Finding Elmo (2 page)

“Whatcha doin' here, Phantom?”

Rodney's eyes dropped to the tile floor. “My mom needed cereal. So she left me here. Said she'd be back in half an hour.”

I'd never met Rodney's mom. But she must have bought groceries one item at a time, because she was always leaving Rodney at Four Feet and Feathers. I guess she hadn't read the sign posted out front:
All children under age ten must be accompanied by an adult
.

“Okay then, Rod—er...Phantom,” I said, “let's go see how the Red Ears are doing.”

As Rodney followed me to the terrarium where the Red Ear turtles live, his cape dragging on the floor, I thought he was kind of like a puppy. And if Rodney had a tail, he'd be wagging it.

“What can I get for you today, Baba?” Mr. Singh asked. He leaned over his counter, his orange turban perched on his head like a flying saucer. Tandoori Palace was the busiest counter at the food court. Some people came all the way from downtown for Mr. Singh's homemade chai tea and creamy butter chicken. It was only 11:30AM, but customers were already snacking on
samosas or using their nan bread to scoop up Mr. Singh's famous chicken.

“The usual, please. An order of butter chicken with basmati rice on the side.”

Mr. Singh dipped his ladle into one of the copper vats on the stove behind him. “That will be four ninety-five,” he called out when he turned back toward me. His words came out like a song, his voice starting off high, and then dropping down a note at a time.

Mr. Singh pointed to a stool near his cash register. “Why not keep me company, Baba?”
Baba
, he'd explained to me, was Indian for
dear
.

Mr. Singh poured himself a cup of chai tea. It smelled of cinnamon and cloves. “Did I mention my great-niece Sapna arrives this weekend?” he asked after he took his first sip.

I took a bite of butter chicken. “From India?”

Mr. Singh nodded. “She's coming to help out at Tandoori Palace. It's hard for an old man like me to manage on my own. I told Sapna's mother I needed an extra pair
of hands, and she told me Sapna's were available.”

“Well, that's good news.”

“You'll like Sapna. She's your age.”

After Mr. Singh finished serving the next customer, he poured me a cup of chai tea. “My treat,” he said. “Drink up.”

Mr. Singh watched as I tasted his tea. “It's good. For tea.”

Someone tapped their fingers on the counter. “I need three orders of vegetable curry to go. With rice and nan bread.”

It was Mr. Morgan, the general manager of Realco. Whenever he came by Four Feet and Feathers, he had this way of acting like he owned it—running his fingers along the shelves to check for dust and commenting if service was slow.

He was our landlord, so I had to be polite. I put down my fork and said hello. Mr. Morgan was wearing a suit and tie and his silver hair was so perfectly blow-dried it looked like a helmet. Even his fingernails were buffed and polished. If he were a dog, he'd have just come from the groomer.

Mr. Morgan nodded. You could tell he didn't think I was important enough to remember.

Mr. Singh was quiet as he packed the order in a paper bag and stapled it across the top. “Thank you, sir,” he said when Mr. Morgan paid his bill.

After Mr. Morgan left, Mr. Singh turned to stir one of his pots. “That man enjoys Indian food,” I heard him say under his breath. “Almost as much as he enjoys collecting rent.”

Mr. Singh's next customers were a couple dressed in matching leather jackets, each carrying a motorcycle helmet. “Hey, you're the kid from the pet store, right?” the guy asked me. His hair, which was dyed green and yellow, reminded me of a parrot.

“Yup.”

He put his helmet on the counter and looked me up and down. “I need a guard dog to watch my Harley.”

“You better talk to my dad,” I said. “He likes to interview everyone who buys a dog from Four Feet and Feathers.”

“He interviews everyone who buys a dog? There's gotta be something wrong with the dude.” When the guy laughed, it came out like a snort.

I took a deep breath. “There's n-nothing wrong with my dad.” I hoped he didn't notice how I'd stammered. “He cares about animals is all. He wants to make sure they go to good homes.”

“Don't give the kid a hard time,” the guy's girlfriend said, smacking him on the butt.

The guy snorted again.

