Zucchini Out West Read online

  Zucchini

  OUT

  WEST

  BARBARA DANA

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY LYNETTE HEMMANT

  To Molly

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Emma’s Mouse

  Billy

  Potbellied Pig

  Zucchini’s Dream

  Recycling

  Black-Footed Ferret

  Tim Clark

  Phone Call

  Hopeless

  Painting

  School

  Lima Beans

  Oppermans Pond

  Drugstore Teeth

  Buck E. Benson

  Rubber Chicken

  On the Road

  Pizza Pit

  Quality Rest Motel

  Lost

  Mouth String

  Ice Machine

  Letter

  Mr. Dunderbaks

  Twenty Questions

  Prairie

  Cody

  Meeteetse

  Lucille’s Café

  Rodeo

  Tom Campbell

  The Interview

  Patience

  Hamster Host

  Sybille

  Frannie

  Choice

  New Tricks

  Verdict

  Home

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by this Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Emma’s Mouse

  Zucchini had much to be thankful for. He loved his home, the fresh air and trees, the blue sky, the wind, the sounds of birds, his regular meals, his water bottle, and, most of all, Billy.

  Billy is the most wonderful boy a ferret could have, Zucchini often thought.

  Zucchini had recently come to live with Billy in Billy’s new house in the country. Before that, he had lived in a cage at the ASPCA* on Ninety-second Street in New York City.

  Zucchini never liked his cage at the ASPCA, or at the Bronx Zoo, where he was born, but at Billy’s house it was different. He was locked inside only when Billy was at school. The rest of the time they would go on outings to Oppermans Pond, or to the meadow, or he would roam throughout the friendly house, curling up on the furniture, hiding under the slipcovers, and storing small things under the refrigerator.

  Zucchini’s cage was in the playroom. Billy closed the door at night but left Zucchini’s cage open. That way Zucchini could go in and out whenever he wanted.

  The playroom was full of boxes from the family’s move that had not yet been unpacked. Pictures leaned against the wall, waiting to be hung. There were extra curtain rods, an ironing board, and a tennis racquet without strings. A plant gave the room a cozy feeling.

  At night Zucchini was busy. He could climb on the boxes, sniff things, hide behind the pictures, curl up in the bookcase, creep around under the small couch, eat, drink, or play with his food bowl. He liked to pretend the bowl was another animal and attack it from behind. He would pounce on it, then grab it in his jaws and back up. Sometimes he would flip it over, then run from his cage and hide, but he only did this when the bowl was empty. His favorite thing was to sit in the window. Billy left the shade raised at night so Zucchini could watch the moonlight and listen for owls.

  Before school Billy always fed Zucchini and gave him fresh water. Then he put Zucchini in his cage and pulled down the shade so Zucchini could sleep until he returned.

  Billy had built the cage at school. It was large and made of wood and wire. It had a roomy main section with a smaller nest box inside. The nest box was made entirely of wood, with a small circle-shaped entryway. Inside the nest box it was dark and cozy. Billy had built the cage with great care. Zucchini could feel the love that Billy had put into it. It warmed him and made him feel at peace.

  My life is good, Zucchini often thought. I have no cause to complain. There’s just one small thing.

  The small thing was small indeed, but it bothered Zucchini. It kept him awake. It irritated him and made him mad. The one small thing was Emma’s mouse.

  Emma was Billy’s five-year-old sister, and Zucchini shared the playroom with her mouse. The mouse was white with a pink nose. Her tail was also pink, and so were her toes and the inside part of her ears. Her cage was kept across the room on a low table next to the window. It was smaller than Zucchini’s cage and made of orange see-through plastic. Inside was a water bottle, a food bowl, a tumble of wood shavings, and a wheel. Constantly the mouse would tread the wheel, creaking her way to points unknown.

  Squeak, squeak, rattle, rattle, bang, bang, went the wheel as the mouse ran feverishly, hour after hour, without a stop. Zucchini could get no rest.

