TWENTY-TWO

“How should I know where Pinky is?” asked Sam defensively. “You know how girls are.”

“Humph!” snorted Bea, joining him on the shore and putting her belongings back in her pouch again. “I know how children are, and we searched for you two all night.”

“What were you doing out by the compost if you had been searching for us all night?” he asked suspiciously.

“Insolence! Never you mind,” Beatrice answered sharply.

They entered the warren and Henry snapped awake. “Sam!” he exclaimed with joy. “We’ve been so worried about you and Pinky. Where’ve you been?”

Sam crept into the Cozy Room hoping not to disturb Curly who was still fast asleep. Beatrice followed and said over her shoulder to Henry, “Pinky’s not with us, and I found Sam on the compost heap making himself available to a hungry hawk.”

Sam winced and looked guiltily toward Henry whose eyebrows were raised in surprise.

“It’s true,” said Sam. “I was on my way back here and was so hungry that I forgot myself and climbed to the top of the heap.”

Henry beamed and slapped his arm around Sam, “My boy!” he said proudly. “You’re just as crazy brave as I am!”

“You got the ‘crazy’ part right,” muttered Beatrice, plopping down onto a cushion.

Henry ignored her and said, “Tell me all about it. Were you standing on the top, playing dive-bomber? Were you waving your arms about trying to get his attention?”

“Um, not exactly,” said Sam quietly, not sure where Henry was going with this line of questioning.

“Actually he was eating spaghetti,” said Bea, giving Henry a bored look. “If I hadn’t come along he would’ve become hawk chow.”

“Don’t give yourself so much credit,” said Henry. “The bravest thing you’ve ever done is forage for food during a terrible, ice storm while the rest of us cowered inside, hungry and scared. Oh wait… That wasn’t you; that was me! Then it must’ve been the time that you attacked those evil rats single-handedly, risking life and limb. Oops! That wasn’t you, either. That was Silas! I guess I can’t think of a single incident where you were brave.”

“But Bea was brave! She saved my life!” said Sam, jumping between the two opossums before they broke into a fistfight.

“What’s going on?” asked Silas, lumbering into the Cozy Room wearing a silk robe and carrying a freshly filled pipe. “Can’t an old fella get a wink of sleep around here?” His face brightened into a big grin the moment he spotted Sam. “Well, well! I’m delighted to see you, Sam. You and your sister certainly gave us a fright last night. Where’s Pinky?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” answered Sam meekly. “I was hoping she was here.”

“We haven’t seen Pinky since the locket hunt,” said Henry. “Bea said she found Sam at the top of the compost heap, taunting a hawk.”

Silas looked at Sam with concern, “Is this true?”

“Well…” Sam started softly.

“Speak up, Sam, and tell Silas everything,” said Bea with enthusiasm.

Silas pulled up a velvet cushion and proceeded to light his pipe. Soft pink light shone through the magnificent glass radish globes that hung from the ceiling in the Cozy Room. Daisy emerged from the kitchen and began passing around a silver tray of blueberry tarts.

“Ooh, tarts!” cried Cocoa with ecstasy as he entered the room, grabbing one in each hand. “I just adore blueberry tarts.”

“You’d eat anything,” observed Beatrice. “Especially if someone else prepared it.”

“I won’t deny it,” he said, his teeth turning purple with each bite. “These are outstanding, Daisy. Yum! Yum!”

“Petula made them last night,” she answered, looking sadly at the empty platter and wishing she had gotten one before Cocoa was awakened by their tantalizing aroma.

Beatrice handed her one of the bugs from her pouch and Dasiy accepted it graciously, though she would’ve preferred one of the sweet tarts instead.

Curly was awake now and blinked around the room in bewilderment. “What’s happened? Has the locket been found?”

“The locket’s been found?” asked Petula with exuberance as she scurried to join the others, her cheek caked with jam. She offered another tray of tarts to the assembly. “Where is it?”

“Over here!” called Cocoa waving his hands in the air like a madman. Petula quickly went to him where he helped himself to two more tarts.

“Let me see!” she squealed, pushing a third tart into his lap.

“See what?” asked Cocoa, his mouth full of pie filling.

“He doesn’t have the locket,” Beatrice said with irritation, swiping a tart from Cocoa’s lap and tossing it to Daisy. “He was just summoning a waitress.”

Petula gave him a severe look and stomped to the other side of the room, carrying what was left of the tarts with her.

Silas had heard enough of their silly banter and posed the question to Sam once more, “Where’s Pinky?”

All of the opossums stopped eating and bickering and turned to look at Sam who squirmed beneath the spotlight of their shining black eyes.