Tiger by the Tail Read Online Free

wanted back then and I wanted to be with the circus. I wanted to lead an exciting life: travelling, seeing the world, big crowds, new people, always on the move.”
    “It sounds exciting!” Nick blurted out. “Were you like an acrobat, or a juggler, or did you get shot out of a cannon, or —”
    “Animals.”
    “Animals?”
    “Yep, animals. I took care of the animals.”
    “That must have been pretty exciting too,” I said encouragingly.
    “If you consider shovelling elephant crap or cleaning out tiger cages exciting, then it sure enough was. But, I did a lot more than that after the first few years.”
    “Like what?” I asked.
    “I also trained them and kept them warm and safe, used to treat them when they were sick. Hardly a vet around who knows what to do when an elephant has problems, but I do. I was there to help when they gave birth and to take over raising them if anything happened to the mother. Many a time I’ve had to have a little tiger, born too early, snuggled up with me for nights on end feeding it out of an eye dropper.”
    “Wow!” I gasped. I loved animals, but we’d never been able to have anything except fish because of all my father’s allergies.
    “Mama, God rest her soul, told me that if I joined the circus that I’d never settle down, that I’d never be able to get married or raise a family. She was right. Mothers are almost always right. But you know, when you spend as much time as I did with those animals, they get to be like your family and when you raise them from little balls of wet fur, they feel like they’re yours.”
    “What sort of animals?” I asked.
    “You already met one kind, up close,” he said, laughing a bit before the laugh turned into a coughing fit.
    “Too close,” I said. “But worse than the tiger was that snake.”
    “You met my snake, did you? You don’t have to worry about him. That snake isn’t big enough to harm anybody.”
    “Not big enough?” I said incredulously. “It looked pretty big to me.”
    “It is pretty big. It’s almost three metres long, but that’s not big enough to harm anyone except a wee child.”
    “I still wouldn’t want it to bite me,” Nick said.
    “You don’t have to worry about that. It wouldn’t bite you. It would wrap itself around you. Then it squeezes and squeezes, tighter and tighter until you can’t breathe. Then it eats you, whole, swallows you down in one gulp.”
    “Gross,” my brother said.
    “When it swallows you you’re not even dead yet. In South America there was a lady swallowed by a snake.They found the snake quickly and cut her out of its belly and she lived. Or so they say.”
    “Wow. Talk about lucky!” I exclaimed.
    “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s ever so lucky to get swallowed alive,” he responded.
    “But at least she lived. At least it all ended happily,” I emphasized.
    “Maybe for the lady … but not for the snake. I just can’t help but think about Brent, cut open from one end to the other.”
    “Brent?” I asked.
    “That’s my snake.”
    “What kind of snake is Brent?” Nick asked.
    “He’s a Burmese python.”
    “What does he eat?” I asked.
    “Snake Chow,” my brother answered.
    Mr. McCurdy chuckled. “I don’t recall seeing that on the shelf at the grocery store. What he eats mostly is rats and mice. He keeps them under control in the barn.”
    “Most people keep a couple of cats to do that,” my brother said.
    “Yep. Sometimes there’ll be the odd cat’round the barn. City folks just drop them off, thinking they can live alone in the country.”
    “I guess the cats catch mice too,” I suggested.
    “Imagine so. They don’t stay around very long though,” he answered.
    “How come?” I asked, and then the answer came to me.
    “Snake chow, you might say, although I really can’t say for sure,” Mr. McCurdy replied. “I don’t see much of Brent these days. He spends all his time in the barn, chasing down mice or bedding down under