Snakes Don't Miss Their Mothers (2 page)

The door closed before a sneaky calico cat could make a break for the hall.

“I never had any home but the racetrack,” said a very skinny greyhound wistfully. “But I'll make a bet that Placido will be back before our Christmas stockings are put out. Who wants to bet?” Catherine had been in many dog-track races, and she had acquired a fondness for gambling. She often took bets on things that were happening at Critters.

“I'll
bet,” said a yellow Labrador retriever, who did not really know the Siamese cat. He had arrived only a week ago, no dog tags on him. He had jumped out the window of his family's car when his sharp eye had spotted a rabbit off in the fields. Then he had run loose for days and miles, lost and scared. His family had just moved to Long Island, and the land was strange to him. Although he did not appreciate it at the moment, he was a lucky dog. If the dogcatcher had found him, he would have been spending Christmas in a dark, damp basement with arachnids and rats.

His real name was Rex, but at Critters they'd named him Goldie.

“Goldie? I'll bet you my Christmas stocking that Placido will be returned in a day!” said Catherine.

“That's a bet!” Goldie said. “Even if he doesn't work out, I bet people would let him stay for Christmas.”

“Any other takers?” Catherine called out.

No one spoke up.

Then Mr. Larissa reappeared. This time his right shoulder was tilted from the weight of the fourteen-pound Siamese cat inside the carrier.

“Wish Placido a Merry Christmas, everyone!” he said.

“Merry Christmas,” said everyone but Marshall, who would wait until Placido returned.

Mr. Larissa stopped by the cages for a moment and said, “Oh, I know you all feel lonely because it's Christmastime. But don't give up hope. One day you'll be adopted too!”

Irving's tail barely thumped as Placido passed by. Irving wasn't in a joyful mood. It would be his third Christmas at Critters. It was not that bad a place, but it was not a real home. Still, it was warm and the food was good. There were the Christmas stockings, too, each one containing a ball and two lamb-and rice sticks, which were Catherine's favorite treat.

“Good-bye, everyone!” Placido's nose was pressed against the airholes. “Good-bye!”

Once again, the creatures at Critters called out hopefully, “Good-bye, Placido!”

“Good riddance,” some of them said under their breaths, particularly the felines, for they were the ones at his mercy when he was in residence.

H
E WAS A SPECIAL
child with the face of a Botticelli angel and the disposition of a little lamb. Oh, he was special, was this little baby, and he was given a very special name: Percival Kermit Uttergore. When he was old enough to give orders, somewhere between ages three and five, he had his parents strike the name Kermit from all the records, since there was a frog by that name on national television.

He was not going to bear a frog's name, not this special, golden-haired, blue-eyed boy everyone said was a genius and might one day even be a corporate head or a talk-show host.

He had not, sad to say, grown up to be a corporate head nor a talk-show host, but he did have one of those license plates with just two initials, and there was a rather remarkable logo, painted by his own hand, on each side of his old, rusting brown Bronco.

P U, his license plates read.

A pair of gloves, the color of cherries, adorned each door.

“What's
that?”
he shouted into his cell phone, slowing up to hear better. “What's
that?”
he repeated. He blamed his deafness on the barking dogs he fetched from garbage dumps, storefronts, alleys, and pastures: wretches that were lost or unwanted.

When there was a reward for the dog, he sent his ailing sister to collect it. As a salaried public servant he was not allowed to take a reward for what he was paid to do.

His ailing sister was given one percent for herself. Percival Uttergore gave it grudgingly, but it was proof, nonetheless, of the old adage that no one is
all
bad.

His ailing sister had telephoned Uttergore in his van to alert him that there were new lost-dog posters everywhere—on telephone poles, in store windows, on supermarket bulletin boards, fastened under the windshield wipers of parked cars—you name it and a poster was sure to be there. So said Ursula Uttergore.

“What kind of dog?” he demanded. “Speak up, Ursula!”

