The Real Macaw(3)

“It’s no use,” came another voice. “The window’s too small.”

I turned to see the enormous leather-clad form of Clarence Rutledge, the local veterinarian. Since Grandfather was an avid animal welfare activist and Dad a sucker for anything on four legs, the menagerie in our living room was beginning to make a little more sense. But only a little.

“You were trying to break into the barn, I suppose.” They all looked a little startled at what I assumed was a correct guess. “We keep it locked, since all my expensive blacksmithing equipment is out there. But I might be persuaded to unlock it, if somebody could just tell me what the hell is going on.”

They all exchanged looks. One of the beagles Dad was still holding began peeing on him. He rushed to deposit the offender on a nest of newspapers in a corner.

I fixed my gaze on Grandfather.

“It’s all Parker’s fault,” he said. “If he’d showed up on time, we never would have come here. I’m going to call him again.”

As if that had explained everything, he stumped over to our living room phone.

“Want to use this?” My father held out his beloved iPhone.

“No, I want a real phone,” Grandfather said. He began dialing a number from memory.

I looked at Clarence.

“It’s a matter of life or death!” he exclaimed. He clasped his hands as if pleading for mercy, clenching them so hard that the tattooed ferrets on his burly forearms writhed.

I looked at Dad. The weather was mild, not warm, and yet his bald head glistened. Nerves, probably. A trickle of sweat began running down his face, and he dabbed at it absentmindedly with the puppy.

“Just why is our living room filled with dogs, cats, puppies, kittens, hamsters, guinea pigs, and parrots?”

“Only the one parrot,” he said. “A macaw, actually—very interesting species.”

“Hiya, babe!” the macaw said.

“Whatever,” I said. “Why are they here?”

“It’s because of that new county manager,” Dad said.

“Horrible man,” Clarence muttered.

“You mean Terence Mann?” I asked.

“Dammit, Parker, answer your bloody phone!” Grandfather snarled into the receiver.

“Hey, Clarence!” My brother, Rob, bounced into the room. “There’s a window open on the second story of the barn! So if you can help me haul the ladder over, we can— Oh. Hi, Meg.”

“Hi,” I said. “What’s your version?”

“My version?” Rob looked guilty for a moment. He fiddled with the black knit cap that concealed his shaggy blond hair, then his face cleared. “I was helping Dad and Granddad.”

“Helping them do what?”

“Foil the new county manager,” Dad repeated. “That Mann fellow. He’s cutting the budget right and left.”

“Probably because the town of Caerphilly will go bankrupt if he doesn’t,” I said.

“And most of his cuts we can understand, no matter how much we hate them,” Clarence said. “Cutting back on the library hours.”

“And the free clinic hours,” Dad added.

“Postponing the teachers’ raises,” Rob said.

“But then he decided that the town animal shelter was too expensive,” Grandfather said. “So he said the town could no longer afford for it to be a no-kill shelter.”

“Can he do that?” I asked.

“Well, in the long run, probably not,” Clarence said. “Public opinion is against it, about four to one. But we were afraid that some of the animals might be harmed before we could convince him to reverse his policy.”

“So you adopted all of the animals from the shelter?” I asked.

“No, actually we burgled the place and stole them,” Rob said.

“Wonderful,” I said. “Our living room isn’t just filled with animals. It’s filled with stolen animals.”

“Rescued animals,” Grandfather said.

A burglary. Well, at least that explained why all four of them were dressed completely in black. Individually, none of them looked particularly odd, but anyone who saw the four of them skulking about together in their inky garb would be instantly suspicious.

“Did you really think you could get away with it?” I asked aloud.

“We don’t care if we get away with it,” Grandfather said, striking his noblest pose.

“Once the animals are safely out of his clutches, we don’t care what happens to us,” Dad said, following suit.

“And we knew Mann would quickly figure out that prosecuting us wouldn’t do him much good in the eyes of the public,” the more practical Clarence added.