The girlfriend's eyebrows were pierced. “How'd your dad get into the pet business, anyhow?” she asked. I couldn't tell if she was being nice or if she was really interested.

The guy took the trays Mr. Singh handed him. It looked like they were planning to sit at the counter too.

I relaxed a little on my stool. The girl was still watching me, which made me think she really was interested in hearing about the store. Besides, if there was one story I liked telling, this was it.

“When my dad was a kid,” I said, “he hung out at this pet store near his house. It was the kind of pet store they had in those days. The cages were cramped, the animals didn't get much exercise, and people would poke at the dogs and cats through the bars of their cages.”

“That's disgusting,” the girl said.

“Well, my dad dreamt of opening a different kind of pet store. So when he finished university, he used all his savings to buy that old pet store and turn it into the first Four Feet and Feathers.”

Mr. Singh whistled.

The guy wiped the side of his mouth with a napkin. “That's pretty cool!” he said.

Mr. Singh added some sugar to his tea. What he said next took me by surprise. I expected it to be something about my father, but it wasn't. It was about me.

“It's delightful,” Mr. Singh said as he sipped at his tea, “to meet a young man who truly admires his father.”

“My hero!” Mom called when she saw Dad step out of the car with a bag of take-out. She was standing on the porch, a twin in each arm.

I decided not to mention I'd already had Indian food for lunch. I really liked Mr. Singh's butter chicken. But twice in one day was pushing it.

I followed Dad inside. I also decided not to say anything about Mom still being in her
pink pj's. Or about the rings under her eyes. Or about the fact that we'd been living in the new house since April and we still didn't have any living room furniture.

Dad put the bag down on the kitchen table, headed for the sink and scrubbed his hands. I did the same, scrubbing my fingers till the tips were wrinkled. If we didn't, Mom would start sneezing. She's allergic to just about every animal on Earth—dogs, cats, birds, even horses. It's kind of ironic that my dad fell for a woman with animal allergies. Mom has to take two antihistamine tablets every time she goes near the store.

“Hey, Ems,” I said, reaching for Emma and lifting her into the air. At first she cooed, but then she started wailing. That kind of really loud wailing that sets Jake off too. Which it did—about three seconds later.

It could almost have been funny.

“I'm exhausted!” Mom said. Then she wrinkled her nose. “And I think Jake just filled his diaper.”

“I'm taking them both,” my dad insisted, grabbing Emma from me, and Jake from Mom. “They'll just have to cry if they don't like it. Take a nap, Adrienne. Tim, you get dinner on the table.”

“Do I have to?”

Dad gave me a look that said I did. I wanted to phone Philippe to see if he could come over next weekend. If he slept over Friday, he could help me open the store on Saturday morning. Only I figured now wasn't a good time to ask Mom and Dad whether that sounded like a good idea. And based on how things were going in our house lately, it probably wasn't.

Even heating up dinner felt like way too much work. Especially since I'd worked non-stop all day. Though everyone was always saying how cute the twins were, my personal life had gone down the crapper since they'd come along. Dad didn't have time to hang out with me, Mom was beginning to look like a bag lady and I'd practically forgotten what my best friend looked like.

Mom never did get that nap. She hovered in the kitchen, glancing at her to-do list on the fridge, while I took the plates from the cupboard. In the end, she was the one to change Jakey's diaper.

When the phone rang, Mom picked it up. “Honey, it's for you!” she called from the kitchen.

“Can you tell whoever it is I'll phone back after dinner?”

“My husband will phone you back,” she said into the telephone. “Who's calling, please?”

She reached for a pencil. “Let me take your number, Mr. Morgan.”

Not him again, I thought, remembering the way he'd drummed his fingers on Mr. Singh's counter.

“Did you say Mr. Morgan?” my dad shouted from the twins' room. “Tell him I'll be right there.”

“My husband says...” Mom didn't get to finish her sentence. Dad had rushed down the hallway and picked up the telephone in the den. “You can hang up now, Adrienne, ”
he said. His voice sounded sharper than usual.

When we finally sat down, Dad fed the twins—they'd just started eating cereal— between gulps of Mr. Singh's butter chicken. The cream of wheat dribbled down the twins' chins. Most of it landed on the floor.

