“That gnome is just a piece of painted plaster, Dooley,” I said. Though my friend was right. The gnome was, indeed, staring at us. With a flicker of malice in its eyes. Creepy!
“I heard Dan Goory is still in jail?” said Kingman.
“Yeah, it looks like he just might be the killer after all,” I said.
“Odelia isn’t happy about it,” Brutus grunted. “It probably will cost her her job.”
“It’s not because of her job that she’s unhappy,” said Harriet. “It’s because Dan is a friend, and she finds it hard to believe one of her friends could be a killer.”
“I find it hard to believe, too,” said Shanille. “Father Reilly was saying just the other day how Dan is one of the most upstanding citizens in this town, and now this. It’s terrible—simply terrible.”
“Wilbur said just the opposite,” said Kingman. “I heard him tell several of his customers how he’s always thought there was something fishy about Dan. Something evil.”
“You shouldn’t listen to Wilbur, Kingman,” said Shanille. “He is what Father Reilly likes to call a fallible human.”
“All humans are fallible, though,” said Harriet. “Well, they are,” she insisted when Kingman groaned. “They all make mistakes, but most of them try to learn from their mistakes, which makes them admirable in my book.”
See? What did I tell you? These stakeouts bring out the philosopher in all of us.
“I hope Elsa has managed to get rid of the mice,” said Brutus. “Otherwise this night will have been a complete waste of time.”
“Oh, I think you’ll find that Elsa will keep her promise,” I said. “She’s an absolute marvel.”
“Who’s this Elsa?” asked Shanille.
“She’s a mouse Max met,” Brutus grunted. “She’s going to get rid of the mice in the basement.”
Kingman laughed at this. “You got a mouse to get rid of your mice? That’s probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
“It’s not ridiculous,” I said, feeling slightly offended by this slight. “In fact I think it’s brilliant. Who else but a mouse knows how to get under another mouse’s skin? It’s all about psychology, Kingman.”
“Yeah, it’s all about psychology,” Dooley echoed. “And speaking about psychology, did you hear the one about the priest, the rabbi and the shrink?”
Unfortunately the punchline of Dooley’s joke would have to wait for a more opportune time, as suddenly there was a loud crashing sound nearby, and two people jumped the hedge and landed right in front of Dooley and me. They were both clad in black from head to toe, and were carrying black plastic bags, and before I knew what was happening, they were tearing gnomes out of the ground and dumping them into the bags.
“Max! What do we do?!” Dooley cried.
“Um… we attack!” I said, though I wasn’t exactly sure if this was the right strategy. Humans, you see, are a lot bigger than cats, and on top of that I didn’t know if these blackguards were armed or not.
Still, we’d been recruited to the neighborhood watch to serve and protect, so serve and protect we were going to do to the best of our limited abilities!
I jumped on top of one of the thieves, while Dooley dug his claws into the thief’s ankles. Harriet and Brutus applied the same technique to the second sneak thief, while Kingman and Shanille followed suit, dividing their labor equally amongst the two men—for that was what they were.
So the state of affairs was thus: I was on the back of one of the men, my claws dug in nice and deep, Dooley had his claws into the man’s left calf, and Shanille had climbed the man like a tree and was now on top of his head, holding on for dear life as he screamed at the top of his lungs and thrashed about like a crazy person.
Next to us, the same picture held true, only there both Kingman and Harriet had selected the man’s shoulders as their point of attack, while Brutus had found nothing better than to dig his teeth and claws into the man’s buttocks.
Yikes. Not a pleasant prospect, either for the man, or for poor Brutus!
Soon, though, reinforcements appeared on the scene, in the form of Gran, Scarlett, Father Reilly and Wilbur Vickery. With some effort they managed to subdue both men, and pin them to the ground, effectively rendering our efforts superfluous.
Brutus, who was spitting out a piece of pantaloon, and Dooley, who was shaking his paw to get rid of some of the fabric he’d torn loose, were all right and accounted for, and so was Kingman. Shanille, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found.
Until, at long last, she came teetering up. Apparently her thief had managed to eject her from his head, and she’d found herself ejected into the bushes.
“Remove their masks,” said Gran now.
Wilbur and Father Reilly, seated on the men’s backs, did as they were told, and imagine my surprise when the two men turned out to be two boys instead!
“Flint Dibbert and Bart Stupes!” cried Father Reilly. “I should have known.”
Flint and Bart are what you might call troubled youth, in that they are young and they keep troubling people with their antics. They once spray-painted some very offensive slurs on Uncle Alec’s house—and badly spelled, to boot. And now they’d graduated to a more serious level of criminal activities: gnome-lifting.
“Why?” asked Gran. “Why did you steal all those gnomes?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Bart, who was nursing a nasty cut on his cheek, where Shanille had probably grazed him before he’d thrown her off. “That idiot called us names.”
“What idiot?” asked Gran. She was right to ask the question, as there are a great many idiots to choose from at any given occasion.
“Ted Trapper, of course,” said Bart, who was by way of being the spokesperson of the pair. “So we decided to pay him a lesson.” He grinned. “We knew how much he likes the gnomes, so we decided to set him up with all the gnomes in Hampton Cove.”
“All of the gnomes!” said his brother in crime.
“So they’d all get angry with him,” Bart continued, laying out his evil scheme in all its poignant starkness. Or is it stark poignance?
“All of them angry with poor old Ted!” cried Flint.
“You wanted to get the gnomes angry?” asked Scarlett, confused.
“All the gnome owners, you stupid old bat!” Bart cried, earning himself a scowl from Scarlett.
“This is not the way, boys,” said father Reilly. “Violence begets violence. Instead of retaliating, you should try to find it in your hearts to forgive.”
“Oh, shut up, you old coot,” said Flint.
Father Reilly, instead of turning the other cheek, simply hauled off and gave the young thug a slap across the cheek. It echoed through the deserted street, as did the muttered ‘Ow!’ from the offended youth.
By the time the police finally showed up to take the two youthful criminal masterminds into custody, I could tell that the members of the neighborhood watch, in spite of their first success, were all eager to head home to their respective beds.
And frankly I was eager to get home, too. Not to hit the hay, though, but to find out if the house was now pleasantly devoid of mice!
Tonight might have seen Hampton Cove’s gnome population get rid of a clear and present danger to its continued existence, now it was time for us cats to get rid of our murine menace.
Chapter 35
I arrived home feeling on top of the world. Not only had we been instrumental in snatching a pair of gnome snatchers, but I was absolutely sure we’d now find our house mouse-free for the first time in a long while.
So it was with a faint sense of alarm that I walked in through the pet flap and saw the disaster area that was our kitchen: the cupboards were open, and so was the fridge and the door to the pantry, and food was strewn about liberally all over the place. The living room was a mess, and so was the small family room where we like to watch TV. All in all, it looked as if someone had thrown a party and neglected to clean up after themselves. It didn’t take me long to pin down the culprits, as I saw tiny mice feet all over the place.