“It’s not a very nice painting though is it, Max?”
“No, it’s not,” I agreed.
“So that’s a gnome?”
“Yeah, Tex seems to have a thing for gnomes lately.”
“Poor Marge,” said Dooley, taking the words right out of my mouth.
We decided to leave Tex to it. We had an appointment at the park for cat choir, and we didn’t want to be late. Shanille, cat choir’s conductor, hates it when cats are late, and we don’t want to provoke her ire.
So we took a late-night stroll along the roads and pathways that crisscross our fair town, and soon were inhaling that bracing ocean air the Hamptons is so rightly famous for. The park is close to the ocean. In fact you can walk from the park down to the beach in next to no time. Not that we’d ever do that. Cats are not all that fond of the ocean, you see—or water in general, I should probably add. Water makes you wet, and we hate wet.
We arrived at the park and found it already teeming with fellow felines. Harriet and Brutus had arrived, of course, and so had Shanille, and Kingman, Wilbur Vickery’s cat, but also Buster, the barber’s Maine Coon, and many other friends and acquaintances. In fact it isn’t too much to say that the feline population of Hampton Cove is one big family. I almost said a big happy family, but since that isn’t always the case, I won’t.
“Did you hear what happened this afternoon?” asked Kingman the moment he clapped eyes on us. “My human caught two serial killers!”
“They’re not exactly serial killers,” I said. “Or even regular killers. They’re thieves.”
“Well, they’re bad news anyway, and Wilbur caught them.”
“The way I heard the story Wilbur accidentally stepped in front of the crooks as they were running along the sidewalk,” I said. “So it’s not that he actually caught them. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Or the right place at the right time,” Dooley said.
“That, too,” I said.
“I don’t care how you want to tell the story,” said Kingman. “I’m still sticking to my version of the truth.” He’d spotted another cat—a female one, of course—and I could hear him tell her the same story he was probably going to tell cats all night, and all the nights to come: “My human caught two serial killers. Caught them red-handed!”
“My human was there, too,” said Shanille. “Father Reilly happened to step out and got in the way. They all tumbled to the ground and by the time he knew what was happening, Chief Alec had already made the arrest.”
“Well, good riddance,” I said. “Let’s hope this spate of burglaries will now finally be over and done with.”
“Of course it will be over and done with,” said Harriet, who’d also joined the conversation. “We caught the killer, Brutus and I. Isn’t that right, baby boo?”
“Yeah, we caught the bad guys,” said Brutus.
“So many people caught the bad guys,” said Dooley admiringly. “They really didn’t stand a chance, did they?”
I smiled at this. He was right. But then of course success has many fathers—or mothers—and failure none.
Still, it was time to give credit where credit was due. “I think you guys did a great job,” I said therefore. “And Hampton Cove is a safer, better place because of it.”
“Why, thanks, Max,” said Harriet, pleasantly surprised. “And I still haven’t thanked you properly for saving us from that monstrous device.”
“Monstrous device?” asked Shanille. “What monstrous device?”
“A Roomba,” I said. “You know, one of those vacuum cleaners that are fully automated.”
“It was terrible,” said Harriet. “I thought for sure it was going to kill us.”
“Max jumped on top of it and destroyed it,” Dooley said. “He saved our lives.”
“I could have jumped on top of it and it wouldn’t have put a dent in the thing. It needed a fat cat like Max to do real damage,” said Brutus, quite nastily, too, I thought.
“It’s not my weight that made me successful,” I pointed out, “but my technique.”
“Yeah, you have to know where to jump, boogie bear,” said Harriet. “And Max must have studied the intricacies of the machine long enough to know its weaknesses and to know exactly where he should land to put it out of commission. Isn’t that right, Max?”
“Oh, sure,” I said, though of course I’d simply jumped the thing and, like Brutus had indicated, my sheer big-bonedness had done the rest. Though I’d never admit it—ever.
I could tell that Brutus wasn’t happy, though.
“Cheer up,” I said, clapping him on the back. “The next Roomba is yours to tackle.”
“There won’t be another Roomba,” he grumbled. “I heard Marge tell Odelia she wasn’t buying a second one.”
“Father Reilly has a Roomba,” said Shanille now, surprising us all. “I love it.”
I blinked. “Love it?” I asked. “How can you love a Roomba?”
“It’s great fun,” she said with a shrug. “He uses it to clean the church, and I like to ride it from time to time. Very entertaining.” And with a light laugh, she assumed the position of choir director and raised her voice. “Gather around, cats! Rehearsal is about to start!”
“She likes the Roomba,” said Harriet, flabbergasted. “Shanille really is a weird one.”
“Maybe she’s a terminator herself?” Dooley suggested. And for the rest of choir practice he didn’t let her out of his sight, just in case she turned out to be a killer robot from the future.
I felt a little bad now. Maybe I shouldn’t have destroyed the thing. Now what was Odelia going to do about her dust bunnies?
Chapter 26
Cat choir had been a smashing success as usual, and it was with uplifted spirits that the four of us returned home.
Harriet, especially, was feeling on top of the world. She’d sung her solo performance, and it had earned her a spontaneous round of applause. The fact that the applause was muted—it’s those darn paw pads, you see—hadn’t detracted from the warm sense of accomplishment Harriet had experienced, and it wasn’t too much to say she was walking on air.
“Once we get started with our quiz show,” she said now as we wended our way home along deserted streets, “I think I’ll sing a couple of songs in between the rounds. It will motivate and inspire the candidates, don’t you think, doodle bug?”
“Oh, sure,” said Brutus. “The candidates will be over the moon, and so will the millions of viewers at home.”
“Do you really think we’ll attract millions of viewers?” asked Harriet, her eyes shining at the thought of becoming a global superstar.
“Did I say millions? I meant hundreds of millions, of course. Seeing as there are a hundred million cats in the United States alone, I think it’s safe to say this show of ours is going to go viral and hit the stratosphere.”
“It’s going to leave Ed Sheeran and that Despacito guy in the dust,” said Harriet.
And as Harriet and Brutus shared their roseate dreams of global stardom, I saw that Dooley didn’t look happy.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You don’t seem excited about the new quiz show for cats?”
“Harriet took it over,” he said quietly. “It was my idea and Harriet and Brutus took it and now they’re saying it was their idea all along. But it was my idea, wasn’t it, Max?”
“Of course it was your idea, Dooley,” I said. “And Harriet and Brutus know this.”
“You think so?” He didn’t look entirely convinced.
“Of course they do. Besides, don’t tell them I said this, but I think their ambitions just might be slightly overoptimistic. Since cats don’t own smartphones, or tablets, and only very rarely have access to computers or laptops, I think the chances of a show made by cats for cats being a huge success are slim.”
“Oh,” he said, taken aback. “So maybe we should bring the show to television?”