Wood Sprites(114)

“Get in the back seat!” their mother shouted.

Nikola tumbled into the back seat and Louise followed and the car swung around, its headlight picking out a man rolling on the sidewalk, his black shirt on fire. There were two more men getting into a black SUV parked in front of their house.

Then they swept past the SUV and the gunmen were left behind them.

* * *

The house looked like a tornado had hit it. All the drawers and bookcases had had all that they had been holding pulled out and their contents scattered on the floor. The little television screen in the kitchen and the big screen in the living room were both shattered. Random holes had been punched into the walls and furniture overturned, its lining cut.

They had driven straight to the police station and then, with a squad car escort, cautiously returned to the now empty house.

“It was dark and it happened so fast.” Their father was recounting what had happened while they huddled together on the front porch. “One of the girls started to beep the horn and then something small—like a rat—jumped onto my shoulder—and then there were these flashes at the end of the hall, like bottle rockets going off—and some people ran out the front door. When we pulled out, it looked like one of the men was on fire.”

Their dad’s shoulders were covered with cake frosting. The rat obviously had been Joy. They’d been calling her a baby dragon—did that mean she’d actually breathed fire on one of the gunmen? Where was she now? Had she been hit by a bullet?

The two police officers had checked the house to make sure it was clear and were now collecting evidence.

“Casings,” one cop said from near the door. “Nine millimeter. One, two, three, four—looks like a full clip. One lucky…” He glanced toward Louise and Jillian and changed what he was going to say, “dog.”

The other stooped and picked up something on the kitchen floor. “This is a slug. Here’s another. Looks like it hit something and deformed.” They looked around the kitchen, apparently searching for evidence of ricochets.

Louise wanted to search for Joy. “Can we pick stuff up or is this still a crime scene?”

“You can clean things up, sweetheart,” the police officer said.

“Aren’t you going to dust for fingerprints and—and—such?” their father asked.

“They only do that on television. For a robbery where no one is actually hurt, we just file a report.”

In unspoken agreement, the twins started to pick up in the kitchen. This was Joy; unless she was seriously hurt, she’d be near food. Their parents went upstairs with the policeman to assess the damage up there. She wasn’t in the pantry as Louise expected. Nor was she in the drawer of rarely used baking pans where they had hidden her cat food.

“Where is she?” Jillian’s voice quavered.

“Who?” Nikola had been pressed against Louise’s side since they arrived at the police station. “Joy?”

“Yes, Joy.”

“She’s in the refrigerator.”

“How did she get in there?” Louise opened the door. The inside was almost as bad as the rest of the house. All the little Tupperware containers of leftovers had been torn open and licked clean. The fruit bin had little greasy handprints across inside of the glass front and only a few apple cores and some orange rinds remained. The baby dragon was asleep among well-gnawed bones of the roast chicken. “Oh! Oh, no! What a mess!”

“I’ll clean the fridge, you get her.” Jillian swung the trashcan around to beside the open refrigerator.

Louise scooped Joy up. Over the layer of frosting, she now had butter and various types of grease. She smelled of rosemary and garlic and chicken fat with hints of oranges. The baby dragon yawned but otherwise slept through the quick warm bath in the sink with a large dose of dish soap to strip off the grease.

“What are we going to tell Mom and Dad?” Louise cried as she quickly dried Joy with a clean tea towel.

“That those men also took all the food in the fridge.” Jillian dumped the chicken bones into the trashcan and covered them up with the torn foam from the living room couch.

“Why would anyone break into a house and steal leftovers? Mom and Dad are never going to believe…”

“Why would anyone steal our toothbrushes?” their father said as he came down the steps with the police officer. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Was it an expensive electric toothbrush?” The cop made notes on his tablet.

“No, they were just normal toothbrushes like you get at the supermarket. They’re—what—ten dollars? I don’t know. Who takes used toothbrushes?”