Tiger by the Tail by Eric Walters Read Free Book Online

doubt it. She doesn’t seem to hear anything that anybody says to her,” I said under my breath.
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Do you really think we should go today?” I asked.
    “Definitely, but we shouldn’t go empty handed.”
    “What should we bring?” I asked.
    “Muffins. You bake some muffins and I’ll take care of other business,” Nick said.
    “Other business? What other business?”
    “Staying out of your way when you bake. I’ll be in the living room watching TV.”

Chapter 4
    “Come on, Sarah, just one,” Nick pleaded.
    “No. How many times do I have to tell you?”
    “You don’t have to tell me no. Just say yes.”
    “No way. I can’t give Mr. McCurdy eleven chocolate-chip muffins. I’ve got to give him an even dozen.”
    Nick and I had had this same conversation each of the last three mornings as we headed over to see Mr. McCurdy. When we got to his house we’d eat the muffins and talk for a while and then go off and spend time with the animals. Most of them were okay, except for the snake, which, thank God, had stayed out of sight. The tiger, Buddha, made me very nervous but he was fascinating and I loved to watch him … from outside the cage. Nick, of course, had to show how brave he was and had even fed Buddha some raw meat right out of his hand. I kept a safe distance. Mr. McCurdy had said a tiger could eat fifty kilograms of meat at one sitting and I weighed just under that. I didn’t like the thought that I could be a meal, and not even a complete meal.
    “What difference does it make? Five minutes after we walk in he’s going to offer me one,” Nick said.
    “Then no big deal. Just wait.”
    We walked along in silence, the only sound comingfrom the gravel crunching under our feet.
    “Sure smells good,” my brother mumbled.
    “Don’t you ever give up?” I said in exasperation.
    “Yes.”
    “When?”
    “When I get what I want. If you want me to stop then stuff a muffin in my mouth.”
    For a split second I thought it would be worth it.
    “How about if you bake blueberry muffins tomorrow,” Nick suggested. “They’re Mr. McCurdy’s favourite.”
    “They are? How do you know?”
    “I just know,” he answered.
    “Okay, I guess I can bake blueberry for tomorrow. Wait a second. Blueberry is
your
favourite,” I objected.
    “What a coincidence, eh?”
    “Nicholas, you …” I stopped mid-sentence. We’d come to Mr. McCurdy’s driveway. The wooden post that normally held his mailbox was leaning off to one side and was smashed off at the top. Looking down, I saw the yellow mailbox, with its faded red letters that read “McCurdy,” in the ditch.
    “How did that happen?” Nicholas asked. “It was fine when we left yesterday, wasn’t it?”
    “I didn’t notice.”
    We walked up the driveway. It was mostly dirt with a few stray pieces of gravel, two deeply rutted tracks and weeds growing along the centre. The ruts were filled withwater, left over from yesterday’s storm. It had rained the last few days. It seemed like it was always raining since we moved here. Looking down I saw some footprints in the mud, leading away from the house toward the road. I realized they were made by me and Nick yesterday when we were leaving.
    “This would be a pretty bumpy ride in a car,” I noted.
    “It would be really neat on a dirt bike, I bet,” Nick responded.
    The mud was still soft and we sank into it a little as we walked. I was grateful I’d worn my hightops today. I tried to walk around the puddles and avoid the worst patches of mud. I put my foot down into one of the tracks we’d made the other day and found that by walking in our old footprints I didn’t sink quite as deep. I moved along to the next footprint and then the next, my eyes trained on the ground. Nick had moved ahead of me. He wasn’t concerned about where he walked and happily stomped through the mud and water.
    I stopped short and stared at the ground. “Nick, what’s this?”
    He turned around.