by Nic Saint
“My cats,” said Odelia, as she thought with a pang of sorrow of her sweet foursome. “They kidnapped my cats.”
The entourage, clearly afraid she might keel over, too, took her by the arm and deposited her right next to the Queen. Gran, viewing this with a touch of rancor, now said, “My cats! Oh, dear goodness me, my cats!” and clasped an arm to her brow, then dropped herself down on Odelia’s lap.
Odelia scooted over to make space, and now Gran was seated right next to the Queen.
“This is terrible,” said the Queen. “Horrible! My precious sweet babies. They won’t know what’s going on. They will be apoplectic with anxiety!”
“They’ll be fine,” said what appeared to be the Queen’s senior aide, a man with gray hair so sculpted it looked as if he’d actually created it out of bitumen and glued it to his head. He was wearing some of those fashionable glasses that would have met the approval of Sir Elton John.
“But how is this possible?” asked the Queen. “How did this happen?”
“Bart stepped out for a smoke,” said the aide, then coughed into his fist. “Before he knew what happened, a man dressed like him jumped into the car and drove off with it. Unfortunately Bart had left the engine running.”
“But surely you are in pursuit. Please tell me you’re in hot pursuit.”
It was funny to hear the Queen use words like ‘hot pursuit,’ Odelia thought, even if the situation wasn’t a funny one at all.
“I’m afraid we lost a vital opportunity there, Ma’am,” said the aide, once again coughing into his fist. It seemed to be a favorite mannerism of his.
“Have you notified the police? Are they in pursuit? Have they taken out the helicopter? The drones? Tell me they’re doing something!”
“I’ve notified Scotland Yard. They’re sending a unit as soon as possible.”
“Oh, dear goodness me,” said the Queen, sagging into the couch “This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Positively the worst.”
“If this is a kidnapping, they’ll call in their demands any moment now,” said Dante, looking grave. First the attempt on Tessa’s life and now this.
Odelia wondered if the two events were connected somehow. She couldn’t see how, though.
“Maybe we need to take matters into our own hands,” said Chase.
“What do you suggest, young man?” said the Queen.
“I suggest we go in pursuit right now. They can’t have gotten far.”
“Oh, yes! Please do something!” said the Queen, quite unqueenly.
Chase and Odelia volunteered to be on the ‘Hot Pursuit’ team, and hurried out of the cottage. The Queen’s driver Bart got behind the wheel of a second Range Rover, and soon they were moving along at a fast clip, zooming through the leafy lanes of the Newtmore Estate.
Bart, a stringy man with wispy yellow hair, consulted his GPS. “There’s a fork in the road just up ahead,” he said. “Where do you suggest we go?”
Odelia thought for a moment. She had an almost mystical connection with her cats, that much was true, but all it really amounted to was that she had the gift of the feline gab, nothing more. Could she somehow intuit which way Max and the others were being taken? She doubted it, but she had to try. For her cats’ sake as well as the corgis.
“Left,” she finally said, deciding to trust her gut.
The car swerved to the left, and the leafy lane merged onto a two-lane road. She was surprised when Bart steered the car along the wrong lane.
“What are you doing!” she cried when a car approached from the opposite direction. “Stick to the right!”
“I thought you said left, Ma’am?” Bart inquired respectfully.
“Turn left but stay in your lane!”
He coughed deferentially as the other car zoomed past. It, too, was in the wrong lane. “Ma’am, in this country we drive on the left.”
She uttered a startled little laugh. “Of course. I totally forgot.”
“Good thing you’re not driving, huh?” said Chase with a smile. He was rubbing her lower back and she was glad he was with her. Even if they struck out, she had to keep moving. If she just sat there on that couch she’d go nuts.
“We’re approaching a crossroads, Ma’am,” said the driver.
“Straight ahead,” she said.
The driver didn’t question her judgment. He simply did as he was told, which was a good thing, for she had absolutely no idea where she was going!
