Yellow and Orange Blues
by Amy Bechtel

Illustration by Mike Aspengren

On Wednesday Howard Winston brought a cardboard box to my veterinary clinic. I saw him sitting in the waiting room with the box in his lap, studying an open book propped across the box. An extension cord protruded from the box and coiled under Howard’s chair to a wall plug; undoubtedly it was connected to a heating pad. Perhaps, I thought wistfully, Howard had an orphan puppy or kitten in the box. It would be nice to see a normal sort of animal for a change. But it was probably a reptile. I sighed and called in the next patient.

After I had seen a poodle with a cyst (the owner had thought it was a tick, and had valiantly tried to pull it off), a parakeet for a wing-and-beak trim, and an iguana with metabolic bone disease, I began to wonder if my receptionist, Kami, had forgotten Howard. I peeked into the waiting room, and at that moment Kami rushed forward breathlessly to hand me the file. It was so heavy I almost dropped it. Howard’s file had always been bulky, but now—I opened it and counted—there were thirty-seven new charts in it, each painstakingly filled out by Kami. All thirty-seven said exactly the same thing: species reptile, breed desert tortoise, color green, sex unknown, age two days.

“I’m sorry the paperwork took so long, sir,” Kami said, “but there were so many charts to fill out. And, Doctor Clayton, I didn’t fill out the name’ part because he hasn’t named the turtles yet.”

“Tortoises,” I corrected.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Kami looked devastated at the correction. I was about to mention that she could have done the paperwork in 1/37 of the time by making use of the copy machine, but I didn’t have the heart.

“Never mind,” I said, and called Howard into the exam room. He smiled affably, closed his book, unplugged his box, and brought it in. He didn’t complain about being kept waiting; Howard is the most patient man I’ve ever met. He also has the most bizarre collection of exotic pets I’ve ever seen. For him, a box of thirty-seven baby tortoises was downright normal.

“Hi, doc,” Howard said cheerfully. “I’ve got a whole herd of Max’s kids to see you today.”

“Thirty-seven kids? Max gets around.” Max is one of Howard’s favorite pets, a huge venerable desert tortoise with a penchant for females.

“They just hatched,” Howard said proudly.

I opened the box and looked in. The box was full of exquisitely tiny tortoises, no bigger than silver dollars, all busily crawling over and under each other. I picked one up and set it in the palm of my hand. It peered up at me nearsightedly, extending its little neck, and I smiled. It was a sweet little thing. Adorable, really. I had never realized that reptiles could be so cute.

Cute? What was I thinking? I was an affirmed horse and cattle vet; I only did dogs and cats because there wasn’t enough large animal work to make a living in this town. I only did exotics because of Howard, and because of all the exotic pet owners Howard had referred to me. So how had I ended up seeing more snakes and lizards than cattle and horses? And when had I come to think of reptiles as cute?

I looked back at the baby tortoise in my hand; it was still adorable. It snuffled, and I held it closer. Its tiny nostrils were clogged, and its eyes were swollen partway shut. I picked up another tortoise, and another, keeping track of which ones I had examined by moving them to another box. Most of the babies had one symptom or another of respiratory disease, a very nasty thing in desert tortoises. I would need to get them all onto antibiotics. I looked doubtfully at the tiny creatures, then looked up the antibiotic dose. There was quite a bit of debate in the literature about the appropriate tortoise dose; I averaged the recommendations of several experts and then weighed a representative tortoise. The dose wasn’t hard to calculate; I would need about 0.0002 cc for each baby. Measuring the dose, however, was going to be tricky. I groaned and began to calculate dilutions. I was deep into a set of fractions when Kami knocked on the door and anxiously poked her head into the room.

“Doctor Clayton?”

“Not now, Kami.”

“But Doctor, it’s an emergency.”

The final calculation took advantage of the interruption and eluded me, and I sighed and gave up. “All right. What is it?”

“It’s a dog. It needs vaccinations. The owner says it’s a whole day overdue. I thought I’d better tell you.”

“Oh.” I closed my eyes and began to count to fifty. “Thank you, Kami.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled and closed the door.

Howard coughed and said, “I didn’t know vaccinations were an emergency.”

“They’re not.”

“Shouldn’t you tell Kami?”

“I’m afraid to. She might decide that arterial bleeding isn’t an emergency either. Do you suppose Lynda might want to come back to work?” Lynda used to be my receptionist, before she went off to live with Howard, and I missed her terribly. I missed her more every day I worked with Kami.

