Tiger by the Tail (6 page)

We charged after him, this time wanting to keep up but surprised by how fast he moved. There was no hint of his limp and he was practically jogging up the sloped path back toward the house and the driveway.

“Mr. McCurdy, Buddha’s tame, right?” I asked apprehensively.

“He’s as tame as a tiger can get,” he answered without turning to look at me or breaking his pace.

“So he wouldn’t hurt anybody, right?”

“I didn’t say that. I said he’s as tame as tiger can get, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a tiger.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He may do what he’s told, but he’s still a tiger. He still thinks like a tiger and he still wants to act like a tiger.”

He slowed down only when he reached the driveway.

“Show me!” he commanded.

We scrambled around searching for the tracks.

“Here’s one!” I yelled.

Mr. McCurdy came over and dropped to his knees. Without saying a word, he shook his head. On his hands and knees, he moved up the driveway until he came to another track and then another.

“Is it Buddha?” Nick asked.

“I hope so, because if it isn’t then we’ve got ourselves two tigers on the loose right now,” he answered. Mr. McCurdy stood up, his pants and hands covered in mud.

“What now?” I asked.

“There’s only one thing we can do now,” he answered quietly.

“What?” Nick asked. “What do we do?”

“We go looking for him,” Mr. McCurdy answered.

“But shouldn’t we … call somebody?” By the time the words escaped my mouth Mr. McCurdy and my brother were gone. They were quickly moving up the drive, back toward the house. I sprinted after them. Falling in a half step behind, I heard Mr. McCurdy giving my brother orders.

“Go on back to the barn. You’ll find a heavy chain and a coil of rope hanging up on the wall just inside the stable door. Bring them back to the house.”

“But what about the snake?” I questioned.

“No, we don’t need the snake. I don’t see how he could help us,” Mr. McCurdy replied.

“That wasn’t what I meant!” I said with alarm.

“I know, I know. The snake won’t hurt Nick.” He turned to my brother. “You’re not afraid are you?”

Nick laughed and then sprinted away to keep me from saying anything more.

“Shouldn’t we call somebody?” I asked once again.

“Who’d you have in mind?” Mr. McCurdy asked.

“I don’t know …” I let the sentence hang unfinished.

“The dog catcher?”

We came to the house and Mr. McCurdy opened the screen door. “Grab that gun, will you? We might need it.”

Carefully I picked it up, holding it by the barrel, and followed him into the house. I was overwhelmed by the smell once again. I walked down the hallway to the kitchen. Mr. McCurdy was nowhere to be seen. Laura was there though. She was lying on her back under the kitchen table with her feet straight up in the air, tongue hanging out of her mouth, and eyes closed. As I watched, her eyes popped open. She stretched her legs and arched her back, then she righted herself and took to her feet. Her back was practically level with the bottom of the table and she rubbed herself against it, causing the legs of the table to slightly rise off the ground.

Even though I’d seen her every day for the last four days I really hadn’t remembered how big she was. Maybe it was just because I was here by myself now, but she seemed to practically fill the room. What I’d noticed was that at first she always seemed a little stiff and then as she warmed up she moved effortlessly and reminded me of a ballet dancer.

“Good Laura, nice Laura, gentle Laura,” I said quietly. I wasn’t sure if I believed what I was saying, although of all the animals on the farm she scared me the least. But here alone with her, I didn’t feel so brave anymore.

Mr. McCurdy burst back into the room. “Here, let
me have the gun.”

He took the gun from my hands and set it down on the counter. He opened up a box and placed it on the table beside the gun. He removed a series of glass bottles.

“AAAHH!” I screamed as I jumped backwards, to the accompanying sound of claws scraping against the linoleum floor as Laura scurried back across the floor and under the table, causing the bottles to shake.

“Don’t scare my cheetah,” Mr. McCurdy scolded me.

“
It
scared
me!
It was nibbling at my toes.”

“Just means she likes you,” he answered. “Come on over here.”

I hesitated.

“Come on, don’t worry about your toes, she’s so scared of you now it could be months before she does that again. I need your help.”

I moved over reluctantly, keeping one eye on Laura huddled under the table.

“Can you read this for me?” he asked.

“Can’t you read?”

“Of course I can read!” he thundered. “But if you haven’t noticed I’m an old man and this is real small writing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, just read! No time to be wasting here.”

I read the faded and yellowing labels of two of the
bottles, not understanding any of the words I was reading, until Mr. McCurdy called out, “That’s the one!” He took a syringe out of the box, the kind they use to take blood, and dipped the needle into the bottle. He drew back the plunger and the barrel filled with the liquid. Then he took the gun and opened the chamber to insert the syringe.

