Hide and Seek (8 page)

Boom. Boom
. Between the legs.
Boom. Boom
.

“Well …” Keisha figured it couldn’t hurt to tell her friends. Zeke and Zack knew, and they were as bad as Mr. Sanders about keeping secrets.

She proceeded to fill Wen, Aaliyah and Marcus in on the latest rescue effort.

“I don’t understand,” Wen said when Keisha finished. “Tell me again.”

“We thought the picture Mr. Gorman took would help us solve the mystery of why the pumpkin was stuck so tight, but when we blew it up on our computer at home, it was out of focus. Daddy and I figured that the only way was if the handle was over the deer’s head.”

“I don’t get it, either,” Marcus said. “Those handles aren’t long. How could it stretch?”

Keisha started to explain that they’d done some measuring with Razi’s trick-or-treat pumpkin and the handle wouldn’t have to stretch that far, but she was interrupted by Mr. Rose blowing his whistle. That meant the school would close in five minutes.

“So what are you going to be for Halloween, Marcus?” Aaliyah asked. “You won’t get any creativity points for being a basketball player.”

“Maybe I don’t need extra-credit points in social studies.” Marcus tried to spin his basketball on the tip
of his finger, but it fell off. He chased it to the corner of the gym.

“I’m set on a Romany,” Keisha said. “But we’ve only got two days to come up with a costume.”

“Well, I think a red-carpet celebrity will win me points.” Aaliyah pulled on her sweater. “Especially if I can find a good way to roll the carpet out and roll it up again.”

“Just don’t make it so complicated we can’t run,” Keisha said. The other kids nodded, remembering the most important rule of Halloween—collect candy!

“Is Keisha Carter still here?” Ms. Tellerico asked in her assembly voice as she came through the big double doors.

Keisha stood up and whirled around, almost bumping into Marcus.

Marcus did two more dribbles.
Boom. Boom
. “Uh-oh,” he said. “The principal’s looking for you.”

Ms. Tellerico spotted Keisha and waved. “Keisha, I’m so glad you’re still here. I’ve just been talking to Mrs. Jenkins. Will you please deliver this letter to your parents?”

“Even the super-squeezy concentration ball didn’t help?” Wen whispered as they headed to the corner of the gym for their coats. “Poor Razi.”

Marcus faded back for one more jump shot into the big bin that held all the balls. “Score! Did you see that, Key?” he shouted when the ball landed right on top of the pile.

Keisha smiled as she put the letter in her backpack. It felt as if Marcus was showing off a little just for her.

As Keisha and Wen came out of the school, they heard the familiar
brrring brrring
of Big Bob’s bicycle bell.

“I was hoping we’d catch you.” Big Bob was pumping the pedals, and Keisha’s friend Jorge was sitting on the handlebars. “We just finished setting up for tomorrow’s Wild 4-Ever meeting. Want company on your walk home, Keisha?”

“Hey, Key.” Jorge waved.

Big Bob’s bike had two baskets mounted on the back. He tried to do all his shopping on his bike when the weather was good. Jorge had put his backpack in one of the baskets. Keisha dumped hers in the other and walked alongside the bike.

Big Bob pedaled slow and easy, keeping to the sidewalk. People stepped aside when they saw the three of them coming.

“Sooooo,” he said after they’d been going along for a while. “How does Alice like her ring?”

“She likes it,” Keisha said.

“Have you seen her wear it?”

“She never takes it off,” Keisha said.

“Oh, I’m so glad. I was worried that it wouldn’t be her style. What finger does she wear it on? Did it fit her ring finger or is she wearing it on her pinky?”

Keisha hoped the whistling wind would make “piggy” sound like “pinky.”

But Big Bob stopped his bike at the corner and said, “Piggy?”

For an old guy, he had excellent hearing.

“She put my mother’s ring on her toe?”

“Well, Grandma says toe rings are even more fashion-forward than pinky rings,” Keisha replied, trying to sound convincing as she stopped beside the bike. “She saw it on the Look On-line.”

Jorge and Big Bob got off the bike, and they continued up the street to the Carters’ house. Big Bob said, “There’s something about my mother’s ring on Alice’s toe that does not feel right to me.”

Jorge grabbed his backpack and handed Keisha hers. They walked the rest of the way in silence, interrupted only by Harvey’s barking as they passed the Bakers’ house.

“The thing is …” Keisha took one step up to the Carters’ front porch. “It’s stuck.”

“Stuck as in …”

“Stuck as in stuck tight. When I left this morning, Mama had Grandma’s foot up high with an ice pack, so maybe it’s off by now.”

“My mother’s ring on Alice’s toe.” Bob looked at the passersby on the street with wonder. “Maybe I won’t visit today, with Alice so under the weather and all. But
here’s something to try. Whenever one of the girls got a ring stuck on her finger, my mother used vegetable oil. Good old vegetable oil. It worked every time.”

Jorge looked at Keisha. Then he dropped his backpack back in Big Bob’s bike basket. But Big Bob was hesitating. “So …,” he said. “How’s it going with the pup, by the way?”

“Oh, okay.” Keisha wasn’t sure what to tell Big Bob. If he knew Mama was worried the puppy might hurt their standing in the neighborhood, he’d definitely take Racket back. “I think the problem bears further study,” Keisha said.

