“No, what?” asked Kona.
“Yes,” said Herman.
“But what?” asked Kona.
“Exactly,” said Herman.
Kona decided he would just look it up in the encyclopedia.
Kona and Herman enjoyed their walk together to the park. Herman told Kona about the history of the planet and how an asteroid had brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs. Herman said that scientists think that birds today are relatives of all those extinct dinosaurs.
“Really?” said Kona.
Herman said that it had something to do with the little bones in their wings.
“You mean Murray is a relative of a dinosaur?” asked Kona.
“Not Murray,” said Herman. “Murray is a mammal.”
“Murray’s not a bird like you?” said Kona. “But he flies.”
“So do squirrels and they’re not birds,” said Herman.
“Squirrels fly?” asked Kona.
“Some of them,” said Herman.
“Well, don’t tell Stumpy’s children,” said Kona. “They fall on their heads often enough as it is.”
Kona was quiet for a few moments.
Then Kona said, “Herman, do you think there will be another asteroid? Do you think we will become extinct?”
Herman seemed to consider the question very carefully.
Finally he said, “I think that there is, for all of us, a greater danger than asteroids.”
“What is it?” asked Kona.
“Greed,” said Herman. “I think it is greed.”
Kona did not understand what Herman meant. But he knew Gwendolyn would understand. He would ask her when he got home. He hoped he would not also have to ask for a Band-Aid for his nose.
They arrived at the park. The park was dark and beautiful. Kona was rarely in Gooseberry Park this late. Once, when Top had a fever and Stumpy needed a thermometer at two in the morning. And there was the time when Murray was worried another ice storm would come and had asked Kona to stand guard in case they had to save the children again. (Ice never came, but Kona did have to walk through two feet of snow to get back home before Professor Albert got up for breakfast.)
The nighttime park was beautiful. And it was also very active. All the night creatures were out: possums, bats, owls, raccoons, mice. And others were trying to get some sleep: squirrels, chipmunks, bluebirds, wrens.
Kona was starting to feel a little nervous. In the daytime Kona felt that he belonged to the park. Actually, he felt sometimes that the park belonged to him. It is a heady experience to be a chocolate Labrador walking his owner through Gooseberry Park. As Professor Albert once said, “It feels as if we have the world on a string, Kona.” If that meant confidence, then Kona had to agree. A dog in a park on a sunny day with his owner is nothing but confident.
But now it was after midnight. And Kona knew he did not belong.
“I hope Augustina likes dogs,” Kona said as Herman guided him to her roost.
“Just be yourself,” Herman told Kona. “You are enough just as you are.”
Hearing that, Kona lifted his head higher. Being enough was so important to him. And Herman had said he was.
Kona was ready to meet Augustina.
Herman flew up into the branches of an enormous walnut tree, and Kona waited.
“Good evening,” said a voice suddenly behind him.
Kona almost jumped out of his fur. He turned around, and there before him was a calm and powerful owl who Kona knew could be no one other than Augustina.
Herman flew down from the branches and introduced them.
“It is an honor to meet you,” Kona told Augustina. “I didn’t hear you coming.”
“Few do,” said Augustina. Her very large eyes blinked once.
Herman pulled the Master Plan from Kona’s collar. He then spread it on the ground so Kona could explain.
“Two hundred of us, you say,” Augustina said to Herman.
Herman nodded.
“Describe to me very carefully this brilliant plan,” said Augustina.
So Kona described it.
There was only one reliable source of stored water in town. And that one reliable source was the water truck at the fire house.
“It’s always full,” noted Kona.
If the fire fighters could be tricked to leave the fire house for a while (Kona pointed to POSSUM), and if the fire house door could be unlocked from the inside (Kona pointed to RACCOON), then the fire house dog (DALMATION) could also be tricked to leave the fire house for a while (CAT), so that Stumpy could open up the tank on the water truck and she and her children (SQUIRRELS) could fill dozens and dozens of straws with water and seal them up with chewing gum.
Kona stopped for a moment to catch his breath. Augustina blinked while she waited. Kona was nervous because now he was getting to the part about the owls.
“We need fliers,” Kona said. “Silent nighttime fliers with binocular vision.”
He pointed to OWLS on the plan as he looked at Augustina with great sincerity. (And there are few things that look so sincere as a Labrador who wants something.)
“If two hundred of you could fly into the fire house,” said Kona, “and collect the straws of water and then deliver them to all who need them . . .”
Kona took another deep breath.
“Then we will have done something magnificent together,” he finished.
Augustina examined the paper. She blinked several times.
She pointed to a name.
“Murray,” she said. “I know Murray. What is his part?”
“Murray’s friend Stumpy has a glow-in-the-dark watch,” said Kona.
“I have heard,” said Augustina.
“And,” Kona continued, “when the owls arrive back at the park with the water, Murray will shine the watch on every nest and every burrow where someone is in need. He will know where the need is. Murray knows the park like the back of his foot.”
Augustina’s head turned slowly to the far, far left and then slowly to the far, far right. Then back to center.
