Dad’s cousin Bob slipped a note under our front door while Ma was at her second job. He said he was feeding a mouse to Priscilla the boa constrictor in a terrarium he had built, and he invited me to come check it out. He had recently moved back to our town, and I thought it was sad that Ma wouldn’t let him come over. It was summer, my friends were away, and I was always on the couch watching Animal Planet.
I rode my bike over to Bob’s house and didn’t leave a note. I would be home before she got back from her last shift at the coffee shop. I yearned to see nature in action.
When I knocked on his door, he shouted, “I’m open for business!”
The air inside was damp and smelled of cheese. Bob greeted me with a weary smile. “Bingo-switcho! You’re a grown-up, girl!” he chirped. He looked like someone you would probably wave to from across the street, but maybe not stop to talk to.
“Sorry, it took a while, it’s raining,” I said, taking off my cycling jacket and wringing it out. I looked around the place, trying not to stare. His tables were moving boxes, the curtains were old bath sheets, and there was a deflated air mattress on the floor.
“No problemo,” he narrowed his eyes as if the sun were hurting them, and explained that Priscilla was hungry, and what he would be doing next was kind. Bob’s skin was doughy. I looked at the duct-taped casing of the terrarium. He probably found a broken one and patched it.
“Wow, that’s a pretty snake,” I said. She had brown and black saddle-shaped boxes on her body and a molasses-patterned tail.
“This is an unfortunate mouse,” Bob said, dumping the contents of a small box into the tank.
I stood in the reflection of the purple UV lamp as Priscilla lay motionless, unmoving, in a corner while the white mouse ran around frantically, then went quiet, as if she had a bad idea. It was like Animal Planet. Priscilla looked at the mouse with a bored look, then started to hug it. She seemed to be comforting it at first, and then the mouse went still, a tiny foot sticking up like a flag.
“Now that’s a successful wedding!” Bob laughed. There was an egg in my throat and I was struggling to breathe. He smiled at me, his eyebrows pinching together.
“You’re a sweet little dot, just like your mother,” he said. Ma told me never to drown in a stranger’s compliments, never to let them in. I remembered the exact wording. But I couldn’t hear her voice in my head.
Bob asked me to come closer for a moment, saying his eyesight was bad and he wanted to see how I had changed since I was a toddler. “It’s like when a polliwog starts growing legs,” he said, and I wished mine, in shorts, were covered.
He examined me as if he was considering buying me at a pet store. Up close, Bob didn’t look scary. He was old and a little yellow, like an old photograph no one wants to remember.
“I’m late for dinner,” I said, even though it was noon. He smiled as if he thought I was naturally funny.
“Are you coming back?” he asked. “It’s just me and Priscilla here, and we sure like company.”
“Of course,” I said. Maybe it was true. It was easy to lie. It was something Dad and I had in common. We were good at making careful exits. On my way out the door, I looked up at the ceiling. Rain splashed through the cracks.