Okay, so there was no way we could open that door from the inside, that much we’d ascertained. But how about the window? I pushed the button that operated the window and lo and behold! It inched down ever so slowly.
“Who’s going to jump?” asked Harriet.
We were going pretty fast, and jumping now would probably get us killed. Unless we could aim ourselves onto the shoulder, into the high grass.
I glanced out the window, but all I could see was a guardrail.
Not the best landing spot for a sensitive cat.
“I’ll go first,” said Brutus bravely.
“In this country it is customary for women and children to go first,” said Sweetie. She glanced at Harriet. “Which means we get to go first, then the prissy white cat, then the gray one and finally the fat, red cat.”
“I’m not a woman,” said Dooley.
“No, but you’re a child,” the corgi explained in a kindly tone.
“I’m not a child!” said Dooley.
“Fine, then you can go last,” Sweetie snapped.
The corgi darted a peek out the window, saw that guardrail, and retreated. “I’m not doing it,” she announced. “Not a chance. That jump will end me.”
The others seemed to agree, and darted expectant looks at me.
“You go, cat,” said Molly. “You go and call the police.”
“I’m not jumping,” I said. “I’ll break my neck.”
“No, you won’t. You’re fat. All that blubber will act like a cushion.”
“I’m not fat—I’m big-boned!”
“Of course you are,” said Sweetie. “Now jump already, will you? Cats have nine lives, while we dogs only have one. So what if you get smushed? You’ll still have eight lives left.”
“Unless he’s done this before,” Fräulein pointed out. “In which case he’ll only have seven lives left—or six.”
“Six lives is better than none,” Sweetie pointed out.
“It’s a myth!” I said. “We don’t have nine lives! If I die, that’s the end!”
“Max!” said Brutus. “Never tell our deepest secrets to a dog!”
He was right. We don’t spill the beans to dogs. Just like dogs will never open up to a cat about what makes them tick. It’s not done, trust me. It might give the other species the upper hand and that’s a big no-no in pet world.
“A collar,” I said. “Quick. Someone give me a collar.”
The corgis stared at me. “We’re not giving you our collars,” said Sweetie. “Do you have any idea how much these collars cost? This is gold plating, in case you didn’t know.”
“We’re leaving a trail of breadcrumbs!” I said. “Quick. Before the doofus finds out the window is open!”
“Why don’t you use your collar?” said Molly suspiciously.
“I don’t have one!”
“See?” said Sweetie. “I told you they’re street cats. Only street cats have no collars.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I grunted, then took a firm grip on Sweetie’s collar and yanked. Of course the thing didn’t budge.
“Help!” she yelped. “He’s gone mad! He’s trying to kill me!”
“Oh, just give him the collar already,” said Fräulein. She pressed a paw to her friend’s collar and it clicked open. And as I swung it through the window, the driver glanced back, noticed the window was open, cursed and closed it.
I looked back at the collar, which was lying in the road. I just hoped Odelia would find it. Or else we were royally screwed.
&n
bsp; Chapter 26
Odelia and Chase were still in hot pursuit, even though Odelia had a hard time trusting her instincts. Every road she took had the potential of leading them further and further away from her cats and the corgis. On the other hand, it might lead them closer and closer to where they were taking them...
“Police will catch him,” said Bart, as if he’d read her mind. “A network of sophisticated cameras covers a large part of the city. If he passes a camera they’ll be able to track him. He’s driving the Queen’s car, so he won’t get far.”
“Doesn’t the car have a tracking device?” asked Chase.
“It did. They took it out last year. The Queen’s husband didn’t like the idea of being tracked all the time. He likes to take the car for a spin, you see.”
“Too bad,” said Chase.
“It is,” said Bart. “Then again, you have to respect a person for not wanting to be tracked. There is still such a thing as privacy in this country.”
“Sometimes staying safe trumps privacy.”
“The Queen and her husband are set in their ways, sir.”