“Please” and “thank you” had been dropped from his vocabulary soon after Kermit had been eliminated from his name.

His once-curly blond hair was now brown and filled with soot, dandruff, and yellow scales that perhaps would wash out in a shampoo, though that had not been tried for a long time.

The baby-blue eyes were bloodshot, and he had a beard to protect his face from shaving.

Filthy was he, and he reeked so badly that his wife had run off, taking with her Percival Uttergore Junior, a bully who hung out at bowling alleys reading comic books.

But year after year Mr. Uttergore was reelected dogcatcher, for no one else ever ran for that office.

“I don't give a
whistle
that his name is Rex! What kind of dog is he?”

His ailing sister replied that it was a yellow Labrador retriever.

Some dogs that came into his cellar he sold to laboratories doing research, particularly dogs that were healthy, that had not been lost for very long. This retriever sounded like just such a dog.

Uttergore got out his red wool gloves and stepped on the gas.

B
EFORE HIS LOVELY BLUE
right eye was punctured beyond repair, Placido had won so many ribbons at cat shows, he could not count them all on four paws. He had been the only cat at the breeder's who was free to stroll from the cattery to the house, where he would climb to the back of the couch to be admired. He was a purebred seal-point Siamese, once known as Prince from Siam. He had had a sterling silver bowl with his name on it. He had had a sterling silver mirror and comb. He had had his own scrapbook. In those days he had had his way. He had kneaded Persian rugs and clawed the arms of hand-embroidered Regency sofas. No one dared spank him, for he was a prize winner, temperamental by nature.

Look what he had come to! Look how far he had fallen!

A boat! They expected him to live on a boat!

Last night the man had opened a can of smelly fish and put it on top of a newspaper, on the galley table. Then he had put Placido on the table, too, and said, “I have a date to play Santa Claus at the mall, Placido. This is din din, buddy boy! Eat it all up! It's mackerel!”

Placido had had all he could do to keep from gobbling it down. But he had decided not to. A good thing to do was take a whiff, then use his front paws to make the motions, back and forth around the cat dish, of covering up some foul thing. Just as though he had been served roadkill.

A good mood to be in on a boat was a bad mood.

The thing about the girl was that when she decided to listen to music, she listened to the same songs over and over. Last night it was “Sighs in a Shell,” “Sunken Skies,” and “The Dragon Is Dancing.” Over and over.

This morning the girl watched the same tape. Over and over.

There she was dancing with the bulbous-eyed Boston terrier. How many times was Placido to be subjected to that vile Christmas song?

Nobody knows

But Twinkle Toes

What fun it is to dance!

Her doggie knows—

Yes, Dancer knows,

For see him up on his doggie toes!

But no human soul,

Nor the sole on a shoe,

Will ever dance the way you do.

Twinkle Toes!

Twinkle Toes!

Dance while it snows!

Twinkle Toes!

He had to watch the girl and the wretched Boston terrier dance about in a fake snowstorm on a large stage.

The girl was going to New York shortly, minus the dog, for the pitifully unattractive Boston terrier had gone to bye-bye land forever.

“Placido?” the girl called out. “Placido, I have a one-o'clock appointment and a two-o'clock curtain! I am
leaving!
Wherever you are, good-bye, Placido!”

A good place to hide was up in the master's cabin behind a bunk. There he could see everything without being seen.

On the tape the girl was introduced as Twinkle Toes, “with her precious pet, Dancer.” But her real name was Jimmie, the name her father called her. Her father had left early that morning, dressed again as Santa Claus, heading for a nearby mall.

Both the girl and the father talked to themselves when they were alone, which they seemed to think they were even though Placido was there. Not by any choice of his own.

Jimmie would say things like “Working on Christmas Day sucks.”

Sam Twilight would ask her not to say “sucks.” It made her sound too tough.

Placido would never have chosen to live with performers. He had had enough of that at Madame de Flute's.

