The dawn found Scarlett already up, unable to sleep past seven. She wandered into the kitchen, got a blueberry muffin from the refrigerator, then wandered back to the bedroom. Roger was up by then, too, yawning in the tiny doorway of his hutch.
“Wanna muffin?” Scarlett said.
He blinked groggily at her. “Sure, thanks.”
She unlocked the top of the cage, lifted it away, broke off a small piece of her muffin, and carefully set it in front of the mouse. She hesitated, her hand still in the cage, then gently stroked his back with a fingertip. Roger didn’t object; in fact, he closed his eyes and lay down in the wood shavings, letting the massage continue. “So glad to be alive,” he mumbled.
Scarlett withdrew her hand a few moments later and ate the rest of her muffin. “I’m glad you’re alive, too.”
Roger raised his head and sniffed at the muffin chunk before him. “Aren’t you going to school?”
“It’s Saturday. Oh, I was invited to go see a game this morning at school. It starts at nine.”
The mouse looked up in concern. “This will sound stupid on top of everything that’s happened, but could you take me with you? I don’t want to be here alone anymore.”
“I thought you didn’t want to go outdoors.”
“I don’t,” Roger sighed, “but if I’m gonna go, I’m gonna go, so I may as well be outside with you instead of home by myself when it happens.”
Scarlett recalled her nightmare. She frowned, disturbed at the memory. “Don’t be morbid.”
“Waiting here for another monster kid to kidnap me is morbid. Can I go with you?”
“I guess. We’ll have to find some way to keep you safe.”
“We’ll work it out. What kind of game is it, by the way?”
“Field hockey. Some friends of mine are playing in a big game against Oakwood High. It might be a little rough.”
“Rough, ha. Bring it on.” Roger got up on all fours and began to nibble at the muffin.
“Scarlett?” called her aunt from her bedroom down the hall. “Scarlett, who are you talking to?”
Scarlett froze in shock, then put a finger to her lips and shushed the mouse. “Nobody!” she called back.
“It sounds like you’re talking to a guy. Is there a guy in your room?”
“No, it’s just me! I’m trying a ventriloquist thing with my mouse!”
Someone got out of bed and came down the hall. Her aunt appeared a moment later in her bathrobe, her hair a mess, and looked around. “Oh,” she said in embarrassment. “I thought I heard someone else in here. Sorry!”
“No problem,” said Scarlett in a very deep voice, trying to sound like Roger. “I’ll keep it down.”
“Are you going out today?”
Scarlett nodded and resumed her usual voice. “I was going to the field hockey game at school. I wanna take off about eight or so. I might go somewhere afterward with some friends.”
“Okay. Listen, can you get some air freshener for this room? That mouse smells awful.”
Roger turned, cheeks bulging with muffin crumbs, and gave Scarlett’s aunt an insulted look.
“I’ll take care of it, promise!” said Scarlett. When her aunt left, she shut and locked her bedroom door. “Crap, sorry about that. I’ll have to be more careful when we talk.”
“Some nerve, saying I stink,” Roger grumbled. “Like people don’t stink when they go to the bathroom. Yeah, right.”
“Oh, get over it. It does smell a little in here.” Scarlett picked up her school backpack, unzipped it, and looked inside. “‘Bout time we did something about it.”
“If you’re going to get air freshener,” Roger said, giving in, “get something that smells like fresh baked bread. I like that smell. Or maybe a scented candle with a flowery odor like rose or lilac, but not too strong. Don’t get any ammonia or anything really powerful, please. That’ll choke me right off. And don’t spray it right at me, either.”
“Yes, your majesty. We can wait until after the game to go to Food Lord, then you can pick out what you want. The pet department there might have something, too.”
“Great,” said Roger. “So, how’re we going to get to this game so that I don’t get eaten?”
Scarlett emptied her backpack’s messy contents onto her bed. “If I could find a small cage, I could stuff it in here so you’d have some protection and some air, too. I think we have a big Tupperware container that might work, though. I’ll just leave the lid off.”
Twenty minutes of experimentation passed with moderate success at the end. The cereal-box-shaped Tupperware container, when filled a quarter of the way up with tissues and wood shavings instead, became a reasonably well armored mouse holder inside Scarlett’s backpack. The top of the backpack was left unzipped so Roger could get plenty of air and also peek or climb out as well.
“I might try sitting on your shoulder once in a while, if you could get used to that,” he said. “As long as you don’t forget I’m there and start swatting at me.”
“Let’s give it a try.” Scarlett reached down and cupped her hand in front of Roger. He looked up at her, gathered his courage, then climbed into her palm. She lifted him with care. When he got out on her shoulder, she shivered (his feet tickled), then stood up and walked slowly around the room.
