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I walk over and pour myself some punch. Paxton does the same, while sweeping the room with a bemused look.
He drains the cup of punch, and then tosses it into a garbage can. He leans in and whispers in my ear. “Why possums?”
Of course, the gray-haired woman overhears him. “Did you just say, ‘why possums?’” she says loudly, which earns Paxton a ferocious glare from Marcellus. Marcellus has just confirmed his opinion of Paxton as an evil low-life possum hater.
“It’s a legitimate question.” Paxton stands his ground.
“Why not possums? Oh, you’d rather be saving something that’s more aesthetically pleasing, like a tiger or a zebra?” her voice rings through the air. “If something’s not beautiful, it’s not worth saving?”
Everyone’s staring at us now.
“Possums are sweet, gentle creatures. They are wonderful mothers. They are immune to rabies and distemper. By the way, did you know that possums eat up to five thousand ticks per season and therefore they help combat Lyme disease?”
Paxton blinks in surprise. “Uhhh . . .”
“Do you want people to get Lyme disease?”
“Not particularly.”
“Opossums are North America’s only native marsupials!” her voice rises in hysteria. “Save the Didelphidae!”
“Save the Didelphidae!” everyone else chants in unison.
“That’s the animal family that possums belong to,” I inform Paxton.
“Yes, I picked up on that.”
“I think you’ve made your point, Maureen, and the meeting is about to begin,” Arabella calls out. “Can everyone please be seated?”
As we walk to our seats, I pass by the box on the floor, in which a possum is curled up in a blanket, staring up at me with beady black eyes.
“Hello, Sally,” I say to the possum.
“Sally?” Paxton asks.
I shrug. “Seems like a good name for the possum.”
“How can you tell it’s female?”
“Good question,” I admit. “I just assumed. Well, Sally could work for a boy too. Salvatore.” We take our seats, and Arabella calls the meeting to order.
“Good evening. I am Arabella Pembroke, president and founder of the Society for the Protection of and Preservation of Opossums. I will start the meeting with some excellent news. Our fundraising drive for our Home for Injured and Orphaned Opossums has been a huge success, and we are currently housing seventeen of the precious creatures. We have treated eighty-four of them over the last year and safely released them back into the wild, in deeply wooded areas, where there is less risk of them suffering harm from exposure to humans. Unfortunately”—her face turns somber—“I must also provide you with some devastating and unacceptable statistics. Every year, at least eight million sweet, innocent, helpless possums are killed by cars!”
“Boo!” the audience calls out. They stamp their feet and hiss in anger.
“Down with cars,” someone calls out. “Cars are evil.”
“How did he get here, then?” Paxton whispers.
The man glares at him. “I rode my bicycle. It was a ten-mile ride, and I did it. Anyone can, if they’re actually committed to the cause they pretend to care about.”
“Lot of cars in the lot, though. Looks like he’s the only one with real dedication,” Paxton murmurs to me.
The man looks smug. Everyone else looks sheepish and looks all over the room—at the ceiling, at the floor, anywhere but at each other.
“Cars simply need to be completely redesigned. Not just for possums, but for all wildlife who innocently wander across the tarry deathtraps that mankind has built through their habitats,” Marcellus pronounces loudly. “Flying cars are the only answer, and we need to start lobbying our senators and automobile manufacturers immediately. I have prepared petitions.” He stands up, walks over to a table, and picks up a stack of papers, which he begins handing out.
Paxton scribbles on his, and I look down to see what he wrote.
