing, “‘Look what our Ernest has found!’”
Ernest sat by the basket and felt proud. Grampa set the pup in its basket, and the tiny dog sniffed his blanket. He sat down, eyes staring ahead.
Jumping to his hooves, Ernest snouted the blanket into place around the puppy. “You just nap now,” he told him. “This is your very own basket, you know. We’re your family and this is your home.”
“Ernest, you’re the best pig that ever was!” Grampa said. “I wish I’d been there when you found that blanket. And see how much good it did for our little laddie. Look how bright his eyes are getting!”
Well, no, Ernest thought. His eyes aren’t bright at all, if you want the truth. But he knew Grampa didn’t want truth. Grampa wanted hope.
Gabby leaned over the table edge and gazed down at the puppy. She gave Ernest a doleful look and waggled her beak back and forth.
Grampa kept right on saying, “What a pig!” and thumping Ernest on the back. Ernest went right on feeling proud. Such a nice feeling.
After a bit Grampa said, “Now, if only we could find Milly.”
AFTER LUNCH THAT DAY, Grampa spoke on the phone with AnnaLee. “We’re okay,” he assured her. “The puppy’s eyes are open and —”
He grew quiet, listening. “Thank you. I’d love to keep him, of course, but he’s taking just enough formula to hang on, and no more. It’s called ‘failure to thrive,’ and after nine days, well . . .” Grampa’s voice dwindled.
Failure to thrive? Ernest didn’t like the sound of that.
From her curtain rod, Gabby looked down at the pup. “Wee laddie, wee laddie,” she said, this time in a friendlier tone.
Ernest moved so that he sat next to Grampa, touching.
After a short conversation with AnnaLee, Grampa hung up the phone. When he left for the office, Gabby rode on his shoulder, but Ernest went to the aviary — known as Bender’s Bird Camp.
“Hello there!” Ernest called, his snout against the wire enclosure.
“Hello there!” repeated a green parrot from a nearby crab apple.
Ernest said, “I hope you can help out. Grampa’s having a bad time, and he needs to find someone. It’s a cat —”
“And you came here?”
A yellow and turquoise parakeet fluttered to a branch below the parrot. “You’re looking for Grampa’s cat, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes! Have you seen her?”
“No, but please hurry up and find her! Grampa keeps calling, ‘Here, Milly! Here, kitty, kitty!’ It’s making all our feathers fall out! The white cockatiel, Lily, may never come out of her house again.”
“Oh, stuff it, Beverly,” snapped the green parrot. To Ernest he said, “We haven’t seen the cat, but if we do, I’ll sing out. For Grampa’s sake.”
Ernest thanked him and got to his hooves. He heard the birds arguing as he went away and feared he had just wasted his time.
Pastures next, he decided. I’ll do the llamas first, and get them over with. As soon as Ernest squirmed under the pasture fence, the llama leader galloped over. From his great height Rufus glared down. “What are you doing here? Where’s Grampa?”
“Oh, he’s working,” Ernest said, trying to sound calm.
“You don’t say.” Rufus spat a stinking wad of green gunk just to the right of Ernest’s head. Ernest backed up nervously. Llamas spit often, and for various reasons, yet he suspected they did it out of sheer cussedness. Of course, Rufus was not his favorite llama.
Do I even have a favorite llama? he wondered.
“Yo! Little pig,” began Rufus.
“Excuse me!” Ernest said coldly. “I’m here because Grampa’s cat, Milly, is missing, so he is very, very sad. I know you wouldn’t want him to be sad. We need you to watch for Milly. Pass the word along if you see her, please.”
The other llamas gave a few casual spits to one side and another. “We got the message,” said one young llama. He zinged a revolting wad just past Ernest on the left.
That’s it. I’m out of here, Ernest decided. He squeezed under the fence and called back over his shoulder. “Grampa will be very grateful!”
Ernest was more comfortable around cows. Even so, seeing them calmly grazing in the far pasture drove him wild.
“Don’t just stand there and eat!” he cried. “This place is huge! We need you all to hunt for Milly!”
Lolita, Grampa’s prize Jersey, shifted the grass in her mouth. “We heard she was missing. But listen to me, little pig. Eating is what cows do. We eat. We rest. We chew our cuds. We eat some more. Then we give milk. That’s how it works.”
“But this is an emergency! In an emergency, folks do what’s needed!”
Lolita asked the other cows. Opal, Pearl, and Ruby all shook their heads. Lolita turned to Ernest. “That’s it. Cows don’t do emergencies.”
Ernest made himself sound as pathetic as possible. “Not even for Grampa? For Grampa, who is suffering?”
“Oh. You didn’t say that before.” Lolita looked at the cows.
Opal said, “I’ll take the south quarter and the long fence.” She ambled off in a southerly direction.
Pearl said, “I’ll do the north and that grove of trees.”
Ruby said she would inspect the east side of the pasture and the creek that ran through it. Lolita promised to patrol the west. “I’ll check out those little bushes, and I’ll tell Beauty to keep watch, too. She’ll be happy to help.”
“And you’ll tell the goats?” Ernest suggested gently. “Grampa will be so very grateful.”
