Coffeehouse Angel (15 page)

Readers in Paris and Moscow squirmed when they read that a rat with feet the size of a St. Bernard had been scurrying all over our counters. Readers in Monte Carlo and Stockholm gagged when they read that a rat with droppings the size of peanut M&M'S had been lounging on the tables, probably licking the salt shakers. Again, speculation provided by an unnamed source.

Ratcatcher's kill launched all sorts of editorials about rats and disease. Did you know that it only takes a single flea from a rat's back to start an outbreak of bubonic plague?

Stores worldwide ran out of rat poison. One ginormous rat meant that there might be other ginormous rats lying in wait to conquer the world. Some environmentalists blamed the rat's size on pollutants. An unnamed source blamed its size on an endless diet of krumkake and sardine sandwiches--weird Old World food that no one should be eating in the first place.

I wanted to dump sardines right on Mr. Unnamed Source's head.

When television stations picked up the story, the focus turned from issues of health to Ratcatcher herself. Her cute, chubby face, a welcome contrast to the gruesome death clench of the rat, was plastered everywhere. "Can we interview her?" a CNN reporter asked.

"She's a cat," I said.

"We'd love to interview her. Can we set up a time? Is she sensitive to bright lights?

Has she ever used a microphone? Does she have an agent?"

"She's a cat."

Grandma and I hid upstairs. Since we didn't usually have Saturdays off, we weren't really sure what to do with ourselves. We ate some scrambled eggs and puttered around. I couldn't focus on homework. I wanted to call Vincent but didn't. Anyway, he should have called to say he was sorry.

But what if he wasn't sorry? What if he had meant those mean words? I was just this bothersome friend without a life and our friendship had run its course. He had moved on to better and prettier things. I missed him terribly. Being accused of spreading bubonic plague would have felt a lot less horrid with Vincent by my side.

"What's this?" I asked, picking up a brochure that lay on the table.

"Mr. Darling sent that over." She waved it away in disgust. "He bought one of the units for his mother. Poor woman."

The brochure was for Retirement Universe, a sprawl of pink and yellow cottages in South Florida. Each cottage looked exactly the same, and so did the residents with their silver hair and leathery bronzed skin. Couples dressed in plaid shorts and polo shirts rode golf carts and laughed as if they were having the time of their lives. I'd never seen my grandmother in shorts. Face would probably retire in a place like that.

"So much sun isn't good for a person," Grandma Anna said. She glanced at the wall clock, then drummed her fingers on the table. "I wish the Health Department would show up and take that horrid thing away so we can get on with our lives."

"Grandma, what if they close us down?"

She rubbed her tired eyes. "I don't know."

"How bad are things? I mean, how much money do you owe?"

She took her dish to the sink. "You know I don't like to talk about money."

"But we have to talk about it. It's obviously a problem. I've seen the bills downstairs."

She didn't say anything. She leaned against the counter.

"Do you think that maybe we should go ahead and accept Mr. Darling's offer?" I hated to ask, but it was the obvious, though repulsive, solution.

Her shoulders stiffened. "I'd rather take money from the devil." Then her shoulders sagged as if her courageous facade had become too heavy to wear. "But we may have to." At that moment, her voice soft, her eyes weary, she seemed older than her seventy years. I'd gotten used to her slower movements, to the growing number of pills on the bathroom counter and to the more frequent naps. But then and there her vulnerability hit me hard. She was the adult. She was my family. Her vulnerability was my vulnerability.

Late Saturday morning, Ratcatcher finally abandoned her kill. After chowing down a piece of coffeecake, she retreated to my bedroom and fell asleep in my laundry basket, bored with the whole rat thing. To the disappointment of the gawkers who continued to gather outside the window, we kept the towel over the carcass. As ordered, we didn't touch the stupid yellow crime tape.

Elizabeth called a hundred times that morning to shriek about how famous my cat was and to ask if I had seen Malcolm. I hadn't seen Malcolm, but then again, I hadn't left the building since the rat incident. Vincent never called. Turned out the swim team was away in Eastern Washington for a weekend meet. I know for a fact that there are newspapers in Eastern Washington. Surely he had heard about our disaster. Guess he was still pissed about my story in World Mythology class--about my calling him a traitor. But I couldn't forget his comment. I had a life. It was falling apart, but it was mine.