“How about the police?” I asked.

“The police?”

“Yes. Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“Be my guest,” he said, motioning to the telephone on the wall.

I crossed the room and picked up the receiver. “Should I call 911?”

“You can dial anything you want,” he answered without looking over at me.

“But there’s no dial tone!”

“That’s right,” he answered. “All I got was calls from people trying to clean my carpet or get me to subscribe to some newspaper or something, so I stopped paying the bill. Didn’t seem like there was anybody I wanted to talk to anyway.”

I was confused. “If it doesn’t work, why did you tell me to call the police.”

“Because it doesn’t work.”

“What?” I sputtered.

“I let you use the phone to call the police because
I knew that you couldn’t. If it had worked, I wouldn’t have let you. Only thing the police will do is keep me tied up here answering questions while they try to kill Buddha. We don’t have time for the police.”

I heard the screen door slam shut and then Nicholas appeared, a coil of rope around his neck and a chain in his hands, dragging on the ground.

“I better get my glasses. Sarah, can you go over there and get me that box off the top of the fridge?”

I stretched up and grabbed the carton. Pulling it down, I looked inside the open top. It was filled with dozens and dozens of pairs of eyeglasses. I brought it over and placed it on the table in front of him. Mr. McCurdy reached in and pulled out a pair of glasses, putting them on. I watched as his eyes widened behind the thick lenses and he craned his head to one side.

“Nope, these aren’t right,” he said as he removed them. He dropped them back into the box and picked out another pair.

“These can’t all be yours?” I asked incredulously.

“Of course they are. Paid five dollars for the whole box at a flea market a few years ago.”

“I mean they all can’t be, you know, the right lenses for you.”

He put the second pair back in the box and reached for another pair. “Of course they all aren’t right for everything, but one pair helps me read, another helps
me see far away and another pair is good for driving …”

“Then why don’t you throw away all the others?” I interrupted.

“I never throw anything away. Never can tell when you might need something. Ahh, here they are!” he said. He removed a pair of pink ladies’ glasses with rhinestones on the corners. He put them on. Nick started to laugh.

“Doesn’t matter if they’re good looking, as long as they help me look good.” Mr. McCurdy chuckled. “You old enough to drive?” he asked, turning to me.

“Me?”

“Who else?”

“I don’t know how to drive. I’m only fourteen.

“I can drive,” Nick announced.

“You! You’re not big enough to see over the dash!” Mr. McCurdy laughed. “I guess
I’ll
have to drive.”

“Shoot!” my brother responded. “I don’t get to do any of the really fun stuff.”

“We’ll help you put everything in your car, but then we better get going home,” I said.

“Home?” both Nick and Mr. McCurdy said in chorus.

“Yes, home. Mom wouldn’t give us permission to go along.”

“You’re right and that’s why nobody is asking her for her permission. I don’t see Mom anywhere around here,” Nick said.

“I’m in charge and we’re heading home. I hope you
understand, Mr. McCurdy, but we just can’t go. Can you drop us off?” I asked.

“I don’t have time to be a taxi. Every minute I waste is a minute when things can go wrong. I’m pretty sure Buddha headed the other way. You’ll have to walk.”

“Okay, then we better get started. Come on, Nick,” I said as I brushed by him and started down the hall. I stopped and turned around. He wasn’t following me.

“Nicholas …”

“Hold on a second. I want to ask Mr. McCurdy a couple of questions, okay?”

“Fine,” I replied.

“Mr. McCurdy, can you be one-hundred-percent sure that Buddha headed toward town and not our farm?”

“I’m certain he’s headed for town.”

“But are you one-hundred-percent sure? Sure he didn’t head the other way? The way Sarah and I are going to walk?”

“I can’t be guaranteeing anything, but I’m pretty sure he’s going the other way.”

“And Mr. McCurdy, where is the safest place somebody could be if they ran into Buddha?” Nick asked.

“I don’t quite understand what you’re asking, but I guess in a house or a car.”

“Or with you?” Nick asked.

“Oh, sure, with me.”

“And one more question. I know Buddha’s probably
headed in the opposite direction from Sarah and me, but if we should happen to run into him, do you think he’d hurt us?”

“I don’t think so. Just make sure you don’t go turning your back on him. Even I don’t ever turn my back on him.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Like I said earlier, he may be trained, but he’s still a tiger. That’s how tigers kill. They jump you from behind. With Buddha he’d just be playing, but when a three-hundred-and-sixty-kilogram tiger plays with you, sometimes bad things happen.”

