Treasure Island!!!

Nancy stepped into the room.
    She screamed. It was such an awful blood-curdling scream—and not, may I remind you, the first scream I’d heard that day—that I almost wet myself. Her scream was answered by Richard’s scream, which was answered by the dogs barking, which was answered by the cats yowling, which was answered by the rooster crowing, which in turn set off a car alarm right outside the door.
    “Look this place! What happened? You drink vanilla latte?”
    As Nancy darted around the room, taking inventory of the disaster, I felt a hard knot in my stomach, twisting and turning. This was an admirable opportunity to put the Core Values into action—particularly RESOLUTION —but I hardly knew where to begin.
    “Where is Willie?” Nancy muttered in a low voice. “Where is poodle?”
    “I’m sure he’s here somewhere,” I said though at that point, I wasn’t. It didn’t seem likely that anyone would have abducted a poodle, but if the vandals had held the door open for him, he might have run off. He was Nancy’s favorite, but not as attached to her as she liked to think.
    A whimpering noise came from the back room.
    “Willie?” Nancy cried. “Where are you?”
    “I know this sounds weird, but he might be tied up,” I said, but she had already broken past me before I could finish my sentence.
    In fact, he had not been tied up. But neither had he been spared. Whoever had barged into the place had managed to find the electric clippers and shave fluffy white Willie clean as a lamb. It was fascinating to see him shivering there under the table, all white and pink, like a licked candy cane. About three feet away from him lay a soft, enormous, tufty pile of fur.
    “William!” said Nancy, stricken.
    I wish I could say that was the end of the trouble. In fact, because I had left the fish tank uncovered, the cats had helped themselves to a snack, which explained the water on the floor. It must have taken them quite a bit of work to catch those fish. You might almost say they deserved them—not that Nancy was open to entertaining that point of view.
    “You leave fish tank uncovered,” she wailed. “Cats loose! Fish massacre!”
    “I have a notion,” I began. “I feel that my talents are a bit under-used in my present position. I realize that right now you may not even be following every word that I’m saying, but I’ll go on. The Pet Library is ailing—admit it! Admit what you and every other person in this town know. This Pet Library is going down. Hard. I reckon we can’t compete with companies that sell long-term ownership of dogs and cats and hamsters, et cetera. But what if we offer something different, something less run-of-the-mill than cats and dogs?”
    “We do that,” Nancy insisted. “We do rooster, we do llama.”
    “I know. But do we do parrot?” and here I unveiled Richard who, despite his initial echo of Nancy’s death cry, had yet to be noticed by her. Then I gestured to the long front windows by which I wanted to build a sandy bank. “I’m thinking seashells, I’m thinking palm trees. Parrots, geckos, maybe a
different
kind of fish tank—one with a wave machine? Nancy Wang, I’m talking about branding the place. Not just any old animal rental, but—are you listening?—
Pets
Treasure Island!
”
    “Where you get money for parrot?” she asked.
    “Well, it’s our money. Your money, of course. I took it from the petty cash.”
    “What petty cash? No petty cash here!”
    As I said, I’m no economist, but from what Nancy said next, I gather that the money I’d used had not been ear-marked for the business. Apparently she had been stashing it away for her mother’s hip replacement. But she kept it in The Pet Library, so how was I to know? Quite suddenly, Nancy sat—or rather collapsed—on the floor, hugging Willie and crying, her hair sticking in wet wisps to her face. Willie licked her tears.
    “I work hard to build Pet Library. People in community say thank you, Nancy. Thank you for bringing animal joy to my life. When I hire you, you say you like animals.”
    “I told you I was tired of working the gift wrap department at Flounkers. It’s not my fault if your English isn’t good. Maybe I said I like to
eat
animals.”
    “You have problem in your head!” she shouted. “Give back money now or I call lawyer! Flighty! You are flighty person!”
    “It’s all very well to call me names, but I don’t
have
your money. I have this parrot. —Oh wait.” I