With a sigh, he leaned against the window again. Outside, the farms were growing smaller, the trees taller. In the distance he saw a splash of red, pouring across the horizon. It was an apple orchard, he realized as the motorcar rattled closer. Maybe that meant he’d get a glass of apple cider out of this trip! The thought snuck up on him, and he almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of it. It wouldn’t matter how inexpensive the cider was; Claude would never let him have it. Little boys do not deserve luxuries like cider, he imagined Claude saying in his nasal whine.
One day, Bertie promised himself. One day he’d get fresh cider from an orchard and ride a bike down a rolling hill and buy a triple-scoop cone from an ice cream stand. He was just picturing how he would dangle his feet in a swimming hole while eating the cone when Claude made a sudden sharp turn, sending Bertie’s head banging into the window. Fuzziness exploded behind his eyes. Outside, the road branched off into a dozen different directions as they followed a sign for ORCHARD. Bertie rubbed at his eyes, trying to see where they all led to. But by the time the fog in his head had cleared, the intersection was gone.
Chapter Three
A Dandelion Puff
At Mumford’s Farm & Orchard, the Battle of the Clover was still raging on. Smalls dodged Tilda. He darted around Wombat. With the clover balanced carefully on his tongue, he dove into the creek.
“Look at Smalls!” he heard a boy in the crowd exclaim.
“His tongue’s so long, Dad,” a girl chimed in.
“Swim like the wind, Smalls!” Rigby cheered. Of course to the human ear, it just sounded like a series of barks.
“Do you think Rigby is cheering on Smalls, Ma?” a boy asked.
“Probably not, honey,” his mom replied gently. “Animals don’t talk to each other like we do.”
“We talk to each other quite well, thank you very much,” Wombat snorted with an indignant toss of his snout.
As Smalls swam on in the creek, a black motorcar pulled up behind Mumford’s blue-shuttered house. The car was old and rickety, with splotches of peeled paint and a torn fabric roof that flapped open in the breeze. It let out a sputter of smoke as it creaked to a stop.
A man climbed out of the car. He was tall, with long, spindly legs and a huge belly that made him look like he might topple over at any second. His nose was far too big for his face, and the top of his head was completely bald. But the hair he did have—the patches on the side, his bushy eyebrows, his long beard—was all pure white. The man was dressed entirely in purple: shiny purple shoes, purple pants made of brushed velvet, a tight purple vest with purple buttons that looked ready to pop at any second, and a purple topcoat with coattails that swished behind him as he moved. In his hand he clutched a purple top hat with a silk purple ribbon along its brim.
The man placed the top hat on his head. In his other hand, he held an article torn out from a newspaper. He studied it as he crossed the farm’s broad lawn, a scowl spreading across his face. “‘Misfits’ is right,” he muttered to himself.
Back at the creek, the crowd was so focused on watching Smalls that no one noticed the strange man in purple edging closer. The man’s scowl deepened as his eyes swept through the crowd. But then they landed on Smalls, and for the briefest of seconds, his lips twisted into a smile.
Smalls wasn’t doing anything particularly special at the moment. But the fact of the matter was, Smalls was special. Tilda claimed his tongue was magnetic. Wombat liked to break out his French and say it was je ne sais quoi. But this man, with his angry scowl and purple top hat, whispered just one word—“money”—when he looked at Smalls.
The man pushed his way toward the creek. As Smalls climbed out of the water, the man moved even closer, stroking his white beard. He was so focused on Smalls that he almost didn’t see the white ball of fur blocking his path. His eyes narrowed when he noticed Tilda. “Animals,” he muttered under his breath. “Always in the way.” Lifting a shiny, purple shoe, he gave Tilda a swift kick. Tilda let out a terrified squeal as she flew backward.
“The pretty rabbit!” cried a girl in a pink polka-dot dress.
“Oh my,” the man said lightly. “I mistook her for a dandelion puff.” He lifted his purple top hat, bowing slightly to the girl and her mom. “My mistake.” Smiling thinly, he disappeared into the crowd.
