With great sadness, Billy reached into the pocket, found Berko, and placed him back into his little tank. He hated the idea of taking him back to Daisy’s, but he could see no other alternative. The Hoove was hovering in the corner of the room giving off nasty fumes and shouting, “This is a gecko-free zone! This is a gecko-free zone!”
“Okay, okay,” Billy said as he headed out the door. “I heard you the first time.”
He left the house and walked down the front path, where he was stopped by another member of the Brownstone family, Rod the Clod, who was wheeling his bike into their garage.
“What are you carrying there, Broccoli?” Rod said in his usual snarky tone of voice. “Your knitting?”
“Actually, Rod, it’s none of your business.”
“Everything in this neighborhood is my business. I observe, take notes, and I report unusual events to the proper authorities. As a matter of fact, I just reported Mrs. Pearson because one tire of her electric lawn mower was on the sidewalk.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“The sidewalk is public property, Broccoli, and we all have to protect it.”
“But Mrs. Pearson is such a nice person. She keeps Hershey Kisses in her pocket for all the kids in the neighborhood.”
“Yeah, and most of the time they’re melted. Besides, the law doesn’t recognize Hershey’s Kisses. The law is the law, and if you break even the tiniest fraction of it, the entire neighborhood will crumble. So like I was saying, what do you have in that box?”
“It’s not a box, it’s a tank,” Billy said, turning it around so Rod could see into it. “It happens to contain a fat-tailed African gecko that was my pet for the last seven and a half minutes.”
Berko scurried right up to the glass pane and stared at Brownstone, who dropped his bike and backed up so fast his sneakers practically left skid marks on the cement. He tried to contain the scream that was living right at the back of his throat, so the noise that came out of his mouth sounded like a sorry little whimper that even a four-year-old wouldn’t make.
“What’s your problem, Brownstone?” Billy asked. “You afraid of a little gecko? They don’t even have teeth. What do you think, he’s going to gum you to death?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Rod snapped. “I’m on the football team. I knock down guys twice my size. I look fear right in the eyes and say, ‘Rod Brownstone is coming for you.’”
“Well, then, come say hello to Berko.”
Brownstone shifted uncomfortably. The last thing he wanted to do was let Billy Broccoli see any weakness in him. Puffing up his chest and trying to look as casual as possible, he sauntered very slowly in the direction of the lizard tank. When Berko saw him, the little gecko flicked out his tongue in his usual friendly gesture.
“Eeeekkk!” Rod screamed before he could stop himself. “That thing is vicious.” He waved his hands so wildly in the air that he knocked the tank out of Billy’s hands and it tumbled onto the lawn. The screen covering the top flew off, and before Billy could put it back on, Berko scurried out and disappeared into the grass.
“Now look what you’ve done, Brownstone,” he shouted, dropping to his knees and crawling around on all fours in the grass. “Don’t just stand there. You can at least help me find him. I have to return him to the pet store.”
“That thing was ready to attack,” Brownstone said. “You better find him and get him off my property or I’m calling the police!”
“What? To file a missing gecko report?”
“No, to alert the authorities that a menace is on the loose. He could be terrorizing an innocent victim at this very moment.”
Billy heard a rustling in the hedge nearby.
“Berko, is that you, fella?” he called softly. “Don’t be scared. I’m coming for you.” Billy dropped to his knees and parted the bushes with his hand, but what he saw lurking inside was in no way a gecko. It was a fat gray-and-white cat slinking around in the shade of the leaves. The cat looked at him and hissed in a definitely unfriendly way.
“Hey, Brownstone,” Billy said. “Do cats eat geckos?”
“How should I know?” Brownstone answered. “But I’ll tell you one thing. That cat will eat anything. It’s always wandering around here looking for food. I should have it arrested for loitering.”
Billy looked closely at the cat, trying to determine if it had eaten Berko. It did seem awfully fat around the middle, but at least he wasn’t licking his chops as if he had just finished a meal.
“You better not have hurt him,” Billy said. The cat just looked at him in a suspicious way and pawed at the air, as if understanding that Billy was making a terrible accusation. There was a long silence as Billy pondered the awful possibility. He felt his stomach flip.
“Hi, guys,” came a sweet voice from behind them. Billy was so startled, he whirled around and lost his balance, landing face-first in the grass. It was Ruby Baker walking with her sister, Sophia, to Billy’s house for band practice. Sophia was the bass player in Breeze’s band, and sometimes Ruby came along to hang out at their rehearsals. Ruby was the most popular girl in the sixth grade, and both Billy and Rod secretly had a crush on her. But Ruby was unaware of their admiring gazes, because she was looking in the palm of her hand.
“Look what I just found,” she said.
