Page 70 of Eye on the Ball
Where, when she was too busy looking back at them to realize what was happening, the pigs chased her clear up the ramp and into the pool.
She realized her mistake when her feet slipped off the ledge, and she yelled my name.
And then she landed on her butt in the water, and all eight piglets followed her in.
That’s when, for one brief, cowardly moment, I wondered if anybody would notice if I turned around and headed out of town for a week or two.
But I kept running toward her.
She flailed around in the water, trying to stand, piglets surrounding her and giving her hearty snout kisses, until she saw me soar through the air, leaping across the fence, the grass, and the ramp. I landed in the water just behind Porker Posey and immediately realized it hadn’t been the best idea, when the force of the water I displaced knocked Tess back down in the pool.
The piglets, finally catching on to the fact a tiger was in their midst—maybe the water had washed off the perfume—squealed in alarm and trampled all over me to get out of the pool.
I shifted back to human and sat up, staring at Tess, who was soaking wet and bedraggled. She looked exactly like a drowned … pawnshop owner, and her eyes were twin blue flames of indignation.
“You—you—you?—”
“I’m so sorry, Tess,” I started miserably. “I tried, but I kept sneezing! And then?—”
She suddenly threw her head back and howled with laughter. “Why was your fur pink with sparkles?”
“It was?”
Monkey, who’d pushed his way through the crowd, held out his phone to show me a photo. “Sure was, dude.”
There I was, a tiger racing flat out after piglets, with a streak of sparkly pink paint down my side.
Still sitting in the water, I looked up at Monkey. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars to delete that photo.”
Best five hundred bucks I ever spent.
38
Tess
By the time I convinced the poor pig racing lady I wasn’t planning to sue her and escaped, I had less than fifteen minutes to change into my softball gear and make it to the field. Jack, who’d finally stopped sneezing once the pool water washed the perfume off me, ran to the truck to retrieve the softball trophy before he changed.
My best friend Molly had shown up just in time to see the piglet debacle, and she was still laughing so hard I was afraid she’d hyperventilate.
“Not that funny,” I grumbled, while we changed in the small changing room attached to the bathrooms.
“Yes, it was.”
I grinned. “Okay, yes it was. But I was afraid I was going to be?—”
“Lunchmeat?” She bent over, clutching her stomach.
“Why didn’t you come to practice last night?”
She sighed, her smile fading. “I had to fire Dice.”
Dice, bass guitarist and sometimes drummer for Scarlett’s Letters, had a boatload of talent and a problem with serial romances. She also had such a bad anger management problem that Molly had been forced to warn her she’d be out of the band if she had one more incident.
Apparently, the warning hadn’t worked.
“I’m sorry.” I knew they’d been friends.
“Thanks. Now, let’s go kick Riverton’s collective ass … ets.”