Mr. and Mrs. Bunny—Detectives Extraordinaire! (4 page)

“Cool, man,” said Flo, going up to greet them and pulling gently at one of the foxes' fur. “Where'd you get the duds, man?”

“OUCH!” screamed the fox. “Poobah, make him stop.”

“Now, now, be nice. We come in peace. Ahem! Ladies and gentlemen,” began the Grand Poobah, for this was how he had heard humans address each other on TV. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are in need of assistance. You see, we are opening a factory soon. Fanny Fox's Canned Rabbit Products and By-products. Fanny Fox, perhaps the greatest chef of all time, finally gave consent for us to mass-produce all her rabbit recipes. We have here her full collection on handy-dandy file
cards.” He pointed to the box he was carrying. “Unfortunately, last night Fanny died.”

“Tough break, dude, but at least you've got the recipes,” said Flo. He turned to Mildred. “Man,
what
was in those cheese straws? These can't be people dressed in fox costumes. Unless they're, like, little people.”

“Tough break indeed,” said the Grand Poobah, ignoring Flo's last comment. “Fanny loved the idea of becoming famous. She was so proud of having the factory named after her that she had recipe cards and stationery engraved with the factory name and logo at the top. And because she planned to sell to you hoomans, she had the factory name done in English as well as Fox. Very considerate, we foxes are.”

“Maybe,” said Flo. “But what the heck is a hooman?”

“She had the logo tattooed on her paws,” piped up one of the bodyguards. “She was, like, nuts when it came to that logo.”

“Speak when you are spoken to, Filbert,” said the Grand Poobah. “And try not to adopt the hooman's verbal tics. Flo, a hooman is you, man, mwa-haha!”

“I didn't know that foxes were, like, so commercial,” said Flo.

“Foxes are titans of industry. Have you never heard of Fox
Studios? Fox Television? You didn't think it was owned by hoomans, did you? I myself could have been a movie star. As you see, I have the exceedingly good looks and overweening ego, but, alas, someone had to stay and take care of the den.”

The Grand Poobah stopped and batted his long eyelashes. Then he realized they couldn't be seen behind his sunglasses, so he took them off and batted his eyelashes again, first at Flo and then at Mildred. They continued to stare blankly.

“But back to matters at hand,” the Grand Poobah said, clearing his throat and putting his sunglasses back on. “We have the recipes, true, but we can't
read
the recipes. Fanny was always terrified that someone from a rival firm would steal them, so she wrote them all in code.”

He opened the box and took out one of the file cards to show Flo and Mildred. On the top was engraved
FANNY FOX'S CANNED RABBIT PRODUCTS AND BY-PRODUCTS FACTORY
. There was a logo of a fox trying to cram a protesting rabbit into a pressure cooker.

Mildred flinched. “I'm a vegan myself,” she said.

“Of course you are,” said the Grand Poobah. “And your IQ is well under one hundred. Don't worry, we know all about hoomans. We've been studying your sitcoms. And we know all
about the vegans. Interesting choice. Vegetables and grasses. Foxes, of course, prefer
meat
.”

He smiled at them. It was a cruel smile that made the most of his prominent canines. The thought of meat had caused a little line of drool to escape his mouth and make its way down his chin. Mildred flinched again.

“Did someone say something about, uh, grasses?” asked Flo, whose attention had flagged. “I'm not a vegan. Anyone want a cheese straw? The milk is locally sourced.”

Mildred studied the card some more. Underneath the factory name and logo were a series of wiggles and swirls. She passed the card to Flo.

“What's that, like, Fox alphabet?” asked Flo.

“Fox alphabet?”
barked the Grand Poobah, and then recovered himself. “No, my dear sir, that is
code
. Unbreakable code, so it seems. That is why we have come to you. I have a cousin who lives in the woods by Ottawa who keeps track of government goings-on. It is, as I'm sure you can understand, important for our species to keep tabs on your species to see what little nasty thing you're going to be up to next. He found out some interesting items. One is that there are several decoder scientists sprinkled around Canada.”

“Ha! Runyon said he was the only one! Ha!” said Flo.

