The Gray House

“Ah. You mean you took all you could. Was there anything left at all?”

Stinker sighed.

“Nightstands. And beds, too.”

He stared at the floor with a guilty look on his face. Grasshopper and Humpback laughed.

“I see,” Wolf said. “So in the morning they’re going to come for the trunk.”

“No, they won’t,” Stinker said firmly. “They wouldn’t dare. I warned them that I’d move right back if they tried.”

Humpback slipped on the bear trap and landed in the salad bowl. Grasshopper doubled over on the bed.

“Hey! Hey,” Wolf said. “I’m not allowed to laugh like that!”

Then all was hysterics and moans. Even Blind was laughing. Stinker squeaked loudest of all.

“Move right back! Blackmailer! Former roommate!”

“You haven’t seen all of it!” Stinker yelled. “There’s still a lot left!”

They yelped, shaking the beds with their laughter.

Suddenly Wolf straightened up and said, “Shhh! Hear that?”

They stopped and listened to silence. The silence of Stuffage listening intently to them laughing.

Stinker couldn’t play guitar, but he could play the harmonica. He knew nineteen songs, happy as well as sad, and he played them all. And the trunk did contain a lot more fun stuff. For example, a jumbled mass of wires in which Humpback managed to entangle himself.

“Security system,” Stinker explained. “With alarm.”

“Great,” Wolf said. “Certainly useful to have around. For us I’d say even indispensable. Let’s connect it.”

The door was soon crisscrossed by wires so thickly it was scary to look at. Then it turned out that the alarm didn’t work.

“No problem,” Stinker said. “Probably a break in the current somewhere. I’ll have a look later.”

Grasshopper took Stinker’s failures personally. But the security system was so far the only major setback. The trap definitely worked. They found out when Blind stepped in it. The juice maker worked too. They installed the coatrack in the corner, where it accepted the weight of two jackets and one backpack. Stinker was knocking himself out making a good impression. He didn’t miss any opportunity to show that he was capable of doing everything by himself, and to prove it, he would flop out of the wheelchair and crawl briskly around the room. He demonstrated his skills at climbing on the bed and back into the wheelchair, and even attempted to scale the windowsill, but crashed down halfway. He rubbed the mark on his chin, and his eyes looking at Grasshopper seemed to say: Can you see how hard I’m trying?

Wolf went to his bed with the guitar and tried to play it, without much success. Beauty sat mesmerized before the juice maker, regarding his own reflection in its shiny sides. Blind was listening to Stuffage, sitting by the wall with his injured leg held aloft.

When Stinker finally wheeled off to the bathroom, assuring everybody and everything that he needed absolutely no help with “things like that,” Humpback said to Wolf, “This Stinker is not a bad guy at all. Why is everyone picking on him? They all say there’s no one nastier in the whole House. And he’s really nice.”

“Yeah,” Wolf said, “he’s fine. A cute little baby who’s a bit into blackmail. Caught Blind in a trap, fell down from the window, and by a complete coincidence gobbled four of our hot dogs.”

“He was hungry,” Grasshopper interjected. “He didn’t go to lunch.”

“I didn’t either,” Wolf sighed. “On the other hand, if no one comes here to claim this guitar by tomorrow, I’ll personally feed him two more lunches.”

Grasshopper exhaled. It’s lucky that Stinker thought of grabbing that guitar, he thought. And it will be lucky if they don’t come for it.

“I wish I had an orange,” said Beauty plaintively. “Or a lemon. Something squeezable.”

He gingerly touched the switch on the juicer and jerked his hand back. He was very afraid of breaking it. Everything he touched broke, for some reason.

“Sportsman is having a fight with Siamese,” Blind said. “They stole his magazine with the naked ladies.”

“That’s sad,” Wolf said. “The moral fiber of that boy leaves much to be desired. You are a regular listening device, Blind. Do they know about Stinker yet?”

Blind shook his hair.

“No. But they did hear the harmonica.”

Stinker came back. He parked by the door and started fiddling with the wires, whistling a tune softly.

“Where can I get an orange?” Beauty asked. “Anybody?”

“Where can I get a guitar tutorial?” Wolf said. “You guys think Elk might have one?”

The piercing wail of the alarm shook them all badly. Beauty pressed his hands against his ears. The alarm raged on for two minutes, then silence returned.

“It’s working,” Stinker said happily, staring with his shameless round eyes.

Leaving for breakfast the next morning, they left the security system armed and also installed the disguised trap by the door.

“Maybe we’ll find someone in it when we get back,” Humpback said.