Ernest was busy with chores the rest of the day, so that all he could do was worry. Night seemed extra long, but he used it for thinking.
Next morning, over in the office, he waited until Grampa left. Then he said to Gabby, “We have to make a phone call.”
“The phone is put away now. In here.” She rapped her beak on the offending drawer.
Ernest snouted the drawer open, and Gabby grabbed the receiver with one expert claw.
“Call Information,” he told her. “Ask for the Animal Rescue League, and say that this is an emergency.”
Happily, Gabby-Grampa did just that. “Oh, please help me,” she began, sounding like Grampa, only very pitiful. “I’m Adam Bender, the famous veterinarian at the Bed and Biscuit, my animal boarding facility in the country, where every animal’s needs are carefully —”
“Quit advertising!” Ernest said in a low, furious tone. “Describe Milly!”
“Yes . . . you see,” Gabby-Grampa went on, “my beloved pussycat, Milly, is missing. She’s just under a year old and has the cuddliest personality —”
“Tell them what she looks like!” squealed Ernest.
Gabby clacked her beak at Ernest, but complied. “Milly is the color of orange marmalade, with a striped tail. She has VERY SHARP white teeth — whit
e tip on the tail — big green eyes — and a white bib under her chin. We all miss her and need you to look for her.”
She gave Grampa’s address and his phone number, and hung up.
Ernest closed the drawer on the telephone.
“I have to rest now,” Gabby said. “All this is getting on my nerves.”
Ernest headed for the house. In his mind he went over a mental checklist — chickens, animals in the pasture, birds in the aviary. Everyone knows Milly is missing, he thought. So do the Animal Rescue people. I don’t know what else to do.
GABBY SANG OUT, “Hey there, Ernie!”
“Don’t call me Ernie!” He drummed his hooves on the office floor and oinked his way around the room. Gabby sat still and shrieked at him.
Grampa came in the door, heard the commotion, and took over. With Gabby held against his chest, he sat down on the floor next to Ernest.
Patiently Grampa scratched Ernest’s back and rubbed Gabby’s head with his chin. “Okay, troops, I know everything’s messed up. Our new baby is not doing well, and now Milly’s gone. We’re all in a muddle.”
Ernest gave a soft “wrunk.”
Gabby jerked her head up and down.
“I’m sure Milly ran off because of the puppy,” Grampa said. “But life is always changing, you know.” They sat for a long time, just being together. At last Grampa got up and went to his desk.
“I’ll call the neighbors,” he said. “I knew a tomcat once that moved next door. The pets over there got fresh table scraps, and at his old home they got dry kibble. He just moved to a better restaurant.”
Ernest listened and thought, Grampa sure knows cats. And then something clicked. His brain gave him a truly outstanding idea.
Motioning Gabby to get on his head, he left the office.
Outside, Gabby fluttered excitedly. “You’ve got an idea!”
“Watch those claws! You ought to have a license for them!”
“Hogwash! Tell me your idea.”
“They declaw cats, so why not birds?” Ernest cried, wincing.
“Bite your tongue! Are you going to tell me or not?”
By this time they had reached the barnyard. “Shh,” Ernest whispered. “Don’t make a sound!”
“This is your idea? The barn? Haven’t you already been here?”
Ernest sat abruptly, tossing Gabby onto the dirt. “Yes, but not in the loft,” he said. “We’ve been going at this all wrong. We’ve been hunting without thinking of who ran away. Milly, that’s who. So we have to think like a cat.”
“I’ll pretend I never heard that,” Gabby said. She got busy rearranging her feathers.
“All right now. I’m Milly.” Ernest thought out loud for Gabby’s benefit. “And nobody loves me anymore. Just like when I was a kitten. Abandoned in the woods behind the barn. Mew, mew! I’m so frightened. I have to find a comforting place to hide. To be safe . . .”
Gabby squawked, “The hayloft!”
“Of course. Now shh!” Tiptoeing on delicate hooves, Ernest entered the barn and went to the foot of the ladder that led to the loft. “Go up there,” he whispered.
Head cocked, Gabby said, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, because I’m thinking like a cat.”
He watched as Gabby drifted upward on slow, silent wings. Having never been in a barn loft, he could only imagine what she would find, based on things Grampa had said.
He waited, hoping, and pictured it in his mind. Bales of straw and sweet-smelling hay. Tools seldom used leaning in the corners. Sun warmed the loft through the roof, and the animals’ warmth came up from below. It was the coziest, most private place in the barn. I’d nap there every afternoon if I were a cat, he thought.
Gabby floated down as quietly as she had gone up. She perched next to Ernest on the barn floor, pointed her beak upward, and nodded.
Ernest leaped to his hooves. Careful, he told himself. Say the wrong thing and she might run away for real. Someplace where we’ll never find her.
“Milly,” he called. “Please listen! Gabby and I are here. We called the Animal Rescue League to find you.” And where the hay are they? he wondered.
“Grampa called the neighbors,” he went on. “We’re all sad and worried. Remember how we felt when Grampa was sick? So please come back. Don’t worry about the blanket. I found it, and it’s fine. But Grampa isn’t! Not at all.”
