The Quiet Ever After

The Association's Notice - 6

It was easy enough to scout at least some of the neighborhood—Axel pretended he was out on his runs, waving to others. He stayed on the sidewalk for the first pass and kept a close eye on the cars. So far, it sounded as if they hadn't gotten anything. As he passed each yard with a little garden or set of plants, he slowed a bit to see if the chipmunks were there. They probably wouldn't like to come around to the house, but wouldn't mind a trip to the forest.

When he finished his first pass, Axel then ducked into the alley between his houses. He sprinted through his backyard, cutting to the edge of the forest, and ran around that perimeter. Having no sign of them was still good news, but he also wasn't going to be able to see if pest control caught any of them.

Axel came to a slow halt when he saw Bethany in the brush licking at her paw.

"Hey, Bethany," Axel said. The bear glanced up at him and yawned. "Yeah, why are you awake? I thought it was your naptime. Whatever. Listen, we need to find the raccoons."

Bethany tilted her head. Axel grimaced. Nina was much better at communicating with Bethany than he.

"Dave, Lindsay, Isaac?" he said, and her ears perked at their names. "Yes! Exactly. Find them and bring them to the house. You can go inside if you'd like."

Her beady eyes widened a bit. Nina and Axel were both quite aware that Bethany could sneak into the house—before they'd truly befriended her and when she was still a tiny baby, she'd break into the place from the back door all the time.

Bethany padded into the forest, hopefully following their scent. A skittering in the woods alerted Axel to a new sound and he leaped into the canopy at great speed, alerting nobody.

Down a score yards away from him, scouring the back of someone's house that creased the edge of the forest, were two other pest controllers sifting through the brush. Axel scowled. The area was a conservative one, they weren't allowed to go in there and pluck out the pests there. If they entered the neighborhood and were a nuisance, which none of them were, then they had the jurisdiction to remove the pests in place.

He danced across the canopy to be in line with his house once again. There, standing in front of it, was Melinda, with some other neighbors out front. The pest control company had returned and was placing various baits around the place. Hideki stood behind Melinda, saying something with quite a stoic expression. For Hideki, that was akin to shouting.

Axel sensed out the energy ball in his house and vanished to reappear inside it next to the ball, then hurriedly rushed downstairs.

"Hey," he said, not even all the way out the door. "Melinda, what's going on? I already told these guys we don't have an issue."

"I just wanted to double-check," she said. "I've noticed, on more than one occasion, that there are little raccoons scampering around your yard."

Of course she was the snitch.

"I've never noticed it."

"Then consider it a kindness," Melinda said with another manufactured smile.

"It's not a kindness with what they're doing," Hideki said. "That's not pest control, Melinda, these are exterminators."

He gestured at the baits. Probably poison, then. Axel balled a fist and almost shouted at Melinda but had to restrain himself. Doing so wouldn't help any of his friends. What would help was redirecting Bethany away from the house if she found the family. Should pest control stick around, they'd certainly see the bear and raccoons heading for the house.

"This is wrong," Axel said. "Even if there are raccoons here, I haven't had any damage to my yard. Hideki, have you?"

"No," he said.