Page 10 of Spiced!

“He does this,” the boy said, craning his head to search for his escapee.

“Often?” I asked.

“Only when he’s bored.”

“He’s at the vet. How could he be bored?”

“No offense, but he finds it understimulating,” the boy said, sounding more like a pet psychologist than a middle schooler.

I glanced at the empty carrier, then I looked at the boy. His name was Oliver.

I kneeled and peered into the corner of the room where Chairman Meow had wedged himself behind the supply cabinet. He was a creature who had found his spot and was prepared to defend it.

“Mister Chairman,” Oliver said with a bit too much respect for my liking. “Come on.”

Chairman Meow glared at Oliver.

Then the creature looked at me.

Then his gaze drifted toward the ceiling.

He did not “come on.”

We spent the next ten minutes retrieving the stubborn iguana. Oliver provided encouragement. I provided my patient, non-threatening approach that worked on roughly ninety percent of lizards. Chairman Meow provided resistance and little more.

Diane, my office manager, appeared in the doorway at minute seven with a piece of cucumber she’d procured from somewhere I chose not to ask about. The cucumber was what finally resolved the situation.

“Why do you have a cucumber?” I asked.

“I have a lot of things,” Diane said.

“In your scrub pocket?”

“Dr. Davis.” She rolled her eyes and handed me the chart. “Room three is ready.”

Room three was a rabbit named Copernicus whose family had named him after the astronomer and wanted me to know why at some length. The mother explained it, while the father provided historical context. Their twelve-year-old daughter corrected both of them with the bloodless precision of a child who had done the reading and was not going to pretend otherwise. Copernicus sat on the table and chewed air with serene detachment.

His teeth were slightly overgrown, even for a bunny.

“More hay,” the daughter told me before I could say it.

“More hay,” I confirmed with a nod.

She looked at her parents and cocked one supercilious eyebrow.

I finished Copernicus’s exam, made my recommendations to the adult family members (though I suspected the daughter would do better than either of her parents), and went back to the hallway where Diane was waiting, one foot tapping against the linoleum to some beat only she could hear.

“Room four,” she said.

“What’s in room four?”

“Présidenté.”

I froze.

Présidenté was a capybara, ninety-two pounds of short-haired and squatty-snouted rodent owned by a Mrs. Okafor, who had previously employed a vet in Caracas and whose home apparently contained a small solarium.

None of this was standard.