Page 44 of The Bad Weather Friend

“I don’t mean to be pushy. Tell me if I’m being pushy.”

“I will. I’ll tell you.”

“Well, it would be nice to have my own room in your house. It doesn’t have to be a big room. A modest space. Just a bed to lie on. A chair to sit in. A footstool would be appreciated. I’d like to have a shower. I find showers relaxing. But I don’t need a toilet.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t fret,” Spike said and patted him on the shoulder. “If you made an indelicate noise, I didn’t hear it.”

“I mean—why no toilet?”

“The internal plumbing of a craggle is different from yours. I never evacuate from bowels or bladder. I don’t have either.”

“But you eat like a horse.”

“And I metabolize a hundred percent of every molecule with no waste products. Neither do I sweat or produce mucous or belch or shed skin cells into the environment. I do not mean to be bragging, but I’m a neat individual.”

“May I say?” Harper asked.

As the light changed to green, Spike wheeled the Explorer onto Newport Coast Drive. “Of course, little lady. What is it you want to say?”

“I helped Benny clean up the kitchen. It’s unkind of me to put it this way, but do you always eat like a pig?”

Accelerating up a long hill, Spike sounded mortified by the memory of the mess he had left. “I’m ashamed. Genuinely, truly humiliated. I assure you, it will never happen again.”

“Why did it happen the first time?” Benny wondered.

“Well, see, I was crated and in transit for five days. I was hungry, famished. And when I’m cooped up like that, with no chance to stretch my legs and feel the sun on my face, I go a little nuts.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Harper said.

“Thank you for understanding. And it was all much worse because Talmadge sent me off knowing he would die within days. I wanted to be there with him when he passed, but he insisted I be shipped off to you while he was still well enough to make the arrangements. And then, while I had every confidence that I would like you, Benny, one never knows. Over the centuries, I have provided my services to some I did not like all that much. They were nice. Some of them were even nicer than you. But they were not wise. Nice and wise are different things. It is frustrating to serve someone who is nice but a fool, who wouldn’t recognize a nefarious person if said nefarious person was robbing an old lady at gunpoint on the steps of a church. None of this excuses my going a little nuts and leaving that mess, but perhaps you will consider that there were mitigating circumstances.”

As Spike turned left onto Pelican Hill Drive North, Benny said, “After all that you’ve done for me—or are trying to do—I’d be an ingrate if I kept you in a box in the garage. My house has four bedrooms, each with a bath. One of them can be yours.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Benny. I will never forget this. Craggles are incapable of forgetting anything, but even if I weren’t a craggle, I’d never forget your kindness in this matter. We can remove the toilet from my bath.”

“Why would we do that?”

Spike appeared puzzled. “You did understand what I said about never needing to potty?”

“Yes, I did. Nevertheless, we’ll keep the toilet for when I sell the place someday.”

Pounding the steering wheel enthusiastically with one huge hand, Spike said, “Keep it for resale! That is wise! So wise!”

“I’m going to have to start taking notes,” Harper said. “I’m not a craggle, and I don’t want to forget any of this.”

“When we’re finished with this evil attorney,” Spike said, “maybe we can discuss a couple other issues.”

“What issues?” Benny asked.

“Like maybe having a regularly scheduled boys’ night out.”

“Actually, I saw that coming.”

“A movie now and then. Bowling. Or an afternoon of golf.”

“Only if it’s a fair competition. I never want to think you’re letting me win. If I lose every time, that’s all right, as long as I know that if and when I do win, it’s all my doing.”

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