“She’s going to be devastated if something happens to her corgis,” said Odelia, biting her nails as her heart tapped a nervous pattern in her chest.
“Oh, yes,” said Bart. “Sometimes I think she loves those animals more than her own family. Then again, I can’t blame her. At least the corgis never give her any trouble.”
“Have you ever driven the Duke and Duchess of Essex?”
“Can’t say that I have, Ma’am. I have a friend who does, though.”
She wondered how to formulate her next question.
“Any issues?” asked Chase, beating her to the punch.
She gave him a grateful nod.
“You mean, has something like this ever happened to them?”
“Uh-huh.”
The driver thought for a moment. “Well, Fluffy was never kidnapped as far as I know. My friend did witness an incident shortly after they were married. A reporter who came to the house and made a big fuss about wanting to talk to the Duchess. He wasn’t allowed to come anywhere near her, though.”
“Who was he?”
“Well-known bloke. Otis Robbins? He does one of those morning shows. Personally I never watch him. Too full of himself. My mum loves him, though. She’s a big fan.”
“Why did he make a fuss?”
“I reckon he wanted to interview her for his show, and when she refused he blew his top. You can’t just walk up to a royal and shove a camera in their face the way you can with regular folk on the street. He should have known that. Another fork in the road coming up, Ma’am.”
She closed her eyes and was about to say left when Chase said, “Hey, isn’t that a dog collar?”
The driver pulled over and Chase quickly got out. In the middle of the road, a fancy dog collar lay. It was velvety red with a gold medallion.
When he brought it back to the car, he held it up. “Sweetie,” he read.
“That’s one of the Queen’s corgis,” said Bart excitedly. “Good catch, sir.”
“So they definitely came this way,” said Odelia. Her heart lifted and did a happy little dance. Her intuition wasn’t leading them astray. Instead, it was leading them closer to her beloved pets.
“Let’s keep going,” said Chase. “Maybe we can catch up with them.”
And as the car eased into traffic once more, Odelia found herself thinking about the driver’s words. The reporter. Could he have something to do with this whole thing? Somehow she doubted it. Why would a reporter try to murder the Duchess? He could simply kill her with his sharp tongue.
The car was still zooming along the road, and I found myself thinking about Odelia. If I had to spend the rest of my life with this crook, I’d miss her very much. Odelia was the only human I’d ever owned, and so I didn’t have a large frame of reference, but my instinct told me that I’d hit the jackpot when I’d landed on her doorstep. And that it could only go downhill from there.
“They’ll probably sell us to the highest bidder,” said Sweetie. “I wonder how much I will fetch.”
“A thousand pounds,” said Fräulein.
“A million, rather,” said Sweetie.
“Maybe a billion!” Molly said.
“Maybe they’ll sell us to someone in the Middle East,” said Sweetie. “And he’ll treat us like royalty.”
“You’re already treated like royalty,” I said.
“Yes, but this time we’ll be treated like oil sheik royalty, which is always a step up from those old and dusty European royals.”
“I think the European royals are the best,” said Fräulein. “New money simply can’t compete with all that style and class.”
“It can,” said Sweetie. “They’ve been buying up so much of London soon they’ll own the entire town, the Queen and all the other royals included.”
“I miss Odelia,” I announced, deciding to change the topic. I found all this talk of being sold off to the highest-bidding oil sheik frankly depressing.
“And I miss Gran,” said Dooley.
“I miss Marge,” said Harriet.
“I miss them all!” said Brutus, who possessed a sentimental streak I never even suspected he had.
“Oh, stop whining, you lot,” said Sweetie. “You’ll be adopted by a nice family, who’ll feed you and give you plenty of cuddles.”
“It’s not the same,” said Harriet.
“Yeah, you don’t know our humans,” Dooley chimed in. “They’re the best.”
