Free Cockatiels at Seven by Donna Andrews Page B

throughloud and clear. No campus cafeteria food for her. I stood up and turned to leave. Probably time to fuel up Timmy again. We’d head for the cafeteria, too.
    As we passed the open doorway, I glanced in to see that Nadine had decorated the site of Timmy’s spill with one of those yellow C AUTION! W ET F LOORS! signs that cleaning staffs use. Sandie looked up, saw me looking at the sign, and rolled her eyes.

Ten
    I did my best to talk Timmy into grilled chicken and broccoli for lunch, but he held out for hamburger and French fries. I gave up. Let Karen guide him back onto the path of responsible nutrition when she showed up again.
    “Make that two burger platters,” I told the student behind the counter. “With a lot of lettuce and tomato on the side.”
    I even figured out a way to get Timmy to eat the lettuce, by stuffing one leaf sideways into my mouth and waggling it up and down while I chewed on the other end and gradually sucked the whole thing into my mouth. It was messy and a little gross, but Timmy was charmed, and while imitating me, he finished off all his lettuce and the balance of mine. That counted as one serving of fruits and vegetables, right? Perhaps I could figure out something equally entertaining to do with the tomato slices. Then again, Timmy seemed to consider French fries mainly as a vehicle for conveying vast quantities of ketchup from his plate to his mouth. He often loaded one French fry three or four times before it disintegrated to the point that he couldn’t reloadit with ketchup and reluctantly ate it. Surely a quarter bottle of ketchup would count as another serving, wouldn’t it?
    I was about to try a game of wheeling a tomato slice around my plate and into my mouth when Sandie appeared at the other side of the table carrying a tray.
    “Boy, did you upset Nadine,” she said, as she sat down.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be,” she said, with a shrug. “Nobody likes Nadine.”
    “Then would you like me to go back and annoy her some more? Maybe sneak in and spill some molasses on the floor?”
    She giggled and shook her head. She cast an ostentatiously jealous look at our hamburger and fries, then sighed.
    “Want fry?” Timmy said, offering her one of his largest.
    “No thanks,” she said. “Not that I wouldn’t love one,” she added to me. “I’ve been on this diet forever. Doomed to nibble lettuce like a rabbit for the rest of my life.”
    I nodded sympathetically. Since she was busily emptying four packets of blue cheese dressing on an enormous Cobb salad, I found myself wondering whether my lunch was all that much more fattening than hers, but I’d learned long ago to keep my mouth shut about other people’s diets and pray that they did the same about mine.
    “When Nadine gets over being ticked at you and Karen, maybe I’ll ask you to come back and rile her up again,” she said. “Right now she’s just ignoring me,and that’s the way I like it. So Karen left Timmy with you?”
    When he heard his name, Timmy grinned broadly, revealing all the bits of ketchup-daubed French fry he was chewing. Sandie and I both averted our eyes.
    “Don’t chew with your mouth open,” I reminded him. “Yes, Karen asked me to take care of him for a little while. That was yesterday morning. I’m getting a little frantic.”
    “I can imagine.” She glanced over at Timmy, who was jamming a fry against Kiki’s stitched mouth.
    “You have to eat
something
, Kiki,” he said. More of a sentence than he usually constructed, so I suspected he was echoing something he’d heard repeatedly from Karen.
    “It’s probably because of her husband,” Sandie said. “She found out Friday he was back in town.”
    “Her husband? Jasper? They’re still married?”
    “She filed for divorce when he ran out on her, but it takes a while, especially if you can’t find the jerk to get him to sign any papers. So when she heard he was back, living at his uncle Hiram’s old house, she said