“She wasn’t lying dormant anywhere within ten feet of the snake house,” Victor said. “We checked even though it was obvious she didn’t leave on her own.”
“You think she was stolen?” Grandfather frowned.
“It’s the only reasonable explanation,” Victor said. “I checked her cage last night, the way I always do when I make my rounds. She was there and the padlock was in place. And I closed the snake house door after me and made sure it was secure—I know how dangerous a draft could be. When I went ’round just now, the padlock was gone and the cage door was wide open. Someone must have cut off the padlock and taken her.”
Grandfather looked grim.
“I do not like the direction these pranks are taking,” he said. “First someone puts a surfeit of skunks in a highly unsuitable environment, where they are in serious danger of being harmed by hysterical people—”
How like Grandfather to side with the skunks.
“—and now someone has quite irresponsibly removed an innocent reptile from its habitat and exposed it to weather that could be injurious to its health. When will people learn—”
“Let’s tell the chief.” I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. “I have no idea if this is in any way related to the skunk thing, but he will want to know. Hello, Debbie Ann? I’d like report a missing snake.”
I wouldn’t have thought the words “snake” and “skunk” were that easily confused, but it took us a while to sort out the mix-up. Debbie Ann relayed the stolen snake report to the chief, along with a warning to keep an eye open for Cleopatra in the church.
“She wouldn’t be the least bit bothered by the skunks’ spray,” Grandfather said. “And it’s been a while since she was fed, so one of those smaller, adolescent skunks might look rather tempting to her. Have the chief put out an APB.”
I relayed this suggestion—though coming from Grandfather, it sounded more like an order.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Debbie Ann said. “After all, it wouldn’t be the strangest APB we’ve put out here in Caerphilly. But is there any particular reason to think it’s in the church?”
“No,” I said. “Except that it seems a little far-fetched to think that there would be two people—or groups of people—pulling animal-related pranks on the same night. What if whoever put the skunks in the church also turned Cleopatra loose there?”
“Oh, my.”
Debbie Ann hung up, presumably to put out a snake alert to those working in the church.
“We must go down there and look for her,” Grandfather said.
“What about the skunk habitat?”
Grandfather hesitated.
“It will only take me a little while to show Victor what I have in mind,” he said finally. “You wait here.”
He and Victor bustled off. I called home to make sure the boys were okay and after Rose Noire assured me all was well, I stretched out on the couch in Grandfather’s office and closed my eyes. If my luck held, once they got started, Grandfather would insist on supervising every detail of the skunk habitat, and I could get a nap.
I managed an hour before Grandfather stormed back in, intent on returning to the church.
He entertained me on the way back to town with amusing trivia about emerald tree boas, including the fact that they gave birth to live young in litters of six to fourteen, and that the newborns were not emerald green like their parents but a distinctive brick red or orange color—information I fervently hoped would never be of any practical use to me.
It was past dawn when we arrived back at the New Life Church, although the sky was still gray and overcast with the threat of more snow. Its parking lot was now half full and the crowd had swelled—although I was relieved to see that most of the newcomers appeared to be men and women carrying buckets, mops, and totes full of cleaning supplies. They were all staring at the church doors, which were flung wide open to the cold.
A gasp ran through the crowd when four men emerged from the front door, carrying what appeared to be one end of a telephone pole. They held the pole above their heads as if in triumph, and the crowd cheered in response. Then they began picking their way carefully down the front steps. The rest of the pole was slowly emerging from the church door until suddenly a large black object appeared—the skunk cage, thoroughly swathed with black tarps and supported by a huge net suspended from the pole. The men had to lift the front of the pole very high indeed to drag the cage over the top of the steps and they were moving very slowly, to avoid jarring the skunks any more than they could help. After the cage, the other end of the pole lengthened until finally four more men emerged, holding their end of the pole high over their heads.