“Many here,” she said, “are in crisis.”
Kona and Herman nodded.
Augustina was silent. She remained silent, in fact, for several minutes. Owls need time to think.
Kona felt his heart pounding.
Finally she spoke:
“Tell me when to have them ready. And you shall have your two hundred fliers.”
If Labradors and crows could cry, surely tears would have flowed.
As it was, Kona and Herman said simply, “Thank you,” which is all, really, an owl ever needs to hear.
So now it was onward to find a possum, a raccoon, and a cat who would play their parts.
Kona wasn’t worried. In fact, he already had just the cat in mind. And possums and raccoons are always up for tricks.
Suddenly it seemed that Houston was actually going to see them land!
9
Decoys
Kona’s friend Conroy the cat agreed to be one of the decoys in the Master Plan. And Stumpy’s friend Henrietta the possum agreed to be another. Henrietta had a family of eight who traveled everywhere with her on her back, and she was passionate about helping with the Master Plan, for she wanted to represent all mothers everywhere. Conroy the cat wanted to help just because he thought his part was funny.
But finding a raccoon to do his part of the plan took a bit more trouble. Raccoons keep very strict schedules. If a raccoon sifts through a certain Dumpster at a certain location at eleven every night, that is exactly what he wants to do the very next night: Certain Dumpster. Certain location. Eleven.
So it took some extra legwork to find a raccoon who was not so compulsive that he could not change his routine for a night. But Murray found one. The raccoon’s name was Robby, and for the price of seven egg rolls and two boxes of Hot Tamales, he joined the team.
Murray was so stressed from having to give away all his snacks that he had to make a Reiki appointment with Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn sa
id that Reiki was good for stress.
“But you aren’t even touching me,” said Murray, lying on Professor Albert’s coffee table.
“I am reorganizing your energy,” said Gwendolyn.
“Okay, but just make sure I still have all me toesies when you’re done,” said Murray.
“I will, dear,” said Gwendolyn. She moved her claws in the air just above Murray’s body.
“And how are you feeling now?” Gwendolyn asked.
Murray didn’t answer. He had dropped off to sleep, a bit of drool drip-dripping from his mouth.
“Success,” said Gwendolyn with a smile. She covered him with a clean dish towel so he wouldn’t catch a chill.
While Murray was napping, with Gwendolyn keeping him company, Kona was giving instructions to three vital members of the team. The big night was tomorrow night, and there were some things to rehearse. According to the flowchart, Henrietta would first play her part. Then Robby would leap into action. Then Conroy would jump in, with Kona as backup.
It was all designed to get the fire fighters and the dalmatian out of the fire house, and the squirrels and the owls in.
So the three decoys needed to rehearse. Kona gathered them all under a picnic shelter in the park.
“Henrietta, your job is to pretend to faint,” said Kona.
“Right,” said Henrietta as her eight children hung on and stared at the big chocolate Labrador.
Henrietta then pretended to fall into a swoon, rolling over onto her side. The children were still hanging on.
“Excellent,” said Kona. “But can you do it while hanging from a traffic light?”
“Positively,” said Henrietta.
“And the children—can they hang on?” asked Kona.
Eight little possum heads nodded.
“Fantastic,” said Kona. “When people see a possum hanging from the traffic light in the Town Square—which only a very tall ladder can reach—whom do you think they will call for the rescue?”
“Fire fighters,” said eight little possums.
Henrietta smiled proudly.
“Right,” said Kona.
“Now, Robby,” continued Kona, “your job is to sneak into the fire house attic tomorrow night, and as soon as the fire fighters are called to the rescue, you will come out of the attic and unlock the fire house door from the inside.”
“Simple,” said Robby. “Sneaking into attics is my specialty.” Robby popped a Hot Tamale into his mouth.
“Fabulous,” said Kona.
Kona turned next to Conroy the cat.
“I know,” said Conroy. “You don’t even have to tell me. I stroll in and agitate the dog.”
“The dalmatian,” Kona clarified. “You get the dalmatian to chase you out of the fire house and up a tree. Then I’ll come join him in the barking. Dalmatians are very high strung. Together you and I can keep that dog barking forever.”
“Cool,” said Conroy.
“And after that,” Kona said to them all, “it’s showtime.”
10
Nerves
The night before a major undertaking is always a night of anxiousness, and Kona and all of his friends were feeling their share of it.
In front of Professor Albert’s picture window, Kona was pacing as Gwendolyn read aloud passages from a book Morton had dropped off. The book’s title was Affirmations for the Faint of Heart, and it had much good advice for anyone feeling anxious.
“ ‘There is no fear so great that time with a friend will not soothe,’ ” read Gwendolyn.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” said Kona, stopping his pacing for a moment. “I do feel soothed by being with you, Gwendolyn.”
“And I do with you,” said Gwendolyn. “Let’s continue reading.”
So that is how Kona and Gwendolyn handled their anxiousness.
In the tree they shared, Stumpy and Murray were dealing with their nerves in their own ways.
