It's not a bomb, is it?" Ezra Standish gazed down with suspicion at the somewhat
bulky package wrapped in plain brown paper and with his name carefully written
on the top. He had been ambushed on his way home by a call from the guards
to urgently come and pick up a package that had been left for him in the
reception of the federal building. Ezra frowned as he looked at the guards.
One of them was careful not to look him straight in the eye and the other
one ... the corners of his mouth were definitely twitching.
"No, sir," the almost smiling guard answered. "We had it x-rayed. It's a
- " the guard suddenly broke off. Damn it, if the man didn't seem to be laughing
at some internal joke. "-well, sir - I think you'd better see for yourself.
Better do it in here, with closed doors. Just in case-"
"In case of what?" Ezra said and then took a step back as the package made
a strange noise. "Dear Lord, it's alive!"
"Yes, sir." The guard's whole face seemed to be twitching now with barely
withheld glee.
It was clear to Ezra that they were waiting to see his reaction to whatever
was in that package. As he started to rip through the wrapping he felt almost
like a kid at Christmas time but without the anticipation of finding something
he wanted inside the package. Instead he felt nearly terrified as he thought
about what could be in there.
What if it was a puppy? Something his mother had bought for him, on a whim,
like most of his presents. Or what if it was a kitten? While he couldn't
exactly claim to be either a dog or a cat person he could see merits in both
animals. Dogs could be manipulated without much trouble, a trait he'd always
been partial to. Cats, on the other hand, had independent spirits, something
he admired. He hoped to God that it wasn't a reptile of some kind. Or a rat.
But the package was too large for it to be just a single rat. Could of course
be a rabbit.
He ripped away the packing tape that held the perforated cardboard flaps
together and looked down .... The small, black creature inside looked up
at him with startled eyes.
Ah - well - it was not what he had expected at all. It was a-
"It's a pig," the helpful guard said and couldn't contain his laughter any
longer. And indeed it was. A pig. A very small, jet-black pig with a white
spot on his or her left ear.
Up until that moment Ezra had been quite sure that he didn't know anyone
who could possibly send him a pig in a brown cardboard box. Apparently he
had been wrong because here it was.
"Oh, yeah," the other guard said suddenly. "Almost forgot. The lady who delivered
your package left you a letter too." He handed Ezra a white envelope.
|
Dearest Mr Ezra,
I hope you still remember me, I sure remember you.
Meeting you changed my life and I have now moved to the city.
Unfortunately my landlord won't let me keep Piglet
but she likes it here and I don't have the heart to send
her back to the ranch, I'm afraid my cousins will eat her.
So I thought of you. You were so kind to me, Mr Ezra,
and I can think of no one else I'd trust her with.
I know you will take good care of her,
you two were practically made for each other
and she will be a true friend to you if you let her.
She's smart too. She'll answer to Piglet or Princess or Precious,
you can use any one of those.
I'm going to miss her but I've always known
she belonged to someone special and now I know
that's you.
Sincerely,
Daisy May Stratfield
PS. She's house-trained so you don't need to worry about that
but she doesn't like to be left alone for very long. Just give her lots of
vegetables.
She also likes some beer once in a while.
|
Alcohol? Ezra raised an eyebrow. What on earth was he going to do with a
beer-guzzling swine at his disposal? At least it wasn't very big so it couldn't
very well drink a whole lot.
He could see that the two guards were still looking at him expectantly but
he certainly wasn't about to give them a second more of entertainment. Ezra's
best poker-face fell into place and he coolly said, "Thank you, I'll just
take my pig and go now," and he picked up the box with Piglet inside and
waited until one of the guards had opened the door so he could proceed to
get his car out of the garage. Anyone who came close enough to try and look
inside the box on the way down received a powerful glare until they took
a step back. His mother would have found his performance flawless and she
would have been so proud.
All the way home he tried to think on when he'd last met Daisy May. It was
all a bit hazy but he seemed to recall a case of mistaken identity a year
back that had caused he and Vin to be kidnapped and then taken to the Stratfield
farm where Daisy May had helped them escape from her three neanderthal cousins.
One of them had gone to jail, the smartest of the lot, which didn't say much.
The other two had gotten probation or something. He'd have to look up the
details later. Ezra decided that Daisy May had good reason to fear for Piglets
life and he felt somewhat obliged to help her out.
"Well, Piglet," he said as he opened the door and let the small pig into
his home. "I hope we'll get along for the duration of your stay, which I'm
sure will be very brief indeed. Daisy May mentioned that you might like beer.
