“Either someone doesn’t know the traps are illegal, or they figure they’ll never get caught,” Mary said.
“I don’t think it’s legal to trap at this time of year, regardless of what kind of trap is used,” Mrs. Sunburg said. “Can you find the trap again?”
“Yes,” Rocky replied.
“Good. I’ll call Eric and report this.”
“Eric?” Mr. Kendrill said.
“Eric Rogers. He’s a licensed humane officer, which means he has the authority to make arrests and issue citations. I know him through the wildlife rehabilitation center.” She went to her desk, looked up the number, and called.
“Trapping season ended March 31,” she said, after she hung up. “He’ll try to get here tomorrow afternoon, to take a look. He said all traps are supposed to have an identification tag with either a state ID number or the trapper’s name and address.”
“I didn’t see a tag,” Alex said.
“Neither did I,” said Rocky, “but we weren’t looking for one.”
Mrs. Sunburg said, “Eric told me if there’s no tag, it’s hard to catch a trapper. Unless you see him setting or emptying the traps, or find him selling fresh pelts, it’s hard to prosecute.”
Pete’s tail flipped from side to side when he heard the words “fresh pelts.”
“We could spy on him,” Benjie said. “We could sit in the woods near the trap and wait for him to come, and then take pictures of him setting the trap.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Mrs. Kendrill said. “I don’t want you boys watching that trap. It’s too dangerous.”
“Keep Pete inside, too,” Mr. Kendrill said. “He doesn’t have enough sense to stay out of the woods, and a trap like that would kill him.”
“It wouldn’t kill a flying green panther,” Benjie said. “They’re so strong, they’d bite right through the trap and then they’d fly away.” He snapped his teeth together several times, while he flapped his arms like wings and ran in circles.
“Thanks for your help,” Mr. Kendrill told Mrs. Sunburg. “We knew we should report the trap, but we didn’t know who to call.”
Pete followed his family home. It took all his willpower to remain quiet. He wanted to protest against Mr. Kendrill’s mistaken remark that Pete didn’t have enough sense to stay out of the woods. Pete knew he had plenty of sense, more than the humans, in fact, but he didn’t want to call attention to himself.
The Kendrills had decided that Pete and Lizzy should stay indoors, so Pete had to be cautious about sneaking out. Alex and Benjie sometimes ignored him when he dashed out the door, but Mr. and Mrs. Kendrill were strict about trying to keep him inside.
Lizzy didn’t mind being an indoor cat, but Pete was unable to control his curiosity about what happened beyond his own front door. How could he guard his family and be an effective watch cat if all he did was nap on the rug?
When his people went inside, Pete slid quietly in the door with them.
• • •
The next morning, Rocky, Alex, and Mary met after breakfast to plan their day.
“I think we should hike back into the woods where we were yesterday,” Alex said, “and find the trap, and see if it has an ID tag.”
“Your mother said you couldn’t go back there,” Mary said.
“She said not to go back and watch the trap. We aren’t going to watch it; we’ll only go close enough to be sure we can find it again, and to look for an ID.”
Mary raised her eyebrows and gave Alex the kind of look his mother gave him when she knew he was trying to get away with something.
“What if the trapper has moved it?” Rocky said. “If he found the trap set off, with no animal caught, he might have moved it to a different place.”
“All the more reason why you should not be tromping around up there,” Mary said. “What if it has been moved, and you don’t see it? What if one of you steps in it?”
“We’ll be careful,” Rocky said.
“You don’t have to come,” Alex said.
Mary looked from Alex to Rocky. “If you two are going, I’m going, too,” she said. “You might need me to run home and call 911 when your foot is stuck in a trap.”
“Let’s get started,” Alex said.
“What are you going to tell your parents?” Mary asked.
“I don’t have to tell them anything. They left a little while ago with a list of errands that should take them all morning. By the time they get back, we’ll be home. They knew Rocky and I were going to hang out together this morning.”
