RARE BEASTS (3 page)

“Too slow, Edgar, TOO SLOW!” she screamed as she pounced.

Edgar was unprepared for Ellen’s attack, and before he could defend himself, Ellen had him flat on his back atop the desk. She quickly bound him in place, and, while Edgar squirmed, she climbed up on the desktop. As she stood above him, Edgar got a good look at what she was holding.

Hanging from one end of a long, golden cord was a sharp, moon-shaped metal blade. Edgar recognized
the tool; he had designed it himself to cut down Mayor Knightleigh’s political banners during Nod’s Limbs’ last elections.

Ellen held the cord over her brother and began to swing it gently.

The sharp metal crescent started to swing as well. Ellen smiled as she let a short bit of cord slip through her fingers, allowing the crescent to descend a few inches.

Edgar watched the blade sweep closer and closer, its arc widening and accelerating with each pass. It looked like the pendulum of a fiendish grandfather clock.

“Tick tock,” Ellen said with a yawn. “Tick tock.”

“Oh, tick tock, pish posh,” grumbled Edgar as he started working the knots.

Ellen patiently lowered the crescent, and it whistled through the air above her brother. Edgar continued to probe the ropes without a hint of panic.

“Tick tock, Brother…,” said Ellen as she let her attention wander. Her wrist was getting a bit sore from swinging.

“Yeah, yeah, drip drop,” replied Edgar.

Soon Edgar had loosened his bonds enough to wiggle his fingers, but his focus was also drifting. How many times before had he wriggled out of these ropes?

As the crescent swept so close to Edgar’s chest that he could feel a breeze on his face, so close that the ropes that held him frayed and snapped as the metal cut into them, the twins looked each other in the eye.

Ellen looked down at Edgar, and Edgar glared back up at Ellen, and after a long summer hiding, seeking, subduing, wrestling, and booby-trapping, both of them said:

“I’m bored.”

“We could clog the sewer tunnels with giant pillows,” suggested Edgar, when he’d finally freed himself from his bonds. “When it rains, the streets will flood and we can sail around town in a boat. ‘Welcome, Friend, to Nod’s
Lakes, Swim
Awhile!’ ”

“That’s too complicated,” Ellen replied. “How
would we make the pillows? We don’t have any money to buy mountains of feathers and fabric, and neither of us knows how to sew, you dolt.”

Ellen tugged at her pigtails as she thought. “Hmmm, how about something simple? Let’s get big sacks of white pepper and dump them into the batter at Buffy’s Muffins!”

Edgar rolled his eyes. “As much as I’d like those goody-goody townspeople to suffer endless sneezing fits, where would we get the pepper, monkey brains?”

He scratched the tip of his pointy, pale chin.

“Hmmm…we could swipe the wash off old Mrs. Haggardly’s clothesline and take it to the Laundromat. Run those clothes through the industrial dryer a few times, and they’ll shrink to half their size! We’ll hang them back up on her line, and when she finds them, she won’t know
what
to do!”

“Oh
Edgar
,” chided Ellen. “Do
you
have all the quarters to run the dryer over and over? No, you don’t, and neither do I. Besides, we pulled that trick on Mrs. Haggardly before, and she didn’t even notice. What fun is that?”

The twins stood in the middle of the library, their shoulders hunched as they strained to come up with another idea.

“We need money, Sister,” said Edgar. “What can we possibly do for fun without money?”

After a moment of concentration, a grin spread across Ellen’s face, and she uttered one word in reply:

“Pet!”

Whenever the two children grew tired of annoying and harassing each other and were at a loss for some new nefarious scheme or unsuspecting victim, there was always something else in the house to poke and prod. That something else was Pet.

Pet usually stayed as far out of Edgar and Ellen’s way as it could, preferring long, lonely days of cowering in the dark to long, disturbing days at the mercy of its merciless masters. However, it was now almost noon on Tuesday, and that meant it was time for
Around the World with Professor Paul
, Pet’s favorite nature program.

Knowing Pet’s fondness for the Professor, the twins found it in the den, perched upon the back of a dark leather wingback chair, illuminated by the flickering light of the large black-and-white television.

Pet didn’t look like any other kind of animal you’ve ever seen. It wasn’t very large. It didn’t have scales or feathers. It was a matted ball of long, dark hair, similar in appearance to an old, dirty wig. Pet had no ears, nose, or mouth that could be seen, nor had it visible arms or legs, and the small heap sat so still on the chair that it would be easy to mistake it for an oversized ball of lint. Well, except for the single milky yellow eye that sat atop the tangled pile of hair.