He had learned there that performers were even more self-involved than parrots, who were known to be content in a cage with nothing but a mirror to entertain them.

Performers were basket cases right before auditions, and thus Placido was on a boat with a basket case who had an appointment before her show with Quintin Quick, the C.E.O. of BrainPower Limited.

“
PLA-CI-DO
!”

It was a desperate sound like a coyote howling in the moonlight, but it would get her nowhere. She had a lot to learn about the feline disposition, quite different from the sickening, desperate-for-attention canine personality.

Then there came a knock on the door.

“This could be my limousine, Placido! If this is StarStretch, I have to leave immediately!”

Leave! Placido shrugged. Don't worry about a new cat in strange surroundings!

Knock, knock
again.

“Hello? Who is it?” Jimmie called out.

Her long blond hair bounced as she walked from the galley through the cabin to the door. She was in her street clothes, of course. Only a nonprofessional ever walked around in costume in public. Placido had learned that from Madame de Flute. He had learned quite a lot from Madame until a certain parrot had entered their lives and ruined everything.

Jimmie had on a pink miniskirt over black leggings, with a black sweater that had been her mother's.

Mr. Twilight had asked her how long she planned to wear clothes that were too big for her, and she had answered, “When you stop humming ‘Eternity Spin,' I'll give away her things.”

“Touché,” he said, which was a French word meaning whatever it was you said was to the point. Sometimes fencers used it when an opponent's foil nicked them. That was the trouble with human language. There were many words for one thing, and the same word for many things. Why? Placido had no idea why. It was the way things were in this cock-eyed world, which was both cruel and kind, so never mind those who tell you that you cannot have it both ways.

When the girl opened the door, who stood there but Mr. Larissa and Mrs. Splinter's grandson, Walter. Ye gods and little fishes! Had they come for Placido?

Placido fled to an upper bunk.

“Are you Mr. Twilight's daughter?” asked Mr. Larissa.

“Maximum, five minutes. I have a show to do, babes,” said Jimmie, slipping into the jaded jargon of the fast-living stars of stage and screen. “What are you selling?”

“I'm Mr. Larissa,” the man said, “and this is Walter Splinter. We're from Critters. How is Placido doing?”

“He just got here yesterday,” said Jimmie.

“I know. But we'll be closed tomorrow, Christmas Day. We like to be sure the adoption is working, that both you and Placido are satisfied.”

“We're doing okay, I guess,” said Jimmie.

“It is better for both you and the animal, if there is anything wrong, to nullify the adoption.”

“We always check right away,” said Walter. “Some people will just put the animal out the door if it doesn't look like it's working. That's how Percival Uttergore gets most of his.”

“Who's Percival Uttergore?”

“The dogcatcher,” said Walter. “He wears red gloves.”

“There's a snowstorm predicted,” said Mr. Larissa, “and it's getting colder. We brought your mail in so it won't get wet.”

“Placido was once a very famous cat,” said Walter. “He was a star who won many prizes.”

“How did he come by that tacky faux-leopard carrying case?” said Jimmie. “I can't bear to see him plopped back in that thing and toted off to Critters.”

“Is Placido eating?” said Walter. “Is he purring?”

The man said, “Walter always worries when a new pet is adopted, particularly when it's a surprise for someone. We call him the Worry Wart.”

“How
are
you two getting along together?” Walter asked.

“It's hard to say.”

“But do you like him?” Walter persisted.

The girl shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “Sure.”

Then Jimmie saw the very long StarStretch limo pulling up at the dock. You could hear its expensive motor running.

“There's my ride,” she said. “I have to rush. Come back another time.”

“I'll leave your mail here on the table!” said Mr. Larissa.

Saved by the Bentley, Placido said to himself as he eyed the elegant motorcar and remembered better days, when he rode behind a chauffeur and received catnip balls from the cashier at the drive-in window of the Morgan Trust bank.