by Nic Saint
“Have you ever seen those human pyramids?” I asked.
“The ones where a bunch of people all stand on top of each other?” asked Dooley.
“That’s the one. Why don’t we try the same, and then one of us slips through that opening up there, and runs home to warn Odelia?”
“Hey, that’s a great idea, Max,” said Brutus.
I’d recently pulled the same stunt when Dooley and I were locked up in Leonidas Flake’s big house, and Dooley had managed to reach an air vent. We’d used plush animals that time. This time we had something even better: real live animals!
“So you go stand over there, Max,” said Harriet, immediately taking charge.
“Why do I have to be at the bottom?” I asked. I’d secretly hoped I’d be the one to escape through that hole up there.
“Because you’re fat, Max,” said Brutus, with his customary lack of tact. “And big fat cats need to be at the bottom, with the lightest ones near the top of the pyramid.”
“I’m not fat,” I said. “I’m—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Clarice. “We’ve heard it all before. Stop arguing, will ya? We don’t have time for this nonsense. All fat cats gather over here!” she shouted, and compelled by the sheer force of her personality everyone did as they were told. Soon she and Harriet were working together, herding the others, constructing the pyramid with word and gesture. I was at the lowest rung, as indicated, and even though I said I wasn’t feeling well, and had recently undergone an invasive medical procedure, no one paid any mind to my protestations. On top of me stood Brutus, who wasn’t big but strong, paws pressing painfully into my neck, and then layer after layer other cats piled on top of that.
I have to say that cats are the perfect creatures to form a pyramid. Humans may be flexible and strong, but cats are even more so. Of course I couldn’t see what went on above my head, but as far as I could ascertain things were going swimmingly, as at some point loud cheers rang out and apparently some lucky bastard had managed to reach the top and had escaped through that hole I’d found. I would have pointed out that the credit was all mine, but no one was listening, and besides, by then the weight on my shoulders was such that I was starting to know what a bottom pancake feels like, all the other lucky pancakes piled on top and pushing it down onto its plate. Not a very pleasant sensation!
“Well done, you guys!” said Clarice, clapping her paws. “You can come down now.”
Gradually the pyramid was disassembled, and finally I could breathe again.
“Great job, Max,” said Brutus, giving me a painful slap on the exact spot where his left paw had made a big impression. I winced.
“So who is the lucky one who made it through?” I asked.
Brutus gave me a confused frown. “Why, don’t you know? Dooley, of course. He’s the lightest. They elected him unanimously and he heroically accepted to be the messenger.”
I gaped at the cat. “Our Dooley?”
“How many other Dooleys do you know, Max? Of course our Dooley.”
“But… nobody asked me!”
“It’s fine, Max. Dooley will save us all,” said Harriet.
“Oh, my,” I said, as I plunked down on the dirty, wet floor. “And what if they catch him? Or what if he gets stuck and can’t get out? Or what if—”
But then Harriet placed her paw on mine. “He’ll be fine, Max,” she said. “Trust me.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t so sure.
“He’ll be fine because he wants us to be fine. He wants you to be fine. His best friend.”
I gulped a little. “That’s what worries me. That he’ll take too many risks, and make the wrong turns, and that I won’t be there to help him.”
I stared up at the tiny hole, through which my best friend had disappeared. Oh, dear.
Chapter 21
Odelia had finally arrived home, after interviewing Colin Duffer, and the moment she walked in she knew something was wrong. Chase was seated on the couch and got up. He had a worried look on his face, and even before he spoke the words she already knew what he was going to say.
“They didn’t come home, did they?” she asked, more a statement than a question.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, honey. I asked your mom and they’re not next door either.”
“I knew it,” she said, sinking down on the couch. “I knew something had happened to them.”
“You don’t know that. Your cats are smart. They won’t allow themselves to be caught by… whoever is doing this.”
“Whoever is doing this is out to catch all of Hampton Cove’s cats. And if we don’t stop them…” She didn’t even want to contemplate what this pied piper was planning to do with her cats. “Did you call the pound?”
“One of my officers did. Nothing. And they didn’t send out a team today either.”
“So it’s not the pound. Then who is it?”
“Maybe a person who hates cats? And before you say that people like that don’t exist, let me assure you that they do. There’s a lot of sick people out there who wouldn’t mind hurting poor, innocent animals, just to get a kick out of it. Only last year there was that case of a young guy in Belgium, of all places, who put a kitten in his oven.”
“Oh, God. I’m going to be sick.”
“Luckily they managed to save the kitten and put the sick bastard behind bars.”
“Don’t tell me these stories, Chase. You know I can’t listen to that stuff.”
“We’ll find them, and we’ll find your uncle, and all the people that have gone missing.”
“Do you think the two cases are connected? That someone is kidnapping people and cats?”
“I don’t know, babe. It seems very unlikely, though.”
Just then, Marge walked in through the sliding glass door. “Have you heard?” she asked.
“About the missing cats? Yeah, we’re on it,” said Chase.
