7

  Bee-bee awoke earlier than ever. Not in a dozen years did she ever again want to take Ham on a late walk. She’d felt so lonely baking and selling tom pies while he was out yesterday. How vulnerable her shop had been to the wiles of the sneak-thief! Couldn’t it just leave her alone? No! No, not when delicious tom pies were fresh out of the oven.

  “Oh, Ham,” said Bee-bee.

  Ham was the one leading them down a back alley between row houses. Each fenced backyard was overgrown. Some had stone walkways covered by arches of wild grass. Others were missing any sort of navigable path.

  Ham turned and gazed up at Bee-bee. His mouth was open, and his tongue was chugging. Without falter, he kept pulling them.

  “I really could have used your help! I was so busy while you were walking Arthie. You’ll never guess it.”

  Ham perked and barked. A cat leapt over a fence.

  “You guessed it! Another tom pie went missing. Remember that apple slice and syrup one? Snatched! Oh, I wish I could have shared it with you!”

  They emptied out of the back alley onto a boulevard. Horses clomped in line up the cobbled road, and Ham went berserk. Bee-bee straddled him. As the horses passed, Ham’s barks turned into shrieks. He scampered beneath Bee-bee as she earnestly asked him to calm down. What a new side of Ham, thought Bee-bee. Never had she heard such sounds in all her life. Why, it sounded like someone were being murdered! Every one of the horses’ riders gazed down at Bee-bee as she struggled to hold Ham back from charging the horses.

  What had gotten into him? He didn’t seem scared, nor angry. He seemed happy, as if he were simply curious about the horses and wanted to go play with them.

  “No, no!” said Bee-bee. “They’re much too big!”

  The horses passed them by, until a riderless horse snorted at them before trotting off behind the lead. Bee-bee relaxed her grip on Ham’s harness, and he pulled to follow the horses. With enormous effort, Bee-bee managed to coax Ham away from the horses and down the boulevard. As soon as the horses were out of sight and sound, Ham walked in his casual pace as if nothing in the world had just happened.

  “What was that all about?” said Bee-bee. “See, that’s what you need to do when you see the sneak-thief! Yeah! That was good; exactly that! As loud as you can. I’ll come running to help you protect our tom pies.”

  Bee-bee pursed her lips. She screwed her face, and she chewed her lips. Ham had it in him to alert her to strange beasts. The sneak-thief’s days were numbered less than one. Maybe less than that. Who knows?

  Their walk along the boulevard put them back in their neighborhood. They returned to the rathskeller along a side street. After undressing Ham of his harness, Bee-bee tangled her apron strings around her waist. She made fire in the furnace of the oven, and she began preparing dough.

  Given how busy she was yesterday, she made sure to double her efforts. Twice as many balls of dough were proofing. Tomatoes were on the boil, and she prepared all her human-friendly ingredients. When she could feel the heat of the oven almost press the back of her ears, she threw in the first tom pie of the day, and then she inverted an hourglass.

  Ham meanwhile circled all the tables and extended his snout over the edge of each one to smell the balls of dough. Often he licked his lips, and gazed at Bee-bee as though with a question.

  “Good Ham!” said Bee-bee.

  Not even goblins were as vigilant as Ham was! Without even asking to, he was counting the tom pies to be sure none were missing.

  So with Ham at the helm, Bee-bee posted her a-frame sign upon the street. Along the way, early customers greeted her. They followed her to her rathskeller where she switched out her closed sign.

  “Who’s first?” said Bee-bee.

  A wrinkled human woman said, “One tom pie, if you please.”

  “If I do?” said Bee-bee. “Well I do. Coming right up!”

  So it went, tom pie after tom pie, early in the morning. Ham darted in and out of the rathskeller for awhile. All the humans cheered him on. They cooed over him and his wagging tail. If anything, Ham was keeping the humans preoccupied while grains of sand piled. Bee-bee was simply awed by Ham’s charisma. Never had she encountered anyone so powerful.

  “I saw the cute dog on your poster,” said a boy. “I was so worried to see that he was missing.” Ham sniffed the boy’s knees. “This must be Tom?”

  “Tom?” said Bee-bee. “You’re the third or seventh person to call him Tom. No, no, no! This is Ham. He lives with me, and he helps me keep an eye out for sneak-thieves.”

  “This is Ham? Not Tom? He hand’t gone missing? Do you mean someone’s been stealing your tom pies?”

  “That’s exactly what’s happened! So many tom pies already!”

  The boy laughed. “Well, you’ve made it seem like Ham went missing!”

  “I didn’t make anything seem like anything.”

  “Your posters make it seem like that.”

