Very black, like bear.
Huge, like bear.
Answer to Alvin and Mohammed.
Like to eat everything. Like bear!
REWARD!
“Did you write the text, Mrs. Korjev?” Lily asked.
“I put in two bears and the Irish part,” said Sophie. “Daddy said that no one would believe you if you called them hellhounds, but if you said Irish hellhounds everyone thought they’d heard of them.”
A scratching noise came from the cat carrier on the bar and Sophie seemed to notice it for the first time. “Hey, what’s that? Do you have a—”
Lily clamped her hand over Sophie’s mouth. “No. I don’t. There’s nothing in there. Nothing. Do you understand?”
Lily’s hand still on her mouth, Sophie nodded. Lily tentatively pulled her hand away.
“I wasn’t going to say it,” Sophie said.
“I know,” said Lily. “I’m just taking the empty carrier to a friend. There’s some food in there that shifted.”
“Okay,” said Sophie.
“We need to go, lapochka,” said Mrs. Korjev. The Russian matron had come around the corner of the bar like a great, bosomy whirlwind when Lily grabbed Sophie and still held her staple gun at the ready. Lily was relatively sure that she had been only seconds from having her own forehead stapled.
“Okay, you two,” Lily said. She carefully lifted Sophie off the bar stool and set her on the floor, then crouched in front of her. “I hope you find the goggies.”
Sophie gave Lily a hug. “Come see us. Bring special-special pizza.”
“I will,” Lily said. “Bye, Sophie. Bye, Mrs. Korjev.”
“Bye,” Sophie said, leading Mrs. Korjev out the metal door that led into the alley. Mrs. Korjev looked back at Lily, siting down the mole on the side of her nose, letting Lily know that she had her eye on her.
As soon as the door closed behind them, a heartbreaking wail rose from the cat carrier.
“You okay, Asher?”
“I miss her so much. She’s gotten so big.”
“Sorry.” Lily patted the top of the cat carrier.
“What’s special-special pizza?”
“It’s a flaming-dome pizza with mac and cheese inside. I created it for Sophie to celebrate her becoming a vegetarian.”
“She’s a vegetarian? She didn’t even like vegetables last year.”
“It’s okay. She’s only a vegetar
ian because it was a thing with the other girls. Jane convinced her you could still be a vegetarian if you only eat animals that eat vegetables, too.”
“So anything but what?”
“I don’t know, lion, bear, crocodile—”
“Jane is ruining my daughter. I have got to come home. I’m missing everything.”