Page 62 of No Judgements

But I was never going to admit that.

“Could we just—” I pointed at the window behind him.

“Oh, sure,” he said.

That’s when he lifted me high enough for me to catch the edge of the windowsill.

“Got it?” he asked.

“Got it.”

I was preparing to push myself through the small opening, not realizing that he had a similar intention—of helping me through it with a push of his own.

“Ow!”

My landing wasn’t soft. The Petroviches kept a wicker laundry basket under their bathroom window. I pretty much destroyed it.

“You all right?” Drew called from beneath the window, having heard the crunch of wicker and my squeal as the wicker wands stabbed me in the right calf. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” I bent to investigate the wound. No blood had been drawn, but the scrape was going to be tender for a while—my first hurricane-inflicted wound. “Just give me a warning next time, okay?”

“Sorry about that.”

I climbed to my feet. “Go around front, I’ll unlock the front door for you.”

“Got it.”

The apartment was dark and dank thanks to the rest of the windows being boarded up and there not being any power. But I didn’t have to see Sonny’s guinea pigs to know that they were alive. I could hear them squeaking excitedly from the other room, having overheard my not-so-graceful entrance into the apartment.

After unlocking the front door for Drew, I followed thesounds into Sonny’s bedroom, where I found the two little rodents—R2-D2, a black-and-white shorthaired, and C-3P0, a longhaired golden “Teddy”—darting around their cage, covered in shavings. The bedding had obviously become soaked thanks to the flood and was now sticking to the poor animals’ fur.

“Oh, you poor things!” I looked around Sonny’s room for something I could put the guinea pigs in in order to get them out of the mess. Fortunately Sonny had left the animals’ traveling case on his bed, along with a bag of the pellets they were supposed to eat.

“Well, boys,” I said to the guinea pigs as they continued to poke their little toes and noses through the mesh of their cage at me, grunting and squealing, almost as if they were trying to describe to me what they’d been through since Sonny had been gone. “Looks like you’re going home with me.”

“Huh.” Drew was standing in the doorway with a beer in one hand—one that he’d evidently found in Lydia’s refrigerator—looking down on the scene with an expression of mild disbelief on his face. I wasn’t sure which he found most incredible, the fact that I was lifting a trembling, grunting R2-D2 into the traveling case, or that he was in the situation at all.

“What,” he asked, “are you doing with that rat?”

“They’re guinea pigs, not rats.”

“If you say so. What are you doing to them?”

“Water leaked in here and got the bedding of their cage all wet. Now it’s sticking to their fur. They’re going to need a bath, I think.”

“Are you even supposed to bathe guinea pigs?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Are you supposed to take beers out of the refrigerators of people you don’t even know?”

He glanced down at the beer in his hand. “Hey, if I don’t drink it, it’s just going to get hot and explode in there. I’m doing your friend a favor. You want one?”

“No,” I said. “I’m taking these guinea pigs back to your aunt’s house, and then I’ll see if I can reach Sonny’s mom and find out whether or not you’re supposed to give guinea pigs a bath.”

“Well.” Drew eyed the animal carrier. “Lu’s going to love that.”

“I think she will, actually. She likes animals. She’s already taken in a pair of rabbits, a parrot, and my cat. Two little guinea pigs aren’t going to make a difference.”

He let out a laugh. “Whatever you say.”