“Sarah, I know Mom would be worried, but I also know she’s always believed in helping people who need help and Mr. McCurdy needs our help. We should go along. We’ll stay in the background, maybe even in the car if things get rough,” Nick suggested.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“We’d be helping, we’d be with Mr. McCurdy and we can stay safe in the car. What could be better than that?”

I knew when I was being conned, but most of what he said made sense. The thought of walking home alone, and meeting up with Buddha, sent a shiver up and down my spine.

“Could we stay in the car?” I asked.

“If you want,” Mr. McCurdy offered. “I really would
appreciate your help. I could use the extra pairs of hands.”

“Please, Sarah,” Nick pleaded.

“I … guess it would be okay, but you have to listen to me. Okay?”

“No problem-o,” my brother answered. “When do I ever not listen to you?”

“We don’t have enough time for me to answer that question.”

“Time’s a-wasting,” Mr. McCurdy stated. He walked over to the doorway leading to the living room. “CALVIN! Come on, CALVIN! Shake a leg, we’ve got to get moving!”

“Calvin? You’re bringing the chimp?” I questioned.

“Have to. We may need the muscle. Maybe we’ll have to move Buddha or even pick him up. Calvin is old but he’s still as strong as three or four men,” he explained.

As if on cue, Calvin came walking into the room.

“That’s a boy, Calvin, we’re going for a car ride,” Mr. McCurdy announced.

Calvin shrieked loudly and I jumped straight up into the air in shock.

“Calvin loves a good car ride,” Mr. McCurdy said.

Mr. McCurdy led the way, followed closely by my brother and Calvin. I followed reluctantly. The garage sat just off to the side of the house. Mr. McCurdy swung open the door, revealing the rear bumper of an
enormous car.

“Climb on in.”

“It’s a convertible,” I said in disbelief.

“Yep. It’s a 1965 Lincoln Continental ragtop,” he said proudly.

“But you said I could wait in the car when we find the tiger.”

“Course you can.”

“But it’s a convertible,” I said in confusion.

“Course it is.”

“But how would that protect me from the tiger?”

“Protection? Why would you need protection? Buddha won’t hurt you. Not with me around. Climb aboard.”

Without bothering to use the doors, both Nick and Calvin climbed into the car, Nick in the back seat and Calvin in the front. Mr. McCurdy climbed in behind the wheel and I opened the driver’s side back door and took a seat.

“No way, ape. Get into the back seat,” Mr. McCurdy ordered. Reluctantly the chimp climbed over the seat and settled in partially between, and partially on top of, Nick and me.

“Hey, get off me!” my brother yelled.

“How about if one of you comes up here in the front,” Mr. McCurdy suggested.

“Sounds good to me,” Nick said as he scaled the seat before I could react. “Why didn’t you want Calvin up
here?”

“Stupid ape is always playing with the radio. Besides, sometimes he gets car sick.” He turned the key and the car roared to life.

“Car sick?” I echoed ominously.

“Yep. Car sick. Throws up.”

I looked over at Calvin. He flashed me a grin. Great, just what I needed to make a bad day even worse: ape barf. I squeezed myself against the door, as far away from Calvin as I could get.

Suddenly the car leaped backwards and I was thrown against the back of the front seat. I pushed myself into place as the car swung out and then rocketed forward.

“Where are the seat belts!” I yelled over the roar of the engine and the rush of the wind.

“No seat belts. Classics like this were made before seat belts were ever installed in cars.”

I braced myself in anticipation of the bumps and ruts of the driveway. Even with that, I was airborne, landing and bouncing and then launched skyward again.

“Hang on,” Mr. McCurdy yelled.

Almost instantly I felt myself being thrown forward. A hairy arm reached out and held me in place as the car braked to a stop at the end of the driveway. The nose of the car was just out on the road. Calvin loosened his grip.

“Thank you,” I said.

He patted me on the top of my head. Mr. McCurdy got out of the car and circled around to the passenger side of the vehicle.

“I thought so. Do you smell it?”

“I smell something. What is it?” Nick asked.

“Chicken. The wind is blowing in from the chicken plant just outside of town. That’s where Buddha’s heading to.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“Two things you have to know about tigers: first, they think with their stomachs, and second, their noses are eight times as good as a person’s, so their noses lead their stomachs right to where the food is. That’s where he’s heading.”

Mr. McCurdy got back into the car. “Sarah, when we’re driving I want you to keep your eyes on the ditch on your side of the car. Nicholas, you do the same on the other side.”

Before I could answer, the engine roared and the car jolted forward. The wheels spun on the mud of the driveway, propelling us forward until they caught the gravel of the road and stones went flying, hitting the undercarriage. The car swayed back and forth and I bounced sideways a couple of times between Calvin and the door.