Snakes Don't Miss Their Mothers (5 page)

A wise decision, from Irving's point of view.

Irving had seen Olivia Splinter only once. She was a pretty thing for a human female, but she was always in a hurry. She was always saying things like “I would love to see the new Dalmatian, Walter, but there isn't time!” She would say, “I'm on a tight schedule,” and “Next time I'll spend the whole afternoon with you!”

Irving was standing so Walter could tickle him behind his ears. Ecstasy. Irving closed his eyes, only to open them and see the bulge in Marshall's body. Now came the job of choking it down to where he could digest it.

Snakes were really gross!

As much as Irving liked Marshall, who always took his side in arguments, he had to admit that his table manners were revolting!

Even Goldie awakened, shook his head so hard his Critters tags rattled, and said, “That snake makes me sick! How can you stand to be next to him, Irving?”

“Marshall can't help what he is,” said Irving philosophically. “We are what we are, even when we are snakes.”

Walter moved down to Goldie's cage. “How're you doing, fellow?” he said. “Are you a lonesome boy tonight?”

Goldie let out a little yelp, and Walter reached in and petted him. “It's hard to be away from your family on Christmas. My dad's in Israel, but my mother's on her way here.”

In your dreams, Irving said to himself.

Outside, the wind was whistling.

“No one is going to plow out this place on Christmas Day!” Irving said to Goldie. “We won't get our walks.”

The bulge in Marshall's body was growing larger.

“One thing I'd never eat is a rodent,” said Irving.

“Lotho blatho,” Marshall answered.

“Don't talk with your sides full, please,” said Irving.

“I thought he didn't talk when he ate,” Goldie said.

“He almost never does,” Irving said.

Walter had shut Goldie's cage and dimmed the lights.

“I think I'll check out the cat room,” he said. “They must miss Placido.”

Not,
Irving and Goldie agreed.

All the creatures at Critters knew how Placido had controlled the cat room. He had a bad reputation. He would wait until the cats were settled in their sun spots mornings, and then one after the other he would nudge them out of their places, as though the sun were solely his property.

At night Placido had roamed through the room with his tail switching, seeing which cat was sleeping the soundest. Then he would pounce.

He always dove into the feeding tray before the others got there, licking off all the broth, gobbling up the choice pieces … and never mind what followed one of his feeding frenzies. You could hear the
urps
all the way to Mrs. Splinter's office.

“Well, Merry Christmas, Irving, Marshall, and Goldie,” said Walter. “And a Merry Christmas to all the sleeping critters.”

He headed down the hall to the cattery.

“Lotho blatho!” said Marshall.

Irving complained, “What is bugging you tonight, anyway?”

“Lotho blatho!”

“Say what you have to say
after
you've finished your dinner, please,” said Irving.

Walter was in with the cats when the lights went up again and a voice said, “Honey? Walter? Where are you, darling?”

A Christmas miracle! Olivia Splinter had arrived.

She must have left the front door open, for there was an awful draft. Irving was concerned for Marshall, because snakes caught cold very easily.

There was no way, of course, to tell Walter's mother that he was in the cat room.

Suddenly Goldie managed to nudge open the door of his cage, jump out, and race from the kennel.

“How did
you
get loose?” Olivia Splinter shouted after him. “Come back!”

“Lotho blatho!” Marshall tried again, and not until then did Irving realize the snake had somehow sensed that Walter had not fastened Goldie's cage. Marshall had been trying to warn them that Goldie could escape.

J
IMMIE SO OFTEN WORKED
on Christmas Day that she usually received her presents Christmas Eve. “A diary!” said Jimmie. “I never had a diary!”

“Welcome to the Real World,” said her father.

“I hope not” Jimmie replied. “I don't want to be a civilian.”

“This diary goes from Christmas Day to Christmas Day, so you can begin writing in it tomorrow.”

“What will I write about?”

“That's up to you. It's your personal diary with a little lock and key. Write about what little girls write about. Write about your life, your dreams, your worries … your boyfriends.”