The Health Department official arrived in the afternoon. Every time we asked a question he said, "I can't answer that question until I've run a full inspection."

"But what if someone else put the rat in here on purpose?" I asked. "Isn't that against the law?"

"I can't answer that question until I've run a full inspection."

"But doesn't this seem strange? Rats don't grow this big in Nordby."

"I can't answer that question until I've run a full inspection."

He got real snippy about the towel. He picked it up with a pair of tongs and stuck it into a garbage bag. His thick greasy hair was coated with some kind of gel. Who does that? And he kept a puckered expression on his face as if everything displeased him.

"A rat this size is nothing to mess around with," he said, taking out a gas mask.

"I didn't mess around with it," Grandma Anna told him. "I just didn't want to look at it."

"Let's hope you didn't mess with it." He held up the mask. "Bubonic spores and other contaminants can be carried through the air."

Well, that's just great. Good to know, after we'd been breathing
the air
all night.

He put on the mask, then a pair of gloves. I turned away as he stuffed the dead rat into another garbage bag. When he had packed up all his gear he said, "I'll be back on Wednesday at ten a.m. to conduct a full inspection. Until then, this place is closed."

"What?" My grandmother spit the word. "I can't stay closed until Wednesday. I'm running a business."

"That's the best I can do. I'm the only inspector for this area." He tacked a sign to the door.
Closed by the Health Department Until Further Notice.

"Do you have to put that there? People will think the worst," Grandma Anna said.

"I'm afraid they already do," I mumbled.

Mr. Health Inspector heaved the bagged rat over his shoulder. "Don't remove that sign or I'll fine you five hundred dollars. It's the law." He left.

My grandmother called Officer Larsen. "A sign. Right on the door. You come over here and take it down. Right now....What do you mean you can't? My husband worked for the police department for thirty-five years. That ought to account for something." She slammed the receiver. "How can we survive if they won't let us stay open?" Then she called Irmgaard to tell her the bad news.

I vacuumed the carpet for fifteen minutes straight, then sprayed some air freshener.

As far as I could remember, the coffeehouse had never felt so gloomy. That yellow Health Department sign might as well have been neon, the way it glowed.
Attention:
Death Trap!
Grandma retreated to her bedroom. She told me that she needed some time to herself. With an entire afternoon looming before me, I packed up my things and took the bus to Elizabeth's to do homework. I put on my grandfather's huge goose-down parka to protect me from the winter's cold and the coldness of judgmental stares.

Millie was driving the bus that day. She asked about Malcolm. I told her I hadn't seen him. The bus hummed as it turned off Main Street and drove up Viking Way, past the school. The lady next to me worked her knitting needles.

Would Malcolm show up again? What would I say if he offered me another bean? I shook my head. They were chocolate-covered coffee beans, nothing more. Acme Supply Company had given us ten sample boxes. I'd eaten three of the boxes long before meeting Malcolm, and nothing weird had happened. But still, my life had been anything but normal since meeting him.

Elizabeth lived on the hill above the school, in the only gated community in Nordby.

A manicured green space wound around the cedar and river-rock homes. She had this bulldog that always tried to tear off my shoes when I walked through the door.

"Get off me, Mr. Big," I snarled.

"Elizabeth's in her room," Mrs. Miller told me.

Elizabeth sat at her computer, her hair wound in a tie-dyed scarf. "I've checked my e-mails all morning. Nothing. He hasn't called either."

"Vincent?"

"No. Face." She was still in her pajamas--pink, with Marilyn Monroe faces. "What's he trying to do, torture me? What did I ever do to him?"

I pushed aside a colony of velvet pillows and sat on her bed. Her feather mattress bore the weight of my worries effortlessly.

She stuck out her lower lip. "Maybe he wants somebody better and if nobody better comes along, then he'll settle for me. Maybe that's why he's waiting."

"Why don't you call him?" I asked.

"What? Then he'll think I'm needy."

We were both waiting for a guy to call, as if that would make everything right in the world. I felt even sorrier for myself than I had before. Elizabeth checked her cell phone. "If I call him he'll think I'm in love with him."

"You kind of are, aren't you?"

"Maybe. But he doesn't need to know that. What's the matter with you? Why are you talking so softly?"

"I'm depressed. The Health Department closed us down."

