“I’ll eat them,” said her mother. “Thank you.”
Lilly dropped strawberries onto her mother’s plate and smiled. “I have school now.”
“I know, Lilly. Mrs. Mynah was here yesterday. She visits every Sunday and works in our garden. She brought her son.” Lilly knew this. She’d been there, too. Mrs. Mynah brought groceries and plucked greens from the garden. She made them dinner.
Again, Lilly smiled at her mother. Her mother’s lips quivered. It was so slight, no one except Lilly would have noticed. But Lilly had been examining her mother’s face for years the way a prisoner watches her captor. Lilly noticed a change. Her mother’s lips and eyes were no longer weighed down and pulled tight.
Lilly walked to school. She smiled as she thought about her mother and Mrs. Mynah and the garden. Instead of planting only from seed, Mrs. Mynah had planted grown plants too, so parts of the garden were already in bloom.
Despite the drought, their garden was green. And when the wind blew, fragrances from the garden mingled and drifted into Lilly’s room.
“What’s with the goofy smile? Thinking about your jungle-butt boyfriend?” Lilly turned to see Isadora suddenly next to her, walking to school.
“Isadora, I can’t work in the pet store anymore,” Lilly blurted out. “If you want to turn me in, go ahead. I think I paid for my crime by working in the pet store for free.” Lilly didn’t stumble over any of the words, and she decided it had been a good idea rehearsing her speech with Dorian and Tobias.
Isadora glowered. “What is it – money? You want my father to pay you?”
“Would he?”
“No.”
“Well it is about money,” admitted Lilly. “But even if your father did pay me, it wouldn’t be enough for us to pay the taxes on our house. I can’t work in the pet store because I have to get money another way.”
“What taxes?” demanded Isadora.
“My mom owes thousands of dollars. If we don’t pay in fifty-eight days, the town is going to sell our house at an auction,” explained Lilly. “And I’m not the only one who lives there, you know.”
Isadora kicked the ground. “There is no way I’m working in that stinkin’ store by myself. I hate those stickin’ animals!”
“Doesn’t sound like a good career match, Isadora,” said Dorian joining them.
“Mind your own business, Dorian,” hissed Isadora.
“Why should Lilly help you out?” asked Dorian.
“Because my mother can help Lilly, if I ask her,” said Isadora.
Lilly’s eyes lit up. Isadora’s mother was a real estate agent. Could she really help?
“My mother can get the town off your back. She knows everybody. I’ll make a deal with you. You stay in the store and I’ll ask my mother to help you.”
“Why should Lilly trust you?” insisted Dorian.
“What choice does she have? It isn’t easy for an eleven-year old to make thousands of dollars.” Isadora glared at Lilly.
“Okay,” agreed Lilly hastily. “On one condition. I do all the deliveries for the pet store.”
“Whatever as long as you clean all the cages and aquariums, too,” said Isadora. She walked away with a bored look. Lilly glanced at Dorian, who shook his head unconvinced. Lilly looked away. Maybe it was stupid to think Mrs. Snodgrass would help but wasn’t it worth a try? After all they’d searched for criminals for a month now and hadn’t spotted any. Isadora was right. What choice did she have, really?
All three slipped into their seats in time to hear Mr. Stinchfield recite his poem, ‘True Blue.’ His face twisted as he spoke.
The iron face stares.
Flared nostrils spit dragon steam.
Primroses give up sighing and pass out,
Fainting in a bone-dry cup.
Candles stand apart, uneven.
Snow falls but doesn’t stick
On eyes too slippery to see when wet.
Lilly listened without paying attention. She watched Isadora draw a dragon and pass it to a friend. As Lilly stared, she imagined Isadora’s mug shot on a wanted poster, steam spewing from flared nostrils. Definitely dangerous, thought Lilly, smiling without realizing.
“Something funny, Miss Wilder?” Mr. Stinchfield narrowed his eyes. “Does my poetry fall into the category of humor?”