  Doesn’t she ever sleep? he would wonder.

  If the mouse wasn’t on her wheel, she was chattering endlessly about stupid things, things that had no meaning. She rarely spoke to Zucchini. “Have to hurry,” she would mumble. “No time. Lots of cheese.” She would go on like that for hours, treading the wheel, repeating herself, making no sense.

  Where on earth does she think she’s going? Zucchini would wonder. What is in her pea-sized brain?

  He tried to be understanding.

  I shouldn’t be bothered by such a tiny, helpless thing, he would think. So what if she runs on her wheel and she never sleeps and she talks to herself and she makes no sense? I have to ignore it. But how?

  He didn’t have an answer.

  * Short for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

  Billy

  One Saturday morning, about three months after they had moved to the new house, there was a loud banging on the playroom door. It was Emma. “If you hear some banging on this door, it’s me,” she called. Then she opened the door and barged into the room. She wore a nightgown and carried a stuffed green stegosaurus. “Wake up, you guys,” she said. “It’s a shiny morning!”

  Oh, no, thought Zucchini. Now this!

  He was curled up inside his nest box, where he had just fallen asleep.

  “Everybody up,” said Emma. She made a sniffling noise with her nose, wrinkling up her face. “Don’t mind my nose,” she said. “I have a little cold, so I have to suck it in.”

  That’s fine, thought Zucchini. Just do it in another room so I can sleep.

  Emma stopped in front of the mouse’s cage. She tapped on the orange plastic. This excited the mouse, who jumped onto her wheel and began to run, ears flat to her head.

  Squeak, squeak, rattle, rattle, bang, bang.

  Zucchini kept his eyes shut tight as if that might block out the sound of the wheel, but it didn’t.

  Emma dropped the stegosaurus on the floor. With both hands she removed the lid from the top of the mouse’s cage. “Hello, One-Day Service,” she said.

  Zucchini had never understood the name. Emma’s friend Myra had given Emma the mouse. They had been out in front of Myra’s house at the time. Emma had quickly closed her eyes. “This mouse’s name will be the first name I see,” she had said. When she opened her eyes, there was the sign in the window of the dry cleaners across the street. “What does it say?” Emma had asked.

  Myra was nine and could read. “One-Day Service,” Myra had read.

  At first Emma had wanted One-Day Service to be a male, but later she had changed her mind. “This mouse is a girl like me,” she had decided. As it happened, this was the truth.

  Emma reached into the cage and picked up the shivering mouse. “You are the smallest of small things,” she said. “Want to ride in a truck?”

  Emma loved trucks. She would often bring her dump truck into the playroom, put One-Day Service in the back, and push the truck around among the boxes and under the low t
able. She was allowed to do this only if the door to the playroom was closed. One time One-Day Service had gotten loose in the house and was nearly lost forever.

  “Close the door.”

  It was Billy. He stood in the doorway in his pale-blue pajamas, not fully awake. He was thin with large eyes and light hair. Billy was ten years old and very shy, but his love of animals was strong. He understood them deeply and he loved Zucchini with all his heart.

  Zucchini opened his eyes. He poked his head out through the small round opening of his wooden nest box to watch his friend.

  “Close the door,” repeated Billy. Whenever he spoke, you could see where one of his front teeth was chipped off at the corner. He had fallen on some stone steps when he was eight. Billy didn’t like people asking about his tooth, especially other kids, who usually asked about it the first minute they met him.

  Billy moved further into the room. “Close the door,” he said.

  “I’m holding my mouse,” said Emma.

  “That’s why you have to close the door.”

  “I don’t have hands,” said Emma.

  “Yes you do.”

  “It’s an obstacle illusion.”

  “Optical illusion,” said Billy. “And you do have hands.”

  “They’re used.”

  Zucchini came out of his nest box and sat near the front of his cage, watching Billy with bright and steady eyes.

