That Susannah even remembered the hymn surprised me. Mama used to sing it to me as a child, but I am ten years older than Susannah, and I can’t remember Mama singing it after I reached my teens. At any rate, the hymn, like many others in the Ausbund, sounds more like keening than singing to English ears.
And while Susannah’s rendition was neither musically nor lyrically accurate, it definitely was loud.
I scurried over to the stove to tell her to put a lid on it, before someone else did. But before I could even open my mouth, Susannah opened hers even wider. What seconds before had been keening was now genuine screaming. I’m sure that at first I was the only one who could tell the difference.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around. “What is it?”
Susannah wrenched free and faced the pot again, her screams louder than ever. Then she began to gesticulate wildly at the pot, almost as if she were trying to do the breaststroke. Perhaps there was something about the pot that was not quite right. I bent over and examined its contents closely. Then it was all I could do to keep from screaming myself.
There, blinking up at me, totally covered with chocolate and peanut butter, was Shnookums. His little mouth was open too, and he would have been screaming as well, except that it was clogged with peanut butter.
Without even thinking, I yanked the pot off the burner and dumped its contents into the sink. Then I turned on the cold-water faucet as far as it would go and aimed the sprayer hose at the half-cooked canine. Susannah, in the meantime, had fainted. Fortunately, Billy Dee managed to grab her before she had a chance to slump over the stove.
“What the hell is going on now?” Jeanette demanded.
“Go away!” I snapped. The cold water wasn’t doing much to dissolve the hot goo from the dog’s coat. I switched to warm.
Jeanette pushed into my space. “What the hell is that? I demand to know. My God, it’s a rat!” she shrieked. She too began to faint, but when nobody made a move to catch her, she revived in time to brace herself against the sink.
“This is not a rat!” I shouted, so that everyone could hear. “This is Shnookums, my sister’s dog.”
Linda gasped, and although my back was turned, I’m sure she tried her hand at fainting too. “First spiders,” I heard her say, “and now rats. I’m calling the board of health myself.”
Just about then, I stuck my finger in the little dog’s mouth and dislodged a glob of peanut butter. Immediately I heard Shnookums wheeze, and then his little chest began to move up and down. Seconds later he was revived enough to get loose with the most pitiful yowl I have ever heard. Even I felt sorry for the matted mutt.
“It is a dog!” I heard Lydia say.
“Rats can sound like that too,” Jeanette and Linda said together.
Susannah had, by then, regained consciousness and was struggling to her feet. Billy Dee, ever the gentleman, was concerned that she might collapse again and was trying to coax her to remain prone. “Please lie still, Miss Entwhistle,” he begged. “You’re paler than a Yankee come February.”
“Let me go!” she screamed. “That’s my baby over there!”
At the sound of his mistress’s voice, Shnookums began to wail even louder.
Reluctantly Billy Dee helped Susannah to her feet and walked her over to the sink. By then I had managed to do a fair job of cleaning the canine, and he bore at least a faint resemblance to Shnookums. Of course, any small animal, dog or cat, looks half their size when wet. Frankly, I’ve seen rats twice the size of the soggy Shnookums.
“See! It is a rat!” shrieked Jeanette. “It fell right from the ceiling into the pot. God knows what all we’ll be eating tonight.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” moaned Linda.
Susannah grabbed her baby out of my hands and held him to her face for close inspection. He continued to wail. She began planting kisses all over his tiny body. He wailed even louder.
“I think you’d best take him to the vet,” suggested Billy Dee.
Now Susannah began to wail. “My baby, my poor little baby, and it’s all your fault.”
I think she meant me. After all, it had been my idea that she cook something for supper. Of course she wasn’t being fair, but this was no time to point it out.
“I’ll get our coats and then we’re heading straight for Doc Shafer,” I said calmly. “Lydia, would you mind seeing to it that supper gets on the table and everyone gets a chance to eat? Mr. Grizzle, would you please call Dr. Shafer and tell him we’re coming? I think he closes at six. His number is by the phone at the front desk.”