What worried me, though, was the fact that a certain militant seagull had turned him on to the idea, and since I knew that Alpha’s revenge would find me at any moment, I’d become suspicious of everything my raccoon neighbor said and did.
Then I remembered that I had one more reason to worry—there was a camera crew currently filming in my yard.
I stepped out onto the porch and glanced every which way to ensure no one saw what I was about to do. When I was satisfied I had a moment’s privacy, I pulled Pringle into the house and shut the door behind us.
He immediately turned back.“Oh, no. I am not allowed in the house. If you ever catch me in here again, you’re going to turn me into Davey Crockett memorabilia, and I don’t think I’d like being a hat.”
My chest tightened with guilt. To be fair, I’d made that threat after he kidnapped Nan’s Chihuahua, carried her up to his tree fort, and locked her in a live trap as part of his imaginary gumshoe game.
“It’s okay when you’re invited,” I said with what I hoped was a beatific smile.
“Thank you. I shall remember that,” the raccoon answered, so unlike his usual self I had to wonder if this was an authentic change or just another one of his role-playing antics.
Pringle bowed, then held up the card he’d brought with him using both hands.
I plucked it from his fingers and examined both sides. It was one of the RSVP cards Charles and I had sent out with the wedding invitations. Each of the meal options was checked off, and a giant muddy paw print filled the left half of the card.
“My invite never arrived, so I figured it must have gotten lost in the mail. I didn’t want to bother you, so I waited until I could find a blank one in the trash, and then I filled it out so that you would know I’m coming. I would never miss your big day, Miss Angela.”
Sometimes this little trash panda really caught me off guard. I hadn’t sent him an invite because he’s a raccoon who lives in the treehouse in my backyard—and also because I strongly suspected Alpha would use him in his plot to ruin the whole thing. Still, my heart went out to him. God help him, he was trying very hard to be a good raccoon these days.
“Thank you, Pringle, that’s very kind. I see here you will be having the chicken, fish,and vegetarian options for your dinner.”
His smile widened, showing off those sharp little incisors.“Yes, you planned a perfect menu. I didn’t want to miss out on any of it.”
I chuckled to myself rather than point out the whole point of having options is that so guests could pick the one thing they liked best.
“Angela!” my cat’s panicked cry sounded from the kitchen. “Angela, come here right now!”
Pringle offered me a knowing smile.“Duty calls, I see. If you’ll just open the door, I’ll see myself out.”
I nodded and followed his instruction just as my frantic tabby bellowed my name once more.“Angelaaaaaaaa!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I yelled, moving as quick as I could in his direction.
“What are these vulgar creatures doing drinking frommy teacup? And eatingmy food?” he demanded, his tail flicking wildly behind him as he stared in horror at our two kitty guests.
“You remember Jacques and Jillianne,” I said, reaching down to pet each of Charles’s sphynx cats between their giant bat-like ears.
“Yes, I remember them, which is precisely why I don’t want them here,” Octo-Cat answered with a sneer.
“I don’t like him staring while we’re trying to have a meal,” Jacques, the smaller sphynx, said with a huff.
“I don’t like him in the same room as us at all,” Jillianne, his large black companion, added.
“And I don’t like them intruding in my home and then acting like I’m not even here!” Octo-Cat shouted right back, the fur on his spine now raised in aggression.
Well, this was not good. One of Nan’s errands had involved picking up Charles’s cats and bringing them here so they had some time to settle in before tomorrow’s ceremony. Seeing as I’d been so immersed in my own to-do list, I hadn’t realized she’d already deposited the two naked felines in our home—their home now, too,since Charles would be moving in, effective tomorrow.
“C’mon, Octo-Cat. I’ll get you set up with fresh food and water in your bedroom.”
His jaw dropped comically low. I swear it practically scraped the linoleum floor.“Me? You’re forcing me to move? Why not them? Need I remind you, this is my house?”
“You know that Jacques and Jillianne will be living here now that Charles and I are getting married. None of this should be a surprise. You know—”
“I don’t like his tone,” one of the nudist cats interrupted.
“I don’t like this place,” the other added, and they both shuddered in eerie unison. “I don’t like it at all.”
It was fantastic that the sphynxes were no longer speaking strictly in rhymes and riddles. If only they hadn’t instead defaulted to complaints as their primary method of communication. The two of them were dead ringers for Veruca Salt fromCharlie and the Chocolate Factory these days, and I did not much care for that.
I turned away from J and J and focused my attention on Octo-Cat. He was rarely reasonable, but I had a better chance of getting through to him than my new step-cats—and here I thought our relationship had been progressing so nicely. “You have to be the one to go because you have your own bedroom that’s set up perfectly to your liking. I realize you don’t like the idea of sharing the house with other cats, but there’s not really anything we can do about that.”
The tabby gasped in horror.“You could not marry UpChuck for starters, or we could send those two interlopers to the animal rescue.”
“Well, now you’re definitely going to your room. You’re being very rude to your new siblings and need a time-out.” Having said my part, I did the thing my cat liked least. I hoisted him into my arms and carried him up the stairs straight to his bedroom.
“You can come out after you’ve had some time to think about what you’ve done,” I said, blocking the door so he couldn’t run out and end his punishment ahead of schedule.
He chuffed at this.“I’ve already thought about it, and I still one hundred percent agree with—”
I closed the door between us, not having the time to listen to his spoiled rant. I could hardly take one cat complaining at me day in and day out. How on earth was I going to handle three?
4
Make that four, four complaining cats all under one roof on the day before my nuptials.
Because less than an hour later, Christine arrived from Colorado with Octo-Cat’s girlfriend Grizabella in hand. Oh why did I have to invite everyone to stay at my place while they were in town?
True, I’ve got the space in my giant manor home, but the added complications of catering to all my out-of-town arrivals were not helping with my state of mind. At least having Grizabella there would help to calm Octo-Cat, or so I hoped.
“Come in, come in,” I cooed to Christine, giving her a quick hug before practically pushing her toward the staircase. “You two will stay in Octo-Cat’s room. Let me show you where that is.” Usually I called it the “fish tank” room when talking to outsiders, but if anyone would understand my cat having his own bedroom, it was the show queen Christine and her retired prize Himalayan.
“I’m rather tired from all the travel,” the gorgeous new feline arrival explained around a yawn. “Be a dear and fetch my brush. Not the one with the steel bristles. The natural wood, darling. Oh, I must look a wreck. What will my hunka-burning kitty love think of me in this state?”