Stumpy was rearranging her closets. Tidying always brought a sense of calm to Stumpy. So she dug in and had built quite a big mound of throwaways and another of keepers. It helped tremendously. Everyone was counting on her tomorrow night to open the plug on the tank of the water truck. Stumpy had cracked open probably thousands of black walnuts in her life and could not imagine a water plug tripping her up. But still, she was a little anxious. So she tidied.
Her three children were sleeping like logs. Children are always optimistic, and this unfailingly helps them get a good night’s sleep, even with a major undertaking on the calendar.
But Murray, like Stumpy, was also up late. He was wide awake and mentally counting all the nests and burrows in the park that would receive the water deliveries tomorrow night. He tried to count them on his toes. But since he had only ten toes, that didn’t last long. So Murray just closed his eyes, and in his mind he flew from nest to nest, burrow to burrow, to make certain he would not miss a single location.
He also ran outside frequently to make sure the lifetime battery in Stumpy’s glow-in-the-dark watch was living up to its promise. The watch hung by Stumpy’s front door as a porch light, and tonight it glowed as bright as ever.
Then Murray popped a powdered doughnut hole into his mouth and closed his eyes and started counting the babies and the old ones again.
In the guest room, Morton was chewing twenty packs of gum. Morton had been asked by Kona to do two things: chew twenty packs of gum and be on call tomorrow night in case anyone needed motivating. Morton had felt very capable of doing both. So he chewed an incredible amount of gum while he solved a crossword puzzle, and then he turned in for the night.
At Herman’s home everyone was sitting up with Herman as a show of moral support. Herman’s mother and four sisters did not know any specifics of the Master Plan. But just because you don’t know how to play the game does not mean you can’t sit on the sidelines and cheer.
Herman was obsessed with timing. With his mathematically inclined Chess Master brain, he had calculated the time everyone would need tomorrow night, down to the second. It was especially important that Stumpy’s timing for opening the water tank plug was accurate, and after observing her open a series of black walnuts, Herman had calculated that she would need four seconds to do it.
But the children—Top, Bottom, and Sparrow—they were the wild cards. Children are always hard to calculate to the second, no matter what they’re doing. That is because they are creative and therefore easily distracted. Just when a child seems to be settling in quite nicely with a set of crayons and a coloring book, he can suddenly jump up and start marching around and playing his tooty horn.
So Herman was very careful to teach the three young squirrels to focus. He told them he would never have won a single game of chess without it.
Top, Bottom, and Sparrow all admired Herman very much, and they wanted to do their job well for him. So they had practiced focus in Professor Albert’s kitchen sink, filling it up with water, dunking in the straws, and plugging them with chewing gum on both ends.
Herman had timed their efforts and calculated that the children could fill up and plug thirty straws per minute. Based on volume, proportion, and density of all the babies and the elderly in need of water enough to last one more month of drought, Herman’s final equation equaled a sum of four hundred straws. In thirteen minutes and twenty seconds three squirrel children should have four hundred straws plugged and ready to go. Herman rounded the time up to thirteen minutes and thirty seconds to allow for distractions.
With two hundred owls carrying a straw in each foot over a distance of 1.7 miles from the fire house to the park, and allowing time for distribution, the entire Master Plan would be accomplished in thirty-three minutes and seventeen seconds.
Herman explained this to his mother and four sisters to recheck accuracy.
They nodded in encouragement and applauded at the end.
Herman went to bed.
The team was ready.
11
If You Can Dream It . . . br />
Hello, this is the fire department.”
“There’s a mother possum! Hanging from a traffic light in the Town Square! And eight possum babies are hanging with her!”
“You say a possum, ma’am?”
“Not just any possum! A mama possum!”
Silence.
“We don’t usually do possums, ma’am.”
“Well, she’s about twenty feet up, and we’ve got cars honking and children crying for a fire fighter to come to the rescue. Why did you become a fire fighter, anyway, if you’re not going to rescue a possum family twenty feet up?”
Silence.
“Ring the bell, mister! Ring the bell! We’ve got a crisis here!”
“All right, ma’am. Ringing the bell, ma’am.”
The fire house bell rang loud and clear, and all the fire fighters in the fire house jumped on the ladder truck, and away they went.
Henrietta, so far, had done superbly. And her eight children, too.
While the fire fighters were heading for the Town Square, Robby the raccoon was lifting up an attic door inside the fire house, sliding down the fire house pole, and grabbing a biscuit off the dinner table on his way to the front door.
He lifted the latch and Conroy stepped in.
“Where’s the dog?” asked Conroy.
“In the office over there.” Robby pointed. “He’s sleeping.”
“Not for long,” said Conroy, grinning.
“Good luck!” said Robby on his way out.
Conroy walked across the fire house floor, into the office, and jumped on top of a file cabinet.
“Meow,” he said.
Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark!
“Want to play tag?” Conroy asked when the dalmatian stopped barking to take a breath. “I’m It!”
And Conroy leaped over the dog’s head and ran toward the open door. In nine seconds ( just as Herman had calculated) the dalmatian was out of the fire house and Conroy was up a tree.