Duke helped Amelia set Beaker up in their kitchen. They put the cage close to the window, so he could see outside. “Make sure the window stays closed to keep the drafts off him,” Duke said. He attached a heat lamp to the side of the cage and ran an extension cord to the socket near the floor.
“So tell me again how this plan of yours is going to work,” he said.
“Mom will fall in love with Beaker, and then she’ll change her mind and let you stay because she won’t want you to take Beaker away. I know she will.”
“I hope so. Okay, that looks good. I’m off.” Duke paused. “Are you doing anything later?”
“No.”
“I’m going to Kerrisdale to pick up a lizard. D’you want to come?”
Kerrisdale. Amelia’s heart jumped. Her old neighborhood. Her old house. Starla. Dad and his girlfriend-wife and the twins and the baby.
“Um…”
“You don’t have to.”
Kerrisdale wasn’t that big, but it was big enough that they probably wouldn’t drive down her street. And going out with Duke would be so much fun. “I want to.”
“Perfect. Simon’s picking me up in about an hour. We’re going in his van.” Duke tapped the birdcage lightly. “See you, Beaker. Be good.”
Amelia hung around watching Beaker until her mother came home. Diane came into the kitchen and dropped a white paper bag from the bakery on the table. “Jelly donuts. One each. I’ve been very good, so no comments from the peanut gallery, please.” She spotted Beaker and raised her eyebrows. “What’s all this about?”
Amelia had her story ready. “We thought Beaker was lonely, ’cause Duke’s been going out a lot lately, picking up animals and stuff, and Gabriella’s at the salon lots of days. And since you’re on holidays now, well, we thought you could keep him company.”
“That’s right, holidays. I’m not babysitting a bird.”
“Not babysit. Just talk to him a bit. Just when you’re here. It’s not like we expect you to stay home all the time.”
“Well, thank you for that.” Diane glanced at the coupons that Amelia had left on the counter. “Where’d these come from?”
“They’re from Gabriella. They’re for you.” Amelia opened the bakery bag and took out a sugary donut that was leaking red jelly. “This can be my dinner. I’m going with Duke to pick up a lizard.”
Before Diane could protest, Amelia fled outside. She sat on the lawn, eating her donut and licking the sugar off her fingers.
When Simon’s rusty van pulled up, Amelia darted inside to tell her mom she was going. Diane was standing beside Beaker’s cage. “Are you being a good boy, Beaker? Yes, yes, you are. Very good.”
Amelia grinned and left.
“You owe me one, bro,” Simon said, as Duke settled into the front seat of the van. “I’ve got a ton of studying to do tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah. You remember Amelia?”
Simon swung around and peered at Amelia in the backseat. “The kid from upstairs, right?”
“We’re going to 5375 Balsam Street,” Duke said. “It’s an apartment building.”
Amelia’s old house was on 36th Avenue, which ran into Balsam. She wasn’t sure about the numbers. How close was 5375 to her old street? For a second she wondered if she should jump out of the van. But then Simon pulled away from the curb, and it was too late. He sped through Burnaby and across the city to Kerrisdale.
Duke draped his arm over the back of his seat and described the lizard they were picking up. “It’s called a green basilisk lizard. Some people call them Jesus Christ lizards ’cause when they get scared they can run across the surface of the water. They’ve got these fringes between their back toes. They can run for fifteen feet before they sink, and then they can stay under water for half an hour.”
“It never fails to amaze me how much useless information you know, bro.” Simon beeped his horn. “Idiot! Ever hear of signaling?”
“It’s not useless,” Amelia said.
Duke grinned at her. “Basilisk lizards can get pretty long, but it’s mostly tail.”
“How long?”
“Two feet or so. But they don’t weigh very much. This one belongs to someone called Doris. She’s moving. She sounded pretty upset on the phone.”
“Have you ever seen one run across the water?” Amelia said.
“No. They do that in the wild. They drop out of trees.”
“Have you ever had one before?”
“Yup. One. His name was Verde, which means ‘green’ in Spanish. He was caught in the jungle in Costa Rica, which is totally illegal. When we got him, one of his eyeballs was poked out. I’m pretty sure there must have been wires sticking out in the cage he was shipped in.”
“Did he die?”
“No. He was pretty bad, but he got better. He’s in a good home now.”
“What about his eye?”
“I sewed the socket shut. To keep the dirt out.”
“Spare us the details,” Simon said. “Could everyone kind of pay attention? I don’t want to drive around all night looking for this street.”
“I know where it is,” Amelia said. She watched carefully out the window. “We’re getting close. Turn at that light and go down the Boulevard. And then you can go along 37th Avenue, and that’ll take you to Balsam.”
Now they were on 37th Avenue. One block from 36th. She spotted the Mac’s convenience store on the corner, where she and Starla used to buy slushies, and the neat old church on the corner of Larch Street and 37th Avenue. She could walk to her old house in two minutes from here.
“Here’s Balsam,” Simon said. “Start looking at the numbers.”
Amelia spotted the apartment building first, set back in leafy green shrubs.
Simon muttered that he would wait in the van, and Duke and Amelia went inside. They climbed the stairs to the third floor. “Here it is,” Duke said. “Number 302.” He rang the doorbell. There was a series of mysterious thumps and dragging sounds, and then, just when Amelia whispered, “What’s going on?” a chain rattled and the door opened a crack.
A tiny woman with fluffy white hair, wearing a pink tracksuit and leaning against a walker, peered out. “Oh my,” she said. “Oh goodness, you’re much too early.”
“I said seven o’clock,” Duke said.
“Eight o’clock,” Doris said in a quivery voice. “Oh dear, I’m not ready. But you’d better come in.”
She slid the chain back with fumbling fingers and opened the door.
The apartment was hot and stuffy and full of spindly furniture. The lizard was in a huge glass aquarium in the tiny living room. Amelia looked at the creature with interest. It was slim and green and had three ridges that stuck up on its back. The aquarium was amazing, with twisty branches for climbing on and a miniature pond surrounded by plastic flowers. Two large bulbs were attached to the ends.
“I haven’t even packed Oliver’s things yet,” Doris said. “I’m sure you said eight.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m just not ready.”
“No problem,” Duke said. “We’ll come back in an hour. It sucks to say goodbye. You take your time, Doris. Just take your time.”