“You get to name this one,” Duke said. He cradled a small brown lizard in his hands. “It’s an armadillo lizard.”
The lizard had hard, spiny scales from the top of its head to the tip of its tail. “Can I hold it?” Amelia said.
Duke slipped the lizard into her hands. It curled up, sticking the end of its tail right into its mouth and forming a small prickly ball.
“He’s scared,” Duke said. “That’s why he’s doing that. To protect himself. Let’s put him back in his tank.”
Amelia set the little lizard gently onto a bed of soft dirt.
“He’s emaciated,” Duke said. “He was probably wild-caught. There’s a trade from Africa. They get packed in plastic bins by the thousands and shipped here through Mexico.”
“That’s so horrible.”
“Thought of a name yet?”
She looked at the tiny spiny lizard. “Pinecone.”
“Well?” Roshni said. “Anything?”
“Nothing.” Amelia had run upstairs when she heard the mailman’s whistle on the front sidewalk, even though she knew it was way too soon.
“What’s taking them so long?” Roshni lifted Georgia out of her cage and plunked down on the couch.
“It’s Wednesday,” Liam said. “We mailed the letters last Thursday. That’s, like, six days ago.”
“Thank you, Liam. I can count.”
“Besides—”
“We know,” Amelia said. “You think they won’t send money. But Roshni and I think they will.”
Liam shrugged. “I’m going to go hang out with the snakes.”
Duke and Gabriella had gone out, and Amelia was in charge. She had asked Liam and Roshni to hold the turtles Romeo and Juliet while she dumped buckets of dirty water from their bin into the bathtub. When the bin was almost empty, she dragged it to the bathroom and tipped it into the tub to pour out the last bit of water. Then she dragged it back to the hallway and filled it with buckets of clean, cool tap water.
Then she’d run up to check the mail, and now she was back. She thought of one more thing to do. She went into the kitchen and got Mary’s gecko food out of the fridge. She mixed the food carefully in a little dish—two tablespoons of a brownish powder that smelled like fruit and one tablespoon of water. She covered it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to sit for a while.
She spotted the last of the strawberries in a saucer behind a bowl of mac and cheese. She cut one up for Winston and took it into the reptile room.
Liam was sitting on the floor beside King Kong’s tank. “I am so not going to miss the next time Duke feeds him. I can’t believe you didn’t call me.”
“Get over it.” Amelia crouched down and dropped the pieces of strawberry into Winston’s pen.
The tortoise didn’t move from his corner. He didn’t even turn his head.
“Hey, Winston,” Amelia said, surprised. She picked up a piece of strawberry and dropped it right beside his front foot. Winston stared straight ahead.
Her surprise turned to icy fear. “Oh my god! Winston’s sick!”
“We don’t need to panic,” Duke said. “Maybe he’s just tired.”
But Amelia could tell he was worried. She had called him on his cell, and he’d come home right away. Amelia, Duke, Liam and Roshni were crowded around Winston’s pen, staring at the tortoise.
“Could it be that disease from being in the drainage ditch?” Amelia said.
“Not a disease. A respiratory infection,” Duke said. “It’s called Runny Nose Syndrome.”
Amelia squatted down and examined Winston’s tiny nostrils. “There’s nothing coming out of his nose.”
“That’s good. But it’s weird he doesn’t want to eat.”
“It said on the Internet that a sulcata tortoise is an eating machine.”
Duke smiled. “That’s true.”
“So that makes it even worse that he’s not eating, right?”
“Runny Nose Syndrome,” Roshni said. “Is that kind of like a cold in humans?”
“Not exactly. It’s more serious than that. It can lead to pneumonia and even renal failure.”
“But we don’t know he has it,” Amelia said quickly.
“No, we don’t.” Duke stood up. “Too many people in here. That’s going to stress him out even more. Let’s leave him alone for a while.”
Amelia took one last look at Winston as they filed out the door. “Promise you’ll come and get me if anything happens.”
“Promise,” Duke said.