The Pet-Sitting Peril (18 page)

They looked at each other when the fireman had gone. Barney cleared his throat.

“I'll tell Chuck he'd probably better go home to sleep, I guess. You can tell me all the details, everything that happened.”

Nick stared at him, amazed. Barney was speaking to him as if he were a fellow human being, and an interesting one at that.

“I wouldn't be surprised if you get your picture in the paper,” Barney said, grinning. “ ‘Young Hero Saves House and Pets,' or something like that. You might even get a reward.”

“Not from the owner. Mr. Hale is the one who paid those guys to burn the place down. Hey! Maynard, you little crumb . . . !”

Nick pounced on his shoe, but it was too late.

Maynard had chewed the entire toe out of it, and one of the strings dangled from his mouth.

“Dad.” Nick lifted the remains of the shoe. “I'm going to have to go home in my sock feet.”

He didn't really feel bad about it, though. There were lots of things worse than not having any shoes.

A triumphant cry signaled Eloise's capture. Mr. Reed handed over the cat box, which was beginning to look a bit the worse for wear. “We'll have to take all the animals home with us, Nick. The firemen want to clear the building until they're certain it's safe. I guess the dogs are all right now that they've calmed down. What about that other cat?”

“I'll get him,” Barney offered. He dropped to his knees and put out a hand under the chair, where Fred had continued to monitor the scene from the safety of his hiding place. “OW!”
Barney jerked back his hand, nursing a long set of scratches. He glanced uncertainly at Nick. “Maybe you'd better get this one, and give me the one in the box. This must've been a tougher job than I thought.”

“I think Fred will come to me,” Nick said, feeling better by the minute. He paused to stick a finger through one of the air holes to stroke the soft white fur before he handed over the cat box.

“Good old Eloise,” he said, and there was almost a note of affection in his voice. “Good old Eloise.”

Barney was right about the newspaper story. It ran on the front page, with a picture of Nick and Sam and all the pets. Nick wasn't sure what the pet owners would think, but none of them blamed him for any of it.

Mr. Hale, the police had learned, was deeply in debt. He owned a good deal of property, but since he'd been unable to sell any of it to satisfy the debts, he decided to hire someone to burn the Hillsdale Apartments for the insurance money. If he'd picked someone brighter and more efficient than Greg and Al, or if Nick hadn't interfered, the job might well have been done successfully.

Nobody gave Nick a reward; but as a result of the newspaper story, he was offered
several more jobs. In fact, he had so many that he talked Barney into accepting a couple of them. And by the middle of August, when the house was painted and the roof was nearly finished, Charles dumped the money they'd been saving onto the dining room table, and they all sat around and counted it.

“Is it enough, Daddy?” Winnie asked anxiously. “Can we afford to go to Disneyland?”

Nick held his breath when his father totaled up the figures, and then began to grin.

“Yes,” he said, “I think we can.”

And then, before everybody had stopped cheering, he added. “You know, this worked so well, maybe we should start planning ahead for
next
summer. Maybe if everybody kept on working and contributing to a new fund, by this time next year we could go to some place like Yellowstone.”

Yellowstone National Park! Nick had seen pictures of it; it looked great.

“Let's do it,” Molly said enthusiastically. “Is everybody agreed?”

They took a vote, and everybody voted yes.
And then Nick had a terrible thought.

“What if,” he asked, “I get stuck with giving medicine to another cat like Eloise?”

“Barney will help you, won't you, Barney?” Charles asked.

Nick looked at his brother. Barney had been a little nicer to him for a few days; probably he liked being the brother of a local hero. It hadn't lasted long, of course. Just this morning they'd gotten in a wrestling match over whose turn it was to clean up the bathroom.

Still, they'd measured him a few days ago, on his birthday, the way they always did. And he'd grown an inch and a half since school was out. Barney had hardly grown half an inch, so Nick was gaining on him. One of these days, Nick thought, he was going to be as big as Barney.

“Sure,” Nick said. “Barney will help me, or I'll punch him out.”

“You and who else?” Barney demanded. But he didn't hit Nick right then, the way he would have early in the summer.

“Come on,” Mrs. Reed said. “If we're going
to Disneyland next week, we've got a lot to do. Let's get started.”

All in all, Nick decided, it had been a pretty good summer.

He couldn't wait for the next one.

DON'T MISS THESE OTHER WILLO DAVIS ROBERTS MYSTERIES:

Surviving Summer Vacation

The View from the Cherry Tree

Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job

Megan's Island

Scared Stiff

The Kidnappers

What Could Go Wrong?

Hostage

Secrets at Hidden Valley

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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This Aladdin paperback edition September 2016

Text copyright © 1983 by Willo Davis Roberts

Cover illustration copyright © 2016 by Jessica Handelman

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Cover designed by Jessica Handelman

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The text of this book was set in New Century Schoolbook.

Library of Congress Control Number 2016945092

ISBN 978-1-4814-7493-1 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4814-7492-4 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4814-7494-8 (eBook)