“But, Chief!”
“You don’t want your girlfriend’s cats to be harmed, do you?”
“No, but…”
“Well, then.”
“But, Chief—what are the colleagues going to say?”
Chase’s colleagues would have a field day laughing their asses off, thought Alec, but instead he said, “We’ll simply tell them you’re staking out the house in case this arsonist comes back. No mention of the cats will be made.”
“But they’ll know, Chief. I don’t know how, but they’ll know that you’ve turned me into a glorified catsitter!”
He was definitely right about that. “Nah, I’m sure they won’t.”
“Yeah, they will!” said Chase. “I’ll be the joke of the force!”
“No, you won’t.”
“I think it’s mighty nice of you to volunteer for this task, Chase,” said Marge. “And I’m sure Odelia will be overjoyed, too, knowing you’re here to watch out for our babies.”
With these words, Marge walked off to check out that dresser the burglar-slash-arsonist-slash-cat killer had been so interested in.
“Chief?” said Chase, his voice a little tremulous. “Please?”
“It’s out of my hands, buddy,” said Alec. “And for it’s worth, I think you’ll do great.”
And then he walked off, too, leaving his deputy to stare after him looking crushed.
A man had to be made of stone not to feel sorry for the poor schmuck, but then sometimes you had to take one for the team, even though this particular team would probably start creating memes and post them on Facebook before the day was through.
Chapter 5
I found Dooley in the kitchen, staring at my water bowl for some reason.
“Everything okay, Dooley?” I asked.
“Have you ever peed in someone else’s water bowl, Max?” my friend asked, showing me that not everything was A-okay in the world of Dooley.
“Um, no, I don’t think I have,” I admitted.
“I’ll bet plenty of cats have,” he said. “And even though I confessed, I’m not sure many others would. And if that’s true, how do we know that the water we drink is clean, Max?”
“I guess we never know for sure,” I said, even though I could already see that my answer was potentially going to cause me no end of trouble.
“There’s only one solution. I think we should ask Odelia to get rid of our bowls.”
“I’m sure there are other solutions.”
“Nope. Only one solution. No more water bowls.”
“But Dooley, we have to drink. It’s very important we stay hydrated, especially with all the dry food we eat.”
“No, I know that, Max.” He trounced up to one of Odelia’s high kitchen stools, and effortlessly jumped up. “Look at this,” he said, and so I followed his example, though with slightly more effort required.
“What is it?” I asked once I’d arrived at my destination.
On the kitchen table was the tablet computer that Odelia got for us, in case we wanted to look up something on the internet. Dooley expertly flicked the thing to life, and I saw that he’d already looked up a page, for the browser depicted an intricate-looking device.
“This is a water dispenser,” he said proudly. “It dispenses water.”
“Oh-kay.”
“There’s a video.” He started a video on the sales site, and it showed me exactly what a water dispenser does. Dooley was right: it dispensed water, which was to be expected.
“Pretty cool,” I said, earning myself a proud smile from my friend.
“They have one for kibble, too. It dispenses kibble, not water.”
“Okay,” I said, seeing his point. “So let’s ask Odelia to get us one of these, shall we? That way we can always be sure that the water we drink is fresh and not tampered with.”
“Oh, Max, I’m so glad you agree. I thought you were going to give me all kinds of objections.”
“Why would I give you all kinds of objections? This is the perfect solution for a household with four cats: instead of four bowls that Odelia constantly has to fill, she can now fill this baby up and there will always be plenty of water for all of us.”
Dooley stared at me. “You mean you want her to buy one… for the four of us?”
“Of course.”
“No, Max,” he said, shaking his head. “She has to buy four of these water dispensers. I can’t possibly drink from your water dispenser, and you can’t drink from mine.”
I wanted to heave a deep sigh, but refrained from doing so. When Dooley has something on his mind, it’s very hard to get him to let go of the idea.
“Fine. Let’s run it by Odelia, and see what she says,” I said, and made to jump down again.
“Wait, Max. There’s something else I wanted to show you.” And with a flick of the paw, he swiped to another page, this one depicting that famous TV show Paw Patrol. “Look, Max,” he said. “It’s a dog… that is also a cop!”
“It’s a TV show for kids, Dooley,” I pointed out. “In real life dogs can’t be cops.”
“No, but they can. Some dogs are trained as police dogs, you see. They go through this whole training program.” And once again he was swiping away, and this time he landed on a website that showcased how some dogs are indeed trained as police dogs, and how they’re very proficient at helping out their human colleagues. “See? They can sniff out drugs, and they can chase suspects… They’re indi… spensable,” he said, reading from one of the promo banners on the page.
I eyed the page for a moment, then shrugged. “So?”
“So maybe we should ask Odelia to hire one of these Paw Patrol dogs. So the dog can protect us in case the man who locked us in that chest comes back.”
I frowned. “You want Odelia to hire a dog to protect her cats?”
“Exactly! These dogs catch bad men all the time, so why not our bad man?”
“Cause we’re cats, Dooley. Cats take care of themselves. They don’t need dogs.”
“But—”
I held up my paw. “Cats don’t need dogs to save them, Dooley. That’s rule number one of being a cat.”
“But we almost died up there, Max. So maybe we’re not as good at taking care of ourselves as we think?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He had a point, of course, but hiring a dog to watch over us? That was simply too ludicrous to consider.
“Or we could always join this training program,” he said, clicking on a video. “So we’re ready when this person attacks us again.”
We both watched as a few snippets from the dog training program were shown. It frankly made my stomach turn. Dogs were forced to jump through hoops—literally—and scale large obstacles, and even cross small streams. It all looked extremely exhausting.