"Oh. That sucks." She clicked madly on the keyboard. "But here's the good news.

Your cat is the most popular thing on the Internet. Look at this video." Someone had filmed yesterday's event. They got a real good close-up of the rat. And there I stood, looking dumbfounded as Mr. Darling advised Officer Larsen to notify the Health Department.

"Does my mouth always hang open like that?"

Elizabeth clicked some more. "It's got over three million hits. This is the biggest thing on the Internet since those naked guys made fish and chips."

Just great. I lay back and stared at the painted stars on Elizabeth's ceiling.

"Your cat is FAMOUS," Elizabeth sang. "If we had eaten the bean, Katrina, we'd be famous right now."

"It has nothing to do with that bean. Mr. Darling put that rat in our coffeehouse."

"Where would he get a rat like that?"

"Oh, he'd manage. He probably stole it from the zoo."

"If he stole it, then someone would be looking for it. And no one is looking for it. You can't ignore what happened-- first to Vincent and then your cat." She threw a pillow at me. "Open your eyes, Katrina. Those beans are amazing. We've got to find Malcolm and get some more."

"Elizabeth, stop talking about those beans. I've got serious problems." I sat up.

"Business hasn't been good lately. That's why I was so excited about Vincent's help at the festival. Grandma's got a whole bunch of bills on her desk that she can't pay. And we can't make money if we're closed. And even if we reopen, who's gonna come to our coffeehouse now? That rat has ruined us."

Why did I feel so ashamed? Our failure was not due to laziness. Irmgaard, Grandma, and I worked hard every day. But I realized that I should have done more. I should have helped my grandmother keep up with the world outside our doors. When she had said no to wireless, no to going organic, no to paper instead of styrofoam, I should have insisted.

"The thing is, if the coffeehouse fails and we can't pay rent, then we'll lose the space and we'll never be able to find another space that cheap. We have an agreement with the landlord. It's the cheapest rent in Nordby."

If I'd been talking about anything other than money, Elizabeth wouldn't have looked so perplexed. Even quantum physics would have been easier for her to digest. But money had never been a concern of hers. She owned every high-tech gadget available.

She had a closet filled with new-clothes, some she would never wear. She ordered take-out whenever she felt like it.

"If your grandma needs money, my dad can loan her some."

"Thanks, but there's no way my grandmother would accept that. She'd die if she knew I was telling you this."

"Then we need to find your angel friend and get another bean."

"He's not an angel." I remembered Irmgaard's book. I hadn't had a moment to look at it.

"How do you know? Angels can appear any place, any time. They help people when they need help. Seems to me that you need help, Katrina. How do we find him?"

"I don't know. He's just shows up."

She turned back to her keyboard. "He said that messages have to go through his employer. So we'll call his employer and have a message sent to ourselves. When Malcolm delivers it to us, we'll ask for another bean. What's his employer called?"

"It just says
Messenger Service
on his satchel. This is a waste of time, Elizabeth. I've got to figure out how to save the coffeehouse."

"That's what I'm trying to do." She typed madly. "Nothing's coming up. Is there some type of logo?"

"No. Just gold letters. I can't believe you're trying to find a guy who claims to have magic beans. Don't you think that's crazy?"

"I'll tell you what's crazy. My asking Face to the Solstice, that's what's crazy." She clicked madly. "No messenger services listed in Nordby. There's only one listed in Bremerton and it's called Lilly's Messenger Service and the logo is pink."

"Don't worry about it," I said.

"OH!" She slammed her hand on the desk. "I just figured it out. Of course. We can't find his employer because, if he's an angel, then his employer is...God. We can't send an e-mail to
God."

I rolled my eyes and sank back into the pillows.

I couldn't sleep that night. At ten thirty Ratcatcher knocked over a glass. I went downstairs to clean it up. I tightened my bathrobe belt and hid in the dark kitchen as Java Heaven employees wandered by, having finished the late shift. Were they going to a party? If Vincent had been home and if we hadn't been mad at each other we might have gone to a movie. He liked popcorn with that fake cheese powder sprinkled on top. I liked Junior Mints. Vincent always said that they tasted like toothpaste, so I never had to share, which was perfect because I can eat an entire box. Last weekend we had gone to see a spy movie. Last weekend we had been on speaking terms. Last weekend our world had been without fortune and fame.