I went to the sink for a rag. If I didn't clean up the cream of wheat, I was pretty sure it would still be on the floor in the morning.

“So, Mom...,” I said when I sat back down. I wanted to tell her how Elmo had nearly figured out how to open the third padlock, but she'd fallen asleep. She was still sitting up, but her chin had dropped to her chest and she was snoring lightly.

“Dad,” I whispered, “have a look at Mom.”

On a better day, he would have laughed.

“How are those adorable twins?” Philippe's mom asked when I phoned. Philippe was out. He'd walked over to the dollar cinema with Thomas. “You remember Thomas, don't you? He lives around the corner,” she explained.

I lay in bed, wishing I lived someplace else. Like my old house. I tried to picture my old room, the way the ceiling sloped, and the nature posters on the walls. Philippe and Thomas had walked over to the dollar cinema. You couldn't walk anywhere from where we lived now.

I heard the buzz of the electric toothbrush, followed by the soft drone of my parents' voices.

“I have to do something, Adrienne,” Dad said.

“What do you mean?” Mom still sounded tired, but now, I could hear something else in her voice too: worry.

I shifted in my bed, straightening up so I could hear better.

“I don't know how I'm going to make the rent. Morgan is already putting on the pressure. He knows the store hasn't been busy.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. What if Dad had to close the store? What would happen to us then?

“It's summer,” Mom said. “Things are always slow in summer. People are away on
holiday. Business will pick up in the fall. It always does.”

“I've come up with a plan,” Dad said.

Phew, I thought, relaxing a little. Dad was a smart guy. I should have known he'd come up with a plan. Maybe he wanted to hang a bigger sign outside the store or advertise on the radio.

But it wasn't that at all.

“I've agreed to start renting out the big birds,” Dad said. For a second, I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. What was Dad thinking? “For parties and conventions. It's a good way to bring in extra cash—” Here, he paused for a moment.

“They want Elmo first.”

“Tim! I need a hand with the lovebirds!” Amy hollered. Her hands were on her hips, so I knew she meant business.

I'd just gotten Winifred, Hubert and Elmo settled on the brass swings under the potted palm tree in the middle of the store, where they spent most of their days. Winifred was preening herself, her beak working so fast she reminded me of a
bumblebee. Hubert was watching her, and Elmo was watching me.

I adjusted the swings, but truth was, I just wanted to hang out a little longer with Elmo. He hadn't even left the store and already I missed him.

The thought that my dad would be renting Elmo out like he was a
DVD
was driving me nuts. I'd hardly slept. There was no telling what could happen to Elmo. He might stop eating or catch a cold. And when I imagined the aviary without him, my throat tightened up.

I saw my own reflection when I looked into Elmo's dark eyes. “I'm sorry,” I whispered.

Was I imagining it, or did Elmo look sad? Like he knew?

“Hey, pal, whatever happens, wherever Dad sends you, I'll be there. I promise.”

“Tim!” Amy shouted again.

“What's all the racket about?” Trout asked as he walked by with a small plastic bag filled with water and two goldfish.

“I'm coming,” I muttered, waving in Amy's direction.

Before I went, I scratched the feathers on the top of Elmo's head. “I promise,” I whispered.

Each of the four fledglings was no bigger than a peach and just as fuzzy. They looked like they'd been splashed with green and orange and pink paint. Their pearly beaks were the size of fingernails.

“Hello, babies,” Amy cooed. It was bad enough I had to listen to my mom fussing over the twins all the time. Now Amy was losing it too. You'd think she'd given birth to those fuzz balls.

I had to admit the lovebirds were cute. Amy had tucked a heating pad under their cage. Now, because we were cleaning the cage, the little guys were strutting across the counter. We didn't have to worry about them flying off since they still hadn't figured out what their wings were for.

“How are the fledglings this morning?”

It was my dad, but I didn't look up. Instead I scrubbed harder. So hard my wrists started hurting.

“They're doing well, Mr. Barnes. They had their food through the dropper this morning,” Amy told him.