“No, babe, he said he was the
best
one,” said Mildred.

“Well, here is the salient point,” interrupted the Grand Poobah, who was really losing patience with them and also thinking their fingers would make tasty snack food. “He is the
closest
one. To have a decoder actually on Vancouver Island is enormously convenient. Foxes hate to travel.”

“The ferry was loathsome,” said one of the bodyguard foxes. “I thought I was like to die.”

“And we had to stay in the car the whole time with its blackened windows so as not to arouse suspicions,” said another fox. “I got seasick.”

“I had to use the bathroom,” said another.

“I wanted a chocolate bar. They have vending machines on the ferry and I could have snuck inside without anyone seeing me. Foxes are very stealthy and humans never notice anything anyway. They're way too busy with their cell phones and iPods, but
he
wouldn't let us.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up, all of you,” said the Grand Poobah. “Now, unfortunately, for all my Ottawa cousin's snooping, he couldn't obtain the decoder's
exact
address. That, apparently, is a secret. It is rumored this decoder is somewhere
in the Cowichan Valley, where we are starting our factory.
Très coincidental, n'est-ce pas
? Our foxy Ottawa snoop
did
find out the address of the decoder's nearest relatives. That was no secret. And so, you see, here we are with you. And you, of course, will tell us where to find this relative of yours because we have been so friendly and haven't once munched on your digits, no matter how great the temptation.” Another line of drool escaped the Poobah's lips and began its trail down his furry chin.

“Love to help you out, man, but I can't remember the address. Can you, Mildred?” asked Flo, scratching his chest.

“Well, now, let me think,” said Mildred. “You know I'm not good with directions.”

The Grand Poobah put the card back in the file and snapped it shut.

“So that's the way it's going to be, is it?”

“What way?” asked Mildred.

“Is there a way?” asked Flo, who was having a hard time keeping up.

Neither one of them had the slightest idea what the Grand Poobah was talking about. They didn't think it was a
big deal to give Uncle Runyon's address to a bunch of foxes who needed recipes decoded. They were all for helping forest animals. They just couldn't remember where Uncle Runyon lived. Madeline always took care of details like that. And they were more than a little suspicious that they were hallucinating the whole thing anyway.

“Pretending you don't remember will get you nowhere. I'll give you one last chance to talk and then we will take you someplace where we can be, shall we say, more persuasive.”

“Talk about what?” asked Flo.

“Do you really think I believe you can't remember where your own relative lives?” said the Poobah, leaning in menacingly, his meat-eating breath hot on Mildred's kneecap.

“But I really
don't
remember,” said Mildred. Why didn't this fox believe her? People had accused her of many things before but never of insincerity. She found it very distressing. “Now, if you could wait until Madeline comes home …”

“Oh yes, the daughter. Give up your young like that, would you? I have a better idea—let's put a little leverage on the two of you
and
your daughter. Let's take you and leave her behind to stew. Let's see who cracks first.”

“Cracks what, man?” asked Flo.

“We'll just write your little Madeline a note, shall we?” said the Grand Poobah.

“Felix, blow the whistle.”

One of the trench-coated foxes took a large whistle out of his pocket and blew it. Immediately seventeen foxes popped out of the trunk of the car and surrounded Flo and Mildred. They were all flak-jacketed and carrying truncheons. Within seconds they had Flo and Mildred trussed up and gagged and placed in the trunk. Then the Grand Poobah whipped out a fountain pen and paper and wrote a note.

The Grand Poobah tacked the note to the fridge, where he knew all humans left notes of importance.

One of his guard foxes rushed in.

“Hurry, boss, Fidel has finally managed to get the car started, but it's close quarters and the guys are beginning to nip at each other!”

Fidel, the driver, had to wear stilts to work the pedals. It sometimes took an hour for him to get the thing running.

“Can none of you behave with any dignity?” asked the Grand Poobah, and then, walking out in a stately, grand and poobahly manner, tripped over his tail and spilled recipe cards everywhere.

“Pick those up, will you?” he said to Felix, and proceeded into the car as if nothing had happened.