“Cats? I was talking about your grandmother. She and Scarlett got into a big fight down at the office. Rolling-on-the-floor kind of fight. Scarlett bit your father’s ankle.”
Odelia stared at her mother as if she’d sprouted a second head. “Scarlett did what?”
“She bit Tex’s ankle. He needed disinfecting.”
“Is he all right?”
“Oh, he’s fine, but she screwed up her dentures.”
“Scarlett has dentures?”
“I didn’t know either,” said Mom. “Oh, here is your grandmother now.”
Tex and Gran walked in, Tex limping, and Gran looking like she won the lottery.
“Have you heard?” she asked, clapping her hands with glee.
“Yeah, you got into a fight,” said Odelia.
“Scarlett has dentures! Who knew!”
“By now the whole town, probably,” said Mom.
“Are you all right, Dad?” asked Odelia.
“I’ll live,” said Tex, then showed his battle scars. “She bit really hard. Almost hit bone.”
“Yeah, right,” said Gran skeptically. “They’re dentures, Tex, not vampire’s teeth. She didn’t even break the skin.”
“She did break the skin. Look at those marks!”
“You’re such a pussy.”
“But why did she bite you?” asked Chase, looking puzzled.
“She tried to grab his sausage,” said Gran.
Mom frowned and folded her arms across her chest. “She did what?!”
“It wasn’t even my sausage!” said Tex defensively. “It was your mother’s, I swear!”
“It was a Duffer,” said Gran. “And for some reason Scarlett went nuts when she saw it. Said something about it being the last Duffer in Hampton Cove and if she didn’t get a bite she was gonna freak, and then she freaked and bit Tex when he took her Duffer away.”
“She probably thought your leg was a Duffer, Tex,” said Chase.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want,” said Tex, who seemed upset at his bite marks not being appreciated the way he felt they s
hould be. He limped back out of the house.
“He administered himself a tetanus shot, just to be on the safe side,” said Gran with a grin, “but when I told him to add a rabies shot he shot down the suggestion, the wimp.”
“So what happened to Scarlett?” asked Mom, always the humanist. “Is she all right?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Gran. “She got her dentures back, that’s for sure. And then she waltzed out, but not before taking a big bite out of my Duffer.” She showed the Duffer in question, indicating the bite marks where Scarlett had dug her teeth in. “See? Dentures,” said Gran triumphantly. “I’ll bet nothing about that woman is real.”
“So what was that you said about missing cats?” asked Marge.
“Our cats have gone missing,” said Odelia. “They’re nowhere to be found.”
“Yeah, and there’s a catnappper going around catnapping cats,” Chase added.
“Catnapper my ass,” said Gran. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. I offered those ingrates our special concoction this morning and do you think they said thank you? They refused to eat it! Said they were going on a hunger strike unless I served them up some gourmet soft food instead. So I chucked everything down the garbage disposal and walked off. And now of course they’re out there somewhere sulking and complaining to anyone who’ll listen that their humans are inhuman and yadda yadda. Always the same story.”
Odelia quickly crossed into the kitchen and checked the four bowls. Three of them had been eaten from: Max, Brutus and Dooley’s, but not much. “You’re probably right, Gran,” she said, elation spreading through her like balm. “They must be throwing another one of their temper tantrums and stalked off on a huff as usual.”
“Of course! I know those cats. So don’t you worry about a thing, honey. They’ll be back here tomorrow morning, with their tail between their legs, begging for food. Just you wait and see. Now write this down and write it down exactly as I’m telling you. ‘Distinguished medical assistant Vesta Muffin was attacked by well-known looney tunes Scarlett Canyon. Mrs. Canyon, who is seventy-five but claims to be on the pill and sexually active, tried to steal Mrs. Muffin’s sausage and when she didn’t get what she wanted went nuts and bit Doctor Poole in the ankles. In the process she lost her dentures.’ Why aren’t you writing? This should all be in your article. Verbatim.”
Chapter 22
Dooley wasn’t your typical volunteer. Even though he’d been all in favor of Max’s brilliant idea of a cat pyramid, he hadn’t envisioned himself in the role of escape artist. And if he’d known his friend would be at the bottom of the pyramid and he at the top, he’d have politely turned down the job. Besides, he was no hero. And even though he’d pointed this out to Clarice, who’d taken charge of the proceedings, she hadn’t paid his protestations any mind. She’d simply told him he was the smallest, the lightest, and the only one in his weight class able to communicate with his human, and able to get a message across enemy lines.
So he’d reluctantly agreed in principle, but then the pyramid had been formed and he’d been given a shove in the patootie by Clarice, and before he knew what was happening he was crawling through that opening and now here he was, crawling through this dark and creepy house, in search of the exit.
He was on the ground floor, or so he thought, but as luck would have it he was in a closed room, with no way out. So he’d only gone from one prison to another, and while down below he was with his friends, up here he was all alone. He’d looked down through the hole and could see Max down there. He’d even hollered, but of course they were all chattering so loudly nobody could hear him.
