Andrew's eyes shifted from the cereal box he'd been reading and focused on his mother's face over the top of his glasses. "How do you know?"
How like him, she thought, smiling to herself in spite of the multitude of worries that had kept her awake half the night. The Little Professor, she and Bob had called him when presented with that solemn, analytical stare.
"Did you see him?" the boy persisted, looking both fearful and eager.
"Well, no," Karen admitted. "But I found another mess. I had to throw away a whole box of Crispy Oats, a brand-new box I just bought yesterday."
Andrew tilted his head and chewed thoughtfully, staring into space. After a moment, unable to find a loophole on which to base a rebuttal, he shrugged and said, "I really thought scaring him would work. Mice don't like loud noises, you know. Maybe next time, if we-"
"Andrew," Karen interrupted, and took another breath. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." She flinched and braced herself against the stricken look in her son's eyes. "I'm going to have to set a trap."
With false brightness, like someone clutching at straws, he said, "Couldn't you just put everything in the refrigerator, so the mice couldn't get it? Or… or, hey, how's this? We put all the food in jars-you know, glass? And that way-"
"Andrew… "
He gave up then; his lashes fell across his eyes, taking all expression out of his unformed, eight-year-old face. Neatly and methodically he stacked his orange juice glass in his cereal bowl, pushed back his chair and carried both his dishes and the cereal box to the sink- but not before Karen caught the slight but unmistakable quiver in the vicinity of his chin. Love, frustration and helplessness rose in her throat as she watched the little boy rinse his dishes with adult thoroughness and place them in the drainer. The back of his neck looked so slender… so vulnerable.
She went to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Honey, I don't like killing them any more than you do. But I just can't have mice in the house, you know that. I explained-"
He shook off her hand and gave an oddly grownup-sounding sigh. "I know, I know. They'll get into the drawers and chew up the clothes to make their nests, and gnaw on the furniture, and it doesn't even belong to us, it belongs to Mrs. Goldrich. And besides that, they go to the bathroom on everything, and they stink." He turned to her suddenly, his eyes bright and hopeful behind his glasses. "Do we have to kill them? Maybe we could get one of those traps, you know, like Cinderella? Sort of like this little cage, where the mouse just goes in and can't get back out. And then we could take it out someplace and turn it loose. Or, hey- I could keep it for a pet! How would that be, Mom? Don't you think that's a good idea?"
Karen pressed a distraught hand to her forehead. "Honey, I don't think they even make mousetraps like that anymore. I wouldn't know where to look." She'd certainly never seen one at the supermarket or the hardware store. Maybe she could ask at the feed store out on Route 7… Oh, how she dreaded disappointing Andrew again, even more than she dreaded the prospect of sitting alone in the long winter evenings after he'd gone to bed, listening for that horrible, lethal SNAP!
In a tone that bordered on desperation, she said, "I'll see what I can find, okay? No promises. Now, you go brush your teeth and get your backpack. Hurry up-it's time to go."
"No, it isn't," Andrew countered matter-of-factly. "It's not even quarter till." He paused, doing the calculations in his head. "We still have… twenty minutes."
"We have to leave early," Karen explained, "so I can drop the car off at Angel's Garage."
Andrew's face lit up. "Cool. Can I go with you? You could walk me to school after."
"Then we'd both be late. Run along now. Scoot." She aimed a gentle swat at the seat of his blue jeans, which he eluded without difficulty.
"Then can I go after school? You could pick me up when you get the car."
"What in the world," Karen inquired with exasperation in her voice, "would you find to do there for two hours?" The subject of her car, and the increasing frequency of its visits to Angel's Garage, was as sore a subject to her as the unwelcome visitor in her kitchen. More so, at the moment.
"Help Tony," said Andrew. He turned in the bathroom doorway to add proudly, "He lets me."
"Well… " Karen said. She coughed and muttered something vague about asking permission, though for the life of her she couldn't understand what her son found so fascinating about that garage and its surly proprietor, Tony D'Angelo. In her opinion, the mouse was more appealing.
Not that the man was repulsive, or anything. Far from it, in fact, which Karen was willing to admit might be at least part of her problem. She had always had trouble dealing in a cool and businesslike manner with men she found physically attractive, and without a doubt, Tony D'Angelo did have more than his share of animal magnetism. He had typically Italian good looks-thick, wavy brown hair and a cleft in his chin, a nose like the ones on old Roman coins, and dark, arresting eyes-looks that were usually described in pulp fiction as "smoldering." But somehow, whenever those beautiful eyes were aimed at her, particularly after surveying the steaming innards of her car for the third time in a month, Karen felt obscurely defensive, as if she were being accused of some particularly unpardonable form of child abuse. The man was often brusque, sometimes to the point of rudeness, and she had to be on guard constantly to keep from being intimidated by his superior attitude-not an easy task, considering she knew absolutely nothing about cars.
She told herself she only went to Angel's Garage because it was the most convenient one, located within walking distance of both her work and Andrew's school, but the truth was that for all his brusqueness, Tony D'Angelo was simply the best mechanic in town. Karen depended on him for her very livelihood. And, what was more, she trusted him.
"Go see Tony D'Angelo-he's as honest as the day is long." She wished she had a day's salary for every time someone had said that to her, beginning with that memorable, baking-hot day last August when she'd arrived in town with her car overheating and wisps of steam beginning to seep ominously from under the hood. "Oh yeah," everyone she'd asked had told her without hesitation, "what you want is Angel's Garage. Tony'll fix you right up, and he won't steer you wrong, either. He's as good-hearted and trustworthy as they come, and a darn good mechanic to boot."
In the three months since, Karen had come to believe in and appreciate the last two attributes of the garage owner's character; of the first she had yet to see any convincing evidence. Why her son seemed to enjoy his company so much, when all he ever did was bark orders at the child, was beyond her.
"What's wrong with the car this time?" Andrew now inquired, shrugging into his backpack and baring his freshly scrubbed teeth for Karen's inspection.
"Nothing, I'm just having it serviced," she said, mentally knocking wood as she brushed traces of toothpaste from her son's chin and tried without noticeable success to flatten his cowlick. "I just want to be sure everything's all set for winter. Everyone's saying it's going to snow next week."
"Cool!" said Andrew with the enthusiasm of a child born and reared in the Southern California sunshine.
Karen just sighed. The thought of something going wrong with her car at any time was a source of nightmares. In the wintertime it was unthinkable.
The car had been a long way from new when she and Bob had bought it, but it had been all they could afford then, as newlyweds. With Bob in the army, it had been primarily Karen's car from the start, and she had always driven it with great pride and proper respect for its venerable age. In another few years, she thought, it might even be considered a classic, although it came from an era not known for distinguished automotive design, and people had been known to break into impolite gales of laughter when she suggested such a possibility.