Chapter Four: Eddy’s Magic Trick
Okay, you can relax. We had us a little false alarm, is all.
We get those every once in a while. It’s no big deal.
See, I had more or less forgotten that Eddy the Rac was in his cage near the machine shed doors. The sounds I had picked up on instruments were the sounds of Eddy rattling his cage.
And let me emphasize that the sound patterns of a coon rattling his cage are almost identical to those created by Unidentified Night Monsters. No kidding, virtually the same, and any dog might have mistaken one for the other.
Which is not to say that I made a mistake. We’d just gotten some, uh, hazy patterns on our . . . I think you get the point.
And it was Eddy the Rac. I greeted this discovery with mixed emotions. On the one hand, a guy can’t be too sad about finding a pet coon instead of a Night Monster with flashing red eyes and blood dripping off his fangs. On the other hand . . .
There wasn’t much on the other hand, so why don’t we just skip it. Finding Eddy the Rac was okay with me, even though I’d gone through all the Readiness Procedures. I wasn’t exactly heartbroken.
I took a deep breath, cancelled all the RP’s, and sat down. I noticed that my legs were trembling, mostly from excitement.
Eddy was pacing around his cage in that peculiar monkey-walk of his. As you may know, coons resemble monkeys when they walk, because they move both legs on each side at the same time. Does that make sense? Maybe not, but they resemble monkeys.
I watched him. He’d pace for a while, then stop and run his hands over the outline of the cage door I could hear him muttering to himself.
“Got to get out. Where’s the door? Where’s the lock? Somewhere. Maybe a hole. There’s got to be a hole. Out. I’ve got to get out.”
I had seen all of this before, and I knew that it was just part of Eddy’s normal behavior. Around midnight, your average raccoon awakens from sleep and is seized by something called Moonlight Madness.
If he happens to be in a cage, he will spend hours and hours pacing, rattling, probing, and muttering under his breath. This kind of behavior often produces a rattling sound, and as you can see, we had solved that part of the mystery.
After observing Eddy for several minutes, I decided that I might as well reveal my presence. I stood up on all fours and cleared my throat. Eddy froze and turned his beady little eyes in my direction.
“Oh. Hi.”
“How’s it going, Eddy? You’re staying busy, I guess.”
“Yeah. Need to get out of here. Can’t stand to be cooped up. Don’t suppose you could help, could you?”
I chuckled. “Eddy, Eddy! You know the answer to that. Guard dogs aren’t allowed to help pet coons escape, period. We’ve been through this before.”
“Yeah. And you helped me before.”
“That was an isolated incident, pal. You conned me into letting you out once, and it’ll never happen again.”
“Twice.”
“Okay, twice. You conned me twice, and that makes two reasons why it’ll never happen again.”
He went back to the business of pacing and probing the cage. I wandered over and watched.
“Eddy, why don’t you just relax and enjoy yourself? They’ll turn you loose one of these days, and then you’ll have to make a living for yourself. You’ve got a pretty good deal here, room and board and no heavy lifting. What’s the problem?”
“Bored.”
“So take up singing. Play checkers. Learn some magic tricks.”
He stopped. “I do tricks.”
“No kidding? Magic tricks?”
“Sure. Want to see?”
“Well . . . sure, why not, as long as they don’t take much time. I’m still on Night Patrol, see, and I don’t have time for . . . you know some magic tricks, huh?”
“Yeah. Come over here.” I went over to a spot directly in front of the cage door. “Sit down.” I sat down. “Watch this.” I watched.
He reached one of his little hands into the feed bowl and pulled out a kernel of dog food. That’s what they were feeding him, see, dog food, the same stuff we ate. He pulled out one of the kernels and held it in the tips of his fingers.
“What’s in my hand?”
“A kernel of dog food!
“Now you see it . . .” He brought his hands together, rubbed them around, and threw them out in front of him. “. . . and now you don’t.”
I stared at his hands. They were open and empty.