Billy glanced at her cupped hand … which held none other than the escaped Berko.
“You found him!” Billy cried, relief filling his body. He jumped up to his feet as fast as he could.
“Yeah, you did,” Rod said weakly, dropping to his knees out of fear.
“What are you doing on your knees?” Ruby asked him.
“Tying my shoelaces,” he answered far too quickly.
“But they’re already tied.”
“I’m just making sure that the knot is as tight as possible. You can’t be too careful.”
“Listen, kids,” Sophia said. “Not to interrupt your fascinating shoelace conversation, but I’ll see you inside. I have bigger emotional issues to explore than double knots. Breeze and I are writing a new song today about treading water in the dark river of love.”
As Sophia headed inside, Billy grabbed the gecko tank from the lawn and took it over to Ruby.
“You are a lifesaver,” he said. “Or I should say a gecko-saver. For a minute, I thought a cat had eaten him.”
“Oh, that would have been horrible!”
“I know. I’m so happy to see you, Berko.”
“Oh, what a cute name.” Ruby giggled. “I had a gecko once. Her name was Harmony.”
“Did she dine on crickets like Berko does?”
“Totally. Harmony was a real chowhound. I mean, she’d gobble up three crickets a week. I had to put her on a diet because she started looking like a mini Chihuahua.”
Feeling left out of the conversation, Rod jumped in with a major fib.
“Yeah, well I had a gecko, too,” he said. “And mine ate four crickets a week. He looked like a mini pit bull.”
“Oh really?” Ruby said while she gently stroked Berko on his head with her index finger. “What was his name?”
“Uh …” Rod stammered. “Uh … he was so tough, he didn’t need a name. I just called him Him.”
Billy knew Rod made up that story just to impress Ruby. No one would ever be that afraid of lizards and geckos if they had actually had one. He couldn’t resist the urge to show Rod up for the phony he was.
“Why don’t you come over and give Berko a pet or two? I’m sure he would like to say good-bye to you before he goes back to the pet store.”
Ruby put her hand out to Rod.
“You can even hold him, if you want.”
When Brownstone saw Ruby and Berko coming toward him, he turned a sickly shade of green. Billy thought he saw a few beads of perspiration break out on the tip of his nose.
“Hey, I’d love to hold him, really.” Rod gulped. “I’m a big lizard lover at heart. But I hear my mom calling. And you don’t know my mom, but she’s got a temper that goes off like a volcano. I’ve got to go before she erupts.”
And turning on his cowardly heels, Rod barreled across the lawn and flew into the safety of his house.
“Something tells me he’s scared of this harmless little guy,” Ruby said.
“Maybe he’s not as tough as he pretends to be,” Billy said.
Ruby shrugged.
“Boys are so strange,” she said to Berko. “But not you. You’re a little cutie.”
Billy held the tank up to her, and she gently placed Berko back inside. He must have liked being in there because he scurried happily into the safety of his plastic cave.
“He’s probably thinking about how strange all us humans are,” Billy said. “I bet he’ll be glad to get back to his animal friends at the pet shop.”
“Why are you taking him back?” Ruby asked.
“He didn’t exactly get along with my family.”
Ruby nodded. “I can see that,” she said. “Breeze doesn’t seem like the type of girl who’d relate to any creature who doesn’t wear sequined boots.”
“Hey,” Billy said. “Do you want to come with me to the pet store?”
Suddenly, when he realized that he had actually asked Ruby to come along, his face turned bright red. “I mean, you probably don’t want to come,” he added quickly, “but if you do, you can. Come along, I mean.”
“Sure,” Ruby said with a laugh. “It’s better than falling into the dark river of love. Can I carry Berko?”
“No problem,” Billy answered, handing her the tank. “He really likes you.”
It was a ten minute walk to Fur ’N Feathers, but to Billy, it seemed like it only took thirty seconds. Ruby was so easy to talk to. She chatted about her cross-country meets, about their English teacher, Mr. Wallwetter, and how she thought his thin little mustache looked like a plucked eyebrow on his upper lip. Everything she said made Billy laugh. Billy told Ruby about Daisy and her pet parrot, Robert, who liked to croon songs they played on oldies radio stations. Ruby couldn’t wait to meet them both.
When they reached Fur ’N Feathers, Daisy was busy feeding alfalfa to the bunnies, gerbils, and hamsters. Robert announced their arrival.
“Crab cakes!” he squawked.
Daisy looked over to the door and broke into a huge smile when she saw Billy and Ruby.
“Oh, don’t mind Robert,” she said. “He always calls customers he likes crab cakes. I think it’s because I got him from Frankie’s Fried Fish Stand, where he lived for ten years. If he doesn’t like you, he’ll call you an oyster. And if he can’t stand you, you’re tartar sauce … and you better watch out!”
