Cockatiels at Seven(5)

He held out his hand. After inspecting him for a few moments, Timmy decided that Dad was okay. He threw his green blanket over his shoulder like a serape and toddled off, with one hand in Dad’s and the other clutching the stuffed animal. Which I’d decided was probably a cat.

“He’ll be fine with Dad for a few minutes,” I said. “Now what is going on with—”

“That’s great!” Karen exclaimed. She turned and began walking briskly—almost running—toward the front of the house. I jogged along, trying to keep up. “As soon as I get back, I’ll tell you all about what I’ve been doing for—my goodness, it must be a year or two since we’ve really had a chance to talk!”

She reached the opening in the hedge and stopped for a moment, looking slightly nervous. Then she stuck her head out and gazed in both directions before venturing out from behind the hedge. Her reluctance to leave the shelter of the shrubbery let me catch up with her.

“Look, is there anything particular I should know? About taking care of Timmy, or—”

“Of course,” she said, digging into her suitcase-sized purse and pulling out a thick wad of paper. “I almost forgot to give you this. It’s got everything you should need—meals, nap schedules, his pediatrician’s name and number—just in case of emergencies.”

I took the papers and blinked with surprise. Timmy came with a fatter instruction manual than most appliances. And did she keep this care and feeding guide around all the time in case of emergencies? It wasn’t the sort of thing you dashed off in five minutes. If she had done it especially for me, then dropping by without notice to entrust me with Timmy wasn’t exactly a sudden, last minute decision.

“I left everything you should need in your front hall,” she said. “And you can call if you have any questions. My cell number’s there. Oh, Meg, you can’t imagine how grateful I am!”

She gave me a quick hug, climbed into a battered sedan so old it probably qualified as a classic car, and drove off at least ten miles per hour above the speed limit.

“Now that was odd,” I said, to no one in particular. “What was she so worried about?”

I scanned the landscape. Since we lived fifteen miles outside the tiny college town of Caerphilly, Virginia, there weren’t generally a lot of pedestrians on hand to observe our guests’ comings and goings. Nor did our road see a lot of cars. We were sandwiched in between Seth Early’s sheep farm, across the road from our house, and the farm Mother and Dad had recently bought, which surrounded us on the other three sides. If you kept driving beyond our house, you’d pass three or four other farms, a small ramshackle motel that had been converted into furnished apartments, and a largely empty offsite storage establishment before the road dead-ended a few miles away at Caerphilly Creek. Not exactly a landscape that made most people nervous.

I was turning to go back to the house—or more likely, back to the pasture, to make sure Timmy was enjoying playtime with the llamas—when my cell phone rang. It was Michael.

“I’m sure you will be shocked to know that this year’s incoming freshmen have no memory of a life without cell phones and personal computers.”

“And they have no idea that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings,” I said.

“You’re behind the times. These days they have no idea McCartney was ever in a band at all.” He was trying to sound cheerful, but his voice had that slightly frayed quality it usually had when he’d been spending too much time in small rooms with his fellow faculty members.

“Take heart,” I said. “Won’t being tenured give you the freedom to play hooky from a lot of these summer indoctrination sessions next year?”

“But that’s next year. And it’s assuming I get tenure—”

“Which you said was looking good.”

“But it won’t happen till spring. It doesn’t help much when you’re immersed in the minutiae of academia. But speaking of immersing, I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to relaxing in the hot tub this evening.”

Dad had said the boa constrictor would only be there for a few hours. What were the odds she’d still be there when Michael got home? Should I mention the possibility?

And for that matter, would Timmy still be around? What exactly did Karen mean by “just a little while?”

“Meg? Is something wrong?”

“No,” I said. “Remember how disappointed you were that all my nieces and nephews were visiting their Australian grandparents this summer? How you said summer wasn’t really summer without having some kids around to help you enjoy it?”