“That’s what I just said. Neither of us wants to speculate.”
“All right, then. Good. We’re agreed.”
“But why do you think that is?”
He said, “I don’t do self-analysis.”
She watched him put the two bowls of water on the floor.
Immediately, Puzzle and Riddle went to the bowls, lowered their heads to the water, smelled it, and drank.
Cammy said, “I think the reason we don’t want to speculate about them is because most of the what-ifs we come up with are likely to be scary, one way or another.”
“There’s nothing scary about Puzzle and Riddle.”
“I didn’t say there was. I just said speculating about their origins is going to lead to some scary what-ifs.”
“Right now I just want to experience them,” Grady said. “If I think too much about what they might be, that’s going to color how I interpret their behavior.”
Watching the animals drink, Merlin seemed to strike a proud pose, as if they were good students to whom he had successfully imparted the right technique for drinking from a bowl.
“Anyway,” Cammy said, “you can’t know for sure there’s nothing scary about them.”
“There’s nothing scary about them,” he insisted.
“Not now, they’re as cute as Muppets now, but maybe later when the lights are off and you’re asleep, that’s when they reveal their true grotesque form.”
“You don’t really believe that’s a possibility.”
“No. It’s a what-if, but it’s a ridiculous what-if.”
“Anyway, they’re a lot cuter than Muppets,” he said. “Some Muppets creep me out. Nothing about these two creeps me out.”
“Muppets creep you out? Freud would find that interesting.”
“Not all Muppets creep me out. Just a few.”
“Surely not Kermit.”
“Of course not Kermit. But Big Bird’s a freak.”
“He’s a freak?”
“A total freak.”
As predictably steady, reliable, and self-contained as Grady might be, his conversation could take unpredictable deadpan turns. Cammy liked that. He was smart and amusing, but he was safe.
“Big Bird,” she said. “Is that why you don’t have a TV?”
“It’s one of the reasons.”
Riddle and then Puzzle finished drinking. They sat up on their haunches like a couple of giant prairie dogs, folded their hands on their bellies, and regarded Grady with expectation.
“Maybe they’re hungry,” Cammy suggested.
“They already ate three chicken breasts. And as far as I know, they ate the pan, too.”
“You don’t know these guys are the chicken thieves. There might be another factor—whoever went in your workshop, the garage, whoever switched on the lights.”
“See, this is why I make furniture.”
“What’s furniture got to do with it?”
“When I make furniture, I don’t have to think. My hands do all the thinking for me.”
“Even if Puzzle and Riddle did eat the chicken,” Cammy said, “maybe that’s the only thing they’ve had to eat all day. You don’t want to send them to bed hungry.”
“Because they might eat me alive in the middle of the night? Problem is, I don’t have any more chicken.”
“Give them some of Merlin’s kibble, see if they like it.”
“If I pour bowls of kibble for them, I’ll have to give Merlin some, and he’s already had all he should have for one day.”
“Merlin isn’t fat. You’d have to dole out kibble with a shovel to overfeed him. Give him a bowl, let him celebrate his new friends.”
“They do look like they expect something. Maybe you’re right, maybe they’re hungry.”
He kept forty pounds of Science Diet in the pantry—twenty pounds in a large aluminum can with an airtight lid, and an unopened twenty-pound backup bag. He put a large scoopful in Merlin’s food bowl and a smaller serving in each of two cereal bowls.
