Smooth Criminal

I n the middle of the neatly organized closet is an open trap door that has a safe under it. It’s hanging open and there’s some sort of… thing digging in it. It’s making weird little noises as it does so and all I can do is gape like a wide mouthed trout as I watch.

That’s it… I’ve finally had an aneurysm from my damn disorder making my body act like a pressure cooker.

The creature senses me and looks up, tilting its head at me curiously. I stare back as my brain races to catalog the damn thing. It lets out an unearthly scream, and I yelp in response. That gets its attention and the weird, furry rodent thing drops to all fours, walking over to me. It has small ears and enormous eyes with a long tail like a cat, but this is not a cat or a weasel. I swear I’ve seen pictures of this before, but I’m so shocked that I can’t seem to grasp thoughts as they fly through my mind.

When it stops in front of me and sniffs, I stand as still as possible. I don’t know if this thing will get aggressive or not, but I’m not chancing it. It’s small, but I saw those sharp ass teeth it bared when it yelled at me. I drop to a squat, looking back at it as it studies me. We’re at an impasse and I have no idea if that’s good or bad. I mean, what the fuck is some escaped zoo animal doing in Allison’s closet and why did it seem to be rifling through her safe? None of this makes a damn bit of sense.

Did I knock my head somewhere, and this is all a fever dream?

Carefully, I reach for the papers strewn on the floor and look at what I find. This looks like birth documents and paperwork from when they adopted the twins. This stuff was flung aside, so it’s doubtful the animal was looking for those. I pause for a moment as reality hits me.

Am I actually saying this thing was looking through papers and knew what to cast aside? I have to be dreaming or in a coma.

The animal gets impatient, making a high-pitched squeaking sound as it looks at me. I wrinkle my nose and shrug. “Dude, I don’t even know what you are, much less what you’re looking for.” Its head jerks back to the safe and I frown. “Yeah, I get you were looking for something in there. I still don’t know what.”

Rising on its back legs, it sort of leaps over to the hole and stares at me, so I waddle my way over to the hole in the floor to look. It seems like there’s a lot of papers in folders and it’s all neatly stacked, along with small wooden boxes, cash, maybe some financial folders, and jewelry boxes. I point at the folders and the animal wraps its tail around my wrist, so I take that as a ‘yes.’ My eyes dart around the room quickly, then I lift the stack of folders out and place them on the ground.

As if it just knows , the damn thing picks one of the sealed folders and does a weird little dance.

I’m about to question it when I hear the garage door and my eyes widen in fear as I stand and race to the window in the main room. “Holy shit, they’re home!”

Allison and Brett’s car pulls into the driveway, followed by the twins, and I run back to the closet.

Everything is back where it belongs.

Most importantly, my furry little visitor is gone .

Covering my mouth with my hand to keep from yelling, I back out of the closet and shut the door. The sound of people entering the house adds to the urgency, so I high-tail it out of our parents’ room and back to mine. My heart is racing as I turn on the reading light and pull a book out of the bag I ditched earlier, propping myself on my bed as if I’ve been there the whole time. Hopefully, if they peek in before they go to their bedroom, I won’t look suspicious.

I’m not lying there for more than a minute when something falls from the ceiling, landing on me and making me curse in surprise.

The goddamned furry animal is sitting on my stomach, watching me with big eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss in a low tone. “Brett is allergic and I know they won’t let me keep a… a…”

I still don’t know what it is, so I wiggle my phone out of my pocket and take a picture. Within seconds, I’ve done a reverse image search, and the internet does its thing. Apparently, I’m being haunted by a mother fucking kinkajou . They’re not from around here, so either I was right about it escaping a zoo or someone wealthy is missing an exotic pet. It must be young, though, because the website seems to show a much bigger animal than the one perched on me. I have no idea what to do about it and I definitely know the fosters won’t let me keep it.

Again, my life is absolute clown shoes through no doing of my own.

“Look, dude. I don’t know where you came from, but you gotta go. They’ll lose their shit and that’s before they figure out you were rifling through their personal crap.” I frown, tilting my head. Exactly where did the folder go, anyway? “And you stole something, for fuck’s sake. The twins will make steaks out of you if they find out.”

Its eyes get even bigger and it skitters under the bed. Blinking, I lift my hand to my head and rub my temple. Today is a complete wash: no Discordia info, haven’t eaten, excluded from a party, homework untouched, and now I have a wild animal in my room. I don’t know how it could get any worse, honestly.

That’s when my door opens.

Allison pokes her head in with her typical fake bright smile. “Kat, you didn’t turn on all the lights. What happened?”

Of course, her first thought is to criticize me.

