Scatman Dues (Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Book 6) Margaret Lashley (ink ebook reader txt) 📖

“Act brashly?” I said sourly. “How does a mouse act brashly?”

Grayson grabbed a spoon and stirred the yogurt. “That’s not the point, Drex.”

“So what is the point?”

“When bacteria were introduced into mice missing gut flora, the aggressive ones become calmer—and the calmer ones become more aggressive. Therefore, one could infer that bacteria play a vital role in our moods.”

I crossed my arms.

Then I must be completely infested with pisstoffagus femalopilus.  

Grayson turned and headed down the hallway, the tub of yogurt in his hand and me on his heels.

“Hold this,” he said, handing me the yogurt.

I took it, then watched in silent horror as Grayson knelt down and began unlocking the eight deadbolts securing the monster trap.

“Wait!” I said. “What kind of mood do you think this probiotic concoction will put Earl in?”

Grayson cracked open the door and slipped the yogurt inside. Then he quickly closed the door and began securing the deadbolts.

“That remains to be seen,” he said, sliding the last lock closed. He turned to face me. “Let’s hope it’ll be a good one.”

Chapter Fifty

With Earl tucked away in the back bedroom, hopefully eating copious amounts of probiotic-spiked yogurt, it was time to call a powwow with Garth and Jimmy to plot our next move.

Earl’s unfortunate “mood swings” had rendered the RV unfit for human inhalation. So the four of us opted to move our discussion outside, to the wooden deck tacked onto the front of the Wells’ boys’ trailer home.

“Okay, let’s review what we know for certain,” Grayson said.

I stifled a snicker. Grayson was perched on the edge of a broken-down beach chair, pointing a stick he’d picked up in the yard toward a cardboard box that once contained a fifty-gallon water heater. Topped with that vintage black fedora of his, he looked like a contestant on Pimp My Junkyard.

“Garth, my drawing instrument, please,” Grayson said.

Garth leaned over and handed him a charcoal briquette. Not missing a beat, Grayson skewered the pointy end of his stick into the charcoal, then scrawled the letters Q and K on an area of the box devoid of printing.

“So,” Grayson said. “We have an entity calling herself Queen Kristie, correct?”

“Yes,” the men said.

Grayson glanced over at me.

“Uh ... sure,” I said, then settled into my faded-yellow-and-orange Flintstone car that was missing its roof. My gut gurgled. Apparently, my bacteria was finding this all very amusing.

“The Queen, as we’ll refer to her for purposes of this meeting,” Grayson continued, “is running some kind of scheme she calls Kristie’s Frickin’ Crullers.”

“That’s right,” Garth said, then scooted the patched inner-tube he was riding a foot closer to Grayson’s cardboard lectern.

Grayson turned to Jimmy, who was straddling a rusty Schwinn bike with a ripped banana seat. “You agree this could be a network marketing scheme, correct?”

“Maybe,” Jimmy said. “But with Wade missing, and given what’s happened to Earl, it seems to me there’s something a lot more sinister going on here.”

Garth slapped the side of his inner-tube. “She and her bacteria bandits are trying to take over the world!”

“Right,” Grayson said calmly. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Right now, we’re sticking to the absolute facts at hand.”

I snorted.

Grayson turned to me. “Drex, do you see something we’re missing?”

Besides chromosomes, you mean?

“Uh ... sure,” I said.

I sat up. My knee accidentally tooted the little orange Flintstone horn. “Come on, Grayson! Why would an alien come all the way from outer space to Earth to peddle donuts?”

“That’s exactly what this meeting is about,” Grayson said. “We all agree with Jimmy. There’s got to be much more to her plan than that.”

“You mean like franchising?” Garth asked.

Grayson shook his head. “No. More than that.”

“Enslaving the entire human race?” Jimmy asked.

Grayson sniffed. “Closer.”

My molars pressed down at five-hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. “We’re all tired of playing your guessing game. If you know something, say it!”

“Fine,” Grayson said, directing his attention to Garth and Jimmy. “As I told Drex earlier, there’s a bacteria in cat feces that attracts rats.”

“Oh!” Garth blurted. “Did you know that the pearl fish lives its entire adult life inside a sea cucumber’s butthole?”

I shot the bucktoothed inner-tube pirate a look that could’ve popped his galleon. “What on Earth would compel you to say something like that?”

Garth shriveled and drew his arms into the tube. “Sorry, Pandora. I thought we were exchanging weird facts. Me and my friends do that sometimes.”

I turned to Grayson, growing more irritable by the second. “For the love of God, not the cat crap story again. Is there some point to it that applies here?”

“Of course,” Grayson said defensively.

“Then spare the guys the details and make it.” I scowled and checked my watch. Damn. It was quarter to three. Tootsie-Pop time. My sugar bacteria were growing restless.

“Fine,” Grayson said. “I’ll make it brief. The universe adores a symbiotic survival mechanism.”

“Huh?” Garth asked.

Grayson shot me an I told you so smirk.

“Ugh,” I grunted. “Fine. Tell them whatever it takes to make that make sense.”

Grayson’s cheek dimpled. “As I explained to Drex before lunch, Toxoplasma gondii—the bacteria in the cat feces—makes itself alluring to rats, so cats can catch them easier.”

“Why would it do that?” Jimmy asked.

“To ensure its own survival, and that of its host,” Grayson said. “When the cat gets fed, the bacteria get fed. Both species benefit from the relationship. That’s symbiosis. In extreme cases, some species become so dependent on each other, they can’t survive without each other.”

“Like the pearl butthole fish?” Garth asked, then glanced over at me warily.

“Yes,” Grayson said. “Exactly like that.”

I scooted my Flintstone car closer to Grayson. “Are you saying this Queen Kristie woman needs the bacteria she’s peddling in the donuts in order to survive?”

Grayson shrugged. “Perhaps. Or it could be as with Toxoplasma gondii. The Queen needs what the bacteria is attracting.”

My gut dropped four inches. “We’re the rats?”

Grayson smirked. “Quite possibly.”

“Come on!”

I scrambled out of the plastic Flintstone mobile. Grayson scooted his lawn chair out of kicking range of my boots.

“Hear