“Boyfriends?”

“Someday they'll be coming around.”

“Ms. Fondaloot says I am not to worry, because she is paid to do the worrying and I am paid to do the work.”

“That's just agent talk,” said Mr. Twilight. “In the R.W. little girls don't have agents. Most little girls don't have agents.”

“Ms. Fondaloot says I'm not like most little girls because I have talent.”

“Yes, you do, but I want you to think seriously about another kind of life. Show biz will always be there, but these years when you're so young will go fast. Maybe you would be happier if you became more like other kids.”

“I'm not unhappy the way you think I am,” said Jimmie. “I don't want to be in the R.W. I miss Mom so bad I ache, but when I'm performing I feel close to her.”

“I know, honey. But she'd want you to get a good education, meet kids your age, all the things she could never do when she was a child.”

“Look how
she
turned out, though. I hope
I
become like Mom.”

“I hope you do, too…. It's late. We'd better open the rest of our presents.”

Outside, the snow was coming down hard.

“I hope we don't get snowed in, Dad. When there's a storm like this, Angel on High always takes a room in the city at the Y. What if StarStretch can't get here tomorrow?”

“Ms. Fondaloot will call if that seems likely.”

Jimmie put the diary with her other gifts. Angel on High, who was in the Christmas show with Jimmie, had given her Roscoe the Robotic Frog from Manley Toy Quest. He came on a plastic lily pad, made a
ribbit!
noise, and threw out his red plastic tongue to catch the fly that came with him in the box.

While they opened their Christmas presents, Placido was batting a piece of tinsel on a lower branch of the tree Sam Twilight had lugged aboard the boat and trimmed a few hours ago.

Placido remembered the taste of tinsel from other Christmases before he had landed in Critters. Tinsel wasn't delicious, not like the mackerel he'd finally had to scarf down while Sam Twilight slept and waited for the girl to come aboard. But tinsel was fun to swallow. It was like rubber bands. It was like spaghetti strands.

Placido knew when he ate the tinsel, his secret could come out. Placido was a projectile vomiter. It was another reason that his adoptions did not work out. He might have used some restraint and left the tinsel on the tree, but he had an idea he would get seasick soon anyway. Why not enjoy himself while he could?

His second owner (Placido never discussed his first owner) used to hold her head whenever it happened and holler, “
PLA-CI-DO
! Oh, nooooooooo!” She was a high-strung opera singer who seemed to prefer Polly, her parrot. She was always asking Polly if she wanted a cracker in baby talk. She didn't talk that much to Placido because, she said, he did
all
the talking.

As a young and healthy Siamese, Placido
had
strolled about exercising his lungs, as Siamese like to do.

Polly would shout, “Shut the cat up! Shut the cat up!”

Sometimes when the diva went off to a performance, she would forget to lock Placido out of the kitchen.

Then Placido would jump up and cling to the cage and poke his head under the black silk cover. “Madame de Flute!” the parrot would scream. “Madame de Flute!”

Placido would get the cage swinging fast. He would leer at the parrot and hiss and yowl. The parrot would always faint, falling to a heap at the bottom of the cage.

When Madame de Flute got home, she would scold Placido and tell him she was going to give him away.

Placido never believed her until he found himself at Critters. The parrot had finally fought back. Polly had lost only a few garish green feathers. But Placido had lost his right blue eye and his home.

Placido didn't know how the girl would react to his secret. She was the one in charge of things—he could see that. Her Santa Claus father was a lonely man. All the while he was trimming their tree, he had sung Christmas carols in this melancholy tone that depressed even Placido, who rarely let things get him down. Twilight had even said “Oh Elaine, Elaine,” in his sleep, still in his Santa Claus costume, during the long wait for Jimmie. Placido had sneaked in a brief catnap atop the pillows stuffed inside Twilight's pants.

Now Sam Twilight wore a handsome cashmere sweater the girl had just given him for Christmas.

“Let's get to bed,” he told the girl. “You have four shows tomorrow … and don't you have another audition?”

