RARE BEASTS (8 page)

“I don’t think this spot is working either, Brother.”

“Off again, I say.” Edgar began to push the creaking wagon.

They pulled and pushed their way along Rio Road, across the edge of the Green Gables Community Golf
Course, past pole after pole covered with “missing” and “lost” pet fliers. Finally, they stopped in front of the Nod’s Limbs High School parking lot to rest.

School was closed for summer vacation, but there were some cars in the lot because the downtown shopping district was nearby.

Ellen stood in front of the cart, yelling “Rare BEASTS for sale!” while Edgar fiddled with the wagon’s sticky wheels.

Suddenly, Ellen felt something pull on her leg.

Little Penny Pickens, so small that she barely reached Ellen’s waist, looked up pleadingly, tugging at Ellen’s striped pajamas with her tiny hand. Ellen recognized the blond five-year-old from the neighborhood.

“’Scuse me, have you seen Mr. Poo Poo?”

Ellen stared at Penny a moment.

“What in blazes is a Mr. Poo Poo?”

Penny looked alarmed. “Didn’t you see the signs my brother made? Ooh, you better be
careful
!”

Now she had the twins’ ears. “Be careful” usually got their attention, since it often meant something unpleasant might happen.

“Whatever do you mean, little girl?” asked Edgar.

“Mr. Poo Poo is gone! He’s our pet snake and he
got out! Big snakes can be very dangerous if you let them out. Mr. Poo Poo wouldn’t do anything to Peter or me—he’s really nice and friendly—but some people don’t know what to do around snakes!”

Edgar and Ellen grinned and poked each other.

“Oh wow, you should see him eat! Mr. Poo Poo can open his mouth really, really wide, and he can swallow things that are bigger than his own head! It’s
amazing
! And ’cause Mr. Poo Poo is so big, the things he can eat are
huge
!

“He doesn’t eat very often, but when he’s hungry, you have to feed him right away. Then everything’s okay, and he goes back to sleep. But if you don’t feed him….”

Penny sighed and pointed toward the Dumpster near the school, where two kids were rummaging about, throwing papers and cans in the air. “All the other kids’ pets disappeared last night, too! Those poor little animals! Everybody says they’re just lost, but if Mr. Poo Poo found them, maybe he ate them for dinner!”

Edgar and Ellen looked down at Penny, absolutely thrilled. Edgar cracked his knuckles in secret satisfaction, and Ellen bit her tongue to keep from smiling
too
broadly.

“I don’t know what to do! We put signs all over
town. Peter and I went to the fire department ’cause they can rescue cats from trees. They said they would tell everybody to look out for Mr. Poo Poo. They just
have
to find him!”

As Penny Pickens sniffled, she finally caught sight of the elaborate cart, the animals still hidden behind the curtain.

“What’s
that
? What does that sign say?”

Ellen leaned down and said, “Our sign says ‘Special Jail for Little Girls.’ Now, scram before we throw you in!”

With a tiny yelp, Penny stepped back, staring first at Ellen, then Edgar, and then fled down the street, her final warning of “Look out for Mr. Poo Poo!” hanging in the warm summer air.

“Well, I’m glad to get
her
out of our hair,” Ellen said. “Who’d be afraid of that snake? All he does is sleep, and he’s got a leash on him. Silly little girl.”

20. Handle with Care

Edgar and Ellen took a moment to eat their lunch, a simple meal of dry salt crackers with olive paste and raisins. The exotic beasts watched them with hungry eyes, and when the Crackermacker tried to snatch a saltine from Ellen, she shooed it away. The twins had just finished eating when Mr. Crapple, the mailman, neared.

As he reached Edgar and Ellen’s mobile menagerie, he let his mailbag slide to the ground, placed his hands on his hips, and leaned backward as far as he could, arching his back until the twins heard a loud
crack
!

“That’s a little better,” grumbled Mr. Crapple. “Gosh darn aching back. Got to get Mrs. Crapple to walk on it again tonight.”

He glanced at the sign posted on the cart.

“Rare beasts, eh?”

Mr. Crapple had been the mail carrier for Zone 13 of the Nod’s Limbs Post Office for decades.

“Well, I hope you’re not expecting to mail any of these creatures,” growled Mr. Crapple. “You’ll need a special permit to send live animals. And you have to take them to the post office yourself. I don’t carry permits on my route.”

“We don’t want to mail them,” said Edgar. “We just want to sell them. It’s our exotic animal collection.”

“Exotic, eh?” said Mr. Crapple. “What do you children know about exotic? All you dirty little ragamuffins, thinking you know everything. I doubt you’ve ever been outside dear sweet Nod’s Limbs in your entire young lives! Not a thing wrong with Nod’s Limbs, mind you, but a far cry from exotic!”

The mailman glared down at them. “You think
you
know exotic?
I
know exotic! I’ve served the postmaster general for going on forty years, and I’ve seen a little something from everywhere. I’ve hauled boxes from Borneo and packages from Paraguay!
Delivered letters from Latvia and crates from the Congo! I’ve carried cartons from Canada and postcards from Pago Pago—held them right here in my very own hands! Don’t tell
me
I don’t know exotic when I see it!”