“No, sir,” said Lilly. She suddenly imagined steam spewing from his nostrils and stifled a laugh.
“Then you must be thinking of something other than my poem,” snarled her teacher. “Go to the third corner and stand on your head.” Lilly did as she was told. For thirty minutes Lilly stood on her head thinking how upside-down the world had become – she was relying on Isadora to help her save her home. And for once Lilly was happy her clothes were too tight, at least her skirt hadn’t fallen over her head.
Chapter 23
A fifty-pound bag of dog food stood on a hand truck waiting to be delivered. Lilly looked at the bill taped to the bag. The customer hadn’t paid yet. She would need to collect the money when she delivered it.
Mr. Snodgrass sat at the counter next to the cash register. Every day he tried to teach White Rabbit the same trick. “Watch White Rabbit pull a magician out of the hat!” he boasted to his imaginary audience.
White Rabbit hopped away. Lilly watched. She wasn’t surprised Mr. Snodgrass was a pathetic animal trainer. But she was amazed he was so patient with White Rabbit. He didn’t treat anyone as kindly, not even Isadora.
“Stupid animal, he’ll never learn,” mumbled Isadora as she stepped into the store.
“I’m leaving to deliver this,” said Lilly. At the sound, Isadora whipped around. She hadn’t realized Lilly was there. Lilly pushed the hand truck but it didn’t move.
“Tip it, stupid,” said Isadora. Lilly tipped the cart and pushed hard, accidentally knocking into a display of cat food. Cans hit the floor and rolled wildly.
“Sorry, I lost control,” said Lilly.
“Like a bull in a china shop. Give me the hand truck before you cause any more damage,” Mr. Snodgrass snarled. He wheeled it expertly out to the sidewalk while Lilly hurriedly fixed the cat food display and ran outside.
“I don’t care whether you trust Lilly with the hand truck or not. I’m not doing that delivery!” yelled Isadora at her father. “What am I -- a pack mule?”
“How you sound like your mother,” muttered Mr. Snodgrass letting go of the hand truck. Lilly took the handles. She tipped the cart and pushed it quickly down the sidewalk. Mr. Snodgrass yelled after her, “If you hit a car, you’re on your own, Lilly. Insurance doesn’t cover runaway hand trucks and their incompetent drivers!” He marched into the store.
A minute later, Isadora ran hissing after her, “I need to talk to you, Lilly. I’m leaving the store early today.”
“Why are you telling me?” asked Lilly still walking.
“My father said he’s leaving early. He wants to put me in charge for the last hour but I can’t stay. You’re going to stay. Don’t say anything to my father. Knowing my father, he’ll take the money out of the register before he goes so at least I don’t have to worry about you stealing now that I know how much you need the money.”
“I wouldn’t steal,” said Lilly.
“First a dog biscuit then the big stuff,” said Isadora. “Promise you won’t tell my father I’m leaving. If you tell, I’ll kill you.”
“Okay,” said Lilly shrugging. What difference did it make whether Isadora and her father were in the pet store? It had to be better without them. “I won’t tell him,” Lilly promised.
“You better not,” said Isadora, “or I won’t ask my mother to help you.”
After Isadora stomped her way back to the pet store, Lilly slipped off her backpack and took out the binder of MOST WANTED posters. She flipped through it until she reached Travis Smith’s mug shot. The written description was clearer than the photograph, Caucasian, brown hair, blue eyes, forties.
Yesterday at the school library, Lilly found
a Travis Smith in the town phone book, and she decided to go to his house the next time she made a pet store delivery. She wanted to see if the Travis Smith living in her town was the one in the mug shot. Fifteen minutes after Lilly set out from the pet store, she knocked on Travis Smith’s weather beaten door. Green paint chips fell. A dog barked inside.
“Yes?” asked the lady who answered the door. Lilly looked at the woman’s steel gray hair and moist blue eyes. If Travis Smith was in his forties, this woman must be his mother.
When Lilly heard the dog bark, she had immediately decided to pretend she had a delivery of pet food for them. Otherwise she would have pretended she was lost.