I regret that I don't have any at home right now. Might I take it that we're
in agreement on the merits of imported beer? Good. But I do seem to recall
that my mother recently sent me a nice bottle of sweet wine, a rather expensive
Sauternes. That's a french wine, Piglet. You drink it with dessert but maybe
broccoli will do in your case. Would you like a glass of that? I've been
saving it for a festive occasion but for the life of me I can't think of
a more special event than you and me having dinner together, can you?"
He poured some of the wine in a small bowl and put it on the floor. Piglet
seemed to like it just fine. She also seemed to have at least four hollow
legs, judging by the copious amounts of food she made short work of. She
kept eating and eating while Ezra looked on in wonder and finished off the
last of the wine by himself. Piglet seemed to love broccoli and carrots but
wouldn't touch any of the salads. She went through his supply of crackers
like a mini tornado before zeroing in on the breakfast cereals. At least
she used the litter box he'd snatched up from the pet store on his way home.
It was nearly midnight before Piglet settled down for the night and Ezra
could finally start thinking about calling it a day. He'd tried the whole
evening to get in touch with Daisy May Stratfield but to no avail. Finally
he could take off his clothes and crawl into bed. He was asleep as soon as
his head hit the pillow.
And then he was awake again and it sounded like someone was drilling holes
in the wall near his head. Ezra glanced at the clock - he had to look twice
before the numbers came into focus and showed him that it was only 05.58.
Who could be working on restoring their apartment at this hour of the day?
He'd call the police on them - wait - he had a badge, didn't he? That ought
to impress the scoundrels who had interrupted his sleep.
The disturbance sounded again, but this time from somewhere near the foot
of his bed and he was finally awake enough to fully comprehend that it was
Piglet who was making all that noise.
"Good heavens, Piglet," Ezra complained as he pulled the covers back over
his head. "Will you quit making that racket? It's most unladylike."
How could a pig of barely 30 pounds and not even a foot long sound like she
was a big 200 pound hog? And how could he be expected to go back to sleep
now? Not as long as she was in the same room, that was for sure.
"Go away," he told her. "Come back later."
"Ow!" He whipped away the covers from his feet and looked down incredulously.
"Did you just bite me?" he asked, purely a rhetorical question. He could
see in her eyes that she was not the least bit sorry, either. You let your
feet hang over the rim of the bed and they were fair game.
"Now, listen, you ungrateful little swine. I gave you enough food last night
to know that there is absolutely no reason for you to nibble on my toes.
There are other, more polite ways, to get my attention. Now - shoo."
He waved impatiently at her and Piglet did look a bit chastised as she quickly
turned and trotted out of his room. Going back to sleep again turned out
to be impossible for Ezra and after tossing and turning for some minutes
he decided to just get started on the rest of the day and reluctantly stepped
into the shower to wake up properly under the cold spray.
Searching the kitchen cupboards for something to eat he thought for a brief
minute about making some crispy bacon and then he looked at Piglet and felt
very uncomfortable, almost as if he had just been contemplating cannibalism.
Instead he decided on a piece of plain toast and some coffee. It wasn't much
of a choice, there was hardly anything else left in the pantry.
"You're going to be the ruin of me, Piglet," Ezra muttered to himself. "You'll
eat me right out of this apartment, I just know it. I'll end up selling
everything for food and then where will we go?"
Piglet didn't say anything but then he hadn't expected an answer, seeing
how she was too busy eating the last of his stash of breakfast cereals.
"You probably expect me to start walking right now to save gas money or something
so I can buy you a snack," Ezra continued his tirade in his car while he
drove in to work with Piglet safely tucked away in a bag on the seat next
to him. "Or worse yet, to suffer the indignities of public transport every
day. Well, I definitely draw the line at selling this car, so don't get any
ideas. It was a gift from my mother and it's positively rude to get rid of
a gift without as much as-" He broke off when it suddenly occurred to him
that Piglet was a gift too. What the heck was he going to do with her?
Thanks to Piglet's early wake-up call Ezra was the first one to step into
the office that day. He felt a bit affronted by the startled look everyone
got when they saw him already at his desk when they dropped in. It wasn't
as if he'd never come in early before. It had happened before. At least he
was quite sure that it had, even though he couldn't quite recall exactly
when.
Chris did a double-take when he spotted all of his agents diligently working
at their desks. He looked at the clock on the wall and checked the time against
his own watch. Well, what do you know, it was actually five minutes to eight
and no one was missing. It was days like these that made it worthwhile to
be team-leader.
Chris cleared his throat and said, "If no one has any objections I'd like
to get this morning's meeting under way a bit earlier than expected since
we all seem to be here already."