  Bee-bee thought hard on that while she baked a tom pie topped with spinach and cheese curds. She wrinkled her nose at the spinach and held the paddle at arm’s length when she fetched it from the oven. No, this was a prank, she thought. No human would eat a leaf. If it weren’t a prank, and it was a gift, then the boy must hate whomever it was for. Bee-bee chuckled between her teeth. Maybe she should bait the sneak-thief with a tom pie filled with leaves. She and Ham would catch it while it choked.

  “Good morning,” said Beale, another regular. “Might I have three tom pies with extra peppered sausage slices?”

  “Extra!” said Bee-bee. Oh, she might have to make herself and Ham something with extra toppings later! So good, good, good!

  With that, she bounced down to the rathskeller. A young couple was waiting on a classic tom pie. Bee-bee swore it had been set on the table nearest the oven. Ham was right there, and he was licking his nose.

  “No!” said Bee-bee. “Not again!”

  She bumbled from table to table in search of the classic tom pie. Ham trotted alongside her and butted his nose up against each table edge. Bee-bee spun round, and she peered into the shadows of the corners of the shop. She sped up the stairs and tripped on the last step.

  “My goodness!” said a lady.

  “Oh, Bee-bee,” said an old man.

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  “Help,” said Bee-bee. “The sneak-thief! It’s around here somewhere! It stole my tom pie!”

  “A thief?” said a man.

  The humans burst into action. Ham barked. Everyone looked all around. They circled the house, where there was metal banging on wood, and they darted to the street and looked around. Bee-bee meanwhile scampered to and fro, and she clamped her fingernail’s between her teeth. Ham wagged his tail, and he leapt beside her as she went.

  “Oh, Ham! This is bad!”

  For all their effort, they did not spot any sneak-thief.

  “You didn’t see them?” humans asked.

  “Big bushy thing!” said Bee-bee.

  “Bushy?”

  “With horns! Big fish mouth!”

  “A monster?”

  “A monster would steal tom pies, wouldn’t they? Of course, a monster!”

  “A monster—are you sure?”

  “Lots of teeth, with big greedy eyes! Greedy like this.” Bee-bee glared and snarled.

  They asked her if she was sure, and every time they did, Bee-bee didn’t like the looks which accompanied the questions. It seemed like they didn’t believe her. She couldn’t understand why. The evidence was there. Her tom pies were going missing. They’d been going missing.

  Only Ham looked at her like he understood her. For that, when they had both returned below, she hugged him dearly.

  “Oh, Ham. Why would I lie? This is just awful. No one to believe us.”

  Arthie and Olive entered the rathskeller from the adjoining door. They seemed puzzled, and they came quickly.

  “Bee-bee,” said Olive. “Did you know that people are milling around the house? They’ve gone through our backyard, and it looks like they’re looking for something.”

  “The sneak-thief has struck again!” said Bee-bee. “Everyone’s helping me look.”

  “Is this about the missing tom pies?”

  “I think I know what’s going on,” said Arthie.

  “You’ll be closing for lunch in about an hour?” said Olive.

  Bee-bee hummed yes.

  “Let’s talk then.”

  Uh-oh, thought Bee-bee. Olive didn’t look too pleased, and Bee-bee frowned at the idea that she might have been a bother to the old couple. Oh, this was not a good day. It was a stupid day.

  For the next hour, Bee-bee fretted. As she baked, she wrung her hands. Multiple thoughts were happening to her all at once, and she felt a headache coming on. She made more mistakes than usual, but she eventually baked all her tom pies and then closed for lunch.

  Arthie and Olive invited her and Ham in. Ham was to lay before the couch, and Bee-bee was to sit on the couch. They had prepared a colorful green tea, and Bee-bee feared the liquid. It wasn’t her time to die!

  It was Ham’s nature which made her settle some. Ham nestled his chin upon his paws, and he let out a sigh which seemed uninterested.

  Arthie placed one of Bee-bee’s posters on the table and slid it.

  “Looks like things got a little confusing,” said he.

  “I’ve been so confused lately,” admitted Bee-bee. “What did I do wrong? Why is this happening to me? Why can’t it happen to someone else instead?”

  “Now hold on,” said Olive. “If you’re having a tough time, let’s not wish it to happen to someone else instead of you. Let’s rather wish that no one has to go through a tough time.”

  “Impossible!” said Bee-bee. “Someone’s gotta have it tough. I’ve never heard of no one having a tough time.”

  Ah, she did it. She stumped the humans. Clever Bee-bee, she thought. Ha!

  “I spoke with Nova,” said Arthie. “Bee-bee, you’ve got to learn to slow down when you speak. Take the time to think about what you want to say. He was under the impression that Ham’s name was Tom and that Tom was missing. Everyone who’s seen your posters has thought the same thing.”

  Bee-bee felt her eyes grow big. Her jaw dropped. Her ears perked.

