Paws for Alarm by Marian Babson Page B

out. I apologize deeply, Mrs Sandgate, but there was no alternative.’
    â€˜No alternative?’ Lania wasn’t going to accept a feeble excuse like that. If we’d had any decency, we would have driven past and killed ourselves.
    â€˜Arnold isn’t used to manual clutch —’ I said.
    â€œThe brake wouldn’t hold —’ Arnold began.
    â€˜ Damn your clutch! And your brake!’ Lania’s voice rose to a fishwife’s shriek. ‘What about my hedge?’
    The twins had dashed for the neutral zone under the portico and were busy pretending that they had never seen any of us before in their lives.
    â€˜We’ll get on to a garage right away,’ Arnold promised. ‘They’ll send a tow truck for the car. Once they’ve lifted it off, we can see what the damage is. It may not be as bad as it looks.’
    â€˜It looks better already,’ I said brightly. ‘Now that we’ve got our combined weight out of the car.’
    â€˜Sure it does, Babe.’ Arnold slid his arm around my waist and I clung to him limply, even though he was pretty limp himself. We propped each other up in the face of Lania’s awesome wrath. There was something inhuman about it. You’d think she’d be glad the hedge was there – it had quite possibly saved our lives.
    â€˜I’m sure the hedge can be fixed,’ I offered weakly.
    â€˜Sure, it can,’ Arnold echoed.
    â€˜You know nothing about it!’ Lania turned on her heel. ‘Nothing at all!’

Seven
    We spent the next few days lying very low. We all but crawled into a hole and pulled the top over us. I caught Arnold actually tiptoeing down the path on his way to the train one morning, hunched over and trying to lower his profile beneath the top of the ruined hedge.
    The car-hire people had not been exactly warm and supportive, either. They claimed that there had been nothing wrong with their car – until we got at it. They were in no hurry to let us have a replacement car and, anyway, we decided it would be better to stick to the car we knew. The garage promised to let us have it back by the end of the week with everything fixed. It would be safer to keep it – who knew what problems we might find with another car?
    Arnold had even promised to take a couple of days away from his research and drive us around some more. To that end, we were poring over maps at the breakfast table the day the car was due to be returned.
    â€˜They sure have some funny names in this country,’ Donald observed. ‘Lower Slaughter – isn’t that crazy?’
    â€˜No crazier than Medicine Hat,’ Arnold said. ‘Or how about the Susquehanna River?’
    â€˜Just the same –’ I was studying the map and weighed in on Donald’s side. ‘I’m glad we didn’t have to tell our friends we were spending the summer at Potter’s Bar – or Pratt’s Bottom.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ Arnold retorted swiftly. ‘We’d have been the butt of some pretty awful jokes.’
    We all groaned and hurled pieces of toast at him – the Harper accolade for a successful pun. (Even our friends in New Hampshire had gotten into the spirit of the thing and, during cocktail hour, joined us in bombarding him with olives, peanuts and lightweight snacks. Hostesses had been known to draw Arnold aside and implore, ‘Please, Arnold, no puns' unless you’re standing on the linoleum.’)
    Esmond took one horrified look at the flying crusts, abandoned his soggy corn flakes and disappeared through the cat flap.
    â€˜Oh, look –’ I protested. ‘Now we’ve frightened Esmond again.’
    â€˜Esmond is a scaredy-cat,’ Donna said severely.
    â€˜He’s no fun at all,’ Donald complained. ‘He’s afraid of everything. I don’t see why we couldn’t have brought good old Errol along with us.’
    â€˜I’ve explained