Felix scurried about, picking up the cards, then ran with them to the car, which was starting to pull away. Foxes were very bad about waiting for each other. He just had time to leap in before it headed off to the ferry.

The Grand Poobah took the cards with silent dignity and replaced them in the box.

“Change the radio channel, we shall listen to cool jazz,” the Grand Poobah said.

“We want to hear easy listening!” whined the rest of the foxes.

It was just such things that made being Grand Poobah such a trial.

“Maybe we should ask the
hoomans
what they want to hear,” he joked.

Everyone laughed uproariously, but they laughed at all his jokes or even when they thought he
might
be joking.

I
am
a funny guy, he thought. Then the car sped down the driveway, swerving suddenly to avoid a girl just coming out of the woods.

“Stupid hoomans, always underfoot,” said the Grand Poobah as Fidel floored the gas pedal and the car sped on down the road.

“Hey!” shrieked Madeline, leaping out of the way. She had to sit down for a second to collect herself. This road was used so seldom, and certainly no one ever sped. She remained seated, panting for a moment. Who could that possibly have been? There appeared to be dozens of red eyes staring through
blackened windows, and a fox driving. Before she could puzzle this out, a group of people in Luminara costumes arrived.

“Hi, Madeline,” called another group who were standing on her front porch eating the cheese straws Mildred had left out. “Where's your folks?”

“I don't know,” said Madeline. “Aren't they here?”

“I don't see them.”

“Oh, they probably went over to Zanky's to help set up the marimbas.”

“Well, happy Luminara.”

Happy Luminara is right, thought Madeline, counting her money in the porch light. She had thirty-two dollars. She had shoes!

Madeline went inside to get a drink. Immediately she saw the note on the fridge and read it twice, frowning. Was this a joke? she wondered. No, it couldn't be a joke. It wasn't her parents' handwriting and no one else knew about Uncle Runyon. She sat down at the kitchen table to think.

She'd have to go to Uncle Runyon's.

Someone knocked on the door. She peeked out the window. It was the Zetmans from the harbor. She'd never be able to
think if people kept coming every three seconds to see the luminaries. Madeline tiptoed into the bathroom and waited until they gave up and left, and then she went outside and blew out all the candles quickly, before anyone else could arrive. Now there was only moonlight. She looked at her watch. It was late to be making the journey, but she had no choice. There was one hour before the last ferry. She decided she'd better be on it.

Madeline changed into her blue jeans, put the note and her money in her back pocket and was starting down her driveway when she saw what looked like another note lying on the ground. She picked it up. It was a file card. At the top it said FANNY FOX'S CANNED RABBIT PRODUCTS AND BY-PRODUCTS FACTORY with a picture of a rabbit being shoved into a pressure cooker. It was such a dreadful picture that she flinched. Who would draw such a thing? Underneath were a series of squiggles and whirls. It was impossible to tell if it had anything to do with the note on the fridge, but it was an odd thing to find in her driveway so she put it in her sweater pocket just in case. Then she ran.

Madeline took the last ferry off the island, which connected her to the last bus on Denman and the final last ferry,
to Vancouver Island. This got her into Comox in time to catch a bus to Duncan in the Cowichan Valley, where she got a cab. The cabdriver kept looking at her oddly. She guessed he wasn't used to driving little girls from bus stations in the middle of the night, but she had no time to worry about such things. He let her off at the bottom of Uncle Runyon's driveway. There goes my shoe money, she thought glumly as she paid him.

The driveway was lit by the remnants of a bonfire, its embers still smoking. Uncle Runyon's manservant, Jeeves, stood moodily in the background, watching the coals. It was his job to burn all the papers after they had been decoded. Uncle Runyon had told Madeline once that Jeeves loved bonfires. He would stand and watch until the last light left the last ember. Uncle Runyon was happy to provide him with this small pleasure. Jeeves knew nothing about what Uncle Runyon did for a living. He had no idea he was burning code. He thought Uncle Runyon was just another rich eccentric. Uncle Runyon encouraged this idea by giving Jeeves odd things to burn occasionally besides code: old shoes and throw pillows and bathroom mats. In fact, he kept the barn piled high with things to burn, including the daily files of decoded messages.