Durinda's Dangers (6 page)

We somehow doubted that. No one except for our parents liked to feed us all at once—okay, Will's mother didn't mind either—and we suspected Mrs. Pete wouldn't like to have her own romantic Valentine's dinner interfered with.

Annie looked as though she were about to say no on our behalf when Petal grabbed on to one of her arms and Zinnia yanked on the other.

"Please!" Petal cried. "Pleasepleasepleaseplease
please!
I haven't had a hot meal in nearly two weeks!"

"You know the refrigerator is broken!" Zinnia said. "We'll all starve soon!"

Durinda looked offended, as though we were not giving her enough credit for the job she'd done feeding us under trying circumstances.

Pete, however, looked horrified.

"You mean you're not even getting proper meals anymore?" He didn't wait for an answer. "That settles it. You're
definitely
coming home with me. And afterward, I'll even take you home and fix your fridge for you."

We didn't believe he could fix what was wrong with Carl the talking refrigerator, but we were all grateful for the prospect of a home-cooked meal. Well, most of us were.

"Look at him," Rebecca muttered under her breath as Pete led us across the parking lot.

"I know," Georgia muttered right back at her. "Mrs. Pete probably only ever feeds him leg of lamb. We'll probably get stuck eating leg of lamb for our Valentine's dinner."

"Oh, do be quiet," Jackie said. "At least we'll be eating something other than PBJs."

"I resent—" Durinda began, but she never got to finish her objection because we had arrived in front of Pete's vehicle.

"It's a pickup truck," Marcia observed.

"Where's your great big van?" Annie asked.

Pete hit himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand. We suspected that that hurt.

"Oh, no!" he said. "I brought the pickup. I never expected to be ferrying all eight of you around town. Not," he added, "that it's not a great honor."

We're pretty certain Annie was about to try again to reject Pete's kind offer, but Petal and Zinnia moved toward her so quickly, we suspect she didn't want to have her arms grabbed and yanked on again. So instead, she simply said, "Fine."

So that's how we found ourselves zipping through town on our way to have dinner at Pete's house with him and Mrs. Pete. We were all eight in the back of the pickup, because there wasn't enough room in the front cab with Pete for all eight, and it wouldn't have been fair for one or two of us to stay warm while the rest froze. So we sat together on the bed of the pickup, our hair whipping around us in the cold February wind.

"Are you sure this is legal?" Petal wondered as we all bounced along. "None of us is even wearing a seat belt."

"Who cares?" Durinda shouted with glee. "For once I don't have to worry about preparing dinner. Besides, I'm having fun!"

***

Pete's house turned out to be a very small house, but there was something quite cozy about it.

"I've told the missus all about you lot," he said, holding the front door open for us.

We wondered just exactly what he'd told her.

Mrs. Pete was waiting inside, and she was everything you'd expect Pete's wife to look like: she had gray hair that was more salt than pepper, a well-fed belly that bulged against her navy blue T-shirt, and low-slung jeans hanging off her hips. The biggest difference between them was she was a lot shorter than he.

"You must be Annie," she said with a warm smile, taking Annie's hand.

Then she did the same with each of us in turn, placing the right name with the right girl.

"Pete's described you each so many times," she said. "It was like I knew you before I ever saw you."

We liked Mrs. Pete right away.

She led us inside, where a big fire blazed in the small fireplace.

"Dinner's just about ready," she announced.

That's when we noticed how good their house smelled. It smelled of home-cooked food. More than that, it smelled of love.

"We don't want to put you out," Annie said.

"We're used to PBJs," Rebecca added.

"It's no trouble," Mrs. Pete said. "I've always wanted a whole houseful of children."

"Haven't you any of your own?" Petal piped up.

"Sadly, no," Mrs. Pete said, looking very unhappy when she said it.

"I'll bet these people would give great presents to their kids," Zinnia whispered as the Petes, Mr. and Mrs., led us to their dining room table.

And so we ate Valentine's Day dinner with the Petes.

There was roast beef, which Pete carved himself. There were real mashed potatoes with enough gravy for everyone. They didn't even make us eat the salad, and for dessert there was fresh strawberry cream pie with enough whipped cream on it to satisfy even Rebecca. It was the best meal we'd had since before New Year's Eve. (Not to knock Durinda's cooking skills.)

When the last dish had been wiped clean and all the dishes cleared away—we did help clear the table—Mrs. Pete brought out a large book to show us. She said it was a special book.

"As I said before," she said, "Pete has told me all about you and he's told me about your, er, situation, or at least what he thinks that situation might be. I think this book might help."

"It looks like just an ordinary book," Marcia observed. "Except it's very large."

"What is it?" Jackie wanted to know.

"Are there stories in it?" Zinnia asked.

"I hope they're scary stories," Georgia said.

"With lots of blood and guts," Rebecca added.

"I'm afraid not," Mrs. Pete said with an easy laugh. "There are no scary stories here, but it is a very special book. It's called
The Mommy Catalog.
"

"
The Mommy Catalog?
" Durinda asked. "I never heard of such a thing."

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Pete said, opening the book and flipping the pages. "You can pick out any kind of mommy you want from this book."

"Hey!" Jackie said. "That one is called the Tall Mommy! I'll bet she'd come in very handy. You'd never need a stepladder with her around!"

"What about the Soft Mommy?" Petal said. "She looks like she'd be great for giving out hugs."

"The Silly Mommy looks like she'd only be fun for about a day," Rebecca said.

"Then we'd have to kick her out," Georgia added.

"The Funny Mommy doesn't look like she'd be half as funny as she probably thinks she is," Marcia observed.

"The Money Mommy could be cool," Annie said. "It'd be nice to not have to worry about handling the money anymore."