“I don’t think anyone can even see me through your hair,” said Roger. “It’s like being under a big red willow tree. And I don’t mind the height so much when it’s you. I don’t think my claws are tearing up your nightshirt, or I hope not.”
“Don’t worry about it. Lemme go get showered and dressed, then we’ll go for a walk, if you’re up to it.”
Roger gulped audibly but said, “Sure, let’s do it to it.”
At five after eight, Scarlett left the apartment complex in her usual outfit, with Roger clinging to her right shoulder. “This isn’t so bad,” he admitted. “Try not to run, though. I mean, unless you have to.”
“Let’s hope I don’t,” she murmured, thinking uncomfortable thoughts. “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
“We were going to the game, right? Just tell me what’s around us. I can’t see too well through your hair, but I can smell and hear everything. Nice soap fragrance, by the way.”
“Thanks. Okay, this is the corner of Ward Street and Murphy Avenue. Pizza Forest and the Multimovieplex are about a block north of us. The Big Strawberry and the mall are way west of us, Seven Corners and the industrial park are to the east, and Lawndale High and the athletic field are five blocks south.”
“Giant strawberry?”
Scarlett set off across the street, then went south along Murphy Avenue. “Yeah, it’s some kind of huge strawberry statue made out of metal or something. This whole place used to be a big strawberry farm, I think, before they built everything else over it. That’s what someone at school told me, anyway.”
“The air smells good. I like autumn.”
“It’s all right.” Scarlett took a deep breath and plunged in. “So, you used to be a detective?”
The mouse gasped. “How did you know that?” he asked after a surprised pause.
Bingo. “Read about it on the Internet. Your name is Roger LaSouris, and you were looking for some bad guys before you were mouse-ified.”
Roger groaned. “Yeah, that’s me,” he said in a low voice. “I just didn’t want to think about my old job too much. That was part of my other life, not this one.”
“So, who were you looking for?”
“We shouldn’t . . . oh, what the hell, doesn’t matter now. There was some guy or some gang going around this area setting fires in old run-down warehouses so the owners could collect the insurance, working for hire, but then whoever it was started branching out, threatening to set fires to perfectly good places unless he or they got paid a ton of money up front. The police were looking into it, but they weren’t getting anywhere for some reason. I got a client who hired me to go looking for whoever it was after his office got torched. I started getting some leads, I was really getting somewhere, and then I went skydiving one day and here I am.”
“Did the police catch who was doing it?”
“Nah. I didn’t have time to get the evidence to them before . . . before I turned into a mouse.”
“So, you mean there’s evidence you have about who did it?”
“Yeah, but it’s hidden away. Actually, that’s kind of a problem in itself, ‘cause I left it all in a package with my old girlfriend, Rita Barksdale. And, um, I didn’t actually tell her I was leaving it with her, either. I stuck it behind some things on a shelf in her basement. I didn’t give her any instructions on what to do with it if I got killed or anything, and I don’t think she’s found it, or there would have been something in the papers about Bruno getting busted.”
“Bruno?”
“Oh, yeah.” Roger sighed again. “Bruno Nagy. The few people who knew about him called him Bruno the Giant. Big guy, a master with pyrotechnics, but I couldn’t get anything on him beyond a couple years ago, like he appeared out of nowhere. The cops had his fingerprints, but they didn’t match anything in their database, not even Interpol’s. I think he was living around here somewhere, but nothing turned up. You’d think he just . . . hey, is something wrong?”
“What?” Scarlett squeaked. “Why’d you say that?”
“Your heart is beating really fast all of a sudden. I can feel it through my feet. You smell differently, too, like you’re afraid.”
“That’s stupid!” she snapped, but the words almost caught in her throat because she was thinking about the giant man who had stalked her at the Lawndale Mall. It was Bruno, she was sure of it. The guy Roger had been hunting for was the same guy who had started to come after her—but she had no idea why she was so sure of it, or why someone like Bruno would bother with her. She simply knew it was so, and that was that.
“Calm down, okay?” said the mouse. “Your breathing’s gone way up, too, and you’re almost running!”
“Oh, stop it!” she said, her voice rising as she slowed her pace. “I am not!”
“Whoa, don’t get touchy.” She felt Roger move about on her shoulder. “Police sirens ahead of us,” he said.
“Where?” she said, but she could hear them, too, faintly.
“I hear something else,” said the mouse. “Lots of people noises. It’s blocks away, but it sounds like . . . a riot.”
“A riot?” Scarlett looked around as she walked. “I don’t see anything.”
“You will. Be careful.”