“I have a delivery for Travis Smith,” said Lilly. She clenched her teeth. How do you prepare to come face to face with a felonious neighbor? Tobias liked the word felonious. He used it often. Lilly liked the word ‘criminal’ better and Janie voted for ‘bad guy.’
“Travis!” shouted the woman over her shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me dog food was being delivered?”
A man shuffled towards the door wearing a pin-stripped bathrobe. One look at his gray hair told Lilly this was not the Travis Smith made famous by a crime spree is Las Vegas. “Are you the only Travis Smith who lives here?” asked Lilly.
“What kind of question is that?” said the lady. “Do you think we run a hotel for every Dick, Jane and Harry named Travis Smith?”
“Sorry, I must have made a mistake,” said Lilly. She started down the Smith’s front steps. The Smiths stood together looking confused.
The elderly man shook his head. “Did I order dog food? If you want to leave it, go ahead. We have a dog.”
“I’m sorry I can’t. It’s not paid for yet,” said Lilly.
“Then it definitely isn’t ours,” shouted Mrs. Travis Smith. Lilly grabbed the cart and dragged it away.
One delivery later, Lilly returned to the pet store with an empty cart and a check for the dog food. After she cleaned the animal cages, Mr. Snodgrass said he was leaving for the rest of the day. He told Lilly to do everything Isadora said because Isadora was in charge. “And if Isadora wasn’t in charge, White Rabbit would be.” Five minutes after Mr. Snodgrass walked out the door, Isadora left, too.
“We’re free,” said Lilly. She spoke to a flamboyant Beta fish. “Well, I guess you aren’t really free, are you?” Each Beta fish swam in a fish bowl the size of a teacup.
Lilly wiped the counter near the register. She prided herself on doing a thorough job, even if no one was watching. As she worked, she spoke to another Beta fish listlessly floating near the bottom of its bowl. “You’d better perk up, Samurai. If no one buys you, Mr. Snodgrass will turn you into turtle food.”
The door slammed. Sheriff McDuffie rushed in. “Where’s your boss, Lilly?”
“I don’t know but he left Isadora in charge when he left.”
“Where’s Isadora?”
“I don’t know, sheriff, because Isadora left, too and if you tell her father, she’ll kill me. And I really mean she’ll really kill me. She said so.”
Sheriff McDuffie, who was nearing retirement raised his graying eyebrows in a thoughtful way and nodded his head. “It’s against the law for minors your age to be working, Lilly.”
“Oh, that’s not a problem. They don’t pay me anything.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say more, to let out the whole story about stealing a dog biscuit without meaning to and how she was paying for her crime by working for free. The whole story almost spilled out but Lilly clenched her teeth to keep it in.
The truth is, Lilly was used to not saying what she was thinking. She watched Sheriff McDuffie, trained to not show what he was feeling.
Finally, he said, “Well, what’s the emergency? Or did you hit the buzzer by mistake?” That’s how Lilly discovered the pet store had a silent alarm like the one in the Post Office, an alarm that only rings in the sheriff’s office.
After Lilly explained she’d been cleaning the counter, she and Sheriff McDuffie decided she must have pressed the buzzer accidentally. Sheriff McDuffie left saying he thought he’d go across the street to the Silent Bird Restaurant for a cup of coffee. He told Lilly to wave if she needed his help. Then he sat in the window of the Silent Bird with his steaming coffee and looked out at the pet store.
Lilly crouched low. She wanted to see the buzzer under the counter by the register. Sally, in the Post Office, called the silent alarm her ‘secret weapon.’ Lilly thought it felt good to have a ‘secret weapon’ in case Stevie ‘the Shark’ Tripoldi or the real Travis Smith wandered in.
Chapter 24
Lilly counted the money again. It was the same every time, $263.74. More money than Lilly ever owned, still not nearly enough. Janie chattered excitedly. Tobias explained that Janie wanted everyone to vote. “Vote on what, Tobias?” asked Lilly.