  “About your sneak-thing,” said Olive. “Arthie thinks he’s figured it out.”

  “Has Ham been getting bigger?” said Arthie.

  “Oh yeah,” said Bee-bee. “Real big. Taller and fluffier and meatier and bigger.”

  “Fatter,” said Arthie. “I think he’s gotten much fatter.”

  “Well that’s good,” said Bee-bee. That means that lean times are behind him.”

  “Ham is your sneak-thief.”

  Bee-bee blinked. Arthie must have had more to say. She gave him clear eye contact, cupped her hands in her lap, and waited patiently. The longer the silence between them, the more Bee-bee went over in her head what he’d just said.

  “No, Ham is helping me look out for the sneak-thief.” She thought about it. She spoke slowly. That should clear things up.

  “Bee-bee, Ham is tall enough to see over the tables. He’s eating your tom pies when you’re not looking.”

  What? No. No, not Ham. Ham wouldn’t. Would he? He didn’t have horns, but he did have a great, big, long mouth full of sharpies. He was fluffy. No! Not Ham! But he’d been at the scene of every crime!

  “Wait a minute,” said Bee-bee. “Then explain this. Remember yesterday when you took Ham on a walk? Remember? Well I had an apple slice and birch syrup tom pie which I set aside because it was a mistake. It was gone by the time you and Ham came back.—Oh, that’s why everyone was clapping! You found Ham when he was accidentally missing because of the poster!”

  “While Ham was out?” said Olive. “Another one went missing?”

  Arthie and Olive both seemed bewildered. They glanced at each other with expressions which Bee-bee couldn’t quite pin down. Their eyebrows danced, which made Bee-bee attempt to make hers dance as well.

  Olive turned to her. “Are you sure you didn’t misplace it?”

  “I have never once misplaced a tomato pie.”

  “This I can’t solve,” said Arthie, and he shook his head. “However, there is something we can do. Come along.”

  Arthie groaned as he sat up. Bee-bee followed him out of door to the back of the house. Wood beams were strewn about, and Bee-bee spied a step stool and a weapon—a hammer. Beside it in the grass sat a bucket of nails. Bee-bee gulped.

  “Grab the stool,” said Arthie.

  Arthie’s legs bowed as he bent with a groan and collected a number of wood beams. Bee-bee hefted the stool, and she followed Arthie around the house. The legs of the stool banged her shins as she went. No matter how she carried the cumbersome and heavy thing, she had to fight to put one foot in front of the other. Did she have to be the one to carry it? Couldn’t he have gone back for it himself? What even was it for? Ugh.

  They descended into the rathskeller, and they piled everything at the base of the oven. The wood clattered musically when Arthie dropped everything. Ham trotted down the steps and sniffed at them. They then fetched the weapon and the bucket of nails. Ham followed them around, he marked a tree and scraped the ground, and then he followed them back.

  “We’re going to elevate the tables,” said Arthie. “That way they’re out of Ham’s reach.”

  “Do you really think it’s Ham? I don’t think so.”

  Arthie looked at Bee-bee for quite a long moment. He moved his mouth like he was chewing the inside of his cheek. He nodded. “You think something is sneaking in and stealing your tom pies, right?”

  “Yes! All the evidence is missing!” Bee-bee gestured at the space.

  “Well then, let’s elevate the tables so that all the tom pies are out of reach of your sneaky thing.”

  “Sneak-thief. Oh? Will that work?”

  “I doubt a single tom pie will go missing, especially because I’m going to build you something very special.”

  “Special? Ham, did you hear that?” Ham trotted over and tilted his head at Bee-bee.

  “I’m going to build you a little warming oven. It will be a box with shelves. You can put coals in a cast iron pot and put that at the bottom. Everything will be safe and secure and warm.”

  “The sneak-thief won’t be able to open it?”

  “Not a chance.”

  Bee-bee was impressed with Arthie’s craftsmanship. She had only ever known two rules to building: Use as much material as you can, and build it as fast as you can. Arthie—miraculously—produced superior work while taking his time. Bee-bee helped, wide-eyed the whole while. When she was asked to hold something, she used both hands to be sure and twice as helpful. When the weapon needed to be fetched, she grappled for it and handed it over handle first.

  Bee worried about Ham. He didn’t seem to like what they were doing. After the first table was raised to be twice as high as it was, Ham grumbled, and he nipped the air. When the second table was raised, Ham barked at it. He reared, but Arthie asked him to sit.

  “Sit,” said Bee-bee. That was when he listened.

  He sat, but he whined while they worked on.

  “Might not be ready in time for dinner,” said Arthie. “Is that all right?”

  “If it protects us from the sneak-thief, then it’s what we have to do.”

  “That might mean that you’ve baked your last tom pie of the day.”

  Ham howled like he’d been wronged.