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Her eyes blazing, Birdie let the door of the pet shop slam behind her.  As her eyes skimmed the shop for Percy, her anger quickly faded to amazement.  For this time, there were animals in the cages.

Except they weren’t really cages.

Rather, they were suggestions of cages.  It was as though the animals were relaxing in oversized clear plastic kindergarten cubbies stuffed with silver wheels and toys in piles of sawdust for hamsters and gerbils or soft blankets for the kittens blinking sleepily from their folds.  Several puppies bounded from one cubby to the other, going up and down and around, then dashing across the store floor to bark at terrified clusters of lizards before racing to say hello to the fish.  In another corner, clucking chickens herded clusters of peeping chicks to a makeshift hen house and ducklings followed their mother to a plastic wading cool, sliding down the plastic slide on their yellow fuzzy bellies.

“You see them now, don’t you?”

Drawing her lips back in a snarl, Birdie whirled around.  “Listen, you pea brained pet abuser”–  She gasped as Sassy yipped with delight and leaped from her arms.  “Sassy, no!”

Ignoring her new owner, Sassy pranced up to Percy and licked his toes.  Wagging her tail, she bounded off to join a group of golden retriever puppies giddily ripping up a newspaper and sprinkling it from one side of the store to the other.  Birdie stared after her, gaping as she sputtered, “But…but…”

Percy raised an eyebrow and smirked.  “Pet abuser, am I?”

“You should have seen her outside the store,” Birdie snapped, crossing her arms.  “She was terrified to come in.  She almost clawed my skin off!”

“That’s got nothing to do with me,” Percy pointed out.  “She probably thought he was here…”  Clamping his lips together, Percy glanced around.  His eyes flitted around the store as his pale skin grew nearly translucent.

Birdie pounced.  “Who?  Who was here?”

Tapping his fingers together, Percy shook his head.  “So you can see the animals now, can you?”

Narrowing her eyes, Birdie nodded.  “I couldn’t see them before because they weren’t here before.”

“Oh, they were here,” Percy replied airily, straightening a wayward hamster cage on a shelf.  “You just couldn’t see them.”

Birdie rolled her eyes.  “And why couldn’t I see them?”

“I’m not sure,” Percy said, his fingers wiggling as the thought.  With his hunched back curled over and his long arms poking up at the elbows, he looked like a oversized bird trying to take flight.  “You’re such an animal lover, I thought for sure you could see them.  It didn’t surprise me your friend couldn’t, of course.  But even that reporter could see them?”

“Reporter?  You mean Mr. McDougal? Orange hair, tall and skinny, freckles?”

“Yes, that’s the fellow.”  Percy bobbed his head, his neck pumping up and down.  “He couldn’t see these animals of course…”

“But he saw the elephant.”  Birdie stepped closer as Percy’s eyes widened.  “Why is there an elephant in your back room?”

Percy gulped, then tried to grin.  He looked as though he was in pain.  “Aren’t there elephants in all back rooms?”

“And who is Mr. Pemberely?  And why are your animals just running about, rather than in cages?”

“Why should they be in cages?” Percy countered.  “Would you want to be in a cage?”

Birdie crossed her arms.  “I would never own a pet shop that sold animals that had been bred in puppy or kitten mills.”

“Is that where you think our animals come from?” Percy asked, cocking his head at her.  “You know nothing, do you?  Yet you can still see them…well, most of them, anyhow.”

“What do you mean, most of them?” Birdie asked, exasperation rising in her voice.  This was like arguing with her three year old niece.  She was going nowhere in circles fast.  “And you never answered my other questions.”

“The animals aren’t caged because they’re not for sale,” Percy explained, ignoring her tone.  “You can purchase an animal of course, but that’s at your discretion.  They decide who they want to go home with, and if they want to stay in the store or go elsewhere.”

Birdie stared at him.  “So if I just opened the door and let all the animals out, you wouldn’t care?”

“Certainly not!” Percy exclaimed, his eyebrows leaping off his thin forehead.  “It’ll be quite cold tonight!  They need sweaters and booties, and the kittens definately need their mittens.  And the mittens haven’t come in yet, nor have the hamster parkas.”

Birdie scowled.  “You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not.”  Percy shook his head.  “I’m quite serious.”  He narrowed her eyes, peering at her so intently for a moment Birdie felt as though she was under a laser.  She looked down, tapping her feet and staring at a box of puppy pads.

“You know, I think you might be the one…” Percy mummured, cocking his head as he examined her face. “I’ll have to ask the parakeets, but I think you might be the one.”

“The one?”  Birdie took a step back, biting her lip.  “The one, what?”

A door slammed in the back and the color drained from Percy’s face.  “Excuse me,” he stuttered.  Leaping over a group of frolicking ferrets, Percy scurried into the back room and shut the door.  Sprinkled with shreds of newspaper in her thick scarlet ears and coat, Sassy bounded up to her new owner and demanded to be picked up.  Birdie obliged, bending down and lifting her up.  Plucking a leash and collar off the wall, she held it up to Sassy.  “Do you approve?”

Sassy barked, licking a piece of paper off her nose.

Birdie glanced around, but Percy was nowhere to be seen.  Placing some cash on the counter, she carried Sassy out of the shop.  “I guess we better go to the vet now, before they close.”  Giving the wild pandemonium another glance, she couldn’t help but laugh.

For not only were groups of puppies tumbling about the store, their shrill barks irratating the snoozing kittens and hamsters and gerbils, but the ferrets were now chasing a group of bunnies and guinea pigs in front of the fish.  Several tiny blue birds sang in cages without wires and tiny white mice hopped all over a snake way too big for Birdies’ liking, who seemed rather disinterested in the chaos around him.  And in the middle of everything, chewing happily, were three goats.

“Goats in a pet shop,” Birdie muttered, shaking her head.  Clutching Sassy in her arms, she moseyed down to the vet, more confused and full of questions than before.

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!  Tomorrow we have a delicious recipe and Friday, a new Dallas Jean!  Stay tuned!