“Thank you, Polo.” Oscar cleared his throat. “So first things first. We should probably count the coins to see how many we have. Walt, you have online contacts who can help us with the next step?”
“I do.”
“We’ll need you to get in touch with them. See what we have to do to get the ball rolling. We don’t have much time.”
“We’ll need to give Chad his sardines, too. We can’t forget that,” Polo said. She had a bad feeling that Chad was upset with them, but she wasn’t sure why.
“And Wallace! We need to give him some seeds,” Marco added.
“Right.” Oscar nodded. “I’m so proud of you all! Our plan went off without a hitch!”
“Well, not quite,” Polo said, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Not quite without a hitch.”
“What? What do you mean?” Oscar clicked his beak. He was pretty sure the plan had gone perfectly.
“There was a hitch,” Marco said. He thought it was pretty obvious from what Polo had said.
“My button,” Polo said, putting a hand up to her neck. “The hitch is my button. The string broke, and it fell out of the grate into the living room.”
“It’s in the middle of the floor now,” Marco said.
Oscar laughed with relief. He’d been afraid they were going to tell him something bad. Something that would mess up the plan. “Oh, well, a button. That’s a very small thing.”
“But it was distinctive,” Polo said. “If they find it, they’ll know it was me.”
“Don’t be silly,” Walt said.
“Polo, you’re not being reasonable,” Oscar said. “Even if they find it, they never saw your button! They won’t have any idea it was you.”
“Right.” Butterbean nodded encouragingly. “They’ll think it was Madison.”
Four heads turned toward Butterbean.
Oscar frowned.“What do you mean, they’ll think it was Madison?”
Butterbean shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t like being put on the spot that way. “They’ll think it was Madison, because the Coin Man knows it’s her button.”
Walt stalked over to Butterbean and sat down.“Explain.”
Butterbean sighed.“When we were in the elevator, the Coin Man noticed her sparkly buttons. He talked about them. As soon as he sees it, he’ll know it’s hers.”
Polo sat down hard on her haunches. She’d been afraid the Coin Man would come after her. But the idea that the Coin Man would come after Madison? And that it was her fault? That was even worse.
“Are you sure?” Polo squeaked.
“Of course not,” Oscar said. “That’s ridiculous. The Coin Man didn’t notice Madison’s buttons.”
“He totally noticed her buttons,” Butterbean said.
“Oh no,” Polo said weakly.
“But that’s good for you, Polo,” Butterbean said encouragingly. “He’ll never suspect you.”
“What have we done?” Polo said softly. “We have to fix this!”
“It’s too late, Polo,” Marco said, patting her on the shoulder. “There was no way to get it back. Madison will probably be fine.”
“Marco’s right, Polo,” Oscar said brusquely. “It’s too bad that the button was left behind. It really is. But it can’t be helped. We need to move ahead with our plans.”
Walt nodded.“Remember what Bob said. We don’t want to go to the shelter.”
“But…”
“I’m sure nothing will happen to her. After all, she didn’t take the coins. They won’t be able to blame her,” Walt said.
“She’ll have an alibi,” Oscar said.
“I guess you’re right,” Polo said. “I don’t feel right about it, though.”
“She’ll be fine,” Walt said. “You’ll see. She’ll be here after school—you can see for yourself then.”
“Oh! Right! I forgot about that,” Polo said, brightening.
“In the meantime, we need to get these coins out of sight. Butterbean, do you think you can carry them into the office? I’d fly them, but… you know. My back,” Oscar said. His back felt fine, but he was done carrying that heavy bag. He was pretty sure it made him look ridiculous.
“Sure,” Butterbean said, grabbing the handle of the bag and pulling it onto the floor. Half of the coins fell out, but Butterbean didn’t worry about that as she dragged the bag toward the office.
“We’ll just gather those up too,” Walt said, batting a gold coin in the direction of the office.
It took much longer to stash the coins away than they’d thought, and when they were through, Polo flopped down on the floor exhausted. “Wake me up when Madison gets here,” she said, closing her eyes.
Marco looked at the clock on the wall and frowned.“Okay, but…” he said, looking worried. “Isn’t she supposed to be back now?”
They all turned and looked at the clock and then at the door. There was no sound from the hallway outside.
Polo looked back at the clock.“Walt?”
Walt’s eyes were still on the door. “She’s late. It’s not a problem.”
“The clock says she should be here,” Polo said.
“My bladder says she should be here,” Butterbean said.
“She’s probably fine,” Marco said weakly. “Maybe they made her stay late?”
“They didn’t make her stay late,” Polo said, standing up. “Something is wrong. I’m going to find out what’s happened.”
Polo turned and marched toward the vent without another word.
“I’m going too,” Marco said, hurrying after her.
“I think you’re overreacting, Polo,” Walt said.
“Well, we’ll see,” Polo said as she climbed into the vent. Marco scurried after her with one last apologetic look at Walt.
“She’s probably fine,” Oscar said, looking out of the window at the street below. He saw lots of adult people, but no small, child-sized people. “It was just a button. Who would even notice that?”
“The Coin Man,” Butterbean said, her head on her paws. She was stationed by the front door, nose pressed to the gap underneath. “The Coin Man will notice.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. She wasn’t part of our plan anyway,” Oscar said. “Not to be mean, but we need to look out for ourselves. We don’t have Mrs. Food to take care of us anymore.”
“If something happens to Madison, we don’t have anybody to take care of us anymore,” Butterbean grumbled. She really needed to pee.
Oscar looked back out of the window. There was no doubt now that something was very wrong. Madison had never been this late.
“Ahem, excuse me?” A small voice came from the direction of the vent. “Knock knock?”
“Who’s there!” Butterbean said, whirling around. A small rat was standing nervously by the couch. And even though he’d said “knock knock,” it didn’t sound like he was telling a joke.
“Um, I’m Wallace. I’m here about Marco and Polo?” Wallace cleared his throat. “I met them in the vents?”
Walt jumped down from the top of the couch and landed next to Wallace, who was visibly startled.“You know Marco and Polo?”
“Um, yes?” Wallace eyed the vent like he was planning to make a dash for it.
“They’re not here, unfortunately. Would you like to wait?” Walt leaned away from the rat. She was trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. Wallace didn’t seem like a rat who’d had a lot of experience with cats. Or at least not good experiences.
Wallace cleared his throat and clutched his hands in front of his chest.“Yes, I realize that. That’s why I came. There seems to be some sort of… incident going on? In the apartment on the top floor? I thought you might like to know.”
“What’s happening?” Oscar flew over and landed on Wallace’s other side. He loomed over the rat, eyeing him carefully. He wasn’t worried about being nonthreatening.
Wallace swallowed.“I’m not sure. I don’t go to those vents. But I saw Marco and Polo go up there, and… well, there’s a lot of noise. Bad sounds. I’m not sure.”