I had no idea what she was talking about, and a question was just forming on my lips when the glass sliding door was shoved open and Marge walked in, carrying a hefty vacuum cleaner and looking ready to do some serious damage with the apparatus.
I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I have a thing about vacuum cleaners. I loathe them. I detest them. I hate them. I cannot be in the same room with them without falling prey to the most abject sensation of naked fear. Fear of being deafened by their horrific sound, or possibly fear of being sucked into their belly never to be seen again.
So it was with a slight cry of panic that I hopped down from my position on the couch and raced up the stairs as fast as my short legs could carry me. Before long, Marge had started up that machine from hell and was hoovering away to her heart’s content, while I was safely ensconced on top of the bed, hoping that this, too, would soon pass.
You might ask why Marge brought her own vacuum cleaner and didn’t use her daughter’s, and I will tell you that something happened to Odelia’s dust sucker recently that made it break down. Someone, it might have been a mouse, or maybe even a rat, had chewed through its power cord, and had rendered the thing useless. Okay, so I chewed through that power cord. Can you blame me? That thing is a menace! A danger to life and limb! If ever the police come to drag me to jail for causing criminal damages, I’ll plead self-defense, and I’ll bet any judge in the nation would readily see my point.
Before long, another, smaller cat had joined me in the form of Dooley. He hates vacuum cleaners, too, and must have walked in through the pet flap before finding himself cornered by Marge’s furious burst of cleaning frenzy.
“She’s cleaning, Max!” he cried, as he jumped up onto the bed and tucked his head underneath the covers, not unlike an ostrich. “She’s going to suck me up and kill me!”
“Kill us,” I corrected him.
“Oh, but you’re safe, Max,” said Dooley. “You’ll never fit inside that machine. You’re too big. Me? I’ll fit just fine!”
I know I should have been upset by these words, spoken by a friend, no less. But I knew Dooley was simply telling it like it is. Like a child, he means no harm, and words sometimes fall from his mouth that may come across as harsh but mean no malice.
And oddly enough his words inspired hope, not anger. Dooley was right. I would never fit inside that vacuum cleaner. Which meant I was probably, and perhaps for the first time in my life, saved by my big bones.
Just then, a third cat came jumping on top of the bed covers. It was Brutus. He may be a tough cat—one of those tough babies who look the world in the eye and spit—but he, too, has an unholy fear of vacuum cleaners and other suctional devices from hell.
“What’s with humans and their obsession to suck dust into a weird machine,” he lamented as he cast anxious glances at the door.
“It’s Harriet,” I said. “She asked Marge to drop by and give her daughter’s house a quick once-over.”
“She should have left well enough alone,” said Brutus, earning himself nods of agreement from both myself and Dooley.
And as if she’d heard our words, Harriet came sashaying into the room, then hopped up onto the bed and Odelia’s fearsome foursome was complete.
“Also hiding from the vacuum cleaner?” asked Dooley.
“I don’t need to hide from a machine that is doing a great job eradicating everything that is hideous and odious about the world we live in,” she announced primly. But she wasn’t fooling me. Like Brutus, she kept darting anxious glances in the direction of the door. And the moment Marge came stomping up the stairs, no doubt intent on giving the upstairs the same treatment she’d awarded the downstairs, the Persian actually whimpered and slipped under the covers, joining Brutus, Dooley and, of course, myself.
We may be fearless in the face of murder and mayhem, but if there’s one thing that can beat us, it’s a simple contraption designed to extract those dust bunnies from their hiding place and deposit them into either a plastic receptacle—Hoover’s bagless variety—or a strange shapeless bag, never to be seen or heard from again. Oh, the horror!
Silly, of course, but I never claimed cats are perfect creatures.
So you’ve discovered our Achilles’ heel.
Don’t use it against us!
Chapter 6
Marge frowned as she applied the vacuum cleaner to her daughter’s upstairs bedroom floor. Harriet had been absolutely right. The house was a mess. Dust and dirt everywhere, clothes still in the hamper in the bathroom, dishes in the sink… She didn’t mind cleaning up after her daughter from time to time, but since this was already the third time this month, she was starting to think something was seriously wrong.
Odelia worked hard, of course, and so did her boyfriend Chase, a cop with the local police force. But she shouldn’t have to rely on her mother to take care of basic household stuff like this. And if she didn’t have the time, maybe she should hire a cleaner.
And as she vowed to have a talk with Odelia that night, she thought she heard the doorbell chime out its customary tune.
She shut down the vacuum cleaner and listened intently for a moment. Yep, there it was again. She wondered for a moment whether to open the door or not, but then decided she might as well have a look.
“You can come out now,” she said as she walked out of the room. “I’m done in here.”
Four cats gratefully stuck their heads from under the covers and sighed a collective sigh of relief. Marge smiled. It was funny to see them go into hiding the moment the vacuum cleaner came out. Well, funny for her. Not as much fun for them, poor babies.
She quickly walked down the stairs and headed for the door. The moment she opened it she thought she experienced déjà-vu, for the two men standing there looked very familiar indeed.
“Johnny? Jerry?” she asked, taken aback a little by the sight of the twosome. “Is that really you?”
The two men appeared equally surprised by this meeting, for they goggled for a moment, then Johnny, the biggest of the two, opened his arms, his face breaking into a wide grin, and cried, “Mrs. P! It’s so nice to see you again!”
Marge wasn’t prepared to allow herself to be hugged by the big guy, though, so she took a step back, folded her arms across her chest, and frowned. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Johnny Carew. And you better make it good, or I’m calling the police.”
Jerry, Johnny’s ferret-faced partner in crime, contrived to beam at her, which oddly enough made him look like a ferret in heat. “Now, Mrs. P,” he said, his voice smooth like butter. “No need to be like that. We mean you no harm. Isn’t that right, Johnny?”
“Yeah, that’s right, Jer,” said Johnny, a mountain of a man whose face displayed all the hallmarks of a goofy kid, including a certain guilelessness that was remarkable in one who’d seen the inside of a prison cell for a big chunk of his life. The two career criminals had, once upon a time, been assigned to Marge for their community service, to be carried out at the library she managed. Apart from stacking books on their designated shelves, they’d also knocked out a wall in the basement, tunneled into the Capital First Bank, absconding with the contents of no less than fifteen safe-deposit boxes. They’d escaped to Mexico, but had recently been apprehended in Tulum after Johnny had posted a selfie on the beach, sipping a daiquiri and having a great old time.
“So you’re back,” said Marge, who still hadn’t forgiven the bank robbers for taking advantage of her good heart.
“Yeah, they caught us in Mexico,” said Johnny sadly.
“No thanks to you,” Jerry grumbled. “You just had to post that selfie, didn’t you?”
“But, Jer, how else were people going to know how we were doing?”
“They weren’t supposed to know how we were doing, you great lummox.”