As she clomped over to them in her shiny red clogs, Daisy noticed the gecko tank.
“Berko!” she said. “Did you come back for a visit because you missed us? What a sweet gecko you are!”
“Actually, Daisy, I have a slight problem I need to discuss with you,” Billy began sheepishly.
“Oh,” she said in a hushed voice. “Was it something he ate? He tends to battle diarrhea.”
“No, his stomach was fine. At least from what I could see. The problem is that I can’t keep him.”
“Oh,” Daisy said. “Didn’t your friend like him?”
Billy glanced at Ruby, who had a confused look on her face. He motioned to Daisy to follow him down the aisle toward the gerbil section so that they could have a little privacy.
“That’s Ruby over there,” he whispered. “And she doesn’t know about my friend, so can we keep that part between us?”
“Oh.” Daisy smiled. “You have two girlfriends. You little Romeo, you.”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that. I just like to keep my pet interactions private. So can we keep this quiet?”
“I get it,” Daisy said with a wink. “Mum’s the word.”
Ruby had taken Berko over to visit Robert and was having a fine time with both animals. Berko sat at the edge of his tank, flicking his tongue up at Robert as if to say, “Nice to see you again, old pal.” When Daisy and Billy joined her, Ruby was laughing with the animals like they were old friends.
“Are you sure you have to give Berko back?” she said to Billy. “He’s really got a lot of personality.”
“The thing I’ve learned, honey,” Daisy said, taking Berko’s tank from Ruby’s hands, “is that all members of a family have to enjoy the pet or it just won’t work. So if Berko isn’t loved by everyone at Billy’s house, then perhaps it’s not the right home for him.”
“That makes sense,” Ruby agreed. “I had to give Harmony away because the crickets we fed her interfered with my sister’s creative process. She’s a bass guitar player and the crickets always chirped off the beat.”
Daisy took Berko to the reptile aisle and placed him back in his original glass tank next to Bruce the tarantula.
“I was hoping I could exchange him for another pet,” Billy said. “Something really low maintenance.”
“Well,” Daisy said, “the only thing lower maintenance than Berko would be a fish. Let me show you three or four kinds of fish so you can make a decision.”
One whole wall of Fur ’N Feathers was devoted to the aquariums. Some held iridescent neon tetras, some had exotic tropical fish like angelfish and clown fish. One tank was divided into two separate compartments, each one holding only one fish: a bluish-white one and an orange one. They seemed to be staring at each other through the glass in a very unfriendly way.
“I know what those are,” Ruby said. “They’re Siamese fighting fish. If you put them in the same tank, they’ll fight to the death.”
A fighting fish sounded like it had a lot of spunk in it, and Billy thought Hoover would like that. The Hoove prided himself on his spunk, so it seemed like the perfect match. Besides, Billy could only buy one, which meant that it wouldn’t be a lot of work to take care of. Drop a few fish flakes in there every day, change the water occasionally. Even an irresponsible guy like the Hoove could manage that. It sounded to Billy like an easy A in Responsibility to Others.
“I think I’d like the orange Siamese fighting fish,” he told Daisy. “He seems really cool.”
“I could exchange that fish for Berko,” Daisy said, “and you’d still have a little money left over to buy some food. These fish eat a special kind of flake made from bloodworms and mashed shrimp.”
“Sounds delicious,” Ruby laughed. “Remind me to sprinkle some on my cereal.”
“Siamese fighting fish like to stare through the bowl and watch humans going about their business,” Daisy said. “It’s very stimulating to them. So this fish will need company.”
“Oh, no problem there,” Billy said. “My friend … I mean my family … will haunt him night and day. You can be sure of that.”
“Then he’s yours!” Daisy said. “I’ll get him ready for the trip home.”
“Thank you so much, Daisy,” Billy said, “for everything you’ve done for me. By the way, does my new fish have a name?”
Daisy shook her head.
“Good. I think I’m going to call him Kung Fu. Because he’s a fighter.”
“That’s perfect,” Ruby said. “I love kung fu movies.”
While Daisy scooped Kung Fu out of the aquarium and placed him in a plastic bag filled with the water he just came out of, Ruby went over to Robert’s perch and tried to teach him a new Beyoncé song.
“Come on, buddy,” she said to him. “You’ve got to get a little more current with your musical tastes.”
But poor Robert just couldn’t shake his tail feathers.
As for Billy, his mind was racing with excitement about finally having a solution to the Hoove’s problem. Every bit of logic told him that Kung Fu and the Hoove were a perfect match.
Which just goes to prove that logic isn’t always right.