Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

“Well, then I’d have to shoot you. I wouldn’t kill you, because that isn’t my style. But I would put a bullet or two into your legs, so you wouldn’t get very far, so you might as well park your green alien butt on this couch. On second thought, come into the kitchen with me while I get the Chocolate Macadamia cookies. I’m not letting you out of my sight. And remember: when my mother comes in from her chores to make us lunch, you have to act like we’ve been friends for years and that you like me. Can you do that for me, Mr. Trimmers? If it means you get to keep your legs bullet-free?”

Gus swallowed with difficulty. He tried to say “yes,” but the word did not come. He nodded instead and prepared himself for several hours of Outland imprisonment.

At the same time that Gus was following his captor into the kitchen, Gus’s son Newman sat in the corner of a very dark cage that was not as large as he would have liked it to be, for two very good reasons: the first was that he could not sit up straight, for even in a seated position, he was too tall for the height of the cage. So he was forced to slouch and curve his back into a position that was a little awkward and which would over time become quite taxing to his neck and spine. The second reason that he wished the cage to be larger was this: Bubbles was curled much closer to him than he would have preferred. In fact, her tail twitched and furled and had a habit of flopping itself directly into Newman’s lap. The rabbits had been accepted, then eponymously constricted, then swallowed whole. Now Newman watched as they were being protractedly ingested, the great snake having been restored to her wonted ravenous appetite. Up to now, Bubbles had paid little attention to Newman.

However, the snake was now beginning to grow a little curious about her fellow tenant. Although it had been Newman who had served her dinner, yet she eyed him with a raised head, as if he were someone with whom she had suddenly become unfamiliar. And Newman was called upon by circumstance to do everything in his power to keep from crying out in the sort of abject fear that none but the bravest of souls would involuntarily suffer. She does not plan to eat me or even to bite me, Mr. Rugg has assured me, Newman thought to himself. But she is most menacing in every aspect. Newman took a deep breath, which brought into his lungs the stench of the soiled cage. He coughed. And yet what is the alternative? Death most assuredly at the hands of the Enforcers! Newman’s own right hand now fell upon a small pile of bone and fur which constituted the regurgitated indigestibles from one of Bubbles’ former meals. He wiped the hand upon his trowsers and reached out and petted the head of his reptilian companion and tried to make the best of things, though his heart was not in it.

Minutes later Newman could hear that people had entered the building. It was much too soon to assume that Mr. Rugg had succeeded in his efforts to put him together with the rescuing Miss Wolf. There was a little grunting and some low talking and then the conversation became louder as men entered the room in which Newman had been protectively installed.

“The empty cage at the bottom,” said one of the men. “Careful now, Micks. That mamba’s in a pretty lousy mood.”

“I swear to Christ, Evans, I thought Animal Control was gonna chop her head off right then and there. Grey Lady, you don’t know how close you came to extermination.”

“We may still have to euthanize her. She isn’t the cuddly cutie that Bubbles is, but can you blame her — I mean just minding her own business when some humanoid asshole drops right down on top of her? Hello, Bubbles, you beauty. Getting better I hear.”

Newman receded as best as he was able into the darkness of the cage and held himself very still and very quiet. He fought the urge to cough again, the suppression making the urge grow ever more importunate, while a man stood before the cage and talked pretty-polly nonsense to Newman’s coiled co-boarder. Newman tucked his head behind his knees to make himself as small as possible, and prayed that he would not be seen. Nor heard — the latter proving a far more difficult thing to effect. No longer able to contain his cough, Newman emitted a double hack into the fabric of his trowsers. Though muffled, the sound nonetheless reached the

ears of at least one of the two men standing hard by.

“Well, Bubbles isn’t totally well, Evans. I just heard her cough.”

“You idiot. Snakes don’t cough.”

“How do you know? You’re not an ophiologist. You’re a batrachianist.”

“Come on — the police still have a few more questions.”

“I tell you — Miss Bubbles coughed.”

“Yeah, right .”

The voices died away, the outer door opened and closed, and Newman Trimmers allowed himself to cough and cough, now without consequence. Bubbles considered her noisy cage-mate for a moment and then settled

herself down for a postprandial snooze.

In the north building, Mr. Rugg was now speaking to the woman named Angela Carpenter who sat behind the admission counter. All around the old man were employees of Clive and Clare’s Reptilarium clearing away the scattered remnants of the Black mamba’s previous home, other employees escorting frightened families to the front door, medical men patching up victims of the earlier mêlée, and several uniformed police officers asking questions and writing down the answers on little pads.

“I am looking for Miss Wolf,” said Mr. Rugg to Angela, who seemed distracted and not very attentive to her enquirer.

“Miss Wolf: have you seen her?” he reframed his request.

“She isn’t here,” said Angela, looking about. “Somebody said there’s another snake on the loose. Is it true?”

Mr. Rugg shook his head. “Calm yourself, dear girl. There was only the one snake and it has been apprehended. The crisis is past.”

Angela sat herself down and waved a floppy book in front of her reddened face to calm and ventilate herself. “I’m quitting this damned job. It gives me nightmares. And now they’re only gonna get worse. I wish I was still selling beauty products.”

“Would you know, Miss Davenport, if Miss Wolf is on her way?”

“How would I know?”

“You’re friends with her, are you not?”

“Well…yes, but I don’t—”

Angela was interrupted by a policeman who set a cracked paperweight down upon the glass counter that separated her from Mr. Rugg. “Is this what the kid used to assault the victim?”

“That’s it, I think,” said Angela.

“And where is he right now — the assailant?”

“I have no idea,” Angela replied. “He could be anywhere by now. Who knows?”

The policeman — a young blond-haired man with a full moustache— turned now to Mr. Rugg. “Did you see it happen? Did you see the kid hit Mr. Caldwell?”

The old man shook his head.“I was in the infirmary.” Mr. Rugg thought it best to simply leave it at that, although he could not have said anything else if he had desired to, for at just that moment Ruth Wolf entered the building through the front door, accompanied by her colleague Mr. Phillips. Mr. Rugg knew them both: Miss Wolf, the nurse; and Mr. Phillips, the jeweller. Years ago Rugg had sold some ancient Dinglian jewelry to Phillips and had done so without raising even the slightest suspicion. Perhaps it was luck or perhaps it was simple inattention, but there was also the good chance that it was an intentional accommodation of his secret on the part of the jeweller.

Miss Wolf and Miss Davenport interchanged looks that were insufficiently expository given the presence of the policeman and the elderly oddity named Rugg, and for a moment no one knew just what to do since there were things that needed to be said and couldn’t. Finally, the officer was called away and Rugg quickly interposed in a pregnant undertone, “Miss Wolf, it is good that you are here. For I am suffering another bout of sciatica for which I should like to seek your medical opinion.”