Pinky Pye (21 page)

Pinky had been a little unnerved at the bang, which had exceeded her expectations. But she was pleased with herself and the attention. "Woe," she cried, and leaped through the air, as though after butterflies, right onto Rachel's odd bed. She closed one eye. Mr. Bish was wedging a newspaper between the swinging doors, making them close together more tightly. "Now, pussy, you stay out!" he said sternly.

Pinky looked up there innocently.
As if I couldn't get that out if I wanted to,
she thought.
Tomorrow...

Rachel began, "People..." It was her speech again. "People..." and off she went to sleep. Usually her speeches did put her to sleep.

Owlie was going away now. There he was in his cage in H. Hiram Bish's hands, staring fiercely at those on land as the little boat he was on started putting out to sea. Mr. Bish had plopped his popular sleeping bag on the floor of the boat, which was the little one, the
Maid of the Bay,
and also his one valise. With one hand he held up the little owl cage so owl and Pyes might view each other as long as possible; and with the other hand, he waved. Mr. Bish was smiling. He certainly was a happier man departing than he had been arriving, reflected Rachel. There he had been, three days ago, the one man on the ferryboat, alone and with an empty cage; and in his heart little hope of finding his owl, his rare and splendid owl. And now look at him, a happy beam on his face, his owl in its cage, and his sleeping bag beside him.

It would be hard to tell what Owlie was thinking. He certainly must have a great distaste for boats, having had his terrible and calamitous adventure when on one. "You'll soon be in the zoo," Rachel called to Owlie. But then, to Rachel, this seemed such a sad place for little Owlie to wind up in, she had to brush away a tear.

He is famous though,
Rachel reassured herself.
He will, next to that great old bear they have there, be the most looked-at specimen in the zoo. That should be some comfort to him. And he may be happier being with a lot of other rara avisses: than being a lone bird pet in someone's house. All the same I wish he were ours. Yes, I do. Owl Pye. What a nice name! Owlie Pye.

All of the Pyes, including Papa, who, in his wheelchair, cheerfully rang his bell if he saw a person even a block away, had gone to the wharf to wave good-bye to their guests—the man guest and the owl guest. They hadn't known for certain that Mr. Bish was going today; but just a few minutes before it was time for the boat to depart he had said, well, he guessed he better be on his way. He scooped up his valise, which he had never unpacked, and his sleeping bag and Owlie in his cage, and he and all the Pyes rushed to the boat, which he just barely made. So there he went, he and his pet, putting out into the Great South Bay, the Pyes' first and only guest on Fire Island. This departing made the entire family feel sad, deserted, and lonely.

"I want my mother, my own mother," said Uncle Bennie. "Not
your
mother, Rachel, who is my sister, but my own real right regular mother," he said. "I wish I had gone on the boat, too." He pushed his big sister, Lucy Pye,
their
mother, away from him because he was not interested in huggings from anybody but his own real right mother just then. "And all my crickets is gone!" he added.

"Well," said Mama. "Your mama's coming soon for a real nice visit, and maybe she'll stay until it's time for us to go home; and your papa is coming too for his week's vacation. So don't be sad."

"I want them now," said Uncle Bennie. He sat on a wooden pile and, through tears, looked at the bright green silky seaweed clinging to it. He swung his short legs and he put his thumb in his mouth. Then in a second he pulled it out. "Hey!" he yelled, forgetting his misery and his face reflecting the bright morning sunshine rippling on the waves. "Hey, you know what?"

"That's what," said Jerry, who could never resist this awful joke.

"You know what?...Stop it, Jerry. Don't say it again, that's what..." said Uncle Bennie, speaking so fast Jerry couldn't get the "that's what" in. "You know what? I haven't sucked my thumb since tomorrow."

Uncle Bennie frequently mixed up yesterday with tomorrow. But they all knew what he meant and exclaimed with pride and joy over such an achievement.

"Good boy!" they said, and they had to hug him because it was such a hard thing to do, give up sucking a thumb. Uncle Bennie didn't mind being hugged now and hugged back, so that he almost fell into the bay.

