“What’s all the fuss?” said a voice I recognized as Bud’s. I looked up and saw that he was rubbing sleep from his eyes.
Chester tried to squeeze between Bud’s legs and the doorjamb, but Bud moved just in time to catch him in the ribs. “Now, hold on there, cat,” he said, “where do you think you’re going? Why’s everybody in such a uproar this mornin’?”
“I think they’re jes worked up over bein’ out in the rain all night,” the woman said. “Ain’t that so, critters? I’ll give ’em all some breakfast and you go on upstairs and finish yer sleepin’.”
I saw Chester twitching to be free. When his struggles got him nowhere, he sighed heavily and dropped his head. Bud reached down and picked him up. “Nah,” he said. “I hear the others comin’. Why don’t we all have breakfast?” He carried Chester to the kitchen table and sat down.
“Well,” Chester said, over Bud’s elbow, “you’re getting your last request.”
I felt my eyes tearing up again. “I guess breakfast isn’t so important,” I said. “What I really wish is that I could see the Monroes.”
“Looks like you’re getting that wish, too, Uncle Harold,” Howie said. “Here they come.”
All at once the room was filled with people. Toby ran to me and threw his arms around my neck just as I’d imagined only an hour earlier. Mr. Monroe patted me, then scratched me between the ears. Mrs. Monroe cooed at Howie, and Pete ignored us all. It was almost like being home. Almost … except for the strange woman with the eagle eyes, the scar-faced dog, the man at the table who wouldn’t let Chester go, and the other man at the door who even at six o’clock in the morning was fondling a knife.
The woman began to busy herself at the refrigerator. “How about some milk, folks?”
“I don’t drink milk,” Bud said. Chester and I exchanged worried glances.
“Now how are you going to grow up to be big and strong if you don’t drink your milk?” the woman said. “Your brother drinks it all the time, and look at him.”
Spud flexed a muscle.
“I’m so glad the animals are safe,” Mrs. Monroe said. She took Chester from Bud and petted him gently. “I was so worried I hardly slept.”
“Well, I told ya Dawg knew his way around here,” said Bud. “I knew there was nothin’ to worry about so long as they was with him.”
“And fortunately we were with you,” Mrs. Monroe said. “I can’t thank you enough for taking us in out of that terrible storm, Bud.”
The other woman shook her head. “I have ta laugh everytime I hear him called that,” she said. “It isn’t his right name, you know.”
Chester jumped out of Mrs. Monroe’s arms, landing by my side. “This is it,” he said. “Meet Fritz and Hans, the long-lost Transylvanian twins.”
“No?” said Mrs. Monroe, brushing cat hairs off her borrowed robe.
“Nope. This here’s Buford. And the other one is Spalding. They picked up those silly nicknames at college.”
“College?” said Mr. Monroe.
“Well, shore,” the woman replied. “My boys graduated cum-loudy. Buford here is a architect. Spalding practices law.”
“And one of these days, he’ll get it right!” Bud said with a loud guffaw. Spud crossed the room and whacked him one.
“Boys, boys,” said the woman. “Let’s set a good example for the young’uns.” And she nodded to Toby and Pete.
“Sorry, Mama,” Spud said, chagrined.
“We’ll behave ourselves,” said Bud. “Can I help ya out with breakfast?”
“Shore can, Buford. Why don’t you set the table? And, Spalding, put that knife to use for once and cut us some bread. Before anything else, however, I’d appreciate yer feeding these poor critters what’ve been out all night in the wet.”
Five minutes later, we found ourselves eating chopped steak out of silver bowls. “There must be good money in architecture,” I observed.
“Not if all his houses look like this one,” said Chester.
“Well, in any event, so much for your evil spirits.”
“Yeah, Pop,” Howie said, “these folks are real nice. A little weird, maybe, but nice.”
“Thanks,” said Dawg, slurping thirstily at a bowl of Perrier. “I think so, too.”
I had to admit that Bud and Spud did seem a lot less threatening in the light of day. As Howie said, they were definitely a little weird—eccentric, I guess you’d say—but they were far from evil.
“And the noises we heard last night?” Chester said, exercising his forehead muscles.
“Bud and Spud and the Monroes escaping from the rain,” I said. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“But weren’t there noises before that?” said Chester. “Didn’t we all hear noises throughout the night?”
“That was probably Bud and Spud,” Dawg said. We looked to him for an explanation.
“Well, remember I told you that they were going out looking for something last night? They were going to find ‘it,’ remember? I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but I’ll bet that’s what all the noise was about.”
Just then, Bud, who had left the room while we were eating, appeared at the door with a cage in his hand. He held it high so that no one could see its contents.
“And now we have the answer,” Chester said. “If it’s a rabbit, you can bet these two clowns were named Fritz and Hans long before they were Buford and Spalding, or Bud and Spud.”
“Mama,” Bud announced, “this is for you. We was goin’ to save it for Mother’s Day, but we know how much you’ve wanted one. You keep such an eye out on us, we couldn’t look during the day. We had to wait till a clear night to fetch one.”
“Oh, now, Buford. Cut the preamble and just gimme! I’m dyin’ from the suspense.”
“Well, all right, Mama,” said Bud, lowering the cage. “Here it is, then. It’s all yers.”
Everyone’s eyes were on the cage as it came into view. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was ready to see a rabbit there … a rabbit perhaps with fangs … a rabbit with red eyes. The last thing I was expecting was …
“A baby skunk! Oh, boys, come here and let me give you a hug.”
“Happy Mother’s Day,” said Bud.
The two sons dutifully kissed their mother’s cheeks as she took the cage from them. “Well, hello, you little darlin’,” she said to the thing in the cage. “We’ll have to get you descented. But first you’ll need a name. What am I going to call you?”
“Skunnicula?” I suggested to Chester.
“Ha. Ha. Very. Funny,” he replied through gritted teeth. Then, mumbling something about “lunatics,” he wandered off to a corner of the room, where he curled up for a nap.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, joining him. “Suffering from post-Saint-George’s-Day letdown?”
He grunted and shut his eyes. Soon Howie and Dawg were huddled in the corner with us, and we were feeling the warmth of the early morning sun as it poured in through a window. I was lost in my own thoughts about the night we’d just passed, a night full of adventures and dreams. It had been fun in a way; at least that’s the way it seemed, now that it was over. It was scary being lost in the woods, but I realized that the greatest fears had been caused by my own imagination—that, and Chester’s story, which I laughed now to think I had actually believed.
I picked up only snatches of the conversation in the room. I heard Pete asking for permission to call his friend Kyle … yes, so early in the morning because Kyle was going away for the rest of the day … and no, it couldn’t wait, it was important, really important. I heard him talking in a hushed voice on the phone, then getting excited, then shouting: “It’s happened! It’s happened!” I heard his mother ask what all the commotion was about. And then I heard him say something about rabbits.
My eyes opened first. Then Chester’s. Then Howie’s. And finally Dawg’s. We all listened as Pete explained his phone call.