Mr. Crapple lumbered up to the long wagon full of animals and looked them over. He squinted skeptically as he read the signs describing the animals.

“That’s an awful lot of strange critters you have there, young-uns,” acknowledged Mr. Crapple as he reached Edgar and Ellen at the end of the cart. “Very unusual. But
exotic
? I don’t know about that.

“Did any of them come from some faraway land overseas? That’s the real sign of something exotic— if it came in the mail with colorful stamps all over it. Well, did they?”

Before Ellen could respond, the mailman said, “Of
course
they didn’t come in the mail! If they had, I would have known about it!

“Hey, what’s your strange little friend doing over there?” Mr. Crapple pointed at Edgar, who was gathering rocks by the side of the road.

“Oh, don’t mind him,” said Ellen, rolling her eyes. “He’s a bit off. Now, can I interest you in one of our amazing animals?

“Our Multipeeder is considered a worker of miracles in Plutavia. It has lots of little legs, and a little foot at the end of every one.” Ellen held up the brown and yellow creature, which was really a fat gerbil with several doll limbs glued to its body.

“This rare beast has quite a remarkable history,” she went on. “It was originally captured in the wild savannas of Rimpledop Province in south central Frinquay. We obtained it from a famous traveling musician—a harmonica player, the owner of the world’s largest harmonica, in fact—who had back problems caused by carrying his heavy instrument case all over the world. Imagine how it would feel to have this cute little creature walk up and down your back! So many more feet than Mrs. Crapple!”

Mr. Crapple laughed dryly. “Listen, girlie, my
wife may have bumpy, smelly feet, but that critter you’re holding looks like a giant hairy spider! There’s no way on this great green earth that I’ll let a nasty thing like that touch any part of me!”

Ellen scowled.

“I’ve wasted enough of my time,” the postman continued, ignoring her, “I just needed to stretch my back before continuing my route. Here I am talking to you, and you don’t even have any mail!”

“Pardon me, sir, but I do have something to send,” called out Edgar from the other end of the wagon. He pointed to a large package sitting on the ground.

“Where did that come from? Well, never mind then, don’t dawdle. Put it in my mailbag over there,” said Mr. Crapple.

Edgar heaved the parcel into the mailbag. The new addition landed with a heavy thud.

Mr. Crapple hoisted his mailbag over his shoulder, his eyes bulging and his knees buckling from the weight of it.

“Gee, how’d this thing get so heavy all of a sudden?” grunted Mr. Crapple as he staggered down the street.

Edgar pulled one of Ellen’s pigtails to get her
attention. “This will be fun to see—I opened up one of his boxes and filled it with rocks!”

The twins watched as Mr. Crapple hunched forward and balanced the bag across his back, leaving his legs to shiver and shake under the heavy weight. The postman staggered to the left and staggered to the right and staggered every which way. With every lurch punctuated by a sharp cracking sound from his back, he slowly disappeared out of sight.

Snickering, Edgar and Ellen broke into song.

“That mailman has a lot of gall
He really thinks he knows it all
But now his mailbag’s hard to haul:
He made a big mistake.
A Multipeeder’s what he lacks—
The thing to soothe those painful cracks
But he declined and now his back’s
About to truly ache!”

“We are having absolutely NO luck,” said Ellen, “I can’t believe you’ve picked such awful places to set up our cart!”

“
I
picked?You’re the one steering this contraption!”

Ellen ignored her brother’s retort and lifted the cart’s handle.

“Come on, Edgar, it’s still just early afternoon. Maybe we can find some suckers, I mean
customers
, closer to the river.”

So the twins pushed past Greasy Billy’s Gas Station, turned onto Florence Boulevard, and set up shop near the public library. From where they stood, they were within sight of one of the seven covered bridges in town, the one with
TAKE
on one side of the roof, and
FRIEND
on the other.

Soon, a white-maned gentleman bounded up the road. Large round spectacles perched atop his nose, and his lab coat flapped as he moved like the wings of an agitated goose. He was looking every which way, up and down and around, clearly searching for something. The wiry man was so intent on looking everywhere except where he was going that he almost crashed right into the Exotic Animal Emporium.

“HEY!” yelled Edgar and Ellen.

Startled, the man stopped.

“Oh my! Very sorry!” he said, “Have the two of you seen anything odd today? Any strange slithering movements near the ground? I’m looking for an
escaped python. The fire department contacted me because I’m an animal expert. Firefighters may be very capable at rescuing cats from trees, but tracking pythons is a bit out of their league! But fear not, I’ll find it.”

He paused as he looked past the twins, focusing on the
RARE BEASTS
sign and then on the long stage cluttered with creatures.

“Oh, my.”

He dashed up to the closest creature, a green-and orange-tinted Jollypoddle, and quickly examined it.

“Oh, my!”

He eyeballed the next exotic pet, a large feathered thing with long scraggly teeth called a Windelstump.

“Oh, my!” he said once more, his eyes widening behind the thick glasses.

The animated gentleman skipped along the length of the cart, briefly examining each creature as he went. And with every new discovery, he flailed his arms about in the air or kicked his legs out in a jig or jumped up and down in fits of laughter.