Howard looked doubtful. “She’s awfully busy,” he said.

“Figures,” I said sadly. “And my kennelman is quitting next week. He says cleaning cages and stalls is too gross, and mopping hurts his back. I can’t seem to keep kennel help for more than a month any more.” I couldn’t seem to get rid of Kami, either. Maybe I should assign her to clean some of the more revolting cages.

Howard said thoughtfully, “I have a poetry student who might be interested in the job.”

“A poetry student? To clean cages and mop floors?” I threw up my hands.

“Sure.”

I shrugged helplessly. “If he’s interested, have him give me a call.”

“She,” Howard said.

“She?”

“She. I’ll let her know.”

“Sure.” I settled back to my fractions, bemused, wondering why a poetry student would possibly want a job at a veterinary clinic.

“So how’s your social life?” Howard asked. “Are you still seeing Susan Rose?”

I sighed. I’d gone out with the beautiful Susan Rose twice, but the third time I asked her for a date she said no (politely, but still no) and the fourth time she said no a bit less politely, which seemed to be some kind of hint.

“Oh no,” I told Howard, trying to sound casual. “We didn’t really hit it off. Besides, I don’t think I was ever meant to date a woman who owns a pet snake.”

Howard laughed. “Oh come on, Doc, you’re great with snakes.”

“Not with snakes named ‘Terminator.’ ”

Actually I was not good with snakes of any kind, but it would probably be best not to mention that to Howard. He had a few snakes of his own that I might have to treat someday.

“By the way,” Howard said, “could you come by our place on Friday night?”

I looked at him suspiciously. “Why?”

Howard smiled. “It’s a surprise.”

“What kind of a surprise?” A few months back I had given Howard a surprise of my own; I had presented him with an orphan calf which he’d then had to bottle feed night and day. I was afraid that Howard might have retribution in mind.

“Come over Friday night and you’ll find out.”

“You don’t have a new pet, do you?” I asked nervously. If he had a new pet it would probably be a species I wouldn’t even recognize.

“No new pets,” Howard said, “except for these thirty-seven. So you’ll come?”

“Well, I’ll try,” I hedged. “Depends on how things go, you know how it is.”

“OK,” he said amiably. “So how much antibiotic do I give the babies?”

I’d gotten distracted from my fractions again and I still had all those hideous dilutions to calculate. Why didn’t anyone manufacture drugs of a suitable strength for the one-gram patient?

On Thursday Howard’s poetry student came to the clinic for an interview. Thinking of a poetess, I had imagined a fragile, ethereal young woman, with long dark hair and a flowing white dress. The woman who appeared in my office wore a leather jacket, jeans, and a tattoo. Her short spiked hair was dyed a startling shade of magenta and was decorated with a bright green lizard-shaped hairpin. She smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Tegan Smith. I’m here about the job.”

I stared at her for about thirty seconds before I remembered to invite her to sit down. “Er, hi,” I said. “I’m Michael Clayton. Did, uh, did Howard tell you what the job involved?”

“Sure,” she said easily. “Cleaning cages and mopping floors.”

“And did he tell you how much it pays?” How much was perhaps not the correct term; how little would have been more accurate.

“Yes.”

“And you’re interested?”

“Sure. Are you?”

“I, ah—”

Something suddenly moved in her hair, and I stared.

“What is it?” she said.

Her lizard hairpin was moving. With a switch of its tail it crawled to the top of her spiky bangs, and peered at me with unblinking eyes.

“Ah. Um. There’s something in your hair.”

She reached up, looking puzzled, and plucked the lizard off her bangs. “Oops,” she said. “I thought I put him back in the terrarium.” She patted the lizard and popped it back into her hair. Then she smiled a dazzling smile and said, “So do I get the job?”

Leather jacket, tattoo, wild hair, and reptiles: well, she would at least be a contrast to Kami. “You’ve got it,” I said. “Can you start tomorrow?”

On Friday Tegan showed up for work at 8 A.M. sharp. She still wore jeans and a leather jacket, but she changed the jacket for a smock without any objection. I studied her hair covertly; there did not appear to be any lizards in it today. That was a relief; some of my patients would have been frightened of a lizard, and others would have tried to eat it.

