RARE BEASTS (10 page)

“NO!” yelled the twins, leaping at Sparkplug.

Ellen grabbed the dog’s collar, trying to pull her head back. Edgar wrapped his arms around the dog’s body to drag her away from the cart. But Sparkplug was big and strong, and the twins didn’t have much success. Fortunately, the dog got a noseful of glitter, which made her sneeze loudly and uncontrollably.

“Sparkplug!”

A firefighter called the dog, who dropped her head and slunk back to the truck, letting loose a few glittery sneezes as she went.

Edgar sighed in relief, but just as Ellen was launching into a sales pitch to convince the fire department to purchase a more exotic mascot, a fleet of bicycles appeared, speeding down Florence Boulevard.

Suddenly, the area around the ExoticAnimal Emporium became very crowded as a pack of neighborhood children pulled up.

With eyes red and puffy from hours of crying, two dozen children looked up pleadingly at the firefighters and the zoologist. Occasionally a sniffle
could be heard from the back of the group.

“Have you found them yet? Have you found our pets?” asked Willa Malloy, whose green bike was at the front of the pack.

Little Annie Krump covered her face with her hands and muffled a sob. Willa cast a sympathetic look over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, young lady,” said a firefighter, “but we haven’t found a trace of them. We may have to accept the worst.”

“
No!
We don’t believe our pets were eaten! Not
all
of them, they couldn’t have been!”

“Now, kids, I know it’s hard…,” said the firefighter.

“Well, did you find the snake? Was its stomach huge?” asked Willa.

“Uh, no, we haven’t located the snake yet,” Von Barlow admitted, “but we’ll catch it soon!”

Willa hung her head between her handlebars for a moment and then straightened up again. “You expect us to believe that all our pets just up and ran away, or that some huge snake ate every single one of them? That’s crazy!”

The firefighters and Dr. Von Barlow looked away, unable to think of anything that could possibly console the children.

But Edgar and Ellen thought of something to say.

“We’re very sorry to hear about your misfortunes, but maybe a sweet new pet is just what you need to take your minds off your losses,” said Edgar.

“We happen to have some very nice exotic pets for sale right here,” said Ellen.

The twins smiled, doing their best to appear sympathetic. Willa swung off her bike and let it fall with a clatter. She snapped at them, pointing her finger accusingly. “What makes you think we’d want
new
pets? And why would we want them from the two of you? We remember the mean tricks you’ve played on us!”

“Yeah!” yelled some of the other children.

“Our animals are out there somewhere, trying to find their way back to us, I just know it! We’ve been searching all day, and we’re not going to give up now!” Willa pointed to a young girl covered in puffy red welts, “Heather searched the edge of the Black Tree Forest, and all she found were hundreds of mosquitoes.

“Seth and Burl Turkle spent the morning looking in disgusting sewer pipes….”

Edgar and Ellen recognized the two boys from earlier that day, still covered head to toe with slime and glop.

“They smell so bad, we made them ride in the back.

“Amy, Frannie, and Ronnie turned up nothing in the alley behind the school—well, except for a few fat rats, but who likes
rats
?”

At the mention of rats, Edgar nodded at his sister. They’d had some fun times with rats.

“Leanne and Bruno didn’t have any luck at the construction sites, and Sondra looked under every car and truck in town.”

Willa let out a sigh of despair, and the children behind her made little choked-up sounds.

The tall girl leaned toward the twins and waved a finger under their noses. “We’re not going to let you two pull anything on us.”

“Pull something on you?” said Ellen sweetly. “Why—we’d never! Why don’t you just take a peek at what we’ve got. No pressure to buy, of course…” She trailed off and took a step back to reveal the rare beasts.

Willa resisted for a moment, but curiosity won out, and she reluctantly approached the wagon. The rest of the children parked their bicycles and followed her.

Muzzled, the exotic beasts purred and whined desperately, but their beloved owners didn’t recognize
them. The animals strained against their leashes and hopped in place, all except for the lethargic Mondopillar, who napped in the back.

“Hey, look at this,” squealed Carolyn South as she squeezed the bulbous nose of a crusty yellow Guttlebug.
“Gross!”

Calvin Hucklebee lifted up the rubbery forked tail of a Shump and whistled.
“Freaky!”

Willa rapped her knuckles against the hard, shiny head of a Hootlet, and the metallic clang made her wonder aloud, “What is this thing’s skull made out of ?”

“Do NOT touch the animals! They need their rest—some of them are jet-lagged from their journeys.” Ellen pushed back the kids who were poking and prodding the valuable items.

“If each one of you takes home one of these rare exotic creatures,” she added, “it won’t be long before
you forget all about your old, plain pets. You’ll be the proud owners of the most unique animals in the world!”

“But we don’t
want
to forget about our pets!” cried Annie.

“They’re part of our
families
!” wailed Seth.

