by Nic Saint
Dooley eyed her a little uncertainly, then gave me a questioning look. I shook my head. Cats usually don’t like to be reminded they don’t perform these feats of hanky panky in a vacuum. That there are other cats around who can hear everything that goes on in these unguarded moments.
“Um, that’s what Max said you were doing down there,” said Dooley, squarely dragging me into the thing. “So I just thought I’d ask…”
Brutus plastered a fake smile onto his face. “Yeah, um, the hanky panky. Well, it was a lot of fun, wasn’t it, Harriet?”
“Actually we were not engaged in hanky panky,” said Harriet.
“We weren’t?” asked Brutus. Harriet was giving him warning signals for some reason, so he quickly amended his statement to, “No, we weren’t.”
“We were looking for clues,” said Harriet. “Clues in connection to the case Odelia is working on. We figured if there’s one body buried inside the wall of the basement, it stands to reason there must be others, especially as these two houses were inhabited by the same family once upon a time. Two basements, so why not two bodies, you know?”
I’d explained the whole story to Harriet, but it did strike me as peculiar that she would have known to look for dead bodies before she was apprised of the state of affairs. Almost as if she was psychic. Odd.
“And? Did you find any?” asked Dooley, and Harriet gave him a dirty look that was entirely undeserving for such an obvious question.
“No, Dooley, we did not find more dead bodies. And it is my firm belief that the basement, at least this one, is entirely body-free.”
“Oh, that’s great,” said Dooley. “Odelia will be happy to hear that.”
“So what about the mouse?” I asked, and this time Harriet’s eyes flashed their anger at me. Why, I did not know.
“No, we didn’t find the mouse. It probably got scared and ran off.”
“Okay,” I said. “So why were those gangsters yammering on and on about mice when Chase led them out of the house?”
“Oh, just tell them,” said Brutus as he hunkered down on the couch, looking miserable.
“No, I will not tell them,” said Harriet. “Remember what we agreed, Brutus.”
“It’s no use, Harriet,” said Brutus. “They’re too smart. They’ll figure it out.” He directed a quick glance at Dooley, then amended his statement. “Max is too smart. He’ll figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” I asked, intrigued.
“See? He doesn’t have a clue,” said Harriet. “So you better keep that big mouth shut, Brutus, or else—”
“Harriet got her head stuck in the wall,” said Brutus. “One of the mice pretended to be our friend and lured her into its nest and then she got stuck. They’re very devious, and they have no intention of leaving. Her name is Molly, by the way, and her partner is called Rupert, and between them they are the proud parents of an offspring of four hundred.”
“Four hundred!” I cried. “That’s a lot of mice.”
“Tell me about it,” said Brutus, shaking a tired head.
“If that’s true Odelia will have to hire a professional. No way are we ever going to get four hundred mice out of the house.”
“You’re… not making fun of me, then?” asked Harriet after a pause which I used to think up ways and means to deal with these intruders.
“Make fun of you? Why would we make fun of you?” I asked, surprised.
She smiled. “I thought you’d have a big laugh at my expense when you heard I’d been fooled by Molly the Mouse and got my head stuck inside the wall.”
“That could have happened to any one of us,” I said, and I meant it. In fact it sounded like something that could very well have happened to me. “So are you going to tell Odelia? Give her the bad news?”
“Bad news about what?” asked Odelia as she joined us on the couch.
“Your basement is infested with mice,” said Harriet. “And even though we tried to reason with them, they decided to stay put.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” said Odelia with a wave of the hand. “They’ll eventually move on.”
“No, they won’t,” said Brutus. “There’s four hundred of them, Odelia, and they have absolutely no intention of moving on. In fact they’re going to stay where they are and try to drive us out of the house if they can manage.”
“Four hundred,” she said with an incredulous little laugh. “Phew. Are you sure?”
“We saw them,” said Harriet. “And they’re not nice mice either. They’re devious.”
Odelia held up her hands. “You know what? I can’t deal with this right now. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this burglary. Good thing you guys caught those crooks.”
“Good thing Chase was there to storm into that basement, guns blazing, saving you from financial ruin,” I said.
She smiled as she petted me. “I wouldn’t say he saved me from financial ruin, but he did save me from being burgled, which is a terrible feeling I never hope to experience again.”
“Being saved, you mean?” asked Dooley, confused.
“Being burgled. People crawling all over your private space, and picking through your private stuff. It feels horrible, let me tell you.”
“What’s going to happen to those crooks now?” I asked.
“Oh, they’ll be charged, and appear before the judge in the morning. I hope they’ll go away for a long time. Did you say they fired off a shot?”
“Yes, to scare away the mice,” said Brutus.
“And did it work?”
“It did,”’ said Harriet. “Though now I wonder where they all ran off to.”
Suddenly a piercing cry rent the air. It seemed to come from underneath us, and as we all ran down the stairs and into the basement, I saw that a sizable hole had been dug by the bullet one of the thugs had fired. Through the hole we could clearly see Marge, standing in her own basement next door, and screaming her head off.
The fact that she was surrounded by a swirling sea of rodents probably had something to do with that.
