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“It may be, George,” said the woman. “But
he
is
mentally sound. If he said he saw—what was it he said again?”

“‘Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane.' Whatever that means.”

“Why, George, it's from Shakespeare. And you know how Archie loves to quote from Shakespeare.”

I heard Hamlet gasp. “Archie,” he said weakly.

“That's just it,” said the man named George. “He loves to quote from Shakespeare. That doesn't mean we have to drop everything and run out here just because he saw a bunch of trees move. He was probably daydreaming about the good old days and—”

The woman placed her hand on the man's arm and he stopped speaking. She pointed in our direction. I gulped and swallowed a little sawdust in the process.

“Look,” she said. “Over the roof of the blue Honda. What in the world are those branches doing there?”

The sawdust was tickling my throat. Hamlet,
meanwhile, was starting to quiver with excitement from hearing Archie's name. Between the two of us, Birnam Wood was getting a little shaky.

“Good heavens!” the woman cried. “They
are
moving. What is going on?”

The man shook his head. “I don't have a clue,” he said. “But there's one way to find out.”

With no more warning than that, the two of them moved briskly in our direction. Chester spat out his branch seconds before I sneezed and lost a grip on mine. “Run for it!” he squealed.

“The door!” Felony cried. “They left the door open!”

We ran out from behind the parked cars and scrambled toward the open door before George and Helen knew what was happening.

“Animals!” Helen cried.

“Stop them!” George shouted.

Several residents of the nursing home had gathered on the other side of the open door and instead of stopping us were cheering us on.

“Look,” said a woman with blue cotton candy hair, “there's a cat that looks just like my Boopsie.”

Felony looked up in alarm. “Boopsie?” she said. “No way do I look like a Boopsie!”

“Boopsie! Here, Boopsie!” the woman called out after us. We raced madly down a hallway and through a door into the room with the open window. Hamlet had the lead; so it was that we all collided with him when he came to a sudden, jarring stop.

“Archie!” he woofed.

Sitting at a table in a tattered bathrobe and faded pajamas sat an old man with a face full of whiskers and eyes full of tears. “Hamlet,” he said, opening his arms.

Hamlet limped to him and laid his head on the old man's knee.

Just then, Helen and George charged into the room.

“Good heavens!” cried Helen when she saw us. “Where did all these animals come from?”

“Out!” George yelled, waving his hands in the air. “Go home! All of you, go home!”

The woman with cotton-candy hair appeared in the doorway behind them, making clucking noises with her tongue. “Here, Boopsie!” she said. She picked up a piece of bacon from one of the tables and held it out in front of her. “Nice kitty, here, girl.”

Felony looked at the rest of us and licked her lips. “Hey, if she wants to call me Boopsie, who'm I to stand in the way of makin' a little ol' blue-haired lady happy?”

Or in the way of a free breakfast, for that matter.

“Oh, no, we can't have that,” said Helen as Felony (also known as Boopsie) purringly accepted the bacon from the old woman's hand.

The old woman looked up and said, “But they're hungry, Helen.” With that, one plate after another found its way from table to floor and we were all treated to a delicious breakfast garnished with pats on the head—even The
Weasel, whom one woman said reminded her of the collar of her favorite coat.

Helen and George tried to stop it, but it was no use. The old people were so happy to have us there that the two officials finally threw up their hands and went off to do something official elsewhere.

Hamlet was the only one of us who didn't eat. He was too busy just being with Archie.

“I'm sorry, old boy,” Archie said. “I just couldn't bear to tell you the truth. All our travels together, all the thick and thin times, how could I tell you I was leaving you behind for good? Danged nursing home, I don't see what they've got against animals anyway. But this is the only place I could afford, boy. I know, I know, I always said I was rich. And I was. Rich in spirit. But let me confide in you a little secret, dear friend. I've lost my spirit. I'm poor in every sense of the word now, Hamlet. I'm alone. And that's the worst kind of poor there is.”

Hamlet cocked his head and whimpered.
Archie seemed to know right away what he was saying. “Willie? Oh, Willie and I haven't had a good talk in months. Oh, sure, sure, he's here, but we just don't have anything to talk about anymore.”

Hamlet whimpered again.

“You want me to get him?” Archie asked.

Hamlet woofed.

“Really? You want to see Willie?”

The Great Dane panted and woofed some more as Archie's face seemed to grow younger by the minute.

The residents of the nursing home were getting quite a kick out of this exchange.

“Who's this Willie you're talking about?” asked the blue-haired lady, holding—much to my surprise—a purring Felony on her lap. “I don't remember knowing anybody here named Willie.”

“You're not talking about William, are you, Archie?” asked a man with thick glasses and an even thicker mustache.