“And who wants exotic animals when they’re creepy and ugly and weird?” asked Willa. “How can I curl up in bed with
this
one?” she continued, pointing at a Lompa. “Those pointy horns would scratch me all night. Anyway, we’re kids! Sondra’s paper route, Burl and Seth’s lawnmower service, and all of our allowances together couldn’t buy a single one of these things, even if we wanted them. Your prices are
outrageous
.”

Edgar and Ellen stared at each other. Their hands curled into fists.

A loud screech of tires made everyone turn around. Marvin Matterhorn tried to get out of his car, but his seatbelt held him fast. Finally he gave up and rolled down his window. His fellow executives, each
strapped into their own cars, followed suit.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Marvin Matter-horn spat at the firefighters, holding a newspaper out the window and jabbing his finger at the front page.

It was a special evening edition of the
Nod’s Limbs Gazette.
The headline screamed:

“First, we’re up all night tending to our crying kids! Then we had to spend all day conducting meetings from our cars! And now, you’re creating a panic by telling us something might eat our kids? This is unacceptable!”

“Unacceptable, indeed!” piped up the other businesspeople.

Mr. Matterhorn was about to unleash further insults about the fire department’s incompetence when he caught sight of Edgar and Ellen.

“Oh, it’s you two,” he said crossly. “Have you lowered your prices yet? That five dollars is still burning a hole in my pocket!”

And that sent the twins over the edge.

“No one has any money!”
screeched Edgar.

“Everybody wants us to just
give
these things away!” said Ellen.

“How are we going to finance all our greatest schemes?” they yelled at each other.“It’s all
your
fault!”

“
My
fault?”

“Arrgh!”

The twins stood nose to nose in the midst of a crowd silenced by their sudden outburst. The adults were taken aback by the siblings’ ferocity. Most of the children weren’t surprised by it at all.

“We haven’t made one single dollar all dreary day! Where are our riches? Where are our buckets of money?” said Edgar.

Ellen snatched an orange traffic cone that had fallen from Lucky Engine Number 7 and plunked it down hard atop Edgar’s head.

“How’s this for a bucket, you amateur! I should get a reward for putting up with you and your useless plans!”

Edgar yanked fruitlessly at the cone. It didn’t budge. “You thankless hack!” He ripped a squishy bicycle horn from Calvin Hucklebee’s handlebars and threw it at Ellen. It deflected off her perspiring forehead with an insulting
squonk
! “If your sales skills weren’t so pathetic, we’d have enough cash to employ all of my brilliant blueprints!”

“
Brilliant?
Ha! You’re about as bright as a black hole!” Ellen retorted, strings of spittle flying between them.

“Oh,
yeah
?” shouted Edgar as he stomped on Ellen’s foot.

“Yeah!”
hollered Ellen as she reared back and kicked Edgar in the shin.

The children encircled the fray and watched the twins hop around in pain.

“What are they doing?” asked Carolyn South.

Ellen swung her arms and tried to box her brother’s ears, but succeeded only in knocking the traffic cone sideways on his head.

“It’s called
fighting
. They do this sometimes,” said Peter Pickens.

Edgar lowered his head and tried to ram Ellen like a crooked orange rhinoceros.

“What kind of siblings
fight
?” cried Seth and Burl Turkle, gripping each other in horror. “What do we do?”

Ellen spun Edgar around by the top of the cone, then pinched her brother’s nose between her knuckles.

Willa Malloy shrugged. “Dunno. Guess we let them go at it.”

Ellen rushed at Edgar, and Edgar rushed at Ellen, and they tackled each other in front of the Exotic Animal Emporium. Edgar’s cone crumpled and plopped off as the twins rolled about in the dirt, and nobody could tell the combatants apart in their filthy striped pajamas.

The din of battle grew louder and louder, until, at long last, Mr. Poo Poo awoke from his slumber.

He was hungry.

Many people keep puppies and kitties as pets, and it’s easy to see why. Puppies and kitties are cute. They cock their little heads and look up at you with their loving eyes, and they’re faithful and loyal and always happy to see you. They like to rub up against your legs and curl up in your lap, lick your hand, and get you to stroke their fur. But not everybody keeps puppies and kitties for pets.

Some people, like Peter and Penny Pickens, keep Burmese pythons.

And as their owners know, a Burmese python can grow to be over twenty feet long and as thick as a tree trunk. A snake doesn’t look at you with loving eyes because it has snake eyes, and snake eyes always look like they’re up to something. And a snake doesn’t have fur for you to stroke, so if it curls up against you, it’s probably hungry and thinks you’ll make a tasty meal.

The twins had never owned a Burmese python themselves, so they knew nothing about the natural tendencies of a giant snake. They had merely snatched the Pickens’ python as they had snatched all the other pets in the neighborhood and disguised it
as a great multicolored Mondopillar, an especially exotic animal with a pointed snout, curling antennae, and feathers down the length of its limbless body.