Neither of my foster parents are horrible people; they just didn’t get what they bargained for when they took me in. Allison would have preferred a sunny, cheerleading compliment to the boys she could hold up to the rest of her friends as a trophy and though I do well academically, that’s not important to their circle. Brett likely has to listen to her bitch about my antisocial tendencies and snarky wit, so he’s not pleased, either. It means they find fault when there really isn’t any and can’t wait for me to graduate, so I’m out of their lives. At least, that’s the feeling I get and even my therapist doesn’t convince me they're totally innocent. She emphasizes my responsibility to validate myself rather than seek it from others and skips to the things I need to do to let this shit go.

But right now, I have a secret and I need Allison to believe I’m contrite, so she’ll leave rather than stay to argue. So I paste on a rueful expression and dip my head. “I’m sorry. I stayed late at the library and when I got home, I was eager to finish my work. I haven’t eaten yet, either, but I’ll go grab a snack and make sure the kitchen is spotless when I’m done.”

That pacifies her and she nods. “Thank you. Aren’t you going to ask how your brothers’ celebration went?”

And the Universe tests my patience once more at the worst possible time.

Gritting my teeth to keep from shooting back a retort about how it would have been nice to witness this party, I give her a wide-eyed look of surprise. “Oh! I’m so sorry! How did it go? Did they have fun?”

Her smile gets bigger as she nods. “The Coach came! It was so exciting to see all the support the boys have from people in the community. Brett was so proud he almost burst and all my friends have been posting about it on social media. Your brothers are stars .”

The silence hangs as an implied ‘unlike you’ floats between us. But I don’t react; I nod with another grin. “They are. I’m so proud of them.”

“You should be, Kat. They’ve worked so hard to get to the top. Perhaps telling them at breakfast would be appropriate, don’t you think?”

I’d rather vomit acid into my hands, but I don’t have a choice now that she’s voiced it. “I will. What a brilliant suggestion.”

A small squeak makes my eyes widen and Allison frowns. “Was that a mouse? Oh, I’ll have to have Brett call an exterminator. Kat, you know food isn’t allowed upstairs.”

“No, no. My phone chirped; I know the sound. It was probably a study alarm. Don’t bother Dad; it’s nothing.” I reach for the phone and open it, pretending to click something off. “There we go. Sorry it startled you.”

“Okay. Make sure those aren’t set at night where they could wake people up. Your brothers need their rest for the big game this weekend.”

When I nod, Allison finally turns to go, shutting the door behind her. I let out a long breath and flop back against my pillows as I wait for enough time to pass. Feeling like she’s been gone for enough time, I whistle softly, then say, “You almost got me caught, you know.”

The kinkajou scampers out from under the dust ruffle and onto my lap, looking at me with a fierce expression. I suppose it didn’t like Allison picking at me, but I’m not sure if I’m still giving this thing more credit than I should. Since I’m assuming it broke into our house to steal shit that has disappeared, that’s not an unfair assumption. It keeps staring at me and I give in, reaching out to pat its head.

“You didn’t mean to, right? It doesn’t seem like you’re trying to get me in trouble. And I don’t know where you’re from, so it’s not safe to send you back to the streets. Wikipedia said you eat like bugs and fruit—it’s too cold for you to find that anywhere. I’d be sending you to freeze and starve. I don’t like that idea.”

It chitters and leaps forward, sitting as close to my face as possible and wrapping its tail around my neck.

Now I’ve done it.

“Fine. You can stay, but you have to keep away from everyone, especially the twins. And this is only until I figure out where you came from so I can return you safely. No shenanigans. Got it?” I look at the animal sternly and it bobs its head quickly. “But I need to call you something because ‘hey, you’ will not work for me. I wish I knew if you were a boy or a girl.”

It looks at me for a moment, then jumps again, moving quickly on all fours to my dresser. Hanging on with its toes, it opens a drawer and starts rifling just as it did in the safe until a pair of socks with little piggies in tutus comes flying at me. Wrinkling my nose, I ponder whether I should make a biased gender assumption, then I slap myself in the face. ‘Gender is a construct’ is not in the brain wavelength of a monkey. “You’re a girl. Okay. Do you have a name?”

She just stares at me.

I might have strained the level of consciousness this weird fucking animal is capable of.

“No? Then uh… let me think about it.” I frown to myself, rolling the balled-up socks in my palm for a moment. The damn thing has a good arm, that’s for sure. That’s it! I grin and look over at the creature. “I’m calling you Dottie ‘cuz you have a hell of an arm like in A League of Their Own .”

Dottie stands on her back legs and does a hopping dance, so she must approve.

“The next question is, what the hell I’m going to do with you while I’m in school?”