“I’ve been doing some studying, too, about the difference between wild and domesticated animals. Wild animals are more aggressive. They have to defend themselves and their territory to survive. Domesticated animals are more likely to cooperate. They have to learn to live close together with their own and different species.”

“Racket’s definitely not aggressive,” Keisha said.

“No, he’s very submissive. But a vet who lives out in the country responded to Dr. Wendy’s request with a lot of information about coydogs. Most of them don’t make good pets because they’re more likely to bite, the way wild animals are supposed to. But every once in a while, he finds one that has no aggression at all.”

“So does that mean Racket would be a good pet?” Keisha asked.

“Well, we can’t forget that he howls at the moon
and
he’s too young for us to know what other parts of him are coyote-like. Coyotes are big hunters. Another vet on the Listserv talked about a coydog that hunted the cats in the neighborhood.”

“You mean …”

Big Bob nodded. “Cat fillet.”

“Can I see the coydog?” Jorge asked.

Keisha was still shocked.
Racket eat a cat?

She looked at Jorge, trying to remember what he’d just said. Finally, she snapped out of it. “I think that would be okay.” Leading the way around the side of the house, Keisha took the path back to the animal pens. Racket’s cage was empty.

Had Mama sent him back to the Humane Society already?

“Let me check inside a minute,” she said to Jorge and Big Bob. But before she reached the back steps, Keisha saw a flash of bow-tie ears followed by a boy in a superhero cape. Razi was running and giggling.

“I got you!” he said. Then he shouted, “Big Bob!” Razi forgot all about Racket and ran over to give Big Bob a hug.

“What’s going on here?” Big Bob asked, holding a delighted Razi up in the air.

“First, Racket got scared by the oven door and I had to find him. And then Racket got scared by Mr. Sanders coming over to hear about the poor deer and have a bowl of soup, and I had to find him
again
. And then Racket got scared by the radio in the car going by, and I was just finding him when you came by to visit.”

“My goodness,” Big Bob said, putting Razi down and patting him on the shoulder. “What isn’t Racket scared of?”

“Me!” Razi grabbed both corners of his superhero cape, and it caught the breeze. “But I had to become Find-It Man to get him the last time. Jorge!” Razi saw Jorge and gave him a big hug, too.

Keisha noticed Mama on the back steps without her coat on, hugging herself and smiling.

“Help me, Jorge.” Razi took Jorge’s hand. “Even Find-It Man needs help.” Jorge let himself be led to the back of the yard. Keisha was about to chase after the boys, but she remembered the letter Ms. Tellerico had given her. She unzipped her backpack.

“That is the Razi
I
know,” Mama said. “Creative, full of life … happy.”

“Did he come home unhappy again, Mama?”

“Why do you ask, Ada?”

“Because Ms. Tellerico gave me this note to give you.”

Big Bob asked Mama if he could say a quick hello to Alice.

“Of course, Bob.” Mama frowned at the envelope.

“Hey, Bob.” Daddy appeared in the doorway and stood aside for Big Bob to pass through.

“Did you find the deer, Daddy?”

“Not yet, Key. I did find some fresh tracks on that trail, so I know the deer are still using it.”

Razi and Jorge ran back from the pens, and Keisha and Mama and Daddy watched as Razi dove under the bushes at the side of the house.

“Razi Carter!” Mama scolded. “You will get your cape all dirty, not to mention your shoes, your—”

Jorge ran up the steps and said quietly to Mama, “One of the rabbit babies has disappeared. Razi said there were three. The cage wasn’t latched and Razi is afraid you’ll blame him.”

Mama folded the envelope and put it in her apron pocket. “A rabbit baby on the loose and a coyote puppy, too. If this doesn’t spell disaster—” Mama broke off and looked at Keisha.

“I found him! He was under the bushes.” Razi
dragged Racket out from underneath the yews. Both the boy and the dog would need the dust swatted off them before entering the house.

So Razi found one of the animals. But what about the bunny?

Keisha didn’t have a chance to think it through because Big Bob came to the door and said, “Alice is watching the news, and they announced that next up is a story about a deer with a pumpkin stuck on its head.”

Mama didn’t see much use for television, but Grandma said if she couldn’t watch shows like
What Your Shoes Say About You
and
Celebrity Slips
, life wasn’t worth living. So the only television in the Carters’ house was in Grandma’s bedroom.

In the time it took to get through the commercials, the Carter family plus Big Bob and Jorge were gathered around Grandma’s small set.

Grandma whispered to Keisha as she came in, “Go get the Sunset Glow lipstick from my makeup bag. I don’t have my face on!”

Before she left for the bathroom, Keisha noticed that Grandma had covered her swollen foot with her cashmere sweater.

As soon as Racket saw Keisha, he began whining and straining to get out of Razi’s arms.

“Keisha, sit with the puppy on the floor,” Mama said. “You can see better from there, anyway.”

Racket jumped up on Keisha, giving her a thorough face wash before he stretched out on her lap and sighed. He seemed happy to be found.

The commercials ended, and a dark-haired woman
with a ponytail looked into the camera with a serious expression. “Coming up next … will this deer survive? Our
Live at Five
Action Team received an e-mail this morning about a young deer in peril right here in one of our city parks. Our exclusive footage … after these messages.”