So he’d heaved a deep sigh and had decided that if he was chosen for the part of the hero, he might as well try and play the hero. And so he’d gone in search of the exit. It had taken him several attempts to open the door before he finally discovered a fatal flaw the architect who’d built this place had made: next to the door was a small hole, presumably having served a purpose at some moment in the distant past—possibly a power plug had been placed there, before being stripped by treasure hunters—and so he’d simply clawed away at the thing until the hole was big enough for him to crawl through.
And he’d just managed this daring feat when he smelled sweet victory: a window was open in this next room. So he jumped up onto a rickety old chair, then onto the windowsill, and he was just about to jump through the broken window when he saw that the drop to the ground was a lot longer than he’d anticipated so he balked. No way was he going to make that drop. Plus, there were only brambles down there, and pieces of brick. So even if he survived the drop, his fall wouldn’t be a gentle one.
Then again, his friends were in danger, so shouldn’t he take the chance? What mattered a few brambles compared to the horrors that awaited his dear friends in that dungeon down below? So he took a deep breath, carefully navigated the broken glass and… took the plunge.
He actually landed pretty well, narrowly missing the brambles. His paws hurt a little, but he was still in one piece, and that’s what counted. He raced to a nearby bush, and saw that the van that had brought them was there, just returning with possibly another load of cats, and was now backing up against what he assumed was the hole that led into the scary and smelly dungeon—or cellar.
He slowly backed away from the van, making sure the driver didn’t see him, when suddenly someone pinched him and he was picked up by the scruff of his neck.
“And what do we have here?” a rumbling voice said with audible glee.
He protested up a storm, but to no avail. He tried using his claws, but the man held him at some distance, and seemed to enjoy seeing him dangle and claw.
“You’re a little fighter, aren’t you?” said the man, who was bearded and very big. “Well, let’s get you back to where you came from, little buddy.”
Just then, though, the man suddenly uttered a loud yelp of pain, and dropped Dooley. And as he was dancing on one leg, grabbing for the other, Dooley heard a sweet, sweet sound: it was Max, and he was screaming, “Let’s go, Dooley—run!”
And then he ran, closely followed by Max, right on his tail. In the distance, they could hear the man’s dog yapping up a storm, probably unhappy he’d missed this chance.
And they’d been running for what felt like an hour when they finally stopped, hiding by the side of the road. Max was panting heavily, not really built for this kind of strenuous activity, and Dooley cried, “How did you get out?!”
“Clarice scratched the guard,” he said between two gasps of breath. “Someone opened the hatch that leads into the basement, and she jumped up and scratched whoever was up there. He vanished from view long enough for me to make my getaway.”
“Yeah, I saw that. He arrived to dump a fresh load of cats down the hatch.”
“Clarice should have scratched him much, much harder.”
“So where is she? And where are the others?”
“He caught her and threw her back into the hole. She sacrificed herself, Dooley, distracting the guy long enough for me to escape. She’s a real hero. Just like you.”
“Me? You’re the hero! You bit that guy, even though you don’t have all your teeth!”
“I have to confess it hurts a little,” said Max, tentatively moving his jaw. “But I’m not the hero, Dooley. You are. You volunteered to save all of us.”
“Actually, Clarice volunteered me.”
“Can one cat volunteer another cat? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”
“I don’t know what it is, but that’s what she did.”
“Whoever volunteered whom, we’re out of the dungeon now,” he said, patting Dooley on the shoulder. “So let’s find Odelia and tell her what’s going on before it’s too late.”
And thus began Max and Dooley’s long way home…
Chapter 23
Odelia and Chase had decided to team up to try and get to the bottom of this missing person business. Three people had gone missing so far, and still they were none the wise
r. As far as the missing cat issue was concerned, Odelia was sufficiently satisfied with Gran’s explanation about the hunger strike. It sounded exactly like what her cats would do when they didn’t get their way. And the fact that a bunch of other people had called in and reported their cats missing didn’t necessarily have to mean anything either. Cats were independent creatures, and liked to roam around, wild and free, until they got hungry and returned to the safety of home, hearth, and food bowl.
Joining them for their investigation was Gran, of course, who felt she needed to make a contribution, and who was feeling on top of her game after her tussle with Scarlett.
“Slow the car, Chase,” said Gran suddenly, and cranked down her window. “Hey!” she yelled. “Hey, you! Yeah, I’m talking to you, cats!”
Two cats were walking down the sidewalk, surprised that a human would address them.
“Have you by any chance seen my cats?” Gran asked. “Their names are Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus. Max is big and orange, Dooley small and gray, Harriet is a white Persian and Brutus is butch and black. No? Okay, carry on, fellas.”
She retracted her head, allowing the cats to continue their journey, but then changed her mind and stuck her head out once more. “Hey! cats!”
The cats halted once again.
“A bunch of cats seem to have gone missing. Any idea where they might have gone off to? No? Ok, fine. Be that way.”
“Come on, Gran,” said Odelia with light reproach. “They can’t help it that they haven’t seen Max and the others.”
“Well, they should. If cats don’t look out for each other, who will?”
They continued their journey, and Chase said, “I’m sure they’re fine.”