“Not until after Christmas.”

“How did it go with BrainPower?”

“I thought you'd never ask.”

“If I ask, you always say Ms. Fondaloot does all your worrying. But I know better.”

“I said ‘consensus of opinion,' which is a major faux pas.”

“I say it. Shouldn't I say it?”

“It's redundant.”

“So just forget you said it. I remember that time your mother said ‘irregardless' when we were at some townie's place for dinner. Someone told her that it wasn't even a word, and you would have thought she was caught with her hand in the till or caught naked or some other damn thing, the way she carried on. ‘Oh, how could I have said that, Sam? Oh, Sam, how can you stand being with an ignoramus like me?' I said, ‘Count your victories, Elaine. Don't sweat the small stuff.' And that's all it is, Jimmie. It's small stuff. It's not the only job in the world either.”

“It's the best one I've ever been up for! Kids would be able to download me! I'd be a spokeskid!”

“Honey, a kid your age shouldn't have this stress. You should be laughing and playing.”

“I play chess with Babe in the Manger.”

“I'm talking about kids' games. Hide-and-seek. Pin the tail on the donkey.”

“I'm too old for those games, Daddy. I'm eleven!” said Jimmie. “I think it stresses
you
more than me.”

“I know that's what you think, but you're wrong. I wouldn't care if you left show biz tomorrow.”

“I may have to,” Jimmie said, “if StarStretch can't get through the snow. Then I wouldn't have to work another Christmas Day. Angel on High is right! She says it's the pits to work on Christmas. It sucks! She says she'd like to tell them to go screw themselves!”

Her father heaved a sigh. “Don't
you
start sounding like Angel on High. Your mother winced at language like that. I thought of her all day while I was over at the Star-Tintrees'. She would have loved that house with the big tree, and the little girl, Sun Lily. She's about your age, I think. And listen to this: We've been invited to their New Year's Eve party.”

“To perform, right?”

“Right. That's what we do. But they're a lovely family, and they've asked boys and girls from the Ross School. Wouldn't you like to have some nice, normal friends from the Real World?”

“Probably not,” said Jimmie. “I wouldn't know what to say to them.”

“That was your mother's problem too. She'd start talking people's ears off about Jimmie Spheeris. Nobody'd ever heard of him
or
his music.”

“Their loss,” Jimmie said.

“I know that. But you don't want to grow up at a loss for words on social occasions.”

“Daddy, look at the time! We need to get to bed right now!”

“At least we don't have to walk a cat,” he said.

“Where is that cat?” she said.

Placido had fled to the master's cabin, a piece of tinsel hanging from his mouth. He had never trusted little girls. One he'd lived with for a few days had called him Pooty Wooty, forced him into doll clothes, and tried to wheel him around in a baby carriage. The scratch he gave her across her arm had him back inside the fake-leopard carrying case and on his way to Critters one more time.

So he
wasn't
perfect.

Placido favored the high shelf in the master's cabin, where he could oversee the aft deck from the porthole. He didn't have his sea legs yet, and he didn't like the way the boat rocked, because he had no claws to grip anything if a big wave rolled in.

There wouldn't be any waves for a while, not with the snow coming down and the bay water turning to ice.

From the shelf, in the daytime, he could see the gulls that perched on the railing, waiting for handouts. He liked to fall asleep in a sun spot while he daydreamed about snatching one of them.

His first night aboard, even though he could see only a few watery lights on the bay, he liked perching on the shelf, looking up at the stars, and the moon with its moody face, sometimes clouded, sometimes this huge circle of light so bright Placido watched it through his paws.

The girl and her father called out good night to each other, finally, and in the darkness there was no sound but the water gurgling under the boat and the wind blowing the snow.

Silent night, Placido thought as he curled up and closed his eyes. He dreamed of Roscoe the Robotic Frog sitting on his stupid plastic pad, saying
ribbit!
while his red plastic tongue darted out to catch the fly.

Placido slept with a tiny smile of anticipation tipping his furry mouth.