Mary rolled her eyes. Then she went home, told her grandma that she was going on a hike with Alex and Rocky, got a bottle of water, and rejoined the boys at Alex’s house. She found them in the kitchen, looking dismayed. Benjie was there, too, wearing his spy badge.
“I thought you went with Mom and Dad,” Alex said.
“I didn’t want to go. It’s boring at the grocery store and all those other places. They said I could stay with you. I’m going to sit in my spy station and watch the cars that go past. Maybe I’ll see something suspicious.”
Alex hesitated. He knew he couldn’t leave Benjie here by himself, but he didn’t want to take his brother along, either.
“What are you guys going to do?” Benjie asked.
“We were planning to hike up the hill,” Alex said.
“To the trap?”
“We want to be sure we know where we left the road and headed into the woods, so we can take Eric to the right place when he comes.”
“I’ll go with you,” Benjie said. “That’ll be more exciting than watching cars. Maybe there’ll be a bear in the trap this time or a rhinoceros.”
“If you come along, you have to stay with me,” Alex said. “No running ahead or lagging behind.”
“Okay.” Benjie lifted the cookie-jar lid. “If we’re going far, we’d better have a snack with us,” he said as he took eight chocolate-chip cookies, dropped them in a plastic bag, and added the bag to the backpack he called his spy kit.
“I’ll go, too,” Pete said. “Cats have a keen sense of smell, to say nothing of our superior intelligence. If there are traps in those woods, I’ll lead you to them.”
“What if we find another trap?” Benjie asked.
“Then we’ll make a note of where it is and report it.”
“If I see that trapper, I’ll shred his pant leg and bite him in the ankle,” Pete said. He went to his scratching post and began sharpening his claws.
“Let’s go,” Alex said. He opened the door, then pushed in on the lock button so it would lock behind them when it closed.
Pete dashed toward the open door, but Alex saw him coming and stuck his foot out to block Pete’s path. Then he scooped up the cat and held him while Rocky, Mary, and Benjie went out.
“Put me down!” Pete yelled. “You’re making a big mistake if you don’t take me along. I can smell better than you can, and hear better.”
“I’m sorry, Pete,” Alex said. “You and Lizzy have to stay inside.”
“I’m a spy cat. I’ll look for hidden traps, and I’ll protect you from danger.”
Alex stepped out the door, still holding Pete. Then he pulled the door almost all the way shut, set Pete on the floor inside, and quickly closed the door before Pete could turn around.
“You’re making a categorical mistake,” Pete said. “If you have a catastrophe, I won’t be there to help you.”
Pete had spent an hour that morning reading the dictionary and practicing words that began with the letters c-a-t. He was glad for a chance to use these new words, even though nobody was listening.
He jumped on the window ledge and watched the four children go down the driveway and turn onto Elm Lane. Then he headed for his food bowl, glad to see that Alex had remembered to fill it with crunchies that morning.
If you can’t have what you want, Pete thought, you can always console yourself with a little snack.
• • •
To reach the wo
oded area where they’d found the trap, the kids first needed to hike up the winding, rural road on the far side of their housing development. They set off, with Rocky and Mary in the lead, and Alex and Benjie close behind.
They passed the small community of Hilltop, where the paved road ended, and continued up the gravel road. Thick stands of trees bordered both sides of the road, making it seem as if they were far out in the wilderness instead of only about two miles from home. According to the county map, most of this land was owned by a large wood-products corporation, with a few private plots here and there.
When they reached a spot where the undergrowth was sparse, they stopped. “I think this is where we went into the woods yesterday,” Alex said.
Rocky agreed.
The foursome left the road and headed into the trees.
“The trap was over that way,” Rocky said, pointing to his right. “Watch where you step.”
They moved cautiously, scanning the ground ahead of them.
“There it is!” Alex said. “It’s been reset!”
They looked down at the steel trap.
“There’s no ID tag,” Mary said.
