“You’re just in time,” Duke said.
“For what?”
Amelia had d not to tell Duke and Gabriella about the celebrity thing until the first check came. She wanted it to be a surprise. But when she glanced at Gabriella rummaging through her shoe box of coupons as she scribbled on a shopping list, it was hard not to give even a hint. Face cream, bath oils and night revitalizing cream for your mom, Gabriella had said when Amelia walked in, handing her some coupons. And does your mom use Tide? I have too many coupons for Tide.
Yeah, she does. Thanks.
Amelia peered over Duke’s shoulder at a fat white rat, lying on its back at the bottom of a bowl of water, staring up at her. “Oh yuck. Double yuck. What are you doing?”
“Thawing it out.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Feed it to King Kong.” Duke poked the rat with his finger. “It’s done. D’you want to watch?”
“I think so.” The rat was dead, after all. Very dead. “Okay. I do. Liam said you’re supposed to feed live rats to snakes. He saw it on YouTube.”
“Some people do. But it’s risky. If the snake isn’t hungry and doesn’t look out, the rat will try to eat the snake. I’ve seen snakes chewed up pretty bad.”
King Kong was curled up in the corner of his cage, his head tucked under one of his coils. “He looks like he’s asleep,” Amelia said.
“He’ll get interested pretty fast,” Duke said. “Pia said he hasn’t eaten for a month.”
Duke picked up a pair of tongs and wrapped a towel around his arm. “Just in case. I don’t want him to bite me. He’s usually pretty gentle but not when food is around.”
He grabbed the limp, soggy rat with the tongs. Amelia kept her eyes riveted on King Kong. Duke opened the cage door and dangled the white rat in front of the snake.
Amelia leaped back as King Kong’s head darted out, lightning fast, and struck at the rat.
“Scary?” Duke said. He closed the cage door.
“A bit,” she admitted. She watched King Kong wrap himself around the limp white body. Then he was very still.
“Doesn’t he want it?”
“He’s strangling it as if it were live prey. He’s a constrictor, and that’s what they do. He’ll stay like that for about ten minutes. Then he’ll eat it. I’ve got stuff to do, but you can stay in here if you want. While you’re waiting for some action, you can mist Oliver’s tank.”
Amelia poured water from a water bottle into the mister. (Never use tap water, Duke had told her, because of the chlorine.) She peered into Oliver’s tank and spotted him sprawled along a branch. She thought he was one of the prettiest lizards, with his bright emerald-green skin and handsome crests. She carefully sprayed the walls of the tank and the plastic foliage. She had asked Duke if he thought Oliver missed his former owner, Doris, but he had said, Probably not. Basilisk lizards aren’t really social with people. They actually hate being handled.
Next she checked on Apollo, the little brown bearded dragon. His story made her feel sick. Duke had got him from a woman whose son went off to university. “She just stuck him in a cupboard! He was living in complete darkness. It’s critical that bearded dragons have full-spectrum lighting. Sunlight. But when I told her where to get a uv bulb, she said it sounded too complicated. Thanks to her, he’s got a bone disease.”
Duke knew so much. He was like an animal encyclopedia. Every time Amelia talked to him, she learned something new.
She glanced over at King Kong. Still nothing happening. She visited with Winston for a few minutes (he was basking under his heat lamp and seemed content to be left alone) and then settled herself in front of King Kong’s cage.
She didn’t have to wait long. King Kong twisted his head and nudged the rat’s nose. It almost looks like he’s licking it, she thought. She watched, fascinated, as the snake pushed at the rat. Finally, the snake’s mouth gaped open and clamped around the rat’s head.
Duke slipped into the room and stood behind her. “His jaws are hinged,” he said. “That’s why he can open his mouth so wide.”
King Kong slowly sucked the rat’s head into his mouth, his jaws moving in and out, in and out.
Amelia felt queasy watching. “Is he chewing it?” she asked as the rat’s head gradually disappeared.
“He’s swallowing it whole,” Duke said.
How was there room for a whole rat to fit inside King Kong? But then the snake started to swell and thicken. “See his muscles squeezing?” Duke said. “He’s squishing the rat and kind of compacting it. He’ll get faster as he goes along.”
Ripples moved under King Kong’s skin as he drew the rat inside his powerful body. When all Amelia could see were the rat’s two scrawny back legs and a skinny white tail sticking out, the snake raised his head. She held her breath as the tip of the rat’s tail disappeared.
Then King Kong opened his mouth wide in a great big yawn.
“He’s resetting his jaw,” Duke said as the snake rested his head back down on the cage floor. “We’ll leave him alone now for a couple of days. And then he’ll be back to his old friendly self.” He grinned at Amelia. “Not too gory?”
“No. It’s nature, right?”
“Yup. It’s nature. Just don’t tell Zak and Lysander.”
“Jeannie called with that phone number,” Diane said after dinner.
“What number?” Amelia was rinsing spaghetti sauce off their plates and stacking them in the dishwasher.
“Maybe you didn’t hear her. Last night at the party. Her niece lives in Langley and just got a job for a year in Thailand. She’s looking for someone to rent her house.”
Amelia went still inside.
“I told her about Duke and Gabriella, and Jeannie said that Angie, that’s her niece, is a real animal lover and that they should give her a call. She’s pretty sure Angie wouldn’t mind all the animals.”
Amelia didn’t say anything while her mother rummaged through some papers on the counter by the phone. “Here it is.” Diane produced a used envelope with a phone number scrawled across it. “This could be a perfect solution. It’s very nice in Langley. Very rural still. And it’s a whole house. Way better for an animal refuge.”
Amelia knew where Langley was. Starla’s dad had taken her and Starla to Fort Langley once. It was miles and miles away. She would never see Duke and Gabriella again. She hated how her mother was pretending to care what happened to them.
She grabbed the envelope from Diane’s hand. “I’ll give it to them.”