Tilda scrambled to her feet, looking miffed. “A dandelion puff?” she exclaimed. “What dandelion puff has fur like this?” She held out a paw. It was white as snow and smooth as silk. “Wombat won’t believe this.”
Shaking off her fur, she hopped over to Wombat. But he was in the middle of burrowing his way through a group of kids, a wall of dirt spraying out behind him. Rigby too was preoccupied, holding very still as a tiny wisp of a girl hid beneath his mop-like fur and then—pop!—jumped up to surprise her parents.
Behind Tilda, a girl with blond pigtails was tossing kernels of popcorn to Smalls, who caught each one easily with his tongue. Smalls didn’t notice as Tilda turned away with a grumpy “humph!” Just one more and I’ll break my own record, he thought. He’d just stretched out his tongue to try again when a strange word caught his attention. It floated out from the huddle of parents chatting and gossiping while their children played: menagerie.
Smalls didn’t know the meaning of the word, but it had a nice ring to it. He inched closer to the parents. “Look at this,” one of the dads was saying. He held a bag of freshly picked apples in one hand and a newspaper in the other. “‘Misfit Menagerie Melts Hearts,’” he read as he passed the newspaper along.
A woman in a red coat snatched up the paper. “‘At Mumford’s Farm & Orchard, apples aren’t the only treats for kids,’” she read aloud. Smalls inched even closer. As the woman continued to read from the article, snippets drifted toward him. “Hardest of hearts . . . expertly burrowing . . . playing mop . . . bear with the never-ending tongue.”
Smalls took a step back in surprise, barely noticing when a toothy boy tossed two popcorn kernels his way. “Holy horseshoe,” he murmured. They were the menagerie.
Chapter Four
Honey, Honey, Honey
“All right then!” Thaddeus Mumford’s voice rang out through the crowd. Mumford was the animals’ owner, and “all right then” was his favorite phrase. He said it all the time. Sometimes it meant good morning, sometimes it meant good night, sometimes it meant good job. Right now it meant show’s over. In Mumford’s hands was a tray filled with the animals’ evening meals. Smalls could smell the steam wafting off the bowl of warmed honey. He bounded quickly over to Mumford.
As the crowd dispersed, Mumford placed Smalls’s bowl of honey next to his favorite oak tree. “You gathered quite the crowd tonight, my little lucky charm,” Mumford said as he scratched Smalls under his chin. “My animals are becoming famous.” He gave Smalls a final scratch before moving on to the others.
Immediately, the sweet smell of honey drew Smalls in. With a happy grunt, he stuck his muzzle into the bowl and let the warm honey coat his tongue. Mmmm, he thought as Mumford headed back to his house. I do love honey.
As the animals gobbled down their dinners, the sun began to set overhead, a night chill stealing through the air. Next to Smalls, Tilda let out an angry squeal as a drop of carrot soup landed on one of her paws. Wombat finished up his lemongrass stew and hurried over to her. “It’s barely noticeable,” he assured her. “You’re still as resplendent as ever.”
Tilda gave her fluffy white tail a proud twitch. “That means gorgeous,” she informed Rigby.
Smalls tried not to laugh as he gave his bowl of honey a final lick. Tilda crisis averted, he thought. The honey had made him feel all warm and gooey inside, like a freshly baked cookie, and as he leaned back against his tree, his eyes drifted shut. He loved how, even at night, he could picture every inch of the farm. The field of dandelions that danced in the breeze. The tall oak trees that to
wered over everything. And of course, the stretch of apples in the distance, spilling across the horizon like red paint.
“It’s Sunday tomorrow,” he heard Tilda say to Wombat. “No crowds.”
“I plan on reciting the entire French alphabet,” Wombat replied. Wombat had spent a year in a Paris zoo and therefore considered himself an expert on the French language. “Forward and backward.”
“Well, I plan on washing my bow in the creek so it’s as resplendent as I am!” Tilda announced.
Wombat laughed. “That’s a clever plan, my love.” Sleep was slowly creeping into his voice, making it hang heavy in the air.
One by one, the animals drifted off to sleep. Meanwhile, miles away, the man in purple was lying in his own bed. Using his finger, he traced the shape of a horseshoe on top of his blanket. “Money,” he said once more, a greedy smile creeping onto his face. Then, just like the animals, he too fell asleep.