  “Mom doesn’t want One-Day loose in the house,” said Billy.

  “Her name is One-Day Service,” said Emma. “That’s her whole and real name and you have to use it.”

  “No I don’t,” said Billy.

  Emma sat down suddenly on the floor. She held One-Day Service in her hands, clasped just beneath her chin.

  Billy closed the door. “Mice don’t like to be held that way,” he said. “You have to let them breathe.”

  “She’s breathing.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “In and out,” said Emma. She made deep breathing noises and puffed up her chest.

  “I know how to breathe,” said Billy. “Loosen your hands so she can get some air.”

  Emma loosened her hands.

  “Why don’t you watch cartoons till Mom and Dad get up?”

  “O.K.,” said Emma. She got up, put One-Day Service back in her cage, picked up her stegosaurus, and headed into the living room to watch TV.

  Billy moved to Zucchini’s cage. Zucchini stood up and stretched, nose downward, happy to be close to his friend. Billy opened the door of the cage, reached his hand in, and stroked Zucchini along his back.

  “You need some quiet,” said Billy. He knew the mouse was noisy. He wished Zucchini’s cage could be kept in his room, but his mother felt the playroom was best. He picked up Zucchini and carried him into his room. He set Zucchini down on the bed. “Rest now,” he said.

  Thank you, thought Zucchini. He curled up gratefully on the soft comforter and went to sleep.

  Potbellied Pig

  At breakfast Emma was excited about a package that was waiting for her at the post office. “So when do we get my present?” she asked. She was pouring maple syrup onto her waffle, filling up the tiny squares, then letting the syrup run over the sides of the waffle.

  “That’s enough syrup!” said Mrs. Ferguson. She wore a large work shirt and jeans.

  “All the squares have to be filled so they don’t get lonesome.”

  “They’re not going to get lonesome,” said Billy. He was sitting on the floor by the kitchen closet organizing newspapers and paper bags, tying them into separate stacks. Saturday was recycling day and it was Billy’s job. He cared a lot about ecology. The thought that so many animals were disappearing forever was a worry to him. He also worried about the trees that were being cut down, trees that were needed so that everyone could breathe. He worried about the pollution of the oceans and lakes and rivers and how the fish were getting poisoned. He worried about the bad air in the cities from all the cars and factories, and how holes were getting burned in the atmosphere and harmful rays of the sun were coming through. He worried about the waste from chemicals being buried in the ground.

  Mr. Ferguson wished Billy wouldn’t worry so much about those things. He said Billy should spend more time playing sports and making friends, but Billy couldn’t help being worried.

  “So when do we get my present?” Emma asked.

  “It’s not necessarily a present,” said Mr. Ferguson, looking over the top of his newspaper. He was Billy and Emma’s stepfather. Their parents had been divorced for two years. Their real father was an actor in Los Angeles, California.

  “It said on the paper that Mom has that’s yellow,” said Emma. Maple syrup ran down her chin and onto her nightgown. “It’s a present for me!”

  “It said package,” said Billy, tying up a tall stack of papers with twine.

  “I hope it’s a potbellied pig,” said Emma.

  “It’s not,” said Billy.

  “How do you know?”

  “You can count on it.”

  “I can’t count,” said Emma. She took a long sip of juice through her twisted orange straw from Busch Gardens. “It might be a pig,” she added. “It might be there right now in a big box with boarded-up nails, waiting for me and hungry.”

  “They don’t send pigs to the post office,” said Billy.

  “Where do they send them?”

  “To the airport, or they deliver them in a truck.”

  Emma ran to the window and peered out. “There’s no truck,” she said.

  “There’s no pig,” said Billy.

  “Have your breakfast, Bill,” said Mr. Ferguson.

  Billy got up, leaving the partially stacked papers and twine and scissors on the floor. He didn’t like it when his stepfather called him Bill. It made him feel as if his stepfather wanted him to be more grown up than he was. He sat down at the table as Emma returned from the window. “I hope it’s a potbellied pig,” she said. “You can tie a neck scarf on them like a cowgirl would have and they never mind.”

