Page 12 of Eye on the Ball

“And SherloinkHolmes!”

“Seems like it should be Sherlock Hams,” Mike said.

“What about Elvis Porksley?” Ruby put in.

“We’ve had too many Elvis puns around here, I think,” I said, remembering the hurricane.

“Good one! But I didn’t see that on the list. One of their star pigs isKevin Bacon!”

“Huh.” These pig people were not particularly imaginative. Mike looked unimpressed, too.

“Let’s eat pizza, everybody,” Ruby said. “Mike, get the salad out of the fridge, please. Jack, drinks? And Shelley, plates and silverware. Tess, you sit down, honey. You look wiped out.”

Tess made a halfhearted protest but let her aunt convince her to sit and have a glass of sweet tea. I was just happy to be part of the family now, as evidenced by my assigned job of getting everyone drinks. For months after I’d returned to Dead End, Ruby and Mike had kept me firmly in the visitor/guest category. Now that they knew Tess and I loved each other, things had changed.

Mike, walking past me with the salad, elbowed me in the side. “Try not to eat all the pizza before those of us who are older and wiser get our fair share.”

Okay. Not everything had changed.

I grinned at him. “No worries. I brought four large pizzas.”

“Meat lovers?”

“Two. One veggie for Shelley, and the other is pepperoni and black olives for Tess.” Why someone would bother to put vegetables on pizza was another mystery of the universe that I’d never understood, even before I first shifted shape into a tiger.

“What about Hogatha Christie?” Tess offered.

“Who?” Shelley asked.

Tess sadly shook her head. “Oh, boy. I need to get to work on your literary education, sweet girl.”

“Pedro Porksgal,” I said. We’d recently watched his creepy new show about plant zombies, which was great, but Tess had spent most of the time with her hands over her eyes.

“Ooh! Good one! The Baby Yoda guy!” Shelley said, her mouth full of pizza.

Ruby gave her alook. Shelley hung her head, chewed, swallowed, and then said, “Sorry, Aunt Ruby. No talking with my mouth full, I know.”

“Well, I have the best one of all,” Mike said, reaching for his third slice of meat pie.

Ruby deftly slid the veggie pizza in front of him. He sighed but took a slice of that instead.

“What is it, Uncle Mike?” Tess said. I was glad to see some color was back in her cheeks.

“Shaquille O’Squeal.”

Everybody applauded except Shelley, who said, “Who?”

I waved my napkin in surrender. “I bow to the king. That’s the best by far. And, Shelley, we need to get to work on your basketball legends education.”

“There’s a lot of education going on around here,” she said darkly, grabbing another piece of pizza.

“Salad, too, dear,” Ruby murmured. Shelley rolled her eyes but ate some salad.

Saying “Eat some salad-salad with your pizza-salad” might not win me any points with Ruby, so I didn’t say it. Old tigerscouldlearn new tricks.

“You know how pigs prep for a race, right?” I asked Shelley.

“No. How?”