Chapter Five
Bajumba
Sunday afternoon, Smalls was napping in his favorite oak tree when the sound of digging woke him. He looked down to see Wombat burrowing his way steadily through the dirt. “Careful, Wombat!” Tilda squealed as several grains of dirt landed on her otherwise immaculate paws.
But Wombat just kept on digging.
“Wombat?” Tilda tried again.
Still Wombat didn’t respond.
“Wombat,” Tilda repeated. “WOMBAT!”
Wombat’s head snapped up. “Did you say something, Tilda?”
“Never mind.” Tilda sighed. She eyed him anxiously. “Is everything okay? You’re digging like a maniac.”
Wombat sat back on his haunches. “I’ve been pondering my name,” he explained. “You see, the problem with my name is that it’s not, precisely, a name. It is more of a biological classification. A species, if you will. It would be like calling Rigby dog.”
Smalls stood up in the tree, stretching out his paws. “What can you do about it?” he asked as he climbed down to the ground.
“I propose a name change,” Wombat declared. “From here on in, I shall be referred to at all times as Fred.”
“Fred?” Tilda squealed. “I’m now in love with a Fred?”
“Fred,” Wombat confirmed. “I’ve always liked that name. It’s a sturdy name, a solid name.”
“Fred,” Smalls tried out as he made his way to the creek. He was in the middle of a nice long drink when Rigby thrust a grass-stained paw in front of him.
“Hunter green,” he exclaimed. Rigby loved to pretend his fur was other colors. “Who wants to be boring old white?” he was always saying.
“Looks nice—” Smalls began, but a strange sound cut him off. It came from Mumford’s blue-shuttered house. Smalls looked over sharply, bending his ears forward. It was laughter, he realized. But it wasn’t Mumford’s. Mumford’s laughter was like rain falling on the creek, soft and steady: plop-plop, plop-plop, plop-plop. This laughter wasn’t soft, and it certainly wasn’t steady; it was the laughter of a storm.
“What was that?” Tilda asked, hopping over to the creek. “It sounded . . .”
“Like laughter?” Wombat offered.
“Ominous!” Tilda finished. She looked proud of herself. Ominous was one of Wombat’s favorite words.
Wombat laughed. “Dark clouds are ominous. A frozen stream is ominous.” He patted Tilda with his snout. “Laughter is not ominous.”
“Okay,” Tilda agreed. After all, Wombat claimed to be nearly a genius. He swore he knew almost every word in the English language and often dreamed in French. “If you say so, Wombat.”
“Fred,” Wombat corrected, lifting his furry brown snout in the air.
Tilda coughed a little. “Right.”
Smalls ignored them, keeping his eyes on the house. “Mumford is probably just having some friends over,” he decided. He hadn’t noticed anyone arrive, but there wasn’t much that could rouse him from his Sunday afternoon nap.
Rising onto his hind legs, Smalls squinted in through the kitchen window. The kitchen was empty, but he could just make out four shadows in the living room. The first—small and narrow—clearly belonged to Mumford. But he didn’t recognize the other shadows: two wide and brawny and one tall and big-nosed, wearing what appeared to be a top hat. “Three friends,” he determined, dropping back down.
Rigby’s black nose twitched under his fur. “And a lot of elderberry cordial,” he determined. The animals knew from experience that elderberry cordial was Mumford’s drink of choice. Rigby looked like he was about to say something else when a strange word exploded from the house.
“BAJUMBA!”
“Bajumba?” Tilda echoed wonderingly. It was a word none of the animals had ever heard.
Smalls stared suspiciously at the blue-shuttered house. He knew all of Mumford’s friends. There was Larry the Spitter, who could give you a shower with the letter S. There was Tall Thomas, who had to stoop whenever he was inside. And there was Smalls’s favorite, Percival, who owned a candy store in town and snuck the animals gooey caramels whenever he visited. But Smalls didn’t recognize this voice at all.
