LITMIR.BIZ

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I’m David Murray. We live a couple of houses down.” His head jerked to the left. I assumed that meant he lived in that direction.

      “I’m Sarah Gilmore.” Seeing Mom coming back, I added, “And this is my mother.”

      Mom put her hand out and he shook it awkwardly, introducing himself again.

      “I’ve been taking care of Sarah’s animals and checking on the place and stuff. I just came over to put out food and walk the dogs. Have you been inside yet?”

      We told him we hadn’t. He produced a key.

      “I guess you’d like to have a look around, then.” We followed him eagerly, totally unprepared for what we were about to see!

      CHAPTER FIVE

      As soon as the door swung closed behind us and David flicked on the light, three cats and a small dog appeared at his side, jumping, rubbing against his legs, and starting up a chorus of mews and barks. David went immediately into a room off the large kitchen we’d entered and started getting out cans and boxes of food.

      “Four animals,” I observed, watching as he leaned down to fill bowls that were out of my view. “No, five,” I added as a larger dog hurried by.

      “More,” Mom’s voice was barely a whisper. Her mouth was hanging open.

      She was right. Another cat ran past, then a pair of dogs followed by a final cat.

      “There can’t be nine pets,” I said finally.

      “Nine pets,” Mom echoed hollowly.

      “There are eleven, actually,” David called from the next room. “There’s a parrot — an African grey that talks named Stoolie. And, uh, there’s Rosie. She’s a skunk.”

      “A skunk,” Mom said faintly. She looked as though she might have gone into shock.

      “Yeah, Rosie is pretty much nocturnal so you don’t see her around much in the daytime. There are special instructions for her diet and stuff in a notebook here.” He opened a drawer near the sink and drew out a small coil book with a picture of a skunk pasted on the cover.

      “A skunk,” Mom said. “Eleven animals!” She repeated both things several times and then sank onto a nearby chair and stared straight ahead. I couldn’t help wondering what she thought of her great-aunt at that moment.

      “A few of them are pretty old,” David said helpfully.

      I walked to the doorway to see if, as I suspected, he was smiling. He was.

      “They’re all personalized,” he said, waving his hand toward the gobbling creatures in the room.

      “What, the cats and dogs?” I was confused.

      “No, their dishes. They each have two. One for food and one for water.” He leaned down and picked up a bowl to show me. On the side of it the word “Inky” appeared between black paw prints.

      “Don’t worry about trying to make them eat from their own dishes, though.” His smile was growing. “I just let them go to the nearest bowl.”

      I frowned. His amusement was not contagious.

      “Wait till you see downstairs.” He was actually laughing by this time. “The cats’ litter boxes are personalized too. And the skunk’s. And I might as well tell you right now that hers has to be in the same place all the time. Skunks pick out a favourite place to ‘go’ and that’s that. Hard to believe, huh?”

      He was wrong. I’d have believed just about anything right then. But for Mom, the mention of six litter boxes was too much. A gasp, followed by a short, strangled cry came out of her. It seemed to restore her, though, because she got up then and joined us.

      “This is a pantry,” she said indignantly. “Or, at least, it was meant to be one.”

      David shrugged. “You can move their dishes somewhere else if you want, I guess. I don’t think they’re particular about where they eat.”

      Mom stared at him blankly, but a sudden highpitched cry of “ Knock it off! ” from down the hallway startled her back to awareness.

      “That’s Stoolie,” David explained. “He’s always telling someone to knock it off — and saying other bossy things. Anyway, did you want to have a look through the house now? I have to get back home to watch my kid brother when my dad goes to work.”

      We did a quick tour, trying to push aside the thought that our inheritance included this unbelievable menagerie of pets.

      Stoolie told us to knock it off again as we passed him. He also commanded us to feed the pretty bird, though his dish was brimming.

      I have to say that the house was beautiful. There were two rooms off the kitchen, the pantry we’d already seen, and what David referred to as the back kitchen. Who ever heard of a house having two kitchens?

      Most of the floors were hardwood and a lot of the furniture was fancy-looking wood stuff too. A fireplace stood in what David called the sitting room downstairs. I’d never heard the names he used for some of the rooms before, being used to a kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and a bathroom, though of course I’d heard of dining rooms, too. But our house contained rooms that David referred to as a parlour and a den. Upstairs there were four enormous bedrooms and two smaller rooms that David identified as a sewing room and a quiet room. Two of the bedrooms also had fireplaces.

      “You can check out the attic another time,” he told us, gesturing toward a square set into the ceiling of the upstairs hallway. “This is the entry to it. A ladder comes down when you open it.”

      “What’s the other building attached at the back of the house?” I asked when we’d gone through the place.

      “Used to be servants’ quarters,” he said, “but Sarah used it for storing things. There are two entrances to it, one outside and one from the back kitchen, but both are kept locked. The lawyer will have the keys for those doors.”

      I’d never heard of servants’ quarters. Mom explained that years ago very rich people had wings built on their homes for the hired help to live in.

      “You seem to have known my great-aunt quite well,” Mom remarked to David.

      “I helped her out when she needed something done. She was a nice old lady.” He looked away then and I could see that he felt sad about her dying. It was weird that we were her family and we didn’t even know her or feel particularly bad that she’d died, but this person who was no relation to her did.

      Before we left the house, David gave Mom a slip of paper with his phone number on it. “You’ll probably need a hand when you move in,” he explained, not realizing that all we had was four suitcases with our clothes.

      “I guess we’ll have to find out the pets’ names,” Mom sighed, tucking the paper into her purse. “All eleven of them.”

      “Where are we going now?” I asked as we stepped back out onto the sidewalk.

      “The lawyer’s office is apparently nearby,” Mom said. “She told me when I spoke to her that it was only a few minutes’ walk from Sarah’s house. We have an appointment with her right after lunch.”

      We found the place, which was in a house that had been converted to lawyers’ offices. Five names appeared on a sign hanging above the door, and our lawyer, Nicole Standing, was listed among them.

      Neither of us was hungry after a late breakfast, so to kill time until our appointment we just walked around for a while. Not too far from Aunt Sarah’s house there was a nice little park and we sat on a bench there for a bit. In one corner of the park was a low, red brick building, which we discovered was the library. I thought it was a bonus that the library was so close. I like to read but we’ve never been able to afford books. Or, at least, we couldn’t before.

      A

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