The New Kid, page 9
When they had done the dishes and were reading in the living room, Carson’s dad closed the newspaper and said, “Maybe Genevieve can sniff him out.”
Carson let Genevieve get a whiff inside the Fluff Puff box. The box got stuck on her nose, but Carson pulled it off. “Go get ’im, girl!”
Sniffing the ground, she hurried into the kitchen, her tail wagging.
“See? She’s onto him!”
Genevieve found the dish of fruit salad and ate it. “I have never known another dog that likes kiwis,” Carson’s dad told Carson.
Well, at least we have the whole long weekend to find him, Carson thought. But when he went to bed that night, he just lay there, staring up at the dark ceiling. Like Moose. Eyes wide open. He was listening—listening for the sound of tiny teeth chomping on something. He was listening for the sound of rustling paper. Of little scampering rat feet, if it was possible to hear such a sound as that.
But all he heard was the faint sound of his dad snoring in his room down the hall, with the door shut and a towel stuffed under the door.
Until … what was that?
Carson heard a squeaking noise.
He jumped up and hurried into the kitchen.
The squeaking noise was coming from behind Genevieve’s basket!
He could hear it.
Squeeeeak.
Pause.
Squeeeeak.
Pause.
Squeeeeak.
Pause.
Never mind.
It was Genevieve’s nose.
Carson went back to bed and fell asleep.
At dawn, his dad appeared in the doorway wearing pajamas with pictures of baseballs on them. “Carson?”
“What?”
Carson sat up.
“Come listen outside my closet door.”
Carson and his dad walked quietly to the closet door.
It was silent.
Then he heard it—the distinct, distant, muffled sound of rustling paper.
Carson opened the door. But all he could make out in the dark closet was a row of shoes, neatly lined up, and a bootjack.
And, way in the back, the Dan Post cowboy boots.
One was tipped over. “I wish I could see better,” Carson said.
Carson’s dad found his key ring with a penlight on it. “Here. Squeeze this.”
Carson crawled into the closet and shone the penlight inside the boot. There was a big pile of shredded tissue paper inside, and it was moving.
In the center, Carson could see the pink end of Mr. Nibblenose’s nose and his two itty-bitty nostrils at the very tip!
“Yay!” cried Carson. “We found you!”
Carson crept closer. Suddenly he backed out of the closet and looked up at his dad. “You’ve got to see this to believe it, Dad.”
“Just tell me. What?”
“You have to look, Dad. You have to see for yourself.”
“Okay. Give me the light.” He pinched it a few times and it went on and off.
“Okay, Nicholas, you can do this!” he told himself.
Then he got down on his knees and cautiously approached the boot.
Mr. Nibblenose squeaked at him and he jumped back.
Carson’s dad stood up and Carson closed the door.
“I’m not sure how happy Mr. Lipman is going to be with a bootful of bald baby rats,” said Carson’s dad.
“I’m sure they’ll grow hair eventually,” Carson told him.
16. HELLO,
Mrs. Nibblenose
“What am I going to do with a closetful of runty rodents?”
“Squatters’ rights, Dad!”
“Nonsense!”
“Plus, they’re too delicate to pick up yet. They’re like puffy, soft, four-legged beige caterpillars!”
“Stop. You’re making me woozy just thinking about it, and squatters’ rights nothing!” Carson’s dad declared, hands on his hips. “I want that boot out of my closet and installed in the rat cage, and the rat cage and its contents returned to Mr. Lipman. Pronto!”
“Install a cowboy boot in a rat cage? Will it fit?”
“You bet your boots it will. I’ll make it fit!”
He stormed out of the room and into the garage. Carson heard some banging and clattering.
The Caring for Your Pet Rat book cautioned that mama rats can be protective of their young, but Mrs. Nibblenose seemed quite delighted to be out and about with Carson and Genevieve, nibbling kibble, during the half hour it took his dad to modify the cage door wider with wire cutters and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y navigate the cowboy boot full of ratlets out of the closet and into the cage.
Carson’s dad called, “Okay, Carson! Bring her on!”