Chapter 23
When the commotion next door had died down a little, Marge decided to clear the table. No one was going to finish dinner now, and she liked to run a tight and especially a clean ship. And she’d just turned on the dishwasher and moved into the living room when she thought she heard a strange sound. Almost as if some animal was screaming up a storm in the basement. So she’d taken the broom and had pulled the little string that worked the light, and had moved down into the basement one step at a time. At first she didn’t see a thing, but then, as she looked around, suddenly she saw that what she thought was the floor was actually a carpet consisting entirely of mice!
The carpet was undulating, and seemed to cover the whole basement floor!
And that’s when she started screaming her head off.
“Mom!” Odelia called out.
Marge searched for the source of the sound, and saw that there was now a new hole in the basement wall, opposite the one where Boyd Baker’s body had been found. This hole connected to Odelia’s basement, and her daughter was saying something that she couldn’t quite catch, as the mice were screeching up a violent storm at her feet.
So she added to the chorus and screamed some more.
Then two things happened: her mother came stomping down, carrying what looked like an old shotgun, and fired off a shot. The shot went wide and hit the wall, creating yet another hole.
“Mom! Stop shooting!” Marge yelled over the noise of the screeching mice.
And then her husband Tex followed in his mother-in-law’s footsteps and when he saw the spectacle went a little white around the nostrils and said, “Oh, my Lord!”
“This is the first stage, Tex,” said Mom. “See? It’s always the rats that show the way. And they’re showing us we need to build a bunker down here.”
“It’s not rats!” Marge yelled. “It’s mice!”
“Same difference,” said Mom. “Mice lead the way. Noah knew it, a
nd so did Hitler.”
What Hitler had to do with anything, Marge didn’t know, but what she did know was that if someone didn’t make these mice behave, she was going to freak out to such an extent it would be as if a nuclear bomb had exploded right then and there!
Tex, who’d disappeared, now returned carrying a spray can. He directed the nozzle at the mice and pressed the button. The smell of lavender filled the air.
“Is that my deodorant?” asked Marge.
“I didn’t find anything else!”
“Mice love deodorant,” said Mom. “Just look at those little buggers enjoying the heck out of that scent of lavender and pine.”
Odelia, who’d made the trip through the hedge in record time, now also joined the party.
“I don’t believe this,” said Marge. “With four cats between us you would think the house would be completely mouse-free, right?”
“The mice tricked them,” said Odelia as she studied the horror scene with fascination.
“They did what?”
“Harriet and Brutus tried to reason with them and they tricked Harriet into sticking her head in one of their holes and she got stuck. She had her head stuck inside that wall all afternoon and part of the evening.”
“Poor thing,” said Mom.
“Poor thing! She should have killed that mouse, not try to reason with it!” Marge cried.
“Mice are God’s creatures, too, and they have every right to live and thrive.”
“They can live and thrive someplace else.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Tex, whose bright idea of using deodorant on the mice had fizzled out. “How do we get rid of these critters in a humane and efficient way?”
“Humane, my ass!”’ said Marge. “I want them out of here. Now!”
Four cats now descended on the scene: Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus, and stopped to stare at the seething mass of mouse.
“Why didn’t the gunshot scare them off this time?” asked Brutus.
“They’re quick learners,” said Max. “They’re probably used to gunshots already.”
“Oh, dear,” said Harriet. One of the mice said something that Marge couldn’t understand and Harriet snapped, “I told you to beat it, and now look what you’ve done. They’re going to massacre the whole lot of you, and it’ll all be your fault!”
The mouse said something else that escaped Marge, and then Brutus said, “It’s out of our paws now, Molly. I’m sorry. You brought this on yourself.”
It all sounded very ominous, Marge thought, and when Mom raised her shotgun to check if there was another round in the chamber, the mouse called Molly seemed to make a plea.
“Yeah, that’s a shotgun,” said Harriet. “And you don’t want to know what happens when that thing goes off and wipes out your entire family. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”
More pleading from the mouse, and finally Brutus said, “I know she missed that time, but that was just a warning shot. Next time she’ll shoot to kill.”
There seemed to be a lull in the proceedings, as the mice all gathered around the mouse called Molly and another, equally large mouse. Then the mice all looked up at Mom, their little noses twitching, and finally bowed their little heads. And before Marge’s very eyes, the entire troupe suddenly moved off, like a military parade, towards the hole where Boyd Baker had been buried all these years, and moments later they’d cleared out and the basement was mouse-free once more.
No one spoke for a moment, then Harriet said, “I think we did it, Brutus. I think we scared them off.”
“We did!” cried Brutus. “Can you imagine? They believed Gran would actually shoot them!”
“And you better believe it,” said Mom, raising her shotgun, her finger itching on the trigger.
“No, Ma,” said Marge, and quickly took the shotgun away from the old lady. “I can’t believe we still have that thing,” she muttered, directing a scornful look at her husband.
“It was in the tool shed,” said Gran. “Kept it there all this time. It used to belong to my late husband,” she explained for the sake of Odelia. “He brought it home from the war.”
“The big war?” asked Tex.
“Hey, I’m not that old,” she said, shooting an indignant glance at Marge’s husband.
