McCurdy, my mom — acting as his lawyer, the bylaw inspector, the animal-control officer, Rainbow, Martin, the newspaper reporter and, finally, the mayor. I knew the mayor was only there for one reason — to try to make sure Mr. McCurdy failed the inspection. Boy, was he going to be disappointed. Nick and Vladimir were nowhere to be seen. Partly that was because until the paperwork had come through — my mother had filed it with the immigration department the day before — we wanted Vladimir to lie low. The other reason was that the two of them were going from pen to pen, just before we’d get there with the inspector, to make sure everything was perfect. “I’m so glad to be a part of this,” Rainbow said quietly to me. “After all the work you and your friends did to help, you deserve to be here.” “It was just so wonderful to be part of saving these magnificent animals,” she said. Rainbow and a few of the other protesters had worked as hard as anybody over the past two days to get the farm in shape.
