Marooned in Manhattan Read Online Free PDF Page A

helpful assistant and already I know I need to get details of the symptoms to help Scott with the diagnosis.
    ‘What do you mean exactly by “acting weird”?’ I asked politely.
    Mr Humphrey sounded annoyed.
    ‘Weird weird. Tell Dr Brooks to come straight away. He knows where I live, and don’t send the chick, I want the man vet!’ and he hung up. It was a good thing that Joanna didn’t hear him because she wouldn’t have been impressed.
    Scott was already heading downstairs to get his bag of instruments and medicines. It’s not a black bag like the medical bags used by doctors in movies. It’s a bright blue sports bag. I rushed to catch up with him while Leela whined about being left alone with nothing to do. We walked quickly, the way everyone walks in Manhattan, towards Mr Humphrey’s place on West End Avenue and 74 th Street but slowed down on the last block because Scott said he felt bloated.
    Mr Humphrey lives alone in the ground floor apartment with a large back garden. He buzzed us in and we walked through the apartment to the back yard. Mr Humphrey’s goat is a dark caramel colour, and, his name is Billy, which, I mentioned to Scott, is pretty much up there with calling a collie Lassie.
    ‘Or a Great Dane, Scooby Doo,’ he answered.
    ‘I had no i
dea
Scooby Doo was a Great Dane.’
    The only goats I had ever seen before were at petting zoos. Billy took me by surprise because he was so small. Scott explained that he is a ‘pygmy goat’, a type of goat which first came to the United States from West Africa in the 1950s. He said that Mr Humphrey had trained Billy really well to walk on a leash and he is very docile and friendly.
    Poor Billy was lying on the straw in a little shed and hepanted as if he had run a marathon. Mr Humphrey whistled softly in an anxious way and stroked Billy gently on his stomach. I helped hold Billy’s head while Scott opened his mouth and showed us how pale the gums were. ‘I think Billy has a parasite in his stomach called barber’s pole worm.’
    Parasites. Uuugh! Even the word made me feel like vomiting but I held it in check because I didn’t want Scott to think I was too wimpy for this kind of work. We collected some of Billy’s goat pellets in a little tube to send off to the laboratory to make sure Scott’s diagnosis was correct. Picking up goat pooh is not the most glamorous side of the job.
    ‘Mr Humphrey, I am going to give Billy a drench but we seem to have caught the condition fairly early and Billy should be able to make a full recovery,’ Scott said, matter-of-factly.
    A smile spread across Mr Humphrey’s face; he’s the first American I have met with yellow teeth. I thought about collecting some extra goat pellets. I was sure they could be potentially useful at some point in dealing with Leela, but Mr Humphrey had a suspicious eye on me so I restrained myself.
    Later that night, I tidied my room because the next day was Thursday, which is the day Eurdes, Scott’s cleaner, comes. She’s not a big fan of Ben’s, because of his tendency to drink noisily from the toilet bowl when he is too lazy to go to his own water bowl and also because his hair can be found in the strangest places. Ben has two main enemies, the sinister-looking striped black and orange cat called ‘Mindy’ fromApartment 4L and Eurdes’s vacuum cleaner. Ben is terrified of them both and runs away whenever he sees them, after a few protest barks. Bravery is not his strong suit.
    Eurdes always turns up on time, at 10am sharp. On very hot days, even with the AC on, she removes her blouse and works in her bra and skirt. She has the most enormous breasts I have ever seen. I like Eurdes’s bras. They are very shiny and colourful, usually bright purple or neon pink with black lace. Scott enjoys looking at them too but he has to pretend he doesn’t notice. He’s not very good at that.
    Scott is obsessively tidy, so Eurdes’s job became much harder since my arrival. Scott was pretty