Джеймс Хоу - Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow

Chester glared at Howie.

“Okay, not really,” Howie said. “But that was a good one, right? Am I right?”

Chester replied, “Howie, if you call the radio station and you’re the one hundredth caller, they’ll give you a one-way paid vacation to the Bahamas.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

Howie left the room.

“That was cruel,” I said.

“Think of it as pest control. Now, where was I? Ah, yes: Tanner’s interest in Bunnicula. Do you notice that he practically recoils at the sight of the rest of us? That’s because he’s afraid we’ll get in his way. It’s Bunnicula he’s after, Harold, there’s no doubt of it. And did you notice how Edgar and Tanner were all lovey-dovey after Edgar flew up to the top of that tree branch and met with the head crow?”

“The head what?”

“The head crow. You saw how Edgar went up there and was bowing all over the place. Edgar and Miles are in cahoots with some kind of crow crime family.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “That makes a whole lot of sense.”

“The evidence speaks for itself. Tanner is full of lies, and the two of them are full of charades. And Edgar has to be out of his cage so that he can fly out and consult with the head crow. I rest my case.”

Oh, if only Chester did rest his case. If only he would ever rest his case.

“I don’t know,” I said, “you may have a case . . . or half a case .. . about Miles, but Edgar seems like a regular crow to me.”

“So-called ‘regular crows’ are anything but regular, Harold. They are very clever and resourceful creatures. They know how to fashion tools to get to their food, they play games of their own invention, and they’re excellent mimics. Other than their unfortunate taste for roadkill, there’s a lot to admire in them. However, as much as one might be tempted to respect their intelligence, one must remember that above all else, crows are crafty.”

Chester’s research was finally beginning to interest me. “Crafty?” I asked. “Do you think Edgar might be able to knit me some socks for the winter?”

Chester stared blankly at me.

“My feet get cold,” I explained. “They didn’t used to, but as I get older, I find—”

“Harold! ‘Crafty’ as in ‘sly,’ not ‘crafty’ as in ‘pinecone bird feeders’!”

“Ah,” I said, although I didn’t see what pinecone bird feeders had to do with anything. And I still needed socks.

“Besides, Harold, you’re forgetting that there is something that makes Edgar anything but a regular crow.”

I thought about it. “He doesn’t like corn?” I ventured.

“He never makes a sound,” said Chester. “Unless of course that too is all an act. There’s so much for us to find out. It’s a good thing Howie is going to spend the night under the bed. And this time he had better stay awake!”

“Aren’t you worried about him?” I asked. “What if we wake up in the morning and he’s been transformed into a steel-plated gummy bear?”

“I can assure you, Harold, that we do not have to worry about Howie. It’s Bunnicula they’re interested in. It’s Bunnicula they’re after.”

Just then, Howie came racing into the room. “Guess what!” he exclaimed. “I was the ninety-ninth caller! I didn’t win the trip to the Bahamas, but I did win a nice set of Samsonite luggage! I’m going to share it with you, Pop. Do you want the carry-on tote or the garment bag?”

Chester was spared being drawn into Howie’s Wonderful World of the Imagination by a very real knock on the door. Mr. Monroe appeared from the kitchen to answer it.

“Good evening,” said a woman’s voice.

“Ms. Pickles,” said Mr. Monroe. “What a nice surprise.”

“I hope you don’t mind my stopping by like this,” the school librarian said.

“Not at all” Mr. Monroe said. “Please come in.”

“Well, only for a moment” said the tall, frizzy-haired woman in a long, chocolate brown cape who entered. She was holding a covered dish in both hands. “I didn’t have room in my refrigerator,” she explained, holding the dish out to Mr. Monroe. “It’s a pretzel crust Jell-O mold . . . for lunch tomorrow. The recipe called for strawberries, but I used pineapple chunks instead. It’s so hard to find good strawberries this time of year, and besides .. .”

“Besides, I adore pineapple chunks,” came a rumbly voice from the top of the stairs.

The librarian nearly dropped her mold when she looked up and beheld the author of the Flesh-Crawlers series gazing down at her. Edgar was perched on his shoulder, and Pete and Toby stood on either side of him.

“Mr. Graves, I presume,” she said.

“It’s Tanner, actually. And you must be .. .”

“Ms. Pickles!” Pete cried. “Remember, we were telling you about her?” He poked Miles in the leg, presumably to remind him not to giggle at Ms. Pickles’s name.

“You were talking about me?” The librarian’s cheeks flushed. “I am honored. And please call me Marjorie.” She extended her arm as if to shake his hand.

“The honor is mine, and you must call me Miles,” said Miles as he descended the stairs. Edgar flew down ahead of him and alighted on Ms. Pickles’s extended arm.

“Oh!” she said. “How lovely. Is this ... ?”

“Edgar Allan Crow,” Miles Tanner said, as he approached and took Ms. Pickles’s hand in his own. “We were just upstairs saying hello to Pete’s unusual pet, Bunnicula.”

“I would say this is a house full of unusual pets,” said Ms. Pickles. “A fact that delights me, lover of animals that I am. Though it does make me sad to see a wild bird in captivity. Oh, I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t offend you.”

“It would be impossible for you to offend anyone,” Miles said. I noticed he was speaking without hesitation and that he didn’t sound as melancholy. I wondered if the change was due to his adoration of pineapples.

As if reading my mind, he said, “I not only adore pineapples, I’m wild for pretzel crusts. How did you know?”

“Your website,” Ms. Pickles confessed.

“How remarkable that you found a truth among so many lies,” Miles said mysteriously.

Edgar fluttered his wings, startling the librarian into a fit of nervous laughter and erasing Miles’s curious comment from everyone’s mind.

Everyone’s mind but Chester’s, that is. It was he who proposed that Miles and Edgar existed in a tangle of mysteries, where lies and truths made up a web of deception in which to catch the innocent and unwary.

I would have accused him of overreacting, were it not for a cry in the night—and the disappearance of not one unusual pet. . . but two.

SIX

It’s in the Bag

It was shortly before dawn when the cry of “Edgar!” woke the entire household from its slumber. It was Miles’s voice, but seconds later Toby’s voice joined in with, “Bunnicula’s missing, too!”

I quickly made my way upstairs from the kitchen, where I’d spent the night (I wanted to be first in line for Mr. Monroe’s famous pancakes, which had been promised for Sunday morning breakfast).

“But how could they get out?” Mr. Monroe asked as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.

Miles was shaking his head. His complexion, pallid to begin with, had become white as bone. “I don’t. . . know. I . . . don’t. . . know,” he repeated. “I got up to use the . . . you know . . . and . . . when I got back I saw they were both missing.”

“They must still be in the house somewhere,” said Mr. Monroe. “Let’s look for them.”

I started following the family, when Chester caught my tail in his teeth. I hate when he does that.

“Come on, Chester,” I said. “We’ve got to help them look.”