Taking a deep breath, Oscar hopped off the loading dock. He just hoped he wasn’t making the worst mistake of his life.
Marco and Polo hurried down the vents, their footsteps echoing as they went.
“We don’t have Chad, so we won’t be able to go into the storage room through the door,” Marco said as he slid down one of the connecting vents.
“We’ll just look through the grates. That’s better anyway,” Polo said. “I don’t want to accidentally run into Bob.”
“Or a raccoon,” Marco agreed. Polo shuddered. “So where should we start?” Marco asked. “Storage room or main basement area?”
“Basement?” Polo said.
“Right.” Marco peered down a vent. “I think this is it?” The vents on the main floor weren’t set up the same way as the upper-floor vents, since there were no apartments. “If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll find Dunkin or one of the other rats. We might not find them, though. Those guys can be pretty stealthy sometimes.”
He slid down into the basement vent and then stopped short, blocking the vent opening. Polo slammed into him from behind, sending them both tumbling forward as she shot into the room.
“Hey!” Polo said. “What’s the—oh. Guess we got lucky, huh?”
She stood up and looked around. The basement vent had basically become one long rat dormitory, with rats sprawled out on small white beds all along the walls. Polo examined the nearest bed.“Wait a minute! Is that a—”
“Pom-pom sock, that’s right,” Dunkin said, appearing out of the darkness. “Those are the best, see, because they have a built-in pillow.”
“I know!” Polo said. She’d slept in a pom-pom sock once, and it really was comfortable. “Where’d you get them all?”
Dunkin looked shifty.“Oh, you know. Around.”
“Um. Okay,” Polo said, making a mental note to check Madison’s sock drawer. “So what’s going on down here? Any sign of the raccoons?”
Dunkin snorted.“Not hardly. They’ve taken over all of our best spots, and now the storage area isn’t even safe. So this is what it’s come to. Bunking in the vents.” Dunkin made a face. “Did you know that maintenance guy has been in the storage area all day? Just because those raccoons had a party.” He rolled his eyes.
“I know it seems bad,” Polo said encouragingly. “But it’s practically taken care of.”
“Oscar’s going to talk to the raccoons on the loading dock right now,” Marco said. “He’s got it covered.”
“He was very determined,” Polo said.
Dunkin snorted again.“Well, he’ll have to get past that big one. The Raccoon King, I call him. He calls all the shots with those guys. And I don’t think he’s going to listen to any apartment bird. No offense.” Dunkin shrugged. “Am I right, Ken?”
An arm shot up from the depths of one of the pom-pom socks and gave a thumbs-up.“Right,” Ken’s muffled voice called out.
Marco and Polo exchanged a worried glance.“Well, you don’t know Oscar,” Marco said.
“Yeah,” Polo added. “One thing about Oscar. He knows what he’s doing.”
Oscar did not know what he was doing. It was insane, that’s what it was. The patchy asphalt around the loading dock had gravel strewn around on it, and Oscar’s feet made crunching sounds as he hopped awkwardly toward the dumpster. He was going to twist an ankle—he just knew it.
Taking one last look around to make sure the coast was clear, Oscar shaded his eyes and peered under the dumpster. There, in the shadows, he could see a dark pile, half-hidden by the dumpster wheels. It looked furry.
“Raccoons,” Oscar said under his breath. He fluffed his feathers up to make himself look bigger, and then took one tentative step under the dumpster. The raccoons were asleep, which would make it easier to deal with them. He just needed to be firm. Stand tall. Tell them what’s what. He could do that.
Taking a deep breath, Oscar marched over to the furry pile and nudged it with his foot. He braced himself, waiting. Then he nudged again.
Nothing.
Something was wrong. Oscar leaned over the fur pile, pushing it again with his foot. It felt wrong, somehow. Oscar cocked his head. It didn’t just feel wrong. It SMELLED wrong. He peered closely at the pile and then gave a sharp barky laugh. It wasn’t a pile of sleeping raccoons. It was a wadded-up fur coat.
Oscar felt himself deflate. He couldn’t believe he’d been fooled like that. The coat smelled like flowery perfume and mothballs—it was obviously one of the items missing from the storage unit. He might not know everything about raccoons, but he knew enough to know that they didn’t smell like flowers and mothballs. Oscar couldn’t believe he’d wasted all this time for nothing.
He gave the coat one last frustrated kick, glaring at it as he did. He was just in time to see a pair of eyes gleaming in the darkness of the coat’s folds.
And a hand reach out and grab his leg.
— 12 —
BUTTERBEAN AND WALT HAD THEIR distraction techniques all planned out. Butterbean was going with her signature move of running in circles and, in case of emergency, the old standby, begging to go out. Walt was planning to employ the sitting-on-Mrs.-Food-so-she-couldn’t-move technique, with her routine of coughing up a hairball as a last resort.
But as it turned out, it wasn’t Mrs. Food they needed to worry about. It was Madison.
“I’m HOME!” Madison yelled as she threw her book bag into the apartment and kicked it across the floor.
“What?” Mrs. Food’s surprised voice came from the office.
“WHAT?” Butterbean yelped. She’d been dozing in the hallway, planning to cut Mrs. Food off at the pass at any sign of movement.
“WHAT?” Walt said, accidentally falling off the coffee table.
Madison wasn’t supposed to be home for hours.
This was a disaster.
Walt stood up and shook herself off. Maybe things weren’t that bad. Maybe it wasn’t obvious that Oscar wasn’t in his cage. Maybe no one would notice.
She looked back at Oscar’s cage. The door was standing wide open, and it was perfectly obvious that a semi-large black bird wasn’t sitting anywhere inside. Nope, definitely a disaster.
Mrs. Food opened her door and hurried down the hallway.“Madison? Why are you home so early?”
Madison kicked her book bag into its spot in the corner as she took off her jacket.“I told them I was sick and took the bus home.” Mrs. Food looked shocked. “WHAT? I couldn’t just SIT THERE with Bob thinking I’m some kind of criminal. I need to defend myself! I need to clear my name. I thought I’d go downstairs and do some investigating. Come on, Butterbean. Want to come?”
Butterbean wagged her tail. She absolutely wanted to come. Especially if it would get Madison out of the house again.
Mrs. Food took Madison by the shoulders and steered her away from the front door.“That storage unit is the one place you are absolutely not going. You will stay as far away from there as possible until this is all cleared up. I’m working on it, but you need to leave this to me.”
“But they think I’m a criminal!” Madison said.
“And we know you’re not. And we’ll prove it,” Mrs. Food said, sitting Madison down on the couch.
“What do we do?” Butterbean moaned. She was standing in the middle of the living room, swaying back and forth. She didn’t know if she should run, bark, or try to get outside. All of her distraction ideas were ruined.
“I don’t know!” Walt said, hovering at the edge of the couch. “They haven’t looked at the cage. Maybe they won’t? I’m sitting on one of them—I don’t care which one.”
“Now, you’re supposed to be sick? So be sick. Spend the afternoon watching bad TV. I’ll make you some soup. Things will look better soon,” Mrs. Food said, patting Madison on the shoulder and heading to the kitchen.
She didn’t look at Oscar’s cage.
“Madison it is,” Walt said, pouncing onto Madison’s lap and kneading Madison’s stomach before settling down for a long nap. “She won’t move for hours.”