The police sirens grew louder. Scarlett was only two blocks from school. A black Lawndale police car shot through a cross street ahead of her at full speed, lights flashing.
Scarlett guessed at the direction the sirens were coming from. She could hear distant shouts as well. “I think it’s at the school,” she said.
“We should go home,” said Roger firmly.
“No. We’re going to see what’s going on.” She sped up her pace. “My friends are there.”
“Scarlett, don’t be foolish.”
“Get in the backpack.”
“All right, fine, I will.” He started to move, but she felt the mouse stop and continue holding on to his perch on her shoulder a few moments longer before retiring.
Scarlett came to the street running along the north side of Lawndale High School. All the action was to the east, where the athletic fields were. As she crossed the street to the school and headed along the sidewalk toward the shouting and sirens, a bullhorn rose above the chaos. “This is a police order!” she heard. “We want everyone to disperse! Clear the field, now! We want everyone off the field! Go home!”
Many students were visible ahead, most running in Scarlett’s direction. She stopped and pressed herself against the school building to get out of their way as they passed by. Many laughed in excitement, though a few were nervous or frightened. When the majority was gone, she continued on her way east. The athletic fields came into view when she rounded the school to the right and passed the football stadium.
Police cars and ambulances were parked everywhere ahead near the southern athletic field, which was used for soccer and field hockey games. Adults and children were leaving the area on foot in droves. Many were tense and angry; a few children threw rocks at unseen targets. A cloud of smoke hung over the playing field.
“Scarlett, please be careful,” came Roger’s muffled voice from her backpack. He suddenly sneezed. “Ow, my sinuses!” he cried, and he sneezed again and again.
“I am being careful!” said Scarlett, heading straight for the riot. Her nose began to tickle. The air smelled funny—bad funny.
A few seconds later, a group of teenage girls wearing blue athletic shirts, gold shorts, and white shoes came out of the crowd. They left the scene at a jog, coughing and looking back occasionally and wiping their eyes. One spotted Scarlett and waved at her. It was Tananda. “Hey, Scar!” she cried. “You missed it!”
“I missed the game?” Scarlett shouted back in puzzlement. “It’s not even nine o’clock yet!”
“No, you missed the fight!” shouted Tananda. “It was awesome!” The other Lawndale Leopards (they could be no one else) jumped up and down, fists in the air, and cheered lustily. Scarlett noticed that they all had red eyes and runny noses.
“You got into a fight?” said Scarlett. Something in the air was affecting her sinuses. She covered her nose with a hand and began to back up, fighting a sneeze.
“No, our moms did!” yelled a girl Scarlett recognized as Taryn the goalkeeper. “Right before the game, our moms went over and got into a fight with the Knotholes’ moms!”
“The cops took our sticks and threw us out, or else we’d be back there, too,” said Angel with a grin. She coughed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Whose idea was it to throw the tear gas at the Knotholes’ bench?”
“Big Jen did it, I think,” said Tananda. “Her mom’s a cop. Bet she got it from her mom.”
..
“My mom got arrested!” said another red-haired girl called Kelly. “I saw it! I gotta bail her out so she can beat up some more Ho’s moms!”
Another general cheer went up, missed with shouts of “My mom got busted, too!” and “Your mom ain’t got no bust!” and assorted threats, curses, and obscenities. Scarlett heard Roger trying to muffle his sneezes in the backpack.
“Now we gotta wait until next Saturday for the real game,” said Tananda. She turned to Scarlett. “You wanna go to the police station with us after we go to the mall? We might have a post-game party at Mahna Mahna’s place, too.”
“Uh, sure. Mall first.” Scarlett figured the chances that Bruno would go after her again with so many violence-prone Leopards around were slim indeed. The gang set off, sorting itself into smaller clusters as they headed west for Lawndale Mall. It took several minutes for the effects of the tear gas to clear.
“What’s in the backpack?” asked Tananda, walking beside Scarlett. “You weren’t going to do homework during the game, were you?”
“Uh, no,” said Scarlett, taking a chance. “It’s my mouse. I made a little place for him in there so he could go places with me.”
“Lemme see.” Tananda caught Scarlett by the arm, pulled her to a stop, then unzipped the backpack and peered inside. “Wow,” she said. “Cute little thing. I like him. Is he trained?”
“Do you mean like housebroken?” Scarlett asked. “Or do you mean like—”
Tananda suddenly gasped. “Whoa!” she exclaimed in astonishment as she looked into the backpack. “How’d you get him to do that? That’s great!”
“What’s great?” said Scarlett, trying to turn her head to see into the backpack, too.