"That's fine, that's fine," said Mama. "But get away from the water, will you? Please?"

"Oh, I won't fall in," said Uncle Bennie. "You don't need to worry." But he got up anyway and sat in Jerry's taxi and studied his thumb. It had quite a callus on it from bygone days when he used to suck it.

"I broke the habit," he said happily and out loud. And he began to suck it again. "Just to see how it used to taste," he said. "Like when I was little I used to suck it all the time. Remember?"

"That was just yesterday," said Jerry.

"Yes," said Uncle Bennie happily, filled with ecstatic wonder at himself.

Jerry was balancing a long thin mahogany-stained bamboo stick first on the tip end of a finger and then, being successful with this, on the end of his nose. He was walking along the top of the seawall, while the wagon boys cheered. Papa said for him please to get off the seawall while balancing a long thin stick on his nose.

"Oh, I won't fall in," said Jerry.

"I'm sure you won't," said Papa. "But you just might."

So Jerry moved to a safer area to balance his thin pole on his nose. The twins in their peppermint-striped suits passed by, looked a moment, not knowing whether to cheer or to imply they saw nothing unusual in this sort of balancing. Deciding on the latter, "We can do that too," they said primly, and climbed into the wagon beside Uncle Bennie.

Meanwhile, the little boat with Owlie and the bird man was putting fast across the bay. The Pyes could still see it, could in fact still distinguish their tall friend, Mr. Bish. Seagulls were following the
Maid of the Bay
and so shall we for a moment, leaving the Pyes watching from the wharf

Mr. Bish had placed Owlie in his cage on the seat in the stern of the boat. Although the
Maid of the Bay
was not a fishing boat, the seagulls showed an amazing amount of interest in it. They swooped and fluttered unpleasantly close, alarming some of the passengers, who put newspapers over their heads. Even though he was an expert bird man, Mr. Bish did not fancy seagulls this close to him. It had not dawned on him, as it has on you, that the seagulls were curious about the little owl.

Flapping their wings wildly and screaming in their frightening way, two gulls in particular circled about Mr. Bish. "What's the matter with you?" said Mr. Bish. "Shoo!" he said. "I haven't any fish." He wondered if he still smelled like that herring. He waved his arms to frighten off the gulls. One gave a sudden low swoop, picked Mr. Bish's owl cage up in his long orange beak, and away he flew with it.

This story might have had a very sad ending if the gentle wind had not been blowing in the right direction. It
was
blowing in the right direction for a happy ending though, for the gull glided in on the wind with his trophy in his beak, right to the very lap of Mr. Pye, who, in his wheelchair, was so overwhelmed at the amazing nature of this bird feat that it was a moment before he remembered to brandish his cane, ring his bell, bellow, and frighten the owl thief. "Wha-hoo, wha-hoo!" he said, which seemed to do the trick, for the gull flew away. Then all the Pyes, speechless with wonder and incredulity, crowded around.

The owl was lying on its back in its cage, claws in the air, stunned with fright.

"My!" said Papa. "My sainted aunt! The poor little tyke! He has had his share of extraordinary adventures. It will be a wonder if he is still alive."

He was alive though. Gradually Owlie revived, stretched one thin leg and then the other, and soon cowered in a corner of his cage, glowering fiercely and looking terribly anxious.

At this moment the little boat putt-putted back to the dock. Mr. Bish, in the name of the Department of Zoos of the United States of America, had demanded that the boat be turned around and that it pursue the seagull that had stolen the owl, property of the government. This the captain grumpily did while the passengers cheered. When the
Maid of the Bay
pulled into port, Mr. Bish stepped ashore and for the second time in two days was reunited with his owl.

"It looks as though this owl wants to belong to the Pyes," said Mr. Bish. "But a promise is a promise, and to the zoo he must go."