Carson’s dad had put the cage in the guest room on the dresser near a window. The curtains were drawn, because Carson’s dad suspected Mrs. Nibblenose would prefer the dark.
He stood at a distance while Carson carried her in.
Mrs. Nibblenose hurried through the cage door and hopped into the boot to check her babies.
That done, she hopped back out again and took a long drink from the water bottle.
“Okay. Monday morning and the whole clan is outta here!”
“Fine.”
Carson looked at the cage.
“How will we move it?”
Carson’s dad frowned. “You got me.”
“That’s okay, Dad. I don’t think we’ll be able to bring a cage with a bootful of bald Nibblenoses back to the classroom right away anyway. Do you?”
“Of course we will. Why wouldn’t we? I’ll rent a van if necessary.”
“Mama rats get stressed out about people looking at their pups. I think Mrs. Nibblenose will be happier right here for a while, don’t you? Right here in the guest room?”
“What pups?”
“Baby rats are called pups, and mama rats are called does, and if we’re going to have rats around for a few weeks, I think we should use the proper terminology.”
“A few weeks? Are you kidding me? The puppies will be safely hidden in a huge, soft, fluffy pile of shredded white tissue paper in a boot with hand-tooled leather tops high enough to protect a wrangler’s legs from thorny desert brush. No one can see in there. No one!”
“When you go around to the other side of the cage, you can look in at them. See for yourself.”
Carson’s dad heaved a huge sigh. “This calls for a professional consult. Where’s the paper with the phone tree on it?”
Carson’s dad called Ms. Tapp, and she and Patrick came straight over.
“Yee-haw!” cried Ella. “Love the boot concept! What a novel idea for a nest! They’ll be very, very happy campers in there for a few weeks.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course, the pups will need to be socialized in order to get them ready for adoption.”
“Of course.”
“So starting at, say, about day five, they’ll need to be handled gently every day.”
Carson’s dad pinched his forehead and looked at the floor. “Wow. That’s a tall order. I don’t actually usually socialize with rodents, to be honest.”
“Patrick and I can come over and start you off if you like.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course, this situation is Mr. Lipman’s responsibility, not yours, Nick.”
“Thank you for reminding me of that.”
“He’ll have to find adoptive homes, and place the pups in advance. But I think he’ll appreciate our help. Patrick and I will be out of town for a family reunion on Carnival Day weekend, unfortunately, but maybe we can get things ready in advance, and you and Carson can set up an informational table for potential adoptive families.”
“Good idea.”
Carson and Patrick walked into the classroom together. “Boys? What’s up? You look like you swallowed a cat.”
“You tell ’im,” Carson told Patrick. They shared the astounding Nibblenose news with Mr. Lipman.
Carson added, “My dad wants you to call him.”
“Yes, I’m sure he does!”
“Leave it to Belinda,” he mumbled. “Good gravy. What a shock!” He ran his fingers through the top of his hair. “I’m going to let you tell the class.”
Mr. Lipman rang the chimes. Patrick waited for the class to be completely quiet. “Well,” he began. “It’s about Mr. Nibblenose …”
Wes lifted his desktop, stuck his head inside, and roared, “Aaaaahhhh-choo!”
He slammed the lid closed.
“My word, Weston,” said Mr. Lipman. “What’s going on?”
“I didn’t have time to cover my sneeze so I aimed the germs into my desk. They’re trapped in there now. I might be allergic to Dandy’s doggie dander.”
“Get tissues and use the hand sanitizer, Weston.”
Nancy raised her hand. “Is ‘achoo’ an onomatopoeia?”
“Yes.”
She put it at the top of her list.
“Is ‘sneeze’ an onomatopoeia?”
“Affirmative.”
“Thanks.”
Patrick cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry, boys,” said Mr. Lipman. “Carry on.”
Patrick announced, “As it turns out, Mr. Nibblenose is not a buck.”
The class stared at him.
“Mr. Nibblenose is a doe.”
The class still stared at him.
“A buck is a boy. A doe is a girl.”
The class still stared at him.