"The Money Mommy sounds good to me too," Zinnia said.

We all agreed that the Pretty Mommy, while pretty, wasn't the kind of mommy a person needed to have.

"Hey!" Durinda said suddenly, flipping the page. "That's
you
, Mrs. Pete! Isn't it?"

Mrs. Pete blushed.

We studied her picture in
The Mommy Catalog.
Underneath it, the legend read,
The Nice Mommy.

We could see where that must be true.

"Is there a catalog like this for daddies too?" Jackie wanted to know.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Pete said.

"And is...?" Jackie jerked her head toward the fireplace, in front of which sat Pete in a wing chair, stroking the black cat that purred in his lap.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Pete said. "He is. He's the Nice Daddy." She cleared her throat, as though she were nervous about something. "Pete was wondering ... that is, we've both been wondering ... since your parents don't seem to be around anymore ... would you like to come live with us for a bit?"

"You could even bring all your eight cats," Pete said from where he sat with his cat. "Old Felix here wouldn't mind the company."

"Nor would we," Mrs. Pete added. "This house may not look very large to you, but it has this funny habit of expanding to hold however many people are in it."

It was true.

When we'd first seen their house, we thought it looked small. In fact, if asked, we would have guessed we'd feel cramped inside. But that wasn't the case. It fit around us just fine.

"Think about it," Mrs. Pete suggested, then she left the room, probably to give us time to talk.

"Is Mommy in
The Mommy Catalog
?" Petal whispered.

"No," Annie said, flipping through all the pages. Then she did the same with
The Daddy Catalog.
"Daddy neither."

"I wonder what their pages would say if they were?" Marcia said.

"Mommy's would say
The Perfect Mommy,
" Jackie said. "And Daddy's would say
The Perfect Daddy.
"

"And then it would say
too bad they disappeared,
" Georgia said.

"And after that,
or died,
" Rebecca added.

Zinnia sighed big enough for all of us.

As Mrs. Pete returned to the table, we thought about what the Petes had offered us. Oh, did we think about it!

It would be so wonderful to be in a house with adults in it again.

It would be wonderful to have meals that smelled and tasted like the meal we'd had that night.

It would be wonderful to be surrounded by so much love.

But...

"No," Annie said, speaking for all of us, who agreed with her in spirit even while we felt bitter at the loss of the dream of the Petes.

"We would love to, truly we would," Annie went on. "But we simply can't. You see, if we stay here, we'll get too comfortable, and then..." Her voice trailed off.

"And then," Pete finished for her, "you might never figure out how to get your dad back from the bathroom and your mom back from France."

"Exactly," Annie said, clearly relieved that someone else had completed the sentence for her so she didn't have to lie directly to Mrs. Pete. Or tell the truth.

"I guess there's nothing else for it then," Pete said, gently removing Old Felix from his lap and rising. "It's time for me to run you lot home. I expect you've got some homework to do, not to mention two valentines to create, and morning will be here before you know it."

"Just remember," Mrs. Pete said, seeing us off at the door and giving each of us a kiss on the cheek, "our door is always open to you, and our offer will always stand."

CHAPTER SEVEN

We arrived home to a dark house and eight hungry-cats.

"I'll put the kibble out," Jackie offered, "while Durinda shows Mr. Pete the fridge."

Pete had brought his toolbox with him, and we watched in the kitchen as he gently pulled Carl the talking refrigerator away from the wall so he could see what was going on with Carl's backside.

Pete was just taking his screwdriver out when we heard a loud thumping noise. We looked up to see a carrier pigeon beating its little body against the big picture window that looked out over the hill.

Durinda let the pigeon in and unfurled the tiny scroll from the silver tube that was attached to the carrier pigeon's leg. We all looked over her shoulder to read the message:
Everything still okay in there?

Durinda wrote back for all of us:
As well as can
be expected!
Then she attached the message and released the carrier pigeon back out the window.

"Does that happen all the time?" Pete asked. "Carrier pigeons flying at your window bearing notes?"

"Often enough." Annie shrugged. "They're Daddy's friends. They used to visit all the time before he, er, went to the bathroom."

"We're pretty sure they're friendly pigeons," Petal told Pete. "We'd be scared of them otherwise."

Pete shook his head. "This is a strange house you're living in here." Then he went back to work on Carl.

After a while, he poked his head out. "This is the oddest thing," Pete said. "Your refrigerator is leaking water like crazy, and yet when I look inside it, I can't find anything wrong."

"Oh, there's something wrong with it all right," Rebecca said darkly.

"Or instead of
it,
" Georgia corrected, "perhaps we should say there's something wrong with
him.
"

"Him?" Pete looked at us questioningly.

We hadn't planned on telling Pete the truth about Carl. But it seemed wrong somehow, now that he was here, to let him go on wasting his time trying to fix Carl when Carl couldn't be fixed. Or at least not in any way Pete's toolbox could manage.

"Pete," Durinda said, "meet Carl, our talking refrigerator."

"Refrigerator's can't—" Pete started to say.

"Don't insult me," Carl the talking refrigerator said to Pete, "I feel bad enough already."

"Oh." Pete looked at Carl. "I see."

"The thing is," Marcia said, "Carl the talking refrigerator is in love with Betty."

"Who's Betty?" Pete wanted to know. "The talking dishwasher?"

"Of course not," Rebecca said testily.

"She's our robot," Georgia added.

"Of course she is," Pete said.

"But Betty doesn't seem to love Carl in return," Zinnia said.

"And Carl is very heartbroken over that fact," Petal said.

"You can't be 'very' heartbroken," Rebecca said. "Heartbroken is one of those things you either are or you aren't. There's no 'very' about it."