Mama had on a dark blue shawl, and she gave this to Mr. Bish to wrap around the cage so that no more seagulls would see the owl and be tempted to swoop off with him again, and also to enable the poor little thing to have a quiet moment of sleep or rest, if he could. It was a wonder he had not died of heart failure.

So, again good-byes were waved, kisses blown, and the little boat putted doubly fast across the bay to make up for lost time. Mr. Bish hugged the cage to him so that nothing of any alarming nature, not wind, not gull, could swoop his owl away again.

"Phew!" said Jerry. "What a thing that was!" He and the others sat down on the seawall to make comments and exchange notes about what they had seen of the swooping gulls and the stealing of the owl by one of them and his long and graceful glide to Papa's very lap!

"Well!" said Papa. "In all my long life with birds, during which I have heard, read, and observed many curious things about them, this theft of an owl in its cage by a seagull tops all."

Then Papa said he had some work to do and that he had taken enough time off, so he started for home, leaving his family still gaping after the
Maid of the
Bay
until it had disappeared altogether. They were not certain that some other miracle might not happen and they did not want to miss it.

Pinky, who had been safely ensconced in Papa's coat pocket and firmly held there during the swoop of the gull, was now allowed the freedom of the ground. She gamboled along behind Papa, looking so adorable Rachel gasped, "Oh, look at her! Look at her! Did you ever see such a cunning cat. There's something about her face! Oh, her face! That little pointed chin! And she has such a busy little brain, as though some plan is going on in it all the time."

"I know it," said Mama, hoping the plan would not involve the slices of liver she had left on the kitchen table, seasoned and ready to cook for lunch. "Don't let Pinky in the house," she called after Papa. But Papa didn't hear her and Mama had forgotten about the mailbox entrance.

Peeking out from between Papa's firm, restraining fingers, Pinky had seen the departure of the owl, so she knew that
that
owl was gone. But could she be sure that there wasn't another owl up in the eaves, maybe a whole flock of them, small and young and tender? "Where there's smoke there's fire," she said with amazing sagacity for such a small kitten.

The rest of the Pyes, lingering behind, were still trying to spot the very seagull that had snatched the cage from the boat and deposited it at their feet. They thought this seagull must know them even if they didn't know him. It was uncanny to think one of these glistening, waxy, cold-eyed, cold-looking, ominous-sounding birds was a friend of theirs. A flock of them was lined up on the top of the boathouse roof, and all of them were staring in the same direction, excepting one. This wrong-way gull might be their friend. Instead of looking upon the owl-snatcher as a thief, they now looked upon him as a friend, since he knew them.

"Well," they gasped. "Well! Phew!" They began to get ready to go home.

Rachel's foot, which had been swollen with fleabites the day of the discovery—goodness, was that only yesterday?—was still quite swollen.

"You will have to stay off that foot," Mama said to her.

"All right," said Rachel reluctantly. Now that the great bird discovery had been made, there was not very much to do, just sitting still.
Oh, I know,
she said to herself, for she was the kind of girl who always had a million plans in her head, things to do, to make, or just to think about. She could work on her bird scrapbook, she reflected as they all started home for lunch.

A good lunch,
thought Mama,
and easy to prepare, the liver being seasoned and ready for the pan.

Alas! Just as the Pyes opened the kitchen door, who should shoot out of the inside of the mailbox but Pinky Pye! She landed skillfully on the table all right, but she slid on the liver, slithering it and the paper it was on off onto the floor. There it lay all peppered and salted and covered with flour. Gracie, edging in on Mama's heels, took in the situation at a glance and immediately took charge. She grabbed the liver and ran under the stove with it, growling fiercely like a tiger. It was a long time before anyone could get it away from her and then who wanted it anyway?

"Oh, my," said Mama. "Let them have it, let the cats have it."

So the cats got all the liver, and this taught Mama never to leave anything on the kitchen table again, not with that mailbox entrance available to little Pinky; and Mama had to fix hot dogs and baked beans for lunch instead. This was very good though, so everybody, cats and people and dog, the cats having to surrender one slice of their trophy to Ginger, had a good lunch.