"And wasn't that cute?" I heard El Brujo say,
startling me so violently, I nearly tipped my chair over
backwards.
She was giving me her half-lidded look from the end of the
bed. I'd rolled right in, off-loaded Serena, sent her scampering
out the window, and had apparently been so shaken up from running
into Eric out in the hall that I hadn't even noticed the big black
cat plopped like a meatloaf on the unzipped dark green sleeping
bag I use as a bedspread.
Her tail swayed gently behind her, scritch-scratching over
the sleeping bag's surface. "Are we becoming a home for wayward
appetizers now, August??"
Seeing her, I couldn't keep the story from bursting out of
me. "I talked to her, Brujo! Actually sat there as close as we
are now and talked back and forth for, like, minutes! Without
biting my own leg off or anything!"
El Brujo's tail froze. "I see," she said after a moment.
"And how did you manage--?"
"Because of me, Miss Brujo!" Serena's voice, and I
looked over, saw her standing on the windowsill, her tail puffed
up to twice its normal size. "I am helping my friend Mr. Augie so
that he and Miss Deena can become friends!"
I could almost smell El Brujo's disdain. "If only I weren't
so refined in my dining habits," she muttered, her ears folding
partway, "I could've been spared this entire conversation."
"Ha!" Serena darted forward, her front claws digging into
the wooden walls of my room a couple inches down from the sill.
"You talk about helping Mr. Augie, but all you do is kick him and
grouch at him and try to eat those who do help him! If a
certain talented, vivacious young squirrel had not stepped up to--"
A black flash from the end of my bed, and El Brujo was
halfway up the wall, her big paws reaching for Serena. But Serena
was quick, leaping over El Brujo, landing on the sleeping bag, and
ripping thin jagged furrows in its surface.
With a yowl, El Brujo barely touched the windowsill in
springing backwards at Serena, but the squirrel was already
scampering up the wooden paneling of the wall next to my bed.
"Help!" she shrieked. "Mr. Augie! You promised!"
Not stopping to think, I flexed my arms, heaved myself up
from the chair, sprawled right on top of El Brujo as she alit upon
the bed. "Brujo! Stop this! Now!"
The wailing hiss that El Brujo made then, I had never heard
from her before. "You're my patient!" she was screaming.
"And I'll not be replaced by some brush-tailed tree rat! Not in
this or any other lifetime!"
"Stop!" I yelled again. "Deena's coming here tonight, Brujo,
and I'm gonna need both you and Serena to keep me from losing it!
Please, El Brujo! Please!"
She froze beneath me, but wrapped around her as I was, I
could feel her heart slamming around. "Coming here?" she asked,
her voice almost normal.
"Her first therapy session's tonight!" I couldn't tell if my
legs were tangled in the chair or around each other, but I
couldn't take the time to look. "I volunteered to meet her and
her dad at their place so we could all come over here together!"
"You...what??" El Brujo squirmed from my grip and sat on the
sleeping bag, her eyes wide and staring.
"I--" And it was only then, I think, collapsed like a
discarded balloon over the bed, that I began to realize that this
was the closest I had ever come in my life to asking a woman out
on a date. "Oh, God..." was all I could say then.
"All right, now." El Brujo licked a paw and ran it over her
ears. "No need to panic." She glanced upward, and following her
gaze, I could see Serena clinging upside-down to the wall. "Under
the circumstances, I suppose home-made squirrel muffins are out of
the question, but still..." She raised her voice. "I am still
head nurse in this ward, Serena, and as much as you will be
welcome to--"
"Miss Serena," Serena said.
El Brujo's ears dipped. "I beg your pardon?"
The squirrel gave a sniff. "You will refer to me as Miss
Serena, and I will refer to you as Miss Brujo."
I could see the fur rising on El Brujo's neck. "You will
refer to me--on those rare occasions when you must--as El Brujo."
She bent around and licked at her shoulders. "Now, Miss Serena,
if you'll kindly come down and assist me in getting August back
into as dignified a position as a person of his ilk is capable of
attaining, we can begin discussing our strategy for this evening."
And things move on immediately to 20!
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