  “We can’t have a pig,” Mrs. Ferguson said firmly.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s enough to do without pigs.”

  “Just one.”

  “No.” Mrs. Ferguson illustrated children’s books. She had a busy life and often said that two pets were all they could care for.

  “They’re dry and cute,” said Emma.

  “What is?” asked Mr. Ferguson.

  “A potbellied pig,” said Emma. “They’re dry and cute, like a bowling ball would be with hair on it.”

  “We can’t have a pig now,” said Mrs. Ferguson. Something in her tone told Emma there was no further point in asking.

  Zucchini’s Dream

  As Billy and Emma and Mr. Ferguson began their Saturday errands, Zucchini was having a dream. He dreamed of light and air and open spaces. It was a dream he had quite often. In the dream he was out on a prairie in the clear, bright sun. The ground stretched out for miles, with pale-green bushes and lavender wildflowers. Tall mountains rose in the distance. He was running, feeling the sun on his face, the wind rushing by, happy and free. He felt no edges to his body. He was part of the air and the mountains and the flowers. He knew he could fly if he wanted to, but he didn’t need to. He was flying already inside.

  Suddenly, One-Day Service appeared. She was gigantic in size and carried an enormous piece of cheese. She chattered loudly, but the strange thing was she didn’t open her mouth. This made Zucchini nervous. The feeling of being able to fly went away, and so did the feeling of being a part of nature.

  “Everybody needs cheese,” said the mouse, mouth closed, growing larger as she spoke. She was blocking Zucchini’s way. Although he could have gone around her, he felt unable to move.

  “I don’t need cheese,” said Zucchini. “I don’t even like cheese.”

  “Everybody needs cheese,” repeated the mouse, mouth shut tight.

  “Let me pass,” said Zucchini.r />
  One-Day Service was towering over Zucchini. She opened her mouth and the enormous cheese began to fall, straight down toward Zucchini.

  Cheese coming! he thought. Help! I’ll be squashed!

  Before the cheese could reach Zucchini, he woke up, his heart pounding in his chest. He was safe in Billy’s room.

  Thank goodness! he thought. It was only a dream!

  Then he fell into a deep sleep.

  As Zucchini slept, Billy and Emma and Mr. Ferguson drove along the country road toward the post office. The family lived just outside Binghamton, New York, where Mr. Ferguson ran an audio equipment store. The car moved along, past Oppermans Pond, where Billy often took Zucchini for walks. The pond was set in a pine forest.

  “I wonder,” said Emma. She was in the backseat, holding her stuffed stegosaurus and a small bag of chips her mother had given her for a snack. Billy thought she might say more, but she didn’t.

  “What do you wonder?” asked Mr. Ferguson.

  “Who could have sent me the pig?”

  “No one,” said Billy.

  “Michael Maloney maybe did. He’s my really better friend. His brother can shake his eyeballs.”

  “My goodness,” said Mr. Ferguson.

  “Can you beat it?” said Emma.

  Mr. Ferguson rolled down the window. He breathed in the early-spring air. “Baseball season’s coming,” he said. Mr. Ferguson loved sports, especially baseball. He was always trying to get Billy to play, but Billy wasn’t very good in sports. The other kids took sports so seriously. Billy always felt he would spoil the game for them, or they would laugh. The more he worried about these things, the harder it was for him to play. Mr. Ferguson thought sports would be good for Billy. He thought it would help his shyness. Billy didn’t know if that was true, but even if it was, he figured he’d help his shyness some other way.

  “We have to catch the Phillies this year,” continued Mr. Ferguson.

  “Who threw them?” asked Emma.

  “Nobody threw them,” said Billy.

  “I want to take Billy to see them,” said Mr. Ferguson. “What do you say, Bill?”