All the Presidents' Pets by Mo Rocca

Author:Mo Rocca
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781400097579
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2004-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

16

The Age of Jackass

The next morning I awoke in Helen’s bed. If Marlin Perkins and Jacqueline Susann had collaborated on a novel, I was living it. Stranger still, this was all happening without the popping of any pills. (Prevacid doesn’t count.)

The mattress was actually a futon, one of the only pieces of furniture from the twentieth century, and it was surprisingly comfortable. Helen had picked it up from Mike Deaver’s yard sale in 1985.

Helen had already gone. I sat up, wiped the sleep from my eyes, spat out some feathers, and looked for my glasses. I was nearly blind without them, so I wasn’t sure what was causing the rustling sound that came from high up in Helen’s bookshelves. I looked over and saw a short whitish figure atop a ladder busily filing away volumes. It looked like the great historian Arthur Schlesinger—if he had floppy ears.

“Excuse me, but who are you?” I said, clearing my throat and fumbling for my specs.

“Well, hello, my boy,” he said matter-of-factly, in a slightly British accent. “Your spectacles are on Madame’s nightstand.”

They were there, right next to a jar of paraffin emulsion, which Helen used to waterproof her feathers. (Helen specially ordered this beauty product from Crayola.) Once I got my glasses on, I could focus on the gentleman in the stacks.

Or should I say gentle dog? It was the beagle who’d spoken cryptically to me at Laurie’s book party, from inside the kennel. But now he was wearing a red bow tie and round, dark-rimmed glasses. He looked exactly like the character Mr. Peabody from my favorite Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon spin-off, Peabody’s Improbable History.

In fact it was Mr. Peabody!

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