I had my soon-to-depart kennelman show Tegan around while I saw my morning clients. Within an hour I noticed that she was doing better work than the kennelman. And she was cheerful about it, too. She whistled as she piled dirty towels into the washing machine; she sang as she changed litter boxes and scrubbed dirty dishes. By the time morning appointments were over, the cages sparkled, the garbage cans were empty, the floors were clean and every dog and cat was snuggled on a freshly laundered blanket. I went outside to the barn and noted that the stalls were raked clean and spread with new bedding. The two horses in the barn were nibbling hay, and their water troughs had been scrubbed and filled to the brim with fresh water. I went back into the clinic and discovered Tegan in the front office, helping Kami answer the phones and file charts. Amazing. Under the magenta hair and the tattoos, Tegan was a gold mine. I owed Howard big-time for sending her here. And that meant that I was well and truly obligated to go out to his place for a “surprise” tonight.

I did not enjoy the trip to Howard’s place. The fifty-mile drive up Caliente Canyon is bad enough, even if you break the speed limit by a considerable amount, but Howard’s ranch roads are worse. Potholes lie in wait, big enough to swallow a truck, and hairpin turns teeter precariously on the edges of cliffs. I suppose the roads discourage trespassers, but I’ve always wondered how Howard puts up with the three-day-a-week commute to teach his college classes.

When I finally got to the house I got out of the truck cautiously, not sure what to expect in the way of a surprise. In spite of Howard’s assurances, I was still expecting a new pet. When the house door opened I jumped about three feet, but it was only Howard, with Lynda behind him. They greeted me politely, then looked at each other as if trying to decide who had to break the bad news.

“We really called you out here for a good surprise,” Lynda said ruefully. “Nothing to do with work at all. But while you’re here, do you suppose you could take a look at Curious? I think he has a stoma chache.”

I groaned and felt a sharp twinge of pain in my own belly; Curious and his nine siblings were enough to give any veterinarian a bleeding ulcer. I probably had six or seven ulcers by now. Resigned, I got back in my truck with Howard and Lynda, and we drove into the hills until we reached a secluded, deep pool. It looked like a big stock pond from the surface, but if you dove in you’d find yourself in a vast network of underwater caverns, extending for miles in every direction, and so deep that you’d never be able to find the bottom. I stopped the truck and we walked to the edge of the pool. Lynda knelt and slapped the surface of the water, in a distinctive pattern. The water rippled away from her hand, scattering the reflection of the moon. Lynda sat back and waited, and gradually the water stilled. It was silent for a long moment, except for the chirping of crickets and the whisper of wind in the grass. Then the water roiled and splashed, and a sea monster poked its face out of the water. An instant later it was joined by another, then another, until finally ten monsters were swimming happily at the surface.

Actually only nine of them were swimming happily. Curious had been the last to surface (he’s usually the first) and he looked preoccupied, as if with something internal. The expression on a sea monster’s wrinkled, whiskery face isn’t particularly easy to read, but I knew Curious well, and I could tell at a glance that something wasn’t right. Curious wasn’t even paying much attention to his visitors. Definitely not normal.

I groaned inwardly; I’d really been hoping that Howard and Lynda were imagining things. Howard’s sea monsters are unique creatures; they are bizarre spheroidal marsupials with gills, blowholes, four-pronged tails, and whiskery faces. They’re still babies, each about the size of a grown man. I don’t know how long it takes for them to mature; their parents were at least five times the size they are now. Howard bottle-raised all ten babies when the adults died of an insidious disease. There’s nothing else like them in the world, and Howard keeps their existence a closely guarded secret. Which means I’m the unlucky vet who gets to figure out how to take care of them when anything goes wrong.

Lynda persuaded Curious to come out of the water so I could do an examination. He lay placidly on the bank during the process; he was used to examinations. I’d examined all the monsters regularly ever since they were born, taking blood samples and making records of normal monster physiology.

I started at the whiskery nose and worked my way down. The eyes were clear, the gums pink, the blowhole clear, the gills normal-looking. The abdomen was tight and tender to the touch; Curious lifted his head in distress when I palpated it. That was really all I could tell; the monsters’ external fat layer was too thick for me to actually feel anything inside. I worked my way down to the tail without finding anything else significant, and drew a blood sample from a tail vein. Then I got out my portable x-ray unit and snapped a picture of the belly. Curious slipped back into the water, but he didn’t rejoin the others; he stayed near us, resting his head on the bank. Lynda knelt beside him and patted him soothingly. The other monsters clustered nearby, watching, uncharacteristically subdued.