“Mr. Nibblenose is a Mrs. Nibblenose. And Mrs. Nibblenose had fifteen babies at Carson’s house that are now temporarily housed in a boot inside of a cage.”
Matthew said, “What?!”
And Shelly yelled, “Whoopee! We’ll have sixteen class rats!”
“Calm down. No, we won’t. We can’t!” cried Mr. Lipman.
“Yay! Fifteen baby rats!” the kids cheered.
Chloe and Zoe linked elbows and began dancing. “Wheeee!”
“Can we come over and see them?” several kids asked. “Can we, Carson? Huh?”
“Um …”
“Let’s have a baby-rat shower,” suggested Shelly. “A pup shower! And each person bring fifteen rat toys! Or one big toy that all fifteen pups can share!”
She ran over and began to leaf through the Caring for Your Pet Rat book. She held up a page with a photograph of a carton full of sand and buried treats. “Anybody want to help me make an I Can Dig It Box?”
“We doooooo!” called Zoe and Chloe.
Patrick and Ella came back over after school in Ella’s van. They brought boxes of all sizes, masking tape, a drop cloth, and some wide plastic pipe. They brought some brand-new cardboard cartons, still folded, and some jumbo binder clips.
Patrick brought a pair of his uniform pants from the second grade that he found in the bottom of his closet.
They brought a paint-roller pan to make a shallow wading pool.
Working together in the guest room, Patrick, Carson, Carson’s dad, and Ella constructed a Free-Range Roaming Rat Arena for Mrs. Nibblenose and for the ratlets, once they were big enough to be out and about.
The Free-Range Roaming Rat Arena consisted of a plastic drop cloth on the floor with a freestanding cardboard corral around it.
Inside, several boxes with doors and windows cut into them were taped together to make a clubhouse. Ella created with segments of plastic PVC pipe some tube slides that came out of the windows so that doe and pups could slide from the clubhouse to the floor.
They also positioned rocks from the garden so that the rats could jump happily from rock to rock, and then up onto a small maple branch, which Carson had found by the rock wall.
Carson’s dad got into the act. He cut his Nor Cal T-shirt into strips. “It was only the price of a card,” he explained to Ella. Plus, he didn’t look that good in fluorescent green. He knotted the strips into a climbing rope.
Patrick made a hammock from one leg of his uniform pants.
“That should do it for now,” Ella said.
Carson’s dad provided some snacks, and everyone sat at the kitchen table and devoured them. The boys went out to play catch in the yard, but Genevieve interfered with the game.
Ella and Carson’s dad studied the Carnival Countdown announcement:
CARNIVAL COUNTDOWN!
COME TO CARNIVAL DAY!
BRING YOUR FAMILY & FRIENDS AND JOIN THE #1
SOCIAL EVENT AT VALLEY OAK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!
FUN, FOOD, FAMILY!
PRESALE TICKETS ON SALE SOON!
GIANT SLIDE, CAKE WALK,
INFORMATIONAL BOOTHS, GAMES, FACE PAINTING,
RAFFLE,
COOL STUFF, AND PRIZES GALORE!
HOT DOGS, PIZZA, TACOS, COTTON CANDY,
SNO-CONES, PULLED-PORK SANDWICHES, AND MORE!
STUDENTS, WANT TO SIGN UP TO WORK IN A BOOTH?
SIGN-UP SHEET IS IN THE OFFICE.
DONATIONS FOR THE RAFFLE PRIZES GRATEFULLY
ACCEPTED. PLEASE LEAVE WITH MRS. SWEETOW
IN THE OFFICE.
17. HELLO,
Carnival Day
It wasn’t easy to take a close-up digital photo of every single rat pup, assign a name to each one, and print out every photo with the pup’s name attractively positioned underneath it.
But they had plenty of help from Patrick and Ella Tapp, who came over several times after day five to help socialize the ratlets.
Carson’s dad wasn’t ready for a lovefest with the baby rats, but he did have a flair for pup portraiture.
Carson and Patrick each took turns holding a pup in the palm of his hand while Carson’s dad zoomed in, careful to get a flattering shot of each one, which wasn’t difficult.
They were all so cute!