“Whoever is doing this has been here since we came yesterday,” Rocky said. He glanced nervously around, as if expecting the trapper to spring out from behind the bushes and rush toward them.
“I found a clue,” Benjie said. He opened his backpack, removed a small plastic bag, and used it to pick up a cigarette butt.
“Anyone walking in the woods might have dropped that,” Alex said. “It wasn’t necessarily the person who set the trap.”
“It was him, and I’m going to save it for evidence. The police can get DNA from a cigarette butt.”
“Whether it’s evidence or not,” Mary said, “it’s proof that someone stupid was here.”
“Stupid for setting this trap?” Rocky asked.
“That, too, but I meant stupid for smoking in the woods when we’re having such dry weather. He could have started a forest fire.”
“Smoking wrecks your lungs,” Benjie said. “We learned about it in school.”
Alex found a thick branch and stuck it in the trap, making the trap snap shut.
Before Benjie put the cigarette butt in his backpack, he removed the cookies and handed two to each person. The chocolate chips had melted slightly, making the cookies taste as if they had just come out of the oven.
After eating their cookies, the kids looked for more traps but found none.
“We’d better start back,” Alex said. “Mom and Dad will be home soon.”
They made their way out of the woods, then started down the gravel road with Alex and Benjie in the lead.
As they approached a curve in the road, Rocky called, “There’s a car coming.” He and Mary both moved as far to the side of the road as they could.
Alex heard it, too. It was headed down the hill toward them, and it sounded as if there was a problem with the engine. He took Benjie’s hand, and they stepped onto the road’s narrow shoulder.
A black pickup truck with slatted wooden sides that went up to the top of the cab careened around the curve.
“He’d better slow down,” Alex said. He no sooner got the words out of his mouth than the driver hit the brakes, causing the tires to skid briefly. Gravel flew into the air and clattered back down.
Alex grabbed Benjie’s sleeve and pulled him farther off the side of the road, into the brush.
The back end of the truck swung sideways when the brakes grabbed, but then the driver sped up again, and the truck lurched forward. The driver never looked at the four children standing beside the road. As the truck sped downhill past them, the rear of the truck fishtailed again. Dust billowed around the kids, making them cover their noses and mouths to keep from inhaling it.
Alex squinted to avoid getting dust in his eyes, then blinked as something large fell off the back of the truck and landed in the gravel. It was a pig!
“Hey!” Alex shouted, waving his arms over his head and running a few yards down the road behind the truck. “Stop! You lost your pig!” He saw three other pigs in the back of the truck and feared they would fall out, too.
The truck’s brake lights came on for a couple of seconds when Alex yelled, and Alex thought the driver was looking in his rearview mirror, but instead of stopping, the driver hit the gas. The engine roared louder, and the truck sped out of sight.
The pig squealed loudly, tried to stand up, then flopped back down.
3
All of the children rushed toward the pig.
“Those pigs weren’t tied to the side or anything,” Alex said. “They couldn’t keep their balance, and there was nothing to hold them in the truck except that low tailgate.”
“The way that guy was driving, it’s a wonder all of them didn’t fall out,” Rocky said.
“Don’t touch the pig,” Mary warned. “Injured animals can be dangerous.”
“We need to get help,” Alex said.
The pig made a high-pitched squealing sound.
“Gramma will call the rescue group,” Mary said. “Why don’t Benjie and I stay here, to be sure no other vehicle comes around the curve and hits the pig. Alex, you and Rocky run back and tell Gramma what happened.”
“I want to go, too,” Benjie said. “I want to tell about the pig.”
“We can run faster without you,” Rocky said.
“But . . .”
“I need you to stay here,” Mary said, “to help me with the pig.”
Alex didn’t like leaving Benjie with Mary and the pig, but he knew it was the best plan.
Alex and Rocky ran faster than they ever had before, all the way down the hill, past Hilltop, and into Valley View Estates. They were out of breath when they got to Mrs. Sunburg’s house, and had to take turns talking, to tell her what had happened.
“What did the truck look like?” she asked.