“Huh. I’ll be derned. How’d you do that?”
“Magic. Want me to bring it back?”
“Well . . . I guess so, sure.”
“Now it’s gone . . .” He held out his hands and turned them up and down, then reached his left hand behind his left ear. He brought it forward and opened it. “. . . and now it’s back. Bingo.”
“Say, that’s pretty slick, Eddy. I don’t know how you did it, but I’ll bet you can’t do it again. I mean, you’ve got fast hands but I don’t think they’re fast enough to fool me twice in a row. Don’t forget who’s in the Security Business around here.”
“Okay. You ready?”
“No, just a second.” I moved closer to the cage so that I could study his every move. I knew he was using some kind of trickery and I intended to catch him this time. “Go for it.”
He held out his hand, palm-side up. I studied it. Yes, there was a kernel of dog food in his palm. “Now you see it . . .” He brought his hands together, rubbed them around, and threw them into the air. “. . . and now you don’t.”
“Wait a minute, let me take a good look at those hands.” He presented his hands, open and palms-up. By George, they were empty.
No sign of the dog food kernel.
He gave a squeaky little laugh. “Ha. Bet you can’t guess where it is.”
“Sure I can. It’s behind your left ear. You can’t fool me, pal, I saw the whole thing.”
He bent down so that I could see behind his left ear and . . . hmmm. You might say that it wasn’t there, which kind of surprised me.
He grinned. “Guess again?”
“I think not. Let’s finish up the trick and go on to something else. Just show me where it is.”
“Can’t.”
“What do you mean, can’t? Did you lose it in the mist of the vapors?”
“No. It’s outside the cage.”
I got a good laugh out of that. “Outside the cage? I don’t think so. No way. Sorry.”
“Bet me?”
“Bet you? Well, I . . . hey Eddy, I believe my eyes and common sense, and both of them tell me . . .”
“Bet me?”
“. . . both of them tell me that . . . well, betting on duty is a violation of the, uh, Cowdog Code of Conduct, don’t you see. In other words, yes, I would love to take you up on your bet, but no, I’m afraid the, uh, regulations don’t permit it.”
“Too bad.”
“But that doesn’t mean you can’t finish the trick.”
He shrugged. “Open the door, I’ll finish the trick.”
“No problem there.”
I pawed at the latches—there were two of them, not just one—until I had them undone. Eddy took it from there, opened the door, and stepped outside.
He took a deep breath of air, looked up at the stars, and said, “Oh, yes!”
“Wait a minute, pal, whoa, hold it, halt. You’d better come up with a kernel of dog food pretty fast or I’m liable to get suspicious.”
“Suspicious? Of me?”
“Right. I’m going to suspect that you pulled another cheap con game on me, and if I really thought that was true, Eddy, our friendship would be in trouble. Finish the trick.”
“Oh gosh.”
“Or bad things will start to happen.”
“Oh darn.”
I stuck my nose in his face and gave him a growl. “Why you little fraud, I should have known what you were doing. It was just another con job, wasn’t it? Huh? Another sneaking, slimy little trick to get you out of the cage, right?”
“What’s this?”
“Huh? What’s what?”
He reached behind my left ear and held up a . . . you’ll never guess what he held between two of his fingers. I mean, even I was surprised, although I had suspected all along that he could . . . that he might . . .
He held up the missing dog food kernel, you might say.
“Bingo. Good thing you didn’t bet.”
“I, uh, yes, I see what you mean, but how did you do that?”
“Magic. Want it?”
Before I could answer, he flipped the kernel up into the air, and more or less on instinct, I snapped and caught it. I chewed it up and swallowed it down, and by that time Eddy was gone.
I saw him monkey-walking through the snow, in the general direction of the chicken house. I had to run to catch up with him.
“Hey, wait a minute. Where do you think you’re going? You’re supposed to be back inside your cage.”
“No time for that. Got another deal for you.”
WHAT? Another . . .
That’s just what I needed, another one of Eddy the Rac’s deals.