“Look, it’s not that I don’t like the Queen,” said Sweetie, “but mostly I like the lifestyle. You know? The best food, the best pillows, the best clothes, the best dog walkers... What I won’t miss is the weather. London is so dreary.”
“Oh, so dreary,” said Molly with an eyeroll.
“The weather. Oh, don’t get me started on the weather.”
“Horrible weather. Simply ghastly.”
“Some days I don’t even want to get up.”
“A lot of days.”
“And then there’s Dubai. Sunny and bright. My kind of place.”
“My kind of place, too.”
“Dubai is, like, a hundred degrees on a cold day,” Fräulein pointed out.
“So? They have air-conditioning. It’s all about the lifestyle.”
“The lifestyle is the thing,” Molly chimed in.
“Give me Buckingham Palace over some nondescript air-conditioned luxury condo in Dubai every day,” said Fräulein.
“They probably don’t even want you in Dubai,” said Harriet, who seemed to have tired of the incessant inane jabbering. “Probably you’ll be sold to someone living in some hellhole in the middle of nowhere.”
“Like Chechnya,” said Brutus with a smirk. “Or Moldova.”
“Or maybe some African warlord will buy you so he can roast you over a slow fire and eat you,” said Harriet. “And then he’ll post the picture on Insta.”
The three corgis stared at her, then Sweetie and Molly shook their heads, smiling indulgently. “Don’t talk rubbish, cat,” said Sweetie.
“Yeah, don’t talk rubbish,” Molly said.
“Why would anyone want to eat us?”
“Some people eat dogs,” I said. “The Chinese, for instance. They consider dog meat a real treat.”
Their smiles vanished and their eyes turned to the driver.
“Hey, Mr. Kidnapper!” Sweetie yelled. “You’re not going to sell us to the Chinese, are you? Mr. Kidnapper!”
But the diver ignored them. He probably didn’t speak dog.
Soon the car was slowing down, and then turned off the road, gravel crunching under the wheels until it pulled to a stop.
“I think we’re there,” said Sweetie. “I think this is it.”
“Oh, I do hope it’s Dubai and not China,” said Molly breathlessly.
The window zipped down and a man looked in on us. I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell he wasn’t happy. P
artly from the colorful curses he uttered and partly from the way he slammed his fist against the roof of the car, making us all jump up. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he cried.
“Don’t worry,” said the driver. “I’ll get rid of the cats.”
“You took the wrong dogs!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You took the Queen’s corgis!”
“So?”
“You idiot! You were supposed to take Tessa’s dog—not the Queen’s!”
“Who cares? You told me to snatch royal dogs so I snatched royal dogs. And I’m throwing the cats in as a bonus. Except for the fat one. That’s mine.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sakes. Take them back.”
“Wait, what?”
“Don’t you realize what you’ve done? The entire country will be looking for those dogs. And I don’t even want to describe what they’ll do to the man who took them. You, sir, are an idiot. A moron!”
“Hey! Sticks and stones, mate!”
The man was walking away.
“What about my money?!”
“Return those dogs!” the man yelled back. “Or you’ll be sorry!”
“We had a deal!”
But the man got into his car and drove off.
“He wanted Fluffy,” said Sweetie. “Can you believe it? He prefers a stupid mongrel over us!”
“Why would anyone want to steal Fluffy?” Harriet asked.
“Probably another Tessa-hater,” I said. “Wanting to get back at her for some perceived slight or offense she caused.”
But the corgis weren’t listening. Instead, they were arguing the merits and demerits of Fluffy, whom they didn’t seem to like all that much.
“So now what?” said the guy, glancing back at us.
“Better take us back,” said Molly. “The Queen will be worried.”
“I thought you didn’t care about the Queen?” said Harriet.
“Oh, will you please shut up, cat?” said Sweetie imperiously.
“You know what?” said the kidnapper. “I’ll just dump you here. The guy is probably right. Pretty soon Scotland Yard will be breathing down my neck.”
And so he got out, slammed the door, and started jogging off!