They described it.
“Did you get a license-plate number?”
Both boys shook their heads no. “It all happened so fast,” Alex said. “I was trying to get the driver’s attention. I was looking at him, not at the license plate, plus there was a lot of dust blowing in my face.”
“I was watching the pig,” Rocky said. “I was afraid it would be killed, falling out like that.”
Mrs. Sunburg called the animal rescue group. She repeated the boys’ story, gave driving directions, and said, “I’ll meet you there.” She grabbed her bag of animal first-aid supplies, motioned for Alex and Rocky to follow her, and rushed to her car.
“The rescue group is sending a truck,” she said as she drove out of Valley View Estates. “They’ll notify the police, too.”
By car, it didn’t take long to reach the end of the pavement and start up the gravel road. “It isn’t far now,” Alex said, and Mrs. Sunburg drove slowly.
The pig was still lying in the middle of the road. Mary and Benjie stood in the road about twenty feet from it, one in front of the pig and one on the other side. They waved when they saw the car approaching.
“No other cars came,” Benjie said.
“There’s a lot of gravel embedded in her skin,” Mary said, “and I think one of her legs is hurt. Whenever she tries to stand up, she squeals and flops back down.”
“Her name is Piccolo,” Benjie said. “Piccolo Pig.”
“How do you know that?” Rocky asked.
“Because I named her.”
Alex gazed at the enormous pig. Beneath her bristles, the taut skin was as round as a barrel. Clearly this pig had not gone hungry. Thinking of how delicate a piccolo is, he said, “She looks more like a kettle drum than a piccolo.”
“She makes a high, shrill noise, like Aunt Jenny’s piccolo,” Benjie explained and, as if to prove his point, the pig did exactly that.
Mrs. Sunburg slowly approached the pig. The closer she got, the more agitated the pig became. “Easy, girl,” Mrs. Sunburg said softly. “We’re here to help you.”
The
pig tried to struggle to her feet, then gave up.
“Pigs are social animals,” Mrs. Sunburg said, “but this one is scared and hurt. I don’t want to make her injuries worse by having her try to get away from me.” She backed away from the pig. “I’ll wait for the rescue truck,” she said. “Those people are more experienced than I am.”
Half an hour later a big white enclosed truck, with graphics of animals painted on the sides, chugged up the hill and came to a stop. Two men hopped out. Both wore caps and navy blue jackets with white lettering that said FOOTHILLS ANIMAL RESCUE.
One man was about the age of Alex’s dad. His dark hair was gray at the temples, and his face had a leathery look as if he’d spent years working outdoors. He carried a rope.
The other, younger man had so many rings in his ears that he looked as if he had a spiral notebook on each side of his face. His green hair stood up in short spikes all over his head. “Hey!” he said. “Awesome animal!”
“She’s a big one, isn’t she?” the older man said.
“Hi, Eric,” Mrs. Sunburg said to the older man “Hi, Jacob.” She quickly introduced everyone as the two men knelt beside the pig and gently felt for injuries.
“There’s no way we can hoist this baby by hand,” Eric said. “We’ll have to turn the truck around and load her with the lift.”
“What can we do to help?” Alex said.
“Stay out of the way, and watch for traffic. Not likely any vehicle will come along, but we need to be alert.”
As they talked, the men got the rope tied around the struggling pig’s middle, a feat that took ten minutes and all of their strength. Then Jacob held the end of the rope while Eric turned the truck around.
It wasn’t easy to maneuver a U-turn on the narrow gravel road, but Eric managed to do it. Fortunately no other vehicles came along while all this was going on.
Jacob stood beside the pig, his feet braced in the gravel and his hands gripping the rope, trying to control her while the truck backed closer, making a BEEP-BEEP sound that scared the pig even more than she already was.
“Don’t be afraid, Piccolo,” Benjie said. “He won’t hit you.”
Alex and Rocky held their hands up, moving them closer together to show Eric how far he was from the pig.