"Sure Chris," Buck said and herded his colleagues into the conference room.
Ezra had no choice but to follow, even though he knew he probably shouldn't
leave Piglet alone.
Ezra squirmed in his seat as Chris droned on and on about the new forms they'd
have to fill in that was supposedly vital to some department statistics.
"Am I boring you?" Chris suddenly asked sharply and Ezra looked up to find
all eyes in the room on him.
"No, no, not at all," Ezra assured him.
"Then quit jumping around like you've got fleas in your pants and this'll
be finished so much sooner."
Ezra tried his best but now he felt even more inclined to squirm in his chair.
What if Piglet actually had fleas? He'd encountered fleas before and it hadn't
been pleasant. He wouldn't be surprised if she had spread them all over his
furniture and he'd have to call in an exterminator. The more he thought about
Piglet the more he was assailed by a growing feeling of urgency. Something
was wrong.
As soon as Chris signalled that the meeting was over he was out of his chair
and checking Piglet's bag that was hidden underneath his desk. It was as
he had feared. Piglet had wormed her way out of the bag and gone off into
unknown territory. He'd better find her before anyone else noticed her.
"Piglet," he called as loud as he could without drawing attention to himself
and dared a hasty look underneath Buck's desk.
"What'cha doing?" JD said behind his back and Ezra quickly straightened up,
narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the underside of the desk. "Just looking
for my stapler. It seems to be missing."
"What, you've given it a name?
"Of course not," Ezra said, irritated at being hindered in his quest.
"Then what was that I heard you say?"
"I merely swore, JD. What I said need not be repeated. It wasn't English."
"Really? What language was that then?"
"Pig Latin! Oh, never you mind!" Ezra huffed and went on his way.
For one terrifying second it struck him that she could have entered the elevator
and he fervently hoped that wasn't the case. Well, it was hardly as if she
could reach any of the buttons. He still thought that his best bet was that
she was still somewhere in the office. Ezra looked around to see if anyone
was near the Men's Room but it didn't look like it. He opened the door and
looked in, it seemed to be deserted.
"Piglet?" he asked as he bent down to look under the stalls.
"Ezra, you coming down with a cold or something?" Nathan spoke up behind
him and he quickly turned. Drat! It seemed like the whole world had no trouble
sneaking up on him today.
"Cold?" he said.
"Yeah, I thought I heard you sneeze."
"Oh- well." Ezra faked a cough. "Dust. Excuse me," he said and quickly walked
around Nathan and out of the room before there were more questions.
He re-entered the office that was buzzing with excited agents. Chris was
standing in the middle, trying to make sense out of what the rest of his
team was telling him.
"Someone's been going through my trash," Josiah said.
"Someone's taken a bite out of my danish," Buck complained.
"Someone's been leaving black hairs all over my files," JD said.
Buck looked annoyed, JD looked scared, Josiah looked mystified and Vin- well,
he just stood a little to the side and smiled.
"You got something to add, Vin?" Chris asked.
"Yeah, I think you'll find that the someone in question is sleeping underneath
the sink in the break room."
"Oh, Lord," Ezra sighed in relief. "Thank you, Vin."
Ezra quickly departed to recover his wayward pig. Piglet was indeed sleeping
on what looked to be an old, discarded towel in the cupboard underneath the
sink.
"I just can't take you anywhere, can I," Ezra chided her gently as he scooped
her up.
When he turned around again he found six men blocking his way, the first
and foremost being his boss who now looked at him inquiringly.
"Got something to tell us, Ezra?" Chris said. "I know I'd be very interested
to hear the story behind this."
"Yeah, when did you acquire a pig, Ezra?" Nathan asked.
"Acquire," Ezra said slowly, stalling for more time. "I didn't exactly acquire
it-"
"Maybe the pig acquired Ezra," Buck suggested. Ezra sent him an icy glare,
even though it was pretty much the truth.
"Is it legal?" Chris cut right to the chase.
"Perfectly legal," Ezra quickly said, even though he really didn't have a
clue. It was one of the many things he had yet to look into concerning Piglets
status.
"Is she going to be joining us everyday from now on?"
"No, of course not. But maybe a day or two... while I look for a sitter ...
or something."
Ezra proceeded to tell them a highly abbreviated version of the way he had
become Piglet's guardian. While he was talking Piglet went from one agent
to the next, looking for food or someone to scratch her back.
"She's awful cute," JD said. The look in his eyes made it clear that he had
already become smitten with the pig.
