The Penguin Who Knew Too Much(7)

“And no one's seen him for days,” she added.

Ah. Not the llama then. It was quite clearly visible, standing calmly in the middle of our front walk. I repressed the urge to pet its long, soft coat. It wasn’t a stuffed animal, and I had no idea whether llamas bit people.

“And when I talked to your father last night, he said that he might be able to help us out. We’re already two days late taking off to see our new granddaughter. We can’t stay here llama-sitting forever.”

Light dawned.

“Oh, I see,” I said. “The llama's from the Caerphilly Zoo.”

“Patrick said a few days, and it's been two weeks.”

Of course. Patrick Lanahan, the zoo's financially inept owner. The one who’d saddled Dad with the penguins. And, apparently, stuck this woman with a llama. If you asked me, she’d gotten the better of the bargain.

“Your father said he had some pastureland that would be perfectly suitable, and if I hadn’t found Patrick by this morning, I should bring them over.”

Them?

A man appeared at the other end of the walk, shortly followed by second llama. Then a third. Llamas kept popping one by one through the opening in the high hedge that screened our yard from the street until I saw that the man was leading six llamas, roped together like a pack train. As I watched, the third llama in line reached down with his nose and goosed the llama in front of him, which squealed with outrage and leaped into the air. Perhaps I only imagined the look of amusement on the faces of the remaining llamas. Or perhaps these were not merely llamas, but prank-playing juvenile-delinquent llamas.

“Where do you want me to put these?” the man asked.

I thought of several rude and improbable answers, but I suppressed them. I got up and led my charge to the backyard. My visitors and the rest of the llamas followed. I quickly got the idea that leading more than one llama at a time was a bad idea. Even the short walk to the backyard gave them plenty of time for goosing, biting, and kicking each other. At least they weren’t spitting, which I’d heard llamas were fond of doing.

“You can put them in here for now,” I said, opening the gate to the pen outside the barn. It was a little small for seven llamas, but at least it was in good repair, since we used it for a dog run. I made sure the dog door between the pen and the barn was closed, since I didn’t know how Spike, our dog, would react to the llamas when he returned. Well, okay, I knew how Spike would react; he’d try to kill one of them, and at eight and a half pounds, he’d be fighting way out of his weight class. Locked in the barn, he could only bark himself hoarse.

Neither of the llamas’ temporary caretakers expressed the slightest concern over the small size of the pen.

“I’ll get someone to take them over to the pasture as soon as possible,” I added. “We’re a little busy right now.”

“Yes, I understand you’re finally moving in today,” the woman said. “Your father said that was why I should drop them off here, instead of at his farm.”

Just drop them off with Meg. Yes, that sounded like Dad. The couple turned to go, without expressing any further concern over the llamas’ well-being, which struck me as rather callous. It wasn’t as if the llamas had deliberately outstayed their welcome.

“Is there any message I should give Dad?” I shouted at the couple's departing backs. “About the llamas?”

Like maybe “Thanks for taking them off our hands”?

The man turned.

“No,” he shouted. “But if Patrick ever turns up, you can tell the no-good son of a—”

“George!” the woman hissed.

The man turned away again and they left.

I looked back at the llamas. They were standing clustered by the fence. They didn’t look at all upset at seeing their former guardians depart.

I was pondering whether to take them over to the pasture now or wait until someone else was free to do it, when two tall, lean figures came around the corner of the house. Randall Shif-fley, the foreman of the construction crew that had been working on our house, and one of his brothers or cousins—Vern, I thought, though I wasn’t sure.

I greeted them, a little warily. Had I asked them to come by to do some project? Not that I recalled. We still had dozens of projects inside and out, and we’d probably be hiring the Shiffleys to do the work, but not yet. The place was livable, though far from perfect, and we were looking forward to a few weeks or even months of peace and quiet. Not to mention a few months of not handing the Shiffleys every bit of cash we could scrape up.

Fortunately, Randall got straight to the point.

“We came to talk to your father,” he said. “About the rights to the land.”