Inside, something shattered, making him jump. He pawed nervously at the ground. Something was off. He knew it in the same way he knew when rain was coming or a fog was rolling in: a feeling deep down in his bones. “Tilda’s right,” he said slowly.
“I am?” Tilda beamed.
Smalls nodded. “Something feels ominous.” He paced along the creek, thinking. What if something was wrong? What if Mumford needed them? “We have to get inside,” he decided. He turned to face the others. “We have to find out what’s going on.”
At once, Smalls, Wombat, and Tilda all looked at Rigby. He was the only one of them who could sneak unseen into the blue-shuttered house. He was just small enough to squeeze through the doggie door in the back, and once inside, it would be easy for him to blend in. Humans were always mistaking Rigby for a mop.
“Me?” Rigby croaked.
“You know you’re the only one who can blend in, Rigby,” Smalls replied gently.
Rigby sighed. “If I was hunter green, I wouldn’t,” he muttered. Shaking the fur out of his eyes, he took off for the house.
Chapter Six
It’s Loyd, Not Lloyd
The inside of the blue-shuttered house usually smelled like raspberry sugar cookies. Mumford ate them by the bagful, their scent wafting after him like cologne. But today the smell of elderberry cordial overpowered everything, even the cookies. It was a sweet, sticky, pungent scent, the kind that tickled and taunted your nose.
Standing in the dim light of Mumford’s mudroom, Rigby’s nose twitched. It quivered. It trembled. It was about to sneeze. For some animals, a sneeze would be nothing, just a soft achoo. But when Rigby sneezed, whole houses shook. “Ah . . .” Rigby said. “Ah . . . AH . . .” He dove to the floor, burying his nose in his paws. “CHOO!” The sound was muffled by his thick mop of fur.
Rigby let out a shaky breath as he stood up again. He looked in the mirror hanging on the mudroom wall. “You’re a smooth, graceful dog,” he told himself. “You’re a smart, clever dog. You’re a . . . very white dog.” He took a step forward, examining himself in the mirror.
“A nice streak of violet could go right here,” he murmured. “And a lovely streak of teal right here. And maybe some bright fuchsia over here—stop.” He backed away from the mirror. “You have a job to do, Rigby,” he told himself. Ducking his head, he crept into the living room, his footsteps muffled by the thick tufts of fur draped over his paws.
Mumford was seated at the table with three men, a deck of cards lying between them. Rigby dropped into his best mop-like pose, curling up in the corner with his face and paws tucked beneath his fur. Opening just one eye, he peeked out through several strands.
Two of the men seated at the t
able were identical twins. They had the same wide shoulders and the same brawny muscles and the same matching scowls. The third man, however, looked nothing like them. He was tall, with spindly legs and a round stomach and a nose that was far too large for his face. He was dressed from head to toe in red: shiny red shoes, red pants made of brushed velvet, a tight red vest with red buttons that looked ready to pop at any second, a red topcoat, and last but not least, a red top hat, with red feathers along its brim. The man gnawed on his thumbnail, then spit it out on the ground. It landed a few inches from Rigby, just close enough for Rigby to see a tiny clump of cocoa powder stuck to the bottom of it.
In front of each man sat a glass of elderberry cordial. Mumford’s was nearly empty. “Thithortchal ithivine,” Mumford mumbled. He was trying to say, “This cordial is divine,” but his words tumbled out too fast, running right into each other. Tipping his chair back, Mumford reached for his glass. But just as his fingers grazed it, he lost his balance. He rocked. He teetered. And then—bam!—he slid to the ground, landing with a thud.
Rigby stiffened in his hiding spot.
“Mumford, old boy!” the man in red exclaimed. He had a nasal voice, as if someone was pinching his oversized nose. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, Claude, fine,” Mumford groaned.
With a wink at the twins, Claude quickly tipped some of his own cordial into Mumford’s glass, filling it to the brim again.
Mumford mumbled something about a broken chair as he pulled himself up. For a second, he eyed his now-full glass, a crease forming between his eyebrows. “All right then,” he said slowly, breaking into a smile. “Elderberry cordial, my favorite!” He picked up the glass, taking a big gulp.
The Daring Escape of the Misfit Menagerie Page 2