Ernest stopped, afraid he had said too much, or the wrong things. Beside him Gabby waited, tailfeathers twitching.
A faint thump sounded overhead. In seconds, Milly’s head appeared at the top of the ladder. “I didn’t take it,” she said.
Ernest blinked up at her. “You mean the blanket?”
“Right. You thought I took it, didn’t you?”
He looked down, embarrassed.
“I knew it!” Disgusted, Milly sat and began grooming her left paw.
“Well, I was wrong and I apologize! Now come down and tell us what happened. Please!”
Milly finished grooming her paw first. Then, claws digging into the heavy sidepiece of the ladder, she descended to the barn floor.
“That’s better!” Gabby said. “Now things can get back to normal!”
“It will never be the same again.” Milly gazed dramatically off into the distance.
Ernest said, “That’s okay! Life is more interesting this way.”
“Don’t lecture us!” Gabby squawked. “Anyway, we want to hear about the blanket. Milly, do you know who took it?”
“Of course. You see, after Ernest told me to use my head, I thought, He is right. I love
Grampa, and this is my home. But I did have to think about it awhile. The new baby’s a dog, after all.
“But . . . I decided I could learn to live with him. So I came out from behind the stove, and the puppy was hung up on the edge of his basket. Trying to get out, I think. He’s too tiny to run around, so I put him back in and took his little blanket outside to shake it. To make it fresh, the way Grampa does.
“I had planned to tuck him in, like Grampa,” Milly went on. “I was going to tell him he was a stinky little orphan but that he could stay. As long as he behaved himself.”
“And?” Ernest and Gabby said together.
“I was outside shaking the blanket and along came those crows.”
“Those loudmouth crows from the woods?” Gabby asked.
“Yes. Three of them. They’re huge! The biggest one grabbed that blanket right out of my mouth and flew off. I knew you’d all think I had taken it, so I ran away. I was too scared to stay in the woods.”
“I remembered that you liked the barn,” Ernest replied. “That’s why we came here.”
“Stop bragging,” said Gabby. “Let’s go find Grampa.”
On the way, Ernest told Milly how he had found the blanket.
“Oooh, those crows are so sneaky!” she hissed.
“Perhaps, but I am sneakier. My brain did it.”
“You see why one pig per family is plenty,” Gabby told Milly.
They found Grampa in the kitchen with a bowl of tomato soup. He wasn’t eating, just staring down at it.
“Mewww,” said Milly, going to sit by his feet.
“Milly! My marmalade kitty!” Grampa cried, scooping her up. He held her against his heart. “Ah, Milly, I missed you!”
She snuggled up under his chin and her purr was loud.
After a time Grampa took all of his pets into the family room. He sat on the brown corduroy sofa, with Milly on his right and the puppy on his left. He set Gabby on his shoulder.
To Ernest he said, “And you keep my feet warm, you perfect pig. I know you found her. You don’t have to tell me.” He gave Ernest a slow, thorough scratching.
Grampa said, “Okay, troops, here we are, all together — just like we should be. We need to name our baby and get on with life.” He looked down at the Scottie.
Ernest stood up so that he could inspect the tiny dog on the sofa. It was the first time he had really l
ooked at him all day. He’s holding his head up, Ernest realized. And his nose is damp and shiny.
Grampa talked to the puppy. “Somehow you’ve survived, laddie. You must have a good soul, so I’m going to name you after one of the noblest old Scotch souls — a famous writer — Sir Walter Scott.”
KNOCK-KNOCK!
“Animal Rescue League!” someone yelled through the door. “You called about a missing cat?”
His eyes on the door, the puppy sat up and opened his mouth. At first nothing happened, but he kept trying. Finally he went “aarp”— a scratchy sound.
“Yarp!” he added a bit louder.
Grampa beamed. “My guard dog, Sir Walter the Scottie!” He got up and went to open the door.
“Hi there,” he said to the man from Animal Rescue. “I don’t know who phoned you, but my pig and my mynah bird found my cat. Thanks anyway for coming out. You folks do a great job.”
The man in the green uniform looked pop-eyed at Grampa. “Your pig and your bird found your cat? Well, sure. Happens all the time. . . .” He shook his head in wonder and left.
“Yarp!” Sir Walter said again joyfully.
Ernest gave the Scottie a playful nudge with his snout. “See there, I told you it would work out.”
Milly started in on the puppy’s right ear. “It will take me two years to clean up this dog,” she said.
Yes, ma’am, Ernest thought, that’s our Milly. Satisfied, he flopped back down on the floor. His dependable brain had done it again.
To Sir Walter, Gabby said, “Welcome to the Bed and Biscuit!”
The animal behavior depicted in this book is based on well-researched animal facts. For instance, the hill mynah (Gracula religiosa) is the outstanding mimic of the bird world. Imported from Vietnam for eager American customers years ago, they are rarely brought here today, except for zoo display. They will eat almost anything but prefer fruit and live in tall trees in the wild. People who have owned mynahs say that they make superb pets but that they “have minds of their own.”