Tananda released the backpack and laughed. “Ohmigod!” she said, her face radiant. “That was so cool! He’s like awesome!”
Scarlett took off the backpack and peered inside. Roger looked up at her from inside the Tupperware container. Wearing an innocent face, he hunched up his shoulders and held his palms up at his sides as if to say he had no idea what Tananda was talking about.
Scarlett snorted in amusement, zipped up the backpack to leave a small hole at the top again, and put it back on. “Show off,” she muttered, wondering what he had done but not wanting to ask and find out.
“You could do a show with him for Bitch’s science class,” said Tananda, “or you could except Bitch would try to dissect him afterward just for laughs. Good to see he’s doing better, though.”
“What was Barch saying at the end of class yesterday about a roller-hockey game?” Scarlett said, trying to change the subject.
“Oh, that. The annual faculty-DJ roller-hockey game is coming in two weeks. It’s not as much fun as a real field hockey game, but it’s still all right. There’s a betting pool on when each teacher or disk jockey will go down in the game, temporarily or permanently. ‘Popeye’ DeMartino almost bought it last year.”
Scarlett was horrified. “The kids bet on which teachers are going to die?”
“There’s a dead pool, yeah, but my money’s on who’s gonna get maimed. DeMartino’s too tough to kick the bucket just yet, but he might take out a DJ before they carry him out. He’s got a thing about Rock-and-Roll Randy ‘cause they . . . hey, I think I’ve seen that dog before. “
“Huh?” Scarlett looked around. A German shepherd was trotting along on the other side of the street, paying no attention to them. She gasped in recognition. “That’s the dog that was in the Chinese restaurant!”
“What was it doing in a restaurant?” said Tananda. “Isn’t that sort of illegal, dog hair and all?”
“When you went with me to Good Time Chinese, that dog was inside!” exclaimed Scarlett. “There was a blonde lady in there, too. I think she was its owner.”
Tananda turned around and walked backward as she shouted to a group of girls behind her. “Hey, Kristen! No, Kristen with an ‘i’ and an ‘e’! Yeah, you! C’mere! Tell Scarlett what you said about the lady that took over Good Time Chinese!”
A lithe Goth girl detached herself from a cluster of friends and jogged over. Her black shag-cut hair had a splash of red in front; her lipstick was black and her eye makeup was heavy and dark. Scarlett recalled seeing her hanging around Andrea at times, though Kristen was a freshman. “Sup?” Kristen said after taking a chocolate Tootsie-Roll Pop out of her mouth.
“What was it that Woot told you about that lady who runs Good Time Chinese?” said Tananda. “Something about—”
“Hey, Woot!” Kristen shouted behind her. “Come up here!”
Another teen hurried up, this one a long-haired girl with Han Chinese features, an excitable manner, and a mouth full of chewing gum.
“What was it you said your mom heard from Ms. Li about that blonde lady that took over Good Time Chinese?” said Kristen.
“Oh, yeah!” said Woot in an animated tone, her gum snapping. “She like bought out the previous owners, you know? And then she like turned the place into something that was not like Chinese at all, like it was sort of like Country Buffet or something, you know, but with Chinese food and all? And like now the food’s not as good was it was and it’s sorta going downhill and all, so it like sucks, you know? Oh, and I heard she was like a real bitch.”
“Her name was like wolf-something, right?” said Kristen, and she put the Tootsie-Roll back in her mouth.
“Yeah, her name’s Adele Wolff, with two f’s.” Woot wrinkled her nose. “She sorta looks young but she’s really kinda old and she’s so skanky she’d get thrown out of a trailer park, you know? And she’s got like these weird tattoos and all with like really weird stuff, plus she’s got those dogs and all, like that one.” Woot pointed to the German shepherd that was still paralleling their course. “And I heard she’s a bigger bitch than her dogs.”
..
“She’s got more than one dog?” asked Scarlett with concern. Her gaze never left the German shepherd. She wondered if she was in danger—or if Roger was in more danger than her.
“Oh, she’s got like three or four of them, but the rest are probably at her place,” said Woot. “She’s not supposed to bring her dogs to the restaurant and all. If she did, you should call the police on her. I don’t want dog hair in my food, you know? Like, eww.”
“Wish I had my stick,” muttered Tananda, eyeing the dog.
“I’ve got something to stick it with,” Kristen growled after taking the sucker out of her mouth again. “I almost used it on Upchuck last week and made him a soprano.”
“Upchuck sings opera?” said Woot in surprise.
“That dog makes me nervous,” Scarlett admitted, ignoring Woot. “I don’t want him to get my mouse.”
“You have a mouse?” Kristen exclaimed. “Is he in your backpack?”