“Purrrchases!” he answered. “How to spend our fortune.” Janie wanted Lilly to buy a carpeted tunnel for the young guinea pigs. Her dream was dashed when Tobias reminded her the money was for taxes. Tobias sighed. He explained their dire straits to Janie every day. Sometimes she remembered. Sometimes she didn’t.
It was Lilly’s turn to sigh. “Two hundred, sixty-three dollars and seventy-four cents and we need thousands of dollars more!”
Dorian picked up the coins and let them escape through his fingers to the floor. “It feels like a lot of money.”
“RRRELATIVE! Money is relative,” said Tobias. “Money and color work the same way. Put aquamarine next to blue, it looks green. Put the same aquamarine next to green, it looks blue.”
“Are you saying that $200 is a lot when you need $2 but $200 is a little when you need $2,000?” asked Lilly.
“Rrrright! Exactly and directly right, my dear,” said Tobias.
Thank goodness for Tobias. The ancient parrot earned most of the two hundred and sixty-three dollars himself. It was reward money, not for finding criminals, but for finding Mrs. Flanigan’s missing poodle, Gigi.
Lilly and Dorian saw the ‘Poodle Missing’ poster taped to a telephone pole. On the poster was a photograph of a white, miniature poodle in the arms of an elderly lady with white, curly hair. Lilly’s first thought was that the lady and the poodle must go to the same hairdresser. Then Lilly read the poster, which said the poodle was missing and the elderly lady couldn’t live without her. Reward offered.
Lilly tore off the poster and brought it home to show Tobias. Tobias scoured the town looking for Gigi. He asked Mr. Joe and his other friends who lived nearby if they remembered seeing the missing dog. Those friends asked their friends, and twenty-four hours later, Tobias located Gigi on the other side of town living the with elderly lady’s hairdresser.
After Lilly and Dorian told the elderly lady of Gigi’s whereabouts, she informed her son. Her son rescued Gigi, reported the hairdresser to the sheriff and gave Lilly and Dorian the $100 reward. Tobias also located a stolen bicycle and two other missing pets in the same way. The rest of the $263.74 was donated by Dorian, who gave Lilly two months of his allowance minus twenty-six cents he’d spent on candy.
“Did Isadora ask her mother to help you, Lilly?” questioned Dorian.
“Isadora said she did,” answered Lilly. Tobias listened attentively. Lilly had explained her deal with Isadora. The deal being that if Lilly worked in the pet store and made deliveries, Mrs. Snodgrass would help with the taxes. But the details were unclear to Tobias.
“I think you should talk to Mrs. Snodgrass yourself,” insisted Dorian.
“How? You mean go to her real estate office?” asked Lilly frightened by the idea.
“It’s a business like any other business,” said Dorian. “It’s open to the public like the Garden Center is. Anyone can walk in.” Lilly cringed. Isadora’s mother wouldn’t consider Lilly ‘the public,’ she’d consider her a nuisance.
As Dorian slipped out the window to go home, Lilly said, “I’ll talk to Isadora first. Then maybe I’ll talk to her mother.”
Doria
n stood outside looking in. “I found a home for one of Janie’s babies,” he said. “My dentist said he’d take one for his son.” Dorian turned and walked away.
Dorian’s matter-of-fact words stung Lilly. She leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. Break up the guinea pigs? But they were a family. And all the animals were her family. So far, Lilly hadn’t searched for homes for any of them. It made her too sad. Whenever she began to ask one of her classmates if they’d like a pet, she finished by telling them to go the pet store. She simply couldn’t give them away.
Tobias paced side-to-side on the headboard of Lilly’s bed, so busy worrying he didn’t notice when Dorian left. ‘The egg, the egg,’ murmured Tobias. Lilly knew why Tobias was worried. It wasn’t only that they were thirty days away from losing their home. Tobias also feared the egg wouldn’t hatch before the thirty days were up. Tobias said if the egg was moved, it might never hatch. The responsibility of the egg weighed heavily on Tobias.
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