“Me too?” Knut asked, his little voice threaded with excitement.
“You sure are,” Hallie assured him.
Knut looked at Gunnar. “Did you hear her? We’re older now!”
Gunnar frowned thoughtfully and then turned to Maddie. “Are we really older now, Aunt Maddie?”
Maddie smiled. “Yes you are.”
“Remember when you said we could have a pet when we got older?” Gunnar recited.
Maddie and Hallie had been had.
“I meant a lot older,” Maddie explained. “Like six or seven.”
“But that’s not what you said,” Knut whined. “We found a pet, and we want to keep it like Liv. You just said we were older.”
Maddie and Hallie exchanged looks, and Gunnar added, “You did.” He nodded his bright little head. “You really did.”
“Wait till you see’m!” Knut jumped down from his chair and ran to the back door. He pulled it open and dragged a sack inside before Hallie or Maddie could do a thing. He bent over the sack and opened it, lifting out their pet. Turning, he carried it toward the kitchen table.
“Look!” Knut said, holding up the animal.
“Good Lord!” Maddie screamed. “It’s a skunk!”
At Maddie’s scream, Knut dropped the skunk and it ran under the table.
Maddie grabbed a broom and yelled, “Catch that thing before it sprays!”
“How?” Hallie shouted, standing on her chair, as was Liv, who was pinching her nose, just in case.
“I don’t know, just do it!” Maddie waved her broom in the air.
The boys were peering under the table, and Knut kept calling, “Here skunky, here skunky...”
Maddie started poking her broom at the table, and Gunnar ran and grabbed the bristled end of the broom. “Don’t hurt him, Aunt Maddie!”
“We’re not going to hurt him, Gunnar, we just need to catch him!” Maddie turned toward Hallie. “Get on the other side of the table while I shake the broom around... Gunnar! Let go!”
Hallie wasn’t going to touch that thing for the life of her. She’d had enough bad luck lately. She called out to Maddie, “I can’t catch it!”
“Thunderation! Where in the blazes is Duncan?” Maddie yelled, trying to get Gunnar to let go of her broom. “Duncan! Duncan!”
The door burst open and Kit, Lee, and Duncan came running into the room.
“What the hell is going on?” Kit bellowed, staring at his aunt, who was shouting while she played tug of war with one of the twins. Kit turned around. Hallie and Liv were huddled next to each other, on chairs.
Liv’s voice caught his attention. “There’s a skunk under the table!”
His worried gaze shot beneath the table. “Don’t scare it!” Kit ordered.
At that instant the skunk raced from beneath the table right toward Duncan and Lee. Duncan stepped aside and the animal ran right through Lee’s legs and out into the hall.
“Don’t let it upstairs!” Maddie shouted, wresting the broom from Gunnar and waving it frantically in the air.
Lee and Duncan ran after it. Seconds later a door slammed so hard the candles in the ceiling lamp shimmied. Kit pushed open the kitchen door while the women and children huddled behind him, peeking like nosy ferrets through any open space left in the doorway.
Lee leaned casually against the wall, with a silent Duncan by his side. “I locked it in the study,” Lee announced with a slight grin.
