“You haven’t seen the end of me, toots!” he shouted. “No one talks to Lyle like that and gets away with it!”
“You are not frightening me, Monsieur Bombs-Away!” Louise yipped back.
There was a sudden crash of thunder, which shook us all. No one spoke for a few seconds; then there came a deep, rumbling sound. I thought at first it was more thunder. Then I realized it was coming from Lyle’s direction. I looked at him. He was growling at Louise.
From somewhere deep in his throat, he said, “I don’t like being crossed, sister. Just … watch … out!” He stared at her coolly, and Louise, momentarily stunned, stared back. She looked frightened, and I wondered, for the first time, if indeed there was reason for her to be.
Chapter 4 - The Storm Gathers
ALL AT ONCE Louise broke into a rapid-fire attack of barking. I wanted to check out Max’s reaction, but Harrison’s voice startled the thought right out of me.
“What’s going on in here?” he asked, suddenly entering through the gate. Everyone froze. “What’s all this noise? Now calm down, or back into your bungalows you go.”
Jill appeared next to him, carrying a large bag of garbage. She was panting slightly. “What was it?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just a dog fight, I guess,” Harrison said. Dog fight, I thought, what a quaint expression. I wondered if people ever had dog fights.
As Harrison and Jill turned to go, Jill tripped on the very rock I’d seen her trip over before. The bag of garbage flew out of her hands, spilling its contents all over the ground.
Harrison jumped back as some of the debris landed on his shoe. “What a clumsy oaf!” he shouted. “Can’t you do anything right?”
Jill’s face turned red. I could see tears coming to her eyes as she spoke. “Well, aren’t you Mister Perfect all of a sudden?” she asked, her voice quivering. “If you weren’t pushing me so hard, I wouldn’t be like this in the first place.”
“Maybe if you weren’t like this in the first place,” Harrison retorted, “you wouldn’t think I was pushing you so hard.”
Jill’s mouth fell open. After a moment, she spoke. “And maybe you’d like to work by yourself the rest of the day!”
“Okay, okay,” Harrison replied in a softer voice. “I’m sorry. Come on, let’s forget it and clean this up.”
Jill, sniffling back her tears, knelt in silence and began shoveling tin cans and bottles back into the plastic bag. “I’m sorry, too,” she said quietly. “I’m just tired. It’s not your fault.”
They finished their task in total silence. We all sat motionless, watching them. I guess people do have dog fights, I thought.
Just before they went out the gate, Harrison turned back to us and said, “Now, keep it down in here.” And once again we were left to ourselves.
I turned to Max, but saw that he and Georgette had wandered off. Their heads were very close together. Taxi was watching them, too, and seemed to be annoyed. When he noticed me looking at him, he said, “A fine thing!” and walked away in a huff.
Suddenly, I found myself alone. I could feel that a light rain was beginning to fall. And a second crack of thunder announced that the storm was about to break again. Not knowing what else to do, I headed back to my bungalow in the hopes that Chester might be around to talk to.
I guess I was so lost in thought that I never saw them, but when I was almost to my bungalow, I tripped. Looking down, I discovered that what had crossed my path were two long, low dogs, the likes of which I’d never seen before. As politely as I knew how, I spoke.
“Please forgive me for tripping over you,” I said.
“Not at all. Not at all,” said one. “Indeed, it was our fault for—”
“Yes, yes,” said the other. “For walking in your way.”
“We weren’t watching—” said the first.
“—where we were going,” concluded the second.
There was a moment’s silence as I looked them over. They were almost identical, and though one had a slightly higher-pitched voice than the other, they spoke as if one mind were encased in two bodies. Their heads did not stop bobbing up and down.
“I’m Harold,” I said.
“Howard …” said the one with the lower-pitched voice. He nodded his head once.
“… and Heather,” said the other. And she nodded her head crisply.
“We’re out for a stroll,” Howard continued, as if he owed me an explanation. “We do like a stroll. Of course, Heather here isn’t up to—”
“Now, now, now,” Heather said, cutting Howard off. “No need to go into all that, is there?” She smiled vaguely in my direction, and our conversation drew to a halt. The rain began to come down more heavily then. I was more than a little relieved to have a reason to excuse myself.
“Well, it was—” I began.
“Yes, yes, it was,” Howard said eagerly. “So sorry we have to run, but—”
“Oh, I understand,” I said.
“—but, I’m not feeling myself suddenly,” Heather added. “Dear, mightn’t we—?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Howard said to her. There was a look of great concern in his eyes.
“Goodbye, Harold,” he said, as they turned to leave. “We will talk again, I am sure. Oh, and Harold …?”
“Yes?” I asked.
“Beastly sorry about that noise last night. Frightful, what? But we just can’t seem to—”
“—help it, really,” Heather finished the sentence for him. “Come, dear.”
“Quite,” was all that Howard said then, and the two of them strolled off, rather more hurriedly, their heads bobbing like pigeons all the way home.
“CHESTER!” I cried as soon as I saw my friend waiting for me in my bungalow. The rain was really coming down by that time.
Chester sat licking a paw and staring into the distance. As he did not respond immediately to my calling, I concluded that he was once again in a state of advance mellowhood. I waited another moment before I spoke again.
“Guess what?” I asked.
Chester looked at me through half-lowered lids. “Harold, you know I hate it when you do that,” he said.
“When I do what?”
“When you say ‘Guess what?’ ” he replied with faint disdain. “How am I supposed to guess what, when I don’t even know where you’re coming from?”
“Oh, sorry,” I answered. There was a pause.
“Harold,” he said quietly after a moment.
“What?”
“I think we’ve established that I’m not going to guess what. So why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind, hmm? I have a lot to think about, however, and I don’t wish to be distracted by trivia.”
“Oh, I don’t think this is trivia,” I said, though I couldn’t be sure since I didn’t know what trivia was. “It has to do with these two strange dogs I just met named Howard and Heather. They said they were sorry about the noise last night. Do you think they were the ones who—”
“Is that all?” Chester said sharply, interrupting me. “I figured that out long ago.”
“You figured what out?” I asked. I hadn’t figured anything out, except that it was Howard and Heather who had been howling all night.
“That Howard and Heather are werewolves.”
I couldn’t help myself. I chuckled at the thought of those two little dogs being werewolves. To me, they looked more like sausages with legs, and I told Chester so.
“Dachshunds,” he replied.
“Gesundheit.”
“I didn’t sneeze, Harold.”
“Oh, but you said—”
“Dachshunds.”
“Gesundheit.”
“Harold, put the etiquette on the shelf for a minute and listen to me. Howard and Heather are not sausages. They are a kind of dog called dachshunds. Because of their long hair, I am assuming that they are what is known as wire-haired dachshunds.”