“Looks like they’re gone now,” said Tex, still holding on to his can of deodorant.
“And good riddance, too,” said Marge.
“Well done, you guys,” said Odelia, patting Harriet and Brutus on the head.
“See? I told you those cats would do their job sooner or later,” said Mom.
“Let’s go to bed, you guys,” said Odelia, stifling a yawn. “It’s been one hell of a day.”
“It certainly has,” said Tex as they all moved back up the stairs. Before following the others, Marge darted one final look around, just to make sure all the mice had gone, and that’s when she saw that the hole Mom had made with the shotgun had revealed something stuck inside the wall. For a moment she feared it was another body, but when she moved closer she saw it was actually a small, leather-bound book. She lifted it out of its hiding place and saw that it was a diary, and that it was locked. Telling herself to give it to Odelia, she slipped it into the pocket of her apron, and promptly forgot all about it.
Chapter 24
The moment we’d long been waiting for had finally arrived: Odelia had told us that she was going to get more serious about dental hygiene and she hadn’t been kidding. The reason for this was that recently I’d lost three teeth, due to the fact that they’d apparently outlived their usefulness. Yes, it happens, even to cats. And then Vena had advised Odelia to be more proactive in dental care and now there we were, the four of us filing into the bathroom to undergo our first ever session of having our teeth brushed.
It may surprise you to know this, but cats are incapable of brushing their own teeth. I know, for super creatures like us this is a strange state of affairs but there you have it. We need a human to do the brushing for us, unfortunately.
“What do you prefer?” asked Odelia. She was holding up two dangerous-looking devices. “Manual or electric?”
I hesitated. Tough choice. “Um… what’s the difference?”
“Oh, Max, hurry up, will you?” said Harriet. “You’re holding up the line.”
“No, I just want to know what the difference is. How can I be expected to choose between two unknowns?”
“They’re not unknowns,” said Harriet. “One is manual and the other electric. How hard is it to grasp a simple concept?”
“Does it hurt?” asked Dooley. “It looks like it might hurt. Is it painful?”
“No, it doesn’t hurt, Dooley,” said Odelia. “In fact it’s a very pleasant experience, provided you don’t apply too much pressure on the gums.”
“Yes, please don’t apply pressure on my gums,” he said. “My gums are very sensitive. I have very sensitive gums. Like, extremely sensitive.”
“And how would you know?” said Brutus. “Have you ever tried brushing your teeth before?”
“Um, no,” said Dooley as he licked his gums.
“Well, then? Just go ahead and do it already,” said Harriet. “I don’t have all night, you know. I have cats to see, places to visit.”
“Try the electric one,” I said. “That’s probably the most modern, right?”
“Yes, it’s important to be modern,” Dooley agreed. “We’re modern cats so we should have a modern way of brushing our teeth.”
“All right,” said Odelia, and applied a little bit of toothpaste to the toothbrush, then approached me. I automatically recoiled. “Open your mouth, Max,” she said. “Say aaah.”
I said, “Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?”
“Oh, we’ve been through this already,” said Harriet. “Just do it already. Go, go, go!”
I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth a little.
“Wider,” said Odelia. “Wider, Max.”
“How hard can it be to open your
mouth, Max?” asked Harriet, who was in one of her moods again.
“Just open as wide as you can,” said Odelia. “That’s it. Now who’s a good boy?”
I don’t like being talked to like a toddler, but I did as I was told and opened my mouth wide.
Now I want to add a minor PSA. Don’t try this at home, folks. Most cats are not as well-behaved and well-trained as we are, and if you try to come anywhere near them with a toothbrush they’ll bite you. And then they’ll scratch you. And when they’re done biting you and scratching you they’ll punch you in the eyeball. And if you use an electric toothbrush they won’t be happy that you’re being ‘modern’ but they’ll bite you even harder, because most cats don’t like mechanical noises. But since this was Odelia, and I still had the recollection of having three teeth pulled by Vena, I was willing to give it a shot.
She lowered the toothbrush to my teeth and applied gentle pressure, then moved it all around.
“It’s not so bad,” I said, though the words probably didn’t come out that clearly.
“What did you say, Max?” asked Dooley.
“I said it’s not so bad!” I repeated.
“I didn’t get that,” said Brutus. “Did you get that, Harriet?”
“Who cares?” said Harriet. “As long as things are zipping along I’m happy. Just do the other side and be done with it, Odelia.”
“Careful now,” said Odelia. “I’m going to try massaging your gums a little.”
Now that was too much. “It tickles!” I giggled, and promptly clamped down on the toothbrush. There was the sound of a crack, and when I opened my mouth again the thing had changed its tune. Instead of the nice humming sound it now produced a high-pitched whine. And then there was that odd smell. Like something burning. Yuck.
“Uh-oh,” said Odelia.
“You broke it!” Harriet cried. “I don’t believe this, Max—you broke the thing!”
“She’s right,” said Odelia, frowning at her electric toothbrush. “You bit down so hard you cracked the plastic.”
“Oops,” I said.
“Oh, well,” said Dooley, suddenly sounding a lot happier. “Maybe next time.”