“Oh. Poppy, why did he do that?”
“He wants to look like his friend.”
“Who is his friend?”
“Mephitis. A . . . skunk.”
“A skunk!”
“Lilly,” said Poppy, “I like to respect my children’s choices.”
“Is Junior his whole name?”
“It’s Ragweed Junior.”
“What I remember about Ragweed is how obnoxious he was. Always asking questions. Never satisfied with anything.”
“Lilly, Junior is a good mouse.”
Lilly sniffed. “Papa never liked Ragweed. Or porcupines.”
“Let’s not talk about that,” said Poppy.
“Poppy,” said Lilly, “you do know Papa has never gotten over your leaving Gray House.”
Poppy drew herself up. “Well, I have.”
Lilly was silent for a moment. “Poppy, you should know that with . . . Junior looking that way—and with that name—Papa might get all stirred up.”
“I can’t help that.”
“But Poppy,” said Lilly, “you can. Your Rye is very . . . pleasant. And your children are very . . . nice. If a bit . . . excitable.”
“Lilly,” said Poppy, “is there anything about my family you like?”
“Pipsissewa—do I have that name right?—is very cute.”
“Lilly, everything will be fine,” said Poppy, not sure she meant it.
Feeling the need for some fresh air, she asked Rye to take a walk with her. As they strolled in the night air, she repeated her talk with Lilly.
“Oh, Rye,” she said, “I know perfectly well I don’t respect Junior’s choices. And I must admit, I’m already regretting this trip. It makes me very uneasy.”
“Why?”
“Because,” said Poppy, “Lilly has reminded me of something.”
“What’s that?”
“How badly I got along with my parents.”
CHAPTER 6
Junior and His Friend
AFTER POPPY LEFT HIM, Junior lay on his bed of chips for a while. His mother had made him angry—again. She never noticed that he was no longer a baby, that he had changed, grown older. Agitated, he got up and headed out of the snag.
“Hey, Junior, where you going?” his sister Verbena called.
“None of your business.”
“Bet I do know where you’re going,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. “To see Mephitis. Which is all you ever do.”
Junior gave her a dirty look and hurried away, heading for the path that would take him to Mephitis’s house. It was dark, but he knew the path well. Even so, he went slowly, trying to push away his annoyance. He resented the fact that his mother had asked him—and him alone—to go with her when she went to visit her family. He was sure they would not like him. He could tell Aunt Lilly didn’t like him just from the way she looked at him. Probably because he had dyed himself. Too bad for her. Well, he had no intention of liking them, either.
The thing was, whenever Poppy talked about her family—which wasn’t often—she mostly mentioned things she had done with her brothers and sisters, or her cousins. Rarely did she say anything about her parents. Or herself. She seemed to have had some kind of problem with them, not that Junior knew what it was. Probably some stupid thing.
It was not like that with his papa. Rye often talked fondly about his family. They had even made a few trips to visit them. Rye’s old riverside home was fun, with plenty to do. Some of those cousins were cool.
Poppy, however, came from someplace outside Dimwood Forest, somewhere called Gray House. As far as Junior was concerned, the world beyond the forest had to be weird. Why would anyone want to live there? He was sure he would hate it. What’s more, Poppy’s parents were probably very old. Junior didn’t like old mice, finding them creepy and crabby.
He stopped in his tracks. Suddenly he knew why Poppy had asked him to go along: she didn’t trust him. Taking him along was some kind of punishment for being what he was. Which meant she was treating him like a baby. Junior felt his anger rising again, but with it came a plan.
When they got to that Gray House, he and Mephitis would do outrageous stuff, stuff so big and so bad, that family would never forget. It would serve them—and his mother—right.
As he approached Mephitis’s house, he could smell his friend. It was a pretty strong smell, something Junior admired a lot. You always knew when Mephitis was coming. But what he liked best was that the skunk was so sure of himself. Mephitis always did what he wanted. No one told him what he could or could not do. He never complained about his parents—never even talked about them.
“Yo, skunk,” called Junior as Mephitis came into view.
“Hey,” said Mephitis. Compared to Junior, the skunk was large, with thick, black fur and a wide, white stripe that ran from his ears to his large and bushy tail. His pointed snout, ending in his small, black nose, was constantly sniffing. Short legs made him waddle when he walked, which he did slowly and deliberately. As for his eyes, they were very bright, very much on the alert, as if always on the lookout for anything bad that might come his way.
“Where you going?” Junior asked him.
“Your place.”
“What’s happening?”
“Nothing.”
“Same with me,” said Junior. “It’s so boring around here.”
“Same old same old,” agreed Mephitis.
“Hey, guess what?” said Junior.
“What?”
“My old mouse has to go visit her family, and she says I have to go with her.”
“How come?”
“She doesn’t trust me.”
“For how long?”
“Not sure,” said Junior. “But I said I’d go on only one condition.”
“Yeah, what?”
“You come with us.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
The skunk fluffed his tail. “Sick,” he said.
“Really sick,” agreed Junior. “The thing is, my mother is so boring. I mean she does nothing. Like, she’s what? A mother? And there’s her sister Lilly. She came to get Mama, so if I went I’d have to go with two old people. Bor-ing. And this place they are going, it’s going to be pathetic.”
“Rucks to be you.”
“Exactly. But if you came, it would be wicked. We could do sick stuff. My mother’s family, they don’t live in Dimwood, so they don’t know nothing. We’d teach them a few things.”
“That okay with your mama?” asked Mephitis. “I mean, my coming?”
“I didn’t exactly ask her,” said Junior with a
