“Angie’s also had some things go missing recently,” Nan explained, “and we’ve already caught him red-handed once.”
Julie’s head whipped back at this news as if she’d just received a blow right to her face. “A raccoon is taking your things? You know this for sure, and yet you haven’t exterminated him yet?”
How could I explain that killing the raccoon would be akin to murdering a human in my book? No matter how much he got on my nerves, I would never hurt him to make my life run a little smoother.
“My dear Angie has a soft heart,” Nan explained with a sad smile.
“Can you get it back for me?” Julie asked with another sniffle. I had no idea whether this newest round of tears were caused by sorrow or by hope—or perhaps both at the same time. “Can you get my angel back?”
“Of course, we can,” I said, shooting a worrying glance Nan’s way. If I was going to recover stolen property from a raccoon burrow, I’d need a bit of privacy to do it.
“Dinner’s just about ready,” my grandmother said right on cue. “While Angie is out dealing with the raccoon, I’ll need someone to stay here and eat it with me. C’mon, dear.” She guided Julie toward the dining room before anyone could argue.
I marched out the door with the animals in close pursuit. And even though I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, I had to play it cool or risk Julie overhearing.
“I’ll get him, Mommy!” Paisley volunteered, and before I could stop her she ran into the raccoon’s lair beneath the porch.
“Paisley, no!” I hissed, worry beating its ugly wings within me. “Get back here!”
Pringle was about five times her size and could really hurt her if he felt threatened by her unexpected entry into his home.
“Well, this could all go terribly, terribly wrong,” Octo-Cat said with a sigh. “That’s dogs for you, though. Always doing. Never thinking.” Yes, Paisley had become his closest friend in recent months—and, no, he hadn’t waivered one bit in his prejudice toward dogs. Contradictions were okay in his book, as long as he was the one making them.
Tires crunched in the distance, and I glanced up just in time to see Charles’s car pulling up our long driveway.
He parked right in front of the porch. “Nan told me you’re having a little raccoon problem,” he said as he moved around to the trunk of his car and popped the lid.
“More like a big raccoon problem,” I mumbled.
Charles grabbed a pair of shovels and a flashlight, then slammed the trunk closed again. “Well then, let’s get to work. Shall we?”
Chapter Seven
Charles and I approached the slim, jagged hole that led into Pringle’s under-porch apartment, shovels in hand. Octo-Cat stayed on the porch, preferring not to get directly involved if he could avoid it. Paisley, of course, had already charged bravely ahead against my wishes.
“Pringle,” I whisper-yelled at the hole, praying he was in a good enough mood to spare my poor overeager Chihuahua warrior. “Get out here!”
A little head with shining eyes poked out through the overturned grass and dirt—not Pringle’s, but Paisley’s. Oh, thank goodness!
“Hi, Mommy,” she said with a giant, excited shiver. “The raccoon isn’t home, but he sure has a lot of stuff under there!”
More than anything, I was happy to see Paisley had survived her foolish venture without so much as a scratch on her tiny head, but I was also happy about the intel she’d gotten for us.
“I guess that works in our favor,” I said. “It will be easier to get in there and get what we need without raccoon interference.” Glancing up at Charles, I backtracked a little and explained, “Pringle’s not home.”
He chuckled good-naturedly. “Yup, I got that from context. I’m getting really good at understanding your one-sided conversations, you know. I’ve had lots and lots of practice.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks, followed closely by Charles’s lips as he pressed them against my skin. Instantly, I felt better, more in control of the situation. What can I say? He just had that kind of effect on me.
I hummed a satisfied beat. “How did I get so lucky to land the best boyfriend in all of Blueberry Bay?” I asked, turning to press my mouth directly to his.
“Only Blueberry Bay?” Charles asked as he playfully twisted a strand of my hair around his index finger, then bopped my nose.
“Okay, then how about the whole state of Maine?” I suggested with a wink.
“How about eww, gross, not in front of the cat?” Octo-Cat groused, jumping off the porch and charging over to stand between us. “This is the reason I call him UpChuck. Every time he’s around, the two of you make me want to vomit.”
Actually, my cat had begun referring to my boyfriend as UpChuck long before we’d started dating, but now wasn’t the time to argue over the timeline. We had a raccoon hideout to raid.
I raised my shovel and smiled awkwardly at my companions. “Ready?”
Charles answered by stabbing his shovel down into the ground and lifting out a giant heap of dirt. “Oh, yeah.”
“This is almost as disgusting as what you two were doing before,” Octo-Cat growled, returning to the porch. He loved exploring the outdoors but hated getting dirty. Sure enough, the sight of the disturbed dirt was enough to have him whipping out his sandpaper tongue and getting to work.
“How can I help, Mommy?” Paisley asked, shifting her weight back and forth between her two front paws in a merry little dance. Unlike the cat, she loved any and every chance to get dirty. On more than one occasion, I’d found her in our laundry room rolling around in the dirty clothes pile with an expression of absolutely unfettered joy.
“Stay out of the way for right now, because I don’t want you to get hurt while we’re digging.”
Paisley’s face fell for an instant. It seemed she was the only one who didn’t understand how small and vulnerable she could be when danger struck—and even when it didn’t. Even though I wanted to keep her safe, I knew better than to completely exclude her from our mission.
“Once we’re done digging, you can help bring things out,” I offered, making my voice high and hyper. “Deal?”
“Deal,” she barked and ran up the porch steps. She had a hard time running in a straight line since her tail was wagging so furiously. Still, she made it to her kitty bestie’s side, tail still wagging a staccato against the porch floorboards.
Turning my attention back to the matter at hand, I realized the pile of dirt beside Charles had grown by several shovelfuls now and I hadn’t even broken earth yet. I raised my shovel again, ready to dig in, when Charles stopped me with a sharp command.
“Grab the flashlight and see what you can make out under there,” he said, lifting yet another pile of dirt out of the way.
I searched the yard until I spotted the flashlight lying in a nearby patch of grass. Grabbing it with both hands, I switched it on. Twilight had already begun to set in. Within half an hour, the sky would be completely dark. We needed to hurry. I had no idea when Pringle would be back, but I knew he had the benefit of night vision plus knowledge of the terrain. And while Octo-Cat could see in the dark, he wasn’t exactly the most hands-on when it came to tonight’s task.
I approached the widened hole carefully so as not to be greeted by a shovelful of dirt to the face and dropped to my hands and knees, lowering myself all the way to my stomach. With the flashlight’s help, I could now see most of the space beneath the porch for the first time ever.
“Oh my gosh,” I squealed, forgetting to keep my voice low so as not to be overheard by Julie inside. “It’s like a dragon’s lair under there. No wonder he thinks of himself as some kind of fairytale knight.”