"Cute?" Ezra replied in disbelief. "She's a cantankerous behemoth!"
"Not much of a behemoth," Josiah managed to say without cracking a smile.
He scratched Piglet behind one ear. She seemed to like it. "She's kinda small
for that, wouldn't you say?"
"If she keeps eating the way she dined at my place yesterday then I can assure
you that she won't stay small and thin for very long."
"She's probably bored. Or stressed. They eat a lot then."
It was Vin that spoke and he said it ever so softly since Piglet was now
almost asleep in his arms as he slowly rubbed her belly.
"How did you do that?" Ezra looked on in amazement.
"Do what?"
"Get her to fall asleep like that?"
"Likes to have her tummy rubbed, they're much like humans. Social creatures.
Like to be touched. Had a pig for a while when I was a boy. Follered me around
like a dog, it did."
Piglet gave a contented little snuffling sound and burrowed closer into Vin's
embrace and Ezra felt a pang of something at the display. He wouldn't
call it jealousy - no, it wasn't that serious. What did he have to be jealous
about? Just because Piglet seemed to prefer Vin's company over his....
"Let me take her off your hands," Ezra said and lifted his pig out of Vin's
arms. Piglet didn't protest much at first but after a little while she started
squealing and squirming in his arms until he had to put her down on the floor.
She immediately trotted over to the bag and crawled back in.
"Well, Ezra," Chris said. "I think it's time we ask you about your intentions
towards that pig."
"My intentions? I don't have any intentions. I've only just gotten Piglet."
"Well, are you gonna keep her?"
"I don't know," Ezra sounded positively lost. "I mean - what would I do with
her?"
"She could become a law-enforcement pig," Buck offered only to encounter
the stares of the whole group of agents.
"No, I mean it," Buck stood his ground. "I've read about it. Think it was
some team in the New Jersey branch of the DEA that employed a pig. They have
very sensitive noses, like bloodhounds."
"Snouts," Josiah broke in and threw Buck completely off his track.
"What?"
"Snouts. A dog has a nose. A pig has a snout."
"Whatever." Buck shrugged. "They use pigs to look for Truffles and so on,
don't they? Well - don't they?" A round of non-committal grunts could
be heard. "There, you see. Problem solved."
"I think you just made the whole thing worse, Buck," Chris said.
"Now, that hurts." Buck actually looked a bit wounded. "If Piglet has a useful
talent then why not use it? I can think of tons of times when it would have
been useful to have someone with us that could sniff out the evidence."
"You're right about that," Chris acknowledged. "I'll start looking into it.
If it doesn't pan out she's always welcome to stay at the ranch."
"Thank you, but I couldn't possibly impose." Ezra looked quite determined.
"Piglet was given to me in trust and I have to honor that. Besides ... someone
needs to keep her in check. I can't very well unleash her on any poor
unsuspecting soul I come across. She'll eat them out of house and home. I'd
better keep her. At least while I search for a good home for her."
"He's fallen for her," Josiah stage whispered.
"Don't be ridiculous. I have not!" Ezra protested as he took his pig resolutely
under one arm and moved towards the elevator without looking back.
That same night he sat down on his bed, balancing his laptop on his knees,
and searched the internet for sites about pigs. He found some that offered
sound advice, but none of them made it any easier for him to decide what
he should do with Piglet. He would just have to think about it, long and
hard. Real long and real hard while Piglet stayed right where she was. In
his apartment.
There was one thing in this whole mess that he just couldn't understand at
all - no matter how much he thought on it. How could he have become so attached
to one small and irritating animal in less than a days time? He sighed as
Piglet came trotting into the bedroom. She made it quite clear to him that
she wanted his help in getting onto the bed.
Ezra found that he could hold out for exactly twenty seconds before giving
in to her persistent squeals and grunts.
"Oh, all right. But just for tonight," he cautioned her as he helped her
up.
"Have you ever seen Casablanca? No? Well, you should. It's a wonderful movie.
It's on tonight. We could watch it together. Let me just get the remote ...
ah, there it is. Would you like that?"
Piglet gave a happy little grunt and settled herself comfortably on Ezra's
bedspread. Ezra resigned himself to the fact that he had probably just lost
the right to sole inhabitance of his own bed forever. He gave Piglet a handful
of cornflakes and watched with slight irritation as she started to spread
crumbs all over his bed. Just as the movie started Piglet turned her head
and grinned at him and there was suddenly an unexpected warmth in his chest,
it felt almost like - affection.
"Piglet," he said. "I think that this could very well be the beginning of
a beautiful friendship."
The End