Carson really wished he could keep the white one with the perfect bow-shaped black marking. They named it Bosen Nibblenose: Bo for short.
After that black bow tie!
So stylin’!
The bow-tie shape would have been better under Bo’s neck than on the side of Bo’s head but still looked great!
Patrick and Carson researched information about the proper care of rats and how much fun they were to own. Patrick’s mom helped them write up the information.
They worked in Photoshop to design an attractive foldable brochure with Mrs. Nibblenose on the front, surrounded by her large litter.
When Carnival Day arrived, Carson and his dad showed up early and set up a card table with a sign that said:
ADORABLE RAT PUPS!
SOON TO BE ADOPTABLE!
RESERVE YOURS NOW!
INFORMATION AVAILABLE HERE.
Before setting up the table, they bought twenty twenty-five-cent raffle tickets from Ms. Pierson at the entrance.
“Thank you so much for taking on this project with the rat adoption,” she told Carson’s dad. “Very, very appreciated, I can assure you.” She rolled her eyes. “Jeepers creepers. Guess Skip Lipman will think twice before accepting any more classroom pets from people leaving the country.”
After they set up the table, Carson’s dad gave him five one-dollar bills to spend and then sat down at the table with his Porsche cap on crooked while Carson prowled around the carnival.
The five bucks was burning a hole in Carson’s pocket. He bought three tickets for the rubber-ducky pond in hopes of netting the rubber ducky with the gold star on the bottom. Ms. Parker was in charge of that one. If you got the gold-star rubber ducky, you could take your pick of prizes!
He gave Mr. Lipman one dollar for a tangerine-flavored sno-cone. His lips would turn orange, but he probably wouldn’t run into Nancy. She told him she wasn’t coming till the afternoon.
Mrs. Crabbly and Mrs. Sweetow were in charge of a booth Mrs. Sweetow constructed, where you tried to shoot a marshmallow through a hole in a piece of plywood with a slingshot. There were branches stapled to the plywood and a few beanbag squirrels in the branches with their mouths open and ratty tails. The sign above it said SQUIRREL STASH.
Mrs. Sweetow and Mrs. Crabbly were sitting in folding metal chairs, chatting.
Out of the corner of his eye, Carson saw Mrs. Crabbly’s squirrel pin, flicking its fuzzy tail and then chattering its teeth.
Shelly and Sydney were taking tickets and helping manage the booth. “Have you seen Weston?” Sydney called. “He signed up to help us.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“So far, he’s a no-show,” said Sydney.
A kid with the slingshot walked up close to the shooting line and misfired.
The marshmallow hit one of the toy squirrels, which fell off the branch and flopped onto the ground.
Mrs. Sweetow picked it up and put it back on a branch. “Get up there, you.”
“Not sure, but maybe he’s not showing up,” said Shelly, “because squirrels creep him out.”
Mrs. Crabbly looked over. “They do? What’s not to like about a squirrel?”
The beanbag squirrel plopped onto the ground again, landing on its back.
Everyone was quiet.
Carson checked out the Lily Pad Leap, where you tried to toss a rubber frog completely onto a large green paper lily pad without its legs hanging off.
He could have dominated that game but didn’t play because he was saving his last dollar for more important things: He snuck up on his dad with a pulled-pork sandwich.
“Watch out for drips!” he cautioned. But so what if his dad was messy sometimes? What other dad would sign up to sit at a card table for four and a half hours trying to locate responsible potential owners for baby rats?
People were already flocking to the table. Well, not flocking maybe, but already one interested party had come up to the rat table with her kid and had begun to browse through the rat portraits. “You promise you will help feed and care for it?” the mom was asking her daughter, who was nodding her head to everything. “And help clean the cage, and put fresh water in the bottle? Look at this little guy! Bo. That’s a cute name! And it has a bow, too! Like a little bow tie, but in the wrong place! Isn’t that one adorable?”
The little girl nodded enthusiastically!
“Shall that be the one we choose?”
“Oh … I’m sorry,” said Carson’s dad before the kid had a chance to answer.
He glanced at Carson. “That one’s already been spoken for.”