Scarlett glanced at the dog—but Hermione was trotting away down a side street, leaving the group behind. Thank the Goddess! she thought. “Yeah, he’s in there, but wait until we get to the mall before I show him to you. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Hey!” yelled Kristen to the other girls. “Scarlett’s got a mouse in her backpack!”
Crap! Scarlett wanted to kick herself for opening her mouth, but it was too late now. She begged off showing Roger to anyone until they got to the mall, but the other girls remained clustered around her in a huge mob all the rest of the way there—which, Scarlett reflected, wasn’t so bad a result after all, considering the potential threats.
The Lawndale Mall appeared in due time, and Scarlett and her escort of Leopards crossed the broad parking lots and went in through the J. J. Jeeter’s entrance. The Leopards laughed and shouted and swore and pretended to shoplift cheap jewelry just to drive the floor staff crazy. Several girls were detained but had to be released for lack of evidence.
Once in the main concourse, the girls again crowded around Scarlett until she showed each and every one of them her mouse. Roger took it well, though Scarlett thought he looked shaky and tired, probably from being jarred around on the long walk. She begged off from the group for a few moments and went into a restroom, locking herself in a toilet stall for some privacy.
“Are you okay?” she whispered into the backpack.
“Nauseated and scared spitless, and I almost sneezed my damn head off from the tear gas, but I’m fine otherwise,” said Roger, trembling a little. “I could smell that damn dog from in here. I swear I’ve smelled him somewhere else before now, but I don’t know where. I got some of his scent on you after you went to Good Time Chinese that last time, but I know I’ve smelled him before then, too. Huh. Whatever. Are we in a bathroom or something? It stinks in here.”
“It’s a ladies room, and it doesn’t smell that bad,” said Scarlett. “Lucky for you, I don’t have to go yet. I’m sorry about everyone else looking at you, though. My bad for talking about you.”
“Oh, forget it. They’re all right, I guess, except for the one who burped on me. Man, I thought I’d die.”
“Do you mind if we hang out at the mall for a while? I think it’s safe here.”
“Sure. Hey, is there a pet store in here? You can get some deodorizer or something for the cage.”
“Oh, yeah! That’s why we came out here to begin with, isn’t it?”
“More or less. I had another idea. Could you make a long-distance call for me?”
Scarlett frowned and felt her sweater pocket for her money purse. “I have some change, but not a lot. Where do you want me to call?”
“Leeville. I’ve got the number memorized. I want you to call Rita. Don’t tell her who you are, just call her and tell her to look in her basement on the shelves next to the stairs, behind the popcorn popper. Just tell her to do that, and nothing else. Maybe she’ll send the package to the FBI. Mmm, knowing Rita, maybe you’d better tell her where to send it, too. She’s a little . . . you know.”
“Slow?”
“Easy to distract, let’s say.”
Scarlett thought it over and sighed. “Sure, why not.”
“Thanks!” said Roger in relief. “Maybe all that work I did finding this Bruno guy won’t go to waste after all!”
Scarlett thought that putting Bruno the Giant away would be an excellent idea, too, for her own reasons. She did not want to upset the mouse by telling him about her encounter with Bruno a few days earlier, especially since it had happened in that same mall.
When she left the ladies room, Scarlett told the Leopards she needed to make a phone call in private before she could join them at the food court for a post-game brunch. The other girls agreed, then waved and called goodbye as they left, as the pay phones were next to the public restrooms. Tananda held back to wait for Scarlett, peering in the window of a sporting goods store across the concourse.
Scarlett walked back to the phones and carefully set her backpack on the counter by the phone itself. She pulled off the handset, stuck some coins from her pocket purse in the slot, and put her face next to the backpack’s top. “What was the number to Rita’s place?” she whispered.
Roger called out the numbers and Scarlett dialed. She mentally rehearsed what she would say until she heard the phone pick up on the other end. “Hello?” Scarlett said brightly. “Who’s this?”
No answer came. She could hear someone’s slow, heavy breathing on the other end.
“Is this Rita?” Scarlett continued. Still no response.
Something was not quite right.
“Hello?” Scarlett asked, her anxiety rising. “Anyone there? Is this Rita Barksdale?”
On the other end of the line, she heard a distant door open. “I'm out of the shower now!” a woman called. “Who is it?”
She heard a deep intake of breath.
“Scarlett,” whispered a coarse, deep voice that drew out the syllables of her name.
She was paralyzed in an instant. Not a thing entered her head except absolute terror.
“Who did you say it was, Bruno?” the woman in the background called again.
“Sorry,” said the voice, louder this time. “Wrong number.”
And the phone hung up.
Last updated 12/23/06