The Sasquatch Escape (The Imaginary Veterinary) (2 page)

H
ere we are,” Grandpa Abe announced as he exited the highway. The sign at the side of the road read:

Grandpa Abe drove down Main Street. The evening sky had darkened, but the corner streetlights shone brightly, casting their glow on the little town.

Ben frowned. It didn’t look like the nicest town on Earth. It looked like the saddest town on Earth. There were no bright awnings, no corner fruit stands, no sidewalk tables where people sipped fancy drinks. Instead, many of the little shops that lined Main Street were empty, with signs in the windows:

“This town hasn’t been the same since the button factory shut down,” Grandpa Abe explained. “Most of the young families moved away to find work.”

Ben had heard about the button factory. His mother kept a big bowl of buttons in the entertainment room back home in Los Angeles. “Those buttons were made by your grandfather,” she’d told him. “He worked in a button factory most of his life.”

“How come the factory shut down?” Ben asked, peering over the seat.

“Customers stopped wanting handmade buttons like these,” Grandpa Abe replied, pointing to the big wooden buttons on the front of his shirt. “People should be so lucky to get handmade buttons. But it’s cheaper to buy the plastic ones made by a machine.”

Ben’s gaze traveled up the wooden buttons and rested on his grandfather’s wrinkled face. He hadn’t seen his grandfather in six years. Ben’s dad said it was because Grandpa Abe didn’t like to travel. Because Ben had been only four years old at the time, he didn’t remember anything about the
last visit. In the photos at home, Grandpa Abe had dark hair just like Ben and Ben’s dad. But today, not a single hair remained on his shiny scalp.

Ben must have been staring pretty hard because his grandfather turned and winked at him. “You look different, too,” Grandpa Abe said. “Your hair is shorter.”

Ben ran his hand over his hair, which was cut to precisely three-quarters of an inch every two weeks. He thought about making up a story that his hair had been cut short because he’d been infested with Caribbean head lice, or because the ends had caught fire when he’d been struck by lightning. The real reason Ben had short hair was because his mother insisted it was
stylish
. She always took him to her hairdresser in Beverly Hills rather than to a barbershop, where the other boys went.

The Cadillac pulled up to a stop sign, just opposite a shop called the Dollar Store. A girl leaned out of the store’s upstairs window. It wasn’t her fuzzy pink bathrobe that caught Ben’s attention, or the way her long blond hair glowed
in the lamplight. What caught his attention was the way she was staring at the sky with her mouth wide open, as if seeing something very strange.

Ben unfastened his seat belt, rolled down the opposite window, and stuck his head out. Cool night air tickled his nose and ears. A shadow darted between two clouds—a shadow with enormous wings and a long, ropelike tail. If Ben had blinked, he would have missed it.

The girl looked down at Ben. Their eyes met. She’d seen it, too.

Then she mouthed a single word before disappearing behind the curtains.

“You want me to catch a cold?” Grandpa Abe complained.

As Ben closed the window and buckled his seat belt, Grandpa Abe drove through the intersection and turned onto a side street. Ben wrapped his arms around the hamster cage again. He wasn’t an expert at reading lips, but he was pretty certain he knew what word the girl had said.

Dragon
.

A
ll the houses on Pine Street looked the same because they were company houses, built long ago by the owner of the button factory. Each was narrow with a white picket fence and three steps that led up to the front porch. Each was painted green with white trim and had a brick chimney. The only way to tell Grandpa Abe’s house from the other houses was its cherry-red porch swing.

Grandpa Abe’s cane tapped as he led Ben up the steps. The inside of his house smelled like coffee
and onions, which wasn’t so bad. Dust sparkled at the edges of a crowded bookshelf and a cluttered table. The furniture was patched and faded. Stuffing leaked from the sofa pillows. The entire house was the size of Ben’s father’s garage.

“Not much to look at, but it’s home,” Grandpa Abe said. “I know you’re used to much better.”

Ben set the hamster cage on the kitchen counter, right next to a bowl of peanuts, and looked around. There was no big-screen TV, no chandelier, no fancy Persian carpets. And clearly no housekeeper. Ben opened his hamster cage and dumped in two peanuts. They landed with soft
plop
s in the newspaper litter. As Snooze popped his head out of his nest and grabbed a treat, Ben wondered if his grandfather was poor.

Grandpa Abe rubbed
the back of his bald head. “Better go get your suitcase and I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”

Ben went back outside. A single star had appeared in the now cloudless sky. It never got very dark in Los Angeles because the city never went to sleep. But here in Buttonville, even with the lights glowing, night pressed in with eerie, charcoal-colored shadows. So dark. So quiet. Ben grabbed his suitcase and hurried back into the house.

“This is your bedroom,” Grandpa Abe said as he opened the door behind the kitchen. He reached up and pulled a cord that hung from the ceiling. The light switched on, revealing a room not much bigger than a closet, with peeling yellow wallpaper and the faint odor of mothballs. “If I were you, I’d keep that mouse in here, out of Barnaby’s reach.”

“Snooze isn’t a mouse; he’s a hamster,” Ben said as he dumped his suitcase onto the bed. Dust particles jumped off the quilt and took flight
through the air like cosmic gymnasts. “Who’s Barnaby?”

“Who’s Barnaby? Barnaby’s my cat.”

“You have a cat?” Ben’s heart thumped. He snatched the cage from the kitchen counter and hurried back into the bedroom. “A cat?”

“He’s an excellent mouser, that cat,” Grandpa Abe said proudly.

“Mouser?”

“What? You’re surprised by that? Cats catch mice, that’s what they do,” Grandpa Abe said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But Barnaby’s never killed a hamster. As long as you keep the door closed, your hamster will be fine.” Grandpa Abe pointed his cane around the room. “That’s your closet and dresser drawers.”

Ben set the cage on top of the dresser. His parents hadn’t said anything about a cat that liked to hunt. But then again, his parents hadn’t said anything about this trip except, “We need time alone to work out some troubles, so we’re
sending you to stay with your grandfather.”

Grandpa Abe hobbled over and sat at the end of the bed. “So? What are your plans?”

“Plans?”

“For the summer. What do you want to do?”

Ben shrugged. “What is there to do?”

“There aren’t any jobs, if that’s what you were hoping for. Ever since the button factory closed, finding work is nearly impossible around here.” Dust particles swirled beneath the overhead bulb. “You could come with me to the senior center. We’ve got bingo on Monday, board games on Tuesday, dance lessons on Wednesday, guest lectures on Thursday, and Friday is birthday day, when we celebrate all the birthdays for that week. Saturday is pudding day.”

“Pudding day?”

“We eat pudding. It’s fun.”

Ben didn’t want to hurt his grandfather’s feelings, so he simply said, “Yeah, sounds like fun.”

Grandpa Abe reached over and patted Ben’s
knee. “Cheer up, boychik. It won’t be that bad. You’ll find something to do. Boys always find something to do. You’ll keep yourself busy while your parents work out their troubles, and then you’ll be back home for school before you know it.” With a grunt and some creaking of the knees, he got to his feet. “In the meantime, I have a leftover brisket that I’ll warm in the microwave.”

As soon as his grandfather had left the room, Ben released a groan that he’d been holding since he got off the plane. This was going to be the worst summer ever. Summer was supposed to be spent swimming in his pool with friends or rowing at the lake. Not stuck at the senior center playing board games and eating pudding.

“Nothing fancy around here,” Grandpa Abe explained fifteen minutes later as they sat at the kitchen table. He handed Ben a chipped plate and a fork with a bent handle. “Been living the bachelor life for twenty years. Don’t care much for fancy. I need fancy like I need a hole in the head.”