RARE BEASTS Read online

  “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.

  24. Fuel to the Fire

  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.

  25. Edgar and Ellen Face Off

  “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.

  E
dgar 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.

  26. Snakes Will Be Snakes

  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.

  Since everyone was fixated on the fight, no one remained around the Exotic Animal Emporium to notice the hungry Mondopillar make its move. Its flexibility made it inevitable that the Mondopillar would eventually wriggle out of its bonds. Slowly, it began to move down the length of the cart, smelling delicious things with its tongue.

  The other animals were still leashed in place, and from the Mondopillar’s perspective, all the puppies and kitties and bunnies were laid out like an all-youcan-eat buffet. The giant snake slithered forward, and the helpless little creatures in its path could do nothing to save themselves.

  The Mondopillar first reached the miniature Hamble, the itty-bitty kitty painted three shades of purple with a shiny red nose and pointy antlers on its head. The Mondopillar opened its great jaws wide and swallowed the Hamble in one big gulp, continuing toward the roly-poly feathered hamster the twins had named a Druffle.

  Then, just as the oversized eating machine was about to inhale a second savory morsel, the Mondopillar froze in its track.

  27. An Attention Getter

  The Hamble’s antlers had caught in the Mondopillar’s throat. All kinds of loud, nasty wheezes and coughs came from the python as it choked and gagged.

  Now, Edgar and Ellen were yelling at the top of their lungs as they fought, and the roar of the surrounding crowd was very loud indeed, but the vile sounds made by the distressed snake were even louder. Everyone turned to see the source of the fearsome racket, the fight temporarily forgotten.

  As the crowd watched, the Mondopillar coiled its body, raising itself high in the air and thrashing wildly about. Its head swayed from side to side and then reared back, and suddenly, with one tremendous “grrahhkk!” the snake dislodged the Hamble trapped in its throat.

  Tufts of purple fur; a round, red ball; and splinters from what had been antlers arched through the air in a spray of snake spittle, followed by a slimy kitty with mismatched eyes that looked awfully glad to be outside of the python.

  “Chauncey!” screamed Donald Bogginer when he recognized his pet. Donald picked up the kitty and hugged him tightly.

  “These aren’t valuable exotic animals! They’re our pets!”

  28. No One Likes a Bath

  The children swarmed over Engine Number 7. They grabbed water hoses and sprayed the cart and its contents from top to bottom. All the dyes, paints, and decorations washed away, and an exuberant cheer erupted from the crowd as the animals were revealed. The boys and girls were thrilled to see their pets, but not as happy as their pets were to see them!

  While some of the children ran to the cart, a few remained on the truck. They increased the water pressure and took aim at the causes of their misery.

  The water hit the twins full on.

  “Glug!” yelped Edgar.

  “Blarp!” gargled Ellen.

  The blast knocked the pair completely off their feet, and turned the ground beneath them into a swampy mess.

  One by one, the children gathered up their pets from the table, laughing and cuddling as the animals licked and nuzzled them. And one by one, they stomped past Edgar and Ellen, who wallowed helplessly in the mud pit.

  “This is for Freckles!” said Stanley Mulligan, thumbing his nose.

  “And this is for Blumpers!” said little Annie Krump, yanking Ellen’s pigtail as she splashed by.

  “And this is for our Mr. Poo Poo!” declared Peter Pickens, kicking mud as he marched past carrying the tail end of the reptile. Penny, holding its front end, paused a moment as if to consider allowing the snake to make a meal of its captors. As the Pickens children carried their pet away, Mr. Poo Poo stuck his long, slithering tongue out at the twins.

  And to make matters even more miserable, Von Barlow’s jar of fire ants had shattered in the chaos. They scurried through the slop and all over Edgar and Ellen, taking tiny, painful chomps out of them as they went.

  “Ow!” Edgar yelped at each bite.

  “You and your stupid fire ants!” cried Ellen, slapping herself in a fruitless effort to combat the insects. “Are you happy now? Ouch!”

  After every child reclaimed his or her pet, after every child tromped past the mud-soaked twins, some with their executive parents in tow, after the firefighters rolled up their fire hose and drove Lucky Engine Number 7 out of sight, and after the crestfallen Dr. Felix Von Barlow wandered away down the street, Edgar and Ellen were left alone with the ants in the cold, foul mud.

  29. Close of Business

  Covered with bruises, scratches, and bites, and dripping with oozing filth and mangled holiday decorations, Edgar and Ellen trudged back home and through the front door without bothering to wipe their feet. They didn’t wipe their hands, arms, or legs, either, so as they slunk through the dank house they left trails of mud and dirty glitter in their wake.

  “We sure learned a valuable lesson today, Brother,” said Ellen, yawning.

  “You’re right, Sister,” said Edgar. “The next time we disguise a bunch of stolen animals, we’ll make sure not to use water-based paints and cheap glue— that stuff washes right off!”

  Exhausted, Edgar and Ellen slowly climbed the dark stairs. Halfway up the third flight, an eerie feeling crept over them. They turned and there, cloaked in the shadows of the stairwell, Heimertz stood silently, his toothy smile flashing in the darkness. The twins scurried up the steps.

  Near the top, they passed the den where Pet was again perched atop the wingback chair, intently watching a rerun of the very same nature show that had given them the idea for the Exotic Animal

  Emporium in the first place. One glance at the program caused Edgar and Ellen to grimace and look away.

  “Arrgh, animals! I hate animals, they’re more trouble than they’re worth!” moaned Ellen. “If we never ever see another puppy, kitty, bunny, or hamster, it’ll be too soon!”

  “And don’t forget giant Burmese pythons,” said Edgar, “or rather, do forget giant Burmese pythons!”

  One last song escaped from them as they slunk alo
ng, with all the glee of a funeral dirge:

  “Our plans, our scams—for naught we sought

  Exotic beasts that no one bought.

  A wasted day—we still have not

  A dime to spend on future plots.

  But all those goody-goodies will

  Soon find themselves more miserable

  When we return with coffers full

  And schemes more diabolical.

  Just wait, just wait, for back we’ll be

  To cause more pain and misery.”

  With that, the twins marched past the den, up the stairs, and through the trapdoor to bed, leaving a filthy trail of footprints and handprints behind them.

  30. The End of the Broadcast Day

  Pet was left alone in the den, the light from the television casting deep shadows in the dark room. Once again, Edgar and Ellen hadn’t stayed long enough to hear Professor Paul’s final words on exotic animals:

  “This odd creature is possibly the rarest animal on the planet, and sightings of the elusive beast are few and far between. It is not known for sure how many still live out there in the wild, and this scarcity makes them easily the most valuable exotic animals in the world.”

  On the snowy black-and-white screen, the camera zoomed in on a tattered page from an old zoology book, showcasing a creature that looked very much like a dark, matted, greasy hairball with one yellowish eye.

  Pet descended from the chair. Its dark, matted, greasy hairball of a body shambled off to bed, its single yellowish eye casting a faint glow as it disappeared into the shadows.

  Revenge Is Sweet

  “Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!”