Samir chuckled nervously. “You’re not going to keep that rodent in your bedroom for another two hours.” He paused, realizing that was exactly the kind of thing Pinky might do. “Are you?”
“She’s not a rodent,” Pinky said, tucking the blanket in around the opossum. “She’s a marsupial, like the koala or the kangaroo. In fact, the possum is North America’s only marsupial, even keeping their babies in their pouches, much like the kangaroo of Australia.” She glanced at him. “I read up on them today.”
“Uh-huh.” Samir ran a hand through his hair, shifting his weight on his feet. “But you do realize this is ridiculous, right? I mean, you can’t have an actual wild animal in your room for an indefinite period of time. It’s dangerous. And unhygienic. Why don’t you call some kind of nature preserve or something?”
Pinky leveled a Look at him. “We’re hours from the closest big city with resources like that. Where do you imagine this magical nature preserve exists? In a cloud kingdom on the highest treetop?”
“I don’t know! Can’t you schedule, like, a pickup?”
Pinky laughed. “What, like pizza? Come get your possum takeout!” More seriously, she added, “Look, I’ll drop her off at a wildlife refuge on the way out from Ellingsworth. I already Googled it and emailed to tell them I’d be coming. I just need to make it another month without my parents finding out.”
Samir set the towels on her dresser. “Mm-hmm. Hey, pretty out-there idea, but try to stay with me: You could just return the wild animal… to the wild. Where you found it.”
“She’s prone to fake dying.” Pinky pointed at the weirdly still creature and stared at him. “She’d be a magnet for predators. How heartless are you? This is a baby.”
“A wild, possibly infectious, dangerous baby.” Samir paused and then frowned. “That might be the weirdest phrase I’ve ever said.”
“No one’s asking you to do anything,” Pinky said, standing. “I just need you to keep your mouth shut about this around my parents and Dolly’s. Okay? Jeez.” She began to stride out of the room.
“Wait,” Samir said, tossing a panicked glance at the unconscious, green-goo-exuding rodent. Um, marsupial. “Where are you going?”
“To get her some fruit for when she wakes up. Just keep her company, will ya?” Shaking her head, she walked off in a halo of purple-green-pink-blue hair.
Samir stood staring at the opossum for a minute, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Finally exhaling, he went to sit in the armchair across from it. “This is bizarre,” he muttered. “This is so freaking bizarre, Sam. You could’ve been in DC right now. You could’ve been at a kickass internship. But no, you had to hop on a plane so you could come babysit this freaky-looking kangaroo in the butt crack of Cape Cod.”
The opossum’s nose twitched. Samir watched, frozen, as its nose twitched again, and then slowly, it sat up. Its mouth was still open in that gross grimace that had looked like a death rictus. The creature looked around, its breathing normal now.
“You are such a total weirdo,” Samir breathed, watching as it explored the confines of its box as if nothing at all untoward had happened. “Kind of a perfect fit for Pinky, come to think of it.”
Pinky walked back in, a plate of cut apples in her hands. “Oh my God,” she said softly, her eyes going wide. Her smile shone on her face, and Samir wondered how often the world got to see that. He guessed not very often at all. “She’s awake.” She approached the opossum’s box carefully and placed the apples in. The creature began to eat at a frenzied pace. “Hungry,” Pinky crooned. “Are you a hungry girl?”
Samir snorted, a move that earned him a glare.
“What?” Pinky asked.
“Nothing. It’s just… pretty weird to see you being all maternal.”
“I am a very maternal, loving person,” Pinky countered. “When it comes to animals.”
“Ah.” Samir bit the inside of his lip. “Good to know.”
“Okay, what we need to do now is take her outside for a walk,” Pinky said thoughtfully. “But we still need to keep her contained somehow so she doesn’t run away and end up eaten by something bigger than her.”
Samir tried not to gag at the image of something finding this rat-tailed thing delicious.
“Hold on,” Pinky said, oblivious to the workings of his mind, workings that she probably wouldn’t be sympathetic to. She walked over to the desk in the corner and rummaged in a drawer. A minute later, she pulled out what looked like a large purple belt. “Aha. I knew I had this somewhere.”
“What is that?”
“It’s Lucifer’s halter.”
Samir stared at her blankly. “Are you surprised that I have no idea what you’re talking about?”
“My cat, Lucifer,” she clarified. “He died when I was ten, but I used to take him out for walks in this halter. It’s a little worse for wear, but it should be fine.…” Pinky fiddled with the buckles for a moment. “Oh, shoot. The one that goes around her tummy is broken.”
“You could just not use a leash on the rodent,” Samir suggested.
“She’s a mar—”
“Marsupial, yeah, I got you.” Samir walked over to her. “Let me see it.” She handed it over and he looked at it, turning it this way and that. “Hmm. What if we…?” Samir jerry-rigged the straps with complicated-looking knots. “There. That should hold.”
“Wow.” Pinky took it from him and buckled and unbuckled the halter, looking genuinely impressed. “Thanks.” She grinned. “Did you learn that at Boy Scouts or something?”
Samir raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, actually. Is that funny for some reason?”
“Um, nope,” Pinky said, but she was biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “Not at all.”
Annoying little renegade freak. What was wrong with the Boy Scouts? “Anyway.” Samir turned to face the opossum. “So you’re just going to slip the harness on her and, what? Stroll out the front door?”
“You think so little of me.” Pinky walked over to her closet and pulled out a large canvas tote bag. Grinning toothily at Samir, she reached for the opossum.
* * *
“Wow, I did not think that was going to work,” Samir said once they were outside, in the wooded glen past the lake house property line. The sun’s heat wasn’t nearly as oppressive in the shade of the trees, but he still felt like he was covered in wet, hot towels. They walked through a buzzing cloud of gnats and he closed his eyes and held his breath so he wouldn’t accidentally inhale one. Or twelve. Once they were out of the danger zone, he said, “She just held so still in that bag.”
“She did,” Pinky said, gazing fondly at the opossum, which was now happily sniffing around the grass, wearing its ridiculous purple halter. “I half thought she was playing dead again, but no. I guess she just sensed that I needed her to be quiet.”
“Your parents and uncle and aunt were pretty enthralled by Dolly’s reenactment of her class-president campaign though, to be honest. That made it easy.”