“You’re not going to go under, even for the first time,” said Odelia. “The water isn’t deep enough.”
“Mh,” I said doubtfully. It was true that Odelia had explained that this was only the first step in teaching us how to swim, and if we passed this hurdle, in the next phase of the program we’d visit an actual pool and proceed to the next step: learning how to stay afloat by the judicious application of our paws and certain techniques she’d teach us.
“So is this happening or not!” yelled Gran, who was clearly getting fed up.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.” And before I could convince myself this was a very bad idea, I stepped up to the inflatable pool, put one paw over the edge, and stepped in. When the water suddenly reached my belly, there was a momentary panicky cry bubbling up my throat but I heroically stifled it and hoped for the best—and Gran’s immediate response if I would, indeed, suddenly find myself submersed in these cold waters.
“Max!” said Dooley, running up to see if I was drowning. “Are you all right?”
I gulped a little. “I-I’m not sure, Dooley,” I said. I glanced down, and had to admit that Odelia had been right about one thing: the water wasn’t nearly deep enough to drown in. And even though the sensation of getting wet set off a sense of rising panic, I also found the coolness of the water quite… enjoyable.
The day was really hotting up, and being up to my shoulders in these cooling streams—even though the water wasn’t actually streaming—was actually not all that bad.
I looked up at Gran, who gave me an expectant look.
“It’s… not so bad,” I finally announced, causing the elderly lady to give three rousing cheers, and pump the air with her fists.
“He did it!” she cried. “Max has braved the raging waters of the inflatable pool!”
I smiled and looked back at my fellow cats, who were all staring at me, mouths agape. “Come on in, you guys,” I found myself saying. “The water is fine.”
Now it was their turn to gulp, but before long, and after careful deliberation, they all followed suit, and moments later four cats were standing side by side in the plastic inflatable pool, not entirely happy, but not all that unhappy either.
“I think we can call lesson one a total win,” said Odelia with a satisfied smile on her face. “That’s it for today, you guys. You can stay in there for as long as you like. And tomorrow we’re moving to the outdoor municipal swimming pool for lesson two.”
Harriet closed her eyes. “Somehow I’d hoped lesson one would also be the final lesson,” she said.
“No such luck,” said Brutus.
“Oh, don’t be so glum,” I said. “It’s fun to be in the water, isn’t it? Nice and cool.”
They gave me dark looks, conveying the sentiment that I’d lost my mind, then stepped out of the pool, carefully examining the damage the water had done to their fur.
Dooley sidled up to me. He’d been trying to suck in his belly, hoping to avoid contact with the water, but since his legs were pretty short, it was swimming against the stream. He relaxed his belly, fully immersing it in the water, and let out a high-pitched scream.
“It’s all right, Dooley,” I said. “It’s just water. It won’t kill you.”
“No, but it will make me wet,” he said with undeniable logic.
“I’m getting out of here,” said Gran, stepping out of the pool. “Too hot,” she grumbled, and headed inside for some cooling shade.
“It is pretty hot out here,” I said, peering up at that big ball of searing heat treating us to its relentless rays.
“It’s global warming,” Dooley announced knowingly. “I’ve seen it on the Discovery Channel. The planet is heating up, and soon it will be so hot we’ll all melt, just like those Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,” I said as I gawked at the water reflecting my face. For a moment I contemplated submersing myself fully but then dispelled the silly notion. Soon we’d be floating in an actual pool, but why hasten the terrifying process?
Odelia, who was tapping away on her smartphone, was walking back toward the house, and Gran, our self-appointed lifeguard, had also vanished from view, as had Brutus and Harriet. So now it was just me and Dooley, alone in that inflatable pool.
“Max?” said Dooley. “The floor of this thing is really slippery.”
I’d noticed the same thing. The bottom of the inflatable pool was extremely slippery.
“What if we trip and fall and go under?” he asked, a rising sense of alarm making his voice quake.
“Let’s all try to stay calm,” I said, even though I was starting to lose my cool, too.
We were in the middle of a water-filled inflatable pool, far away from the safety of the shoreline, and if we slipped and fell now we’d go under with no one there to save us!
“Let’s just… not move,” I suggested therefore.
“What do you mean?” asked Dooley, giving me panicky glances while he stood frozen to the spot, afraid to move an inch for fear of slipping on that slippery bottom.
“If we don’t move we can’t fall,” I pointed out. “And if we don’t fall we can’t go under.”
“You’re right,” said Dooley. “If we don’t move we can’t fall, and if we don’t fall we won’t drown. I like your idea, Max. It’s a very good idea.”
So we simply stood there, motionless, hoping someone—anyone!—would come and fish us out of the inflatable pool, which was slowly but surely becoming a death trap.
And as the sun beat down upon our heads, I was starting to rue the day I’d said yes to Odelia’s cockamamie idea!
Chapter 2
Marge was cleaning out her kitchen cupboards when suddenly a very large specimen of spider took a running leap from the top shelf and jumped right at her.
She uttered a blood-curdling scream and nearly fell off her stepladder. The spider had cleared the cupboard and had actually disappeared into her décolletage, however modest, and was now wriggling its way along the front of her T-shirt.
So when Tex walked into the kitchen five seconds later he found his wife of twenty-five years screaming her head off and performing some sort of tribal dance on the spot.
“What’s wrong, darling?” he asked, immediately starting to diagnose the symptoms and trying to come up with the name of the terrible disease that had afflicted her.
“A spider!” she screamed. “It jumped me!”
Tex immediately lost interest. An occupational hazard with doctors is that they’re only interested in a physical phenomenon when there’s a disease to be diagnosed and medication to be prescribed. He even went as far as to utter a light chuckle. “A spider,” he said. “Oh, dear.”
But Marge was too busy divesting herself of her items of clothing and trying to ascertain the whereabouts of the spider to bother about her husband’s lack of empathy.
Finally, after having hopped on the spot and failed to locate the bug, she was relieved to find it scuttling away from the T-shirt she’d dropped to the floor and making haste in the direction of the stove, then disappearing underneath, where Marge’s wrath couldn’t expend itself on its hairy form.
Just then, Vesta walked in. She directed a critical look at her daughter. “I know it’s hot and all, Marge, but do you really have to strip down to your underwear?”
“There was a spider,” said Marge, still breathless, as she clasped a hand to her chest, where she thought she could still feel the animal’s hairy little feet scratching her skin.
“Deep breaths,” said Tex, as he placed a hand on his wife’s wrist and started monitoring her heartbeat like the medical professional he was. “In and out. That’s it.”
“A spider?” asked Vesta. “And is that a reason to perform an act of indecency in my kitchen?”