Archie shook his head. “William is a big
fellow,” he said. “No, no, I'm talking about Little Willie. Why, it's no wonder you've missed him. He's only three feet tall.”

I looked at Chester, who had sidled up next to me. “I think,” he commented, “we may have reunited Hamlet with a nut case.”

But it was a different kind of case that entered the room moments later—a large suitcase on wheels that was covered with stickers and pulled with considerable effort by Archibald Fenster, the great Shakespearean actor.

Helen and George came in a step behind him to inform us that “someone” was on the way to “see to” the animals. I love hearing things like that. It makes meals sit so easily on the tummy. But they didn't rush out of the room. This time they stayed and, like the rest of us, gathered around Archie to find out what a traveling case on wheels had to do with the mysterious Willie.

“Let . . . me . . . out . . . of. . . here!” a tiny, tinny voice demanded.

It sounded enough like Rosebud to make
every hair on my body stand up and salute.

“Are you going to behave?” Archie said to the box.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the voice. “Come on, Arch, I been in here for three months. Give me some air, huh?”

Archie looked around the room. Seeing that everyone's eyes were glued to the case on the floor, he bent down and undid the locks.

“Well, it's about
time!
The voice grew louder as the top opened.

Archie reached in and lifted out . . .

“A dummy!” said Helen, peering over Archie's shoulder. “Why, Archie, you never told us you were a ventriloquist.”

“What's a ventriloquist?” Howie asked Chester.

“Ventriloquists,” Chester explained, “are people who talk without moving their lips and make it seem as if someone else is doing the talking.”

“Like Hamlet and Rosebud,” I added.

Hamlet glanced in my direction and nodded bashfully.

“Say, Arch,” Willie said. The dummy was now seated on Archie's knee.

“Yeah, Willie?”

“Looks to me like you're losing your hair.”

“It's true, Willie. I just don't know what to do about it.”

“Yeah, that's a tough decision.”

“Tough decision? What do you mean?”

“Toupee or not toupee.”

We all laughed. And our laughter encouraged them to go on performing. Archie, I later learned, wasn't really a Shakespearean actor; he just called himself that as part of his act.

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?”

“Romeo and Juliet”
Chester whispered to me.

“That's no light, Arch,” Willie cracked. “That's the sun reflecting off the top o' your head!”

These guys were funny. More than funny,
they were good. I guess I should say that Archie was good, since he was doing everything. I had to keep reminding myself that Willie wasn't real.

After an hour or so of watching them perform, I could see that Hamlet had had a good teacher. No wonder he'd had us all convinced those bones could talk.

Just when they were finishing up—“Say goodbye, Willie.” “Goodbye, Willie.”—I noticed Dr. Greenbriar and Jill standing in the doorway, laughing along with the rest of us. Archie noticed them too. His smiling face grew grim when he saw the words C
HATEAU
Bow-Wow on Jill's T-shirt.

Putting Willie aside, he stood slowly and said, with quiet dignity, “I suppose you have to take them now.”

Dr. Greenbriar nodded. “I'm sorry,” he said.

Felony jumped off the lap of the blue-haired lady. “Goodbye, Boopsie,” the lady called out sadly.

Another woman removed The Weasel from where she had him wrapped around her neck. “You brought back some happy memories,” she told him. “My husband gave me that coat the first year we were married. I wore it to the opera and to the theater. Oh, my, the places we went.” She stopped speaking and stroked The Weasel lovingly. And then she let him go.

One by one, we made our way amid gentle touches and soft goodbyes to the door. Only Hamlet remained at his master's side. Archie looked down at him.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” he said.

Hamlet moaned.

“We've got to do something,” Chester whispered to me. “We can't let Greenbriar take Hamlet. You know what it means.”

“But what can we do?” I asked.

Chester didn't have an answer right away. And as I watched Hamlet walk slowly toward us and saw Dr. Greenbriar turn to open the door, I couldn't help thinking it was too late.

And then I saw Chester's eyes light up and
I heard him say, “How hard can it be to talk without moving your lips?”

He rushed around whispering his plan in all our ears. And a moment later, just as we were about to leave the room for good, the residents of the Sunnydale Nursing Home had a paranormal experience.

The air was suddenly filled with mewing and whimpering and barking. And it couldn't have been us, because our mouths weren't moving at all.

The old people looked around the room, as if it were suddenly flooded with memories.

“Boopsie?” the blue-haired lady said softly. “Is that you?”

The man with the glasses and mustache looked around him. “Sparky? Are you there, boy?”

“Dusty?”

“Whitey?”

“Is that you, Marco?”

“Here, Duke.”

“Come on, Lady.”

And as the room filled with names, Dr. Greenbriar turned to Helen and George and said, “Rules were made to be broken. Don't you think Sunnydale needs a pet?”