Pet had lived in the house with Edgar and Ellen for as long as they could remember. The twins had first noticed Pet behind a large wooden wine cask in the cellar. Since Pet didn’t seem to eat much or make much noise—in fact, they never witnessed Pet doing much of anything—they decided to keep it.

How lucky for Pet.

And so it happened that just as Edgar had finished binding Pet’s shaggy body to a long wooden pole, and just as Ellen was about to collect the spiderwebs
from the ceiling of the den with their new Petbroom, Professor Paul announced something on TV that grabbed the siblings’ attention:

“Today, we’re going to explore the amazing world of exotic animals. The rarest of the rare, the most unique of the unique, the cream of the crop, these magnificent creatures are worth their weight in gold.
These are the most valuable animals on Earth!

“Join me, Professor Paul, as we meet wealthy collectors from all over the world who covet these amazing beasts and are willing to pay thousands to own one. For the richest of the idle rich, money is no object, and exotic animals make much more fashionable pets than dogs and cats….”

Edgar and Ellen stopped listening. A scheme was forming.

“If we had our own exotic animals to sell,” said Edgar, “we’d make enough money to construct giant pillows
and
buy white pepper. We’d have enough to carry out all of our plans!”

“Think
big
, Edgar! If we were rich, rich,
rich
, just
imagine
what we could do,” said Ellen. “We wouldn’t have to stop with the
small
ideas we’ve had before.

“If we bought a hang glider and a giant tank of fizzy cola, we could take off from the top of our house and spray all the soccer fields from above. Turn them into sudsy, sticky messes!” she said, twisting her pigtails.

“We could erect a giant windmill, buy tons of manure, and blow the stink all over town.” Edgar was bursting with enthusiasm. “P-U, nobody would go outside for days because of the smell! We’d have the toy stores and candy shops and ice cream parlors all to ourselves!”

“We could buy a whole carnival and put the tents right in the middle of town,” Ellen said.

“And we could keep the bright colored lights and music on all night and day, and never let anyone else in to enjoy the games and rides!” added Edgar.

They grinned at each other as they mulled over all these new ideas for mischief and mayhem.

Edgar and Ellen climbed the steep staircase to the ninth floor. The whole floor was one big open room, and the twins used it as their ballroom when they were in a festive mood. Two large arched windows in the front wall (the ones that looked like watchful eyes from the outside) let in a fair amount of light during the day, making it the least dismal room in the house.

Edgar and Ellen danced and pranced their way across the room, cackling as they went:

“A plan, a scam, is what we need
To fund our games and revelries.
Our clever minds are guaranteed
To conjure up some brilliant deeds.
There is no plot we can’t concoct,
Our brains, with schemes, are overstocked,
And kids from all around the block
Fear our genius ’round the clock.
Look out, look out! For here we come
To hatch our plans for pranks and fun!”

Edgar and Ellen stopped in the center of the ballroom. Hanging from the ceiling was a rusty iron ring anchored to a trap door. Ellen climbed up onto Edgar’s shoulders and pulled it. The trap door swung down with a loud
creak
and a worn set of wooden steps unfolded. The two scampered up to the attic.

The twins masterminded their most impressive plots in the attic, and it was easy to see why. Crates and tools and dusty birdcages, moldy steamer trunks and broken chandeliers, headless mannequins, dented suits of armor, a couple of rusty wrought-iron beds—the attic was piled high with treasures. Picking through the debris usually helped Edgar and Ellen concoct something wicked.

They plunged into the stacks of junk, flinging objects about as they searched for inspiration.

“Aha!” said Ellen, holding up a dented bedpan.

“Oh, come on, Sister, what could we use
that
for?” scoffed Edgar. He emerged from under a ratty tarp, cradling a collection of dirty test tubes and beakers. “Look what I found! Maybe we could run some
experiments
.”

Before Ellen could point out that they had nothing to experiment on, she happened to look out the attic’s single round window.

“Brother! Do you see what I see?” she squealed, dropping the bedpan.

Edgar came over to look out the window. “Sister, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Edgar. “Come on, let’s take a closer look!”

They clambered up one last ladder, tucked away in the back corner. Leading the way, Ellen pushed against the ceiling with her shoulder until another trap door creaked open, and the twins entered the highest room in the house.

Since the attic-above-the-attic provided a remarkable view of the entire neighborhood, Edgar and Ellen used it as an observatory, and it was barren save for a powerful telescope angled through a slot in the roof. Focusing the lens on the neat, tidy houses and lawns below, they saw a wide variety of dogs lounging in front of doghouses, napping or chewing on bones. They saw cats walking on fences and climbing trees. They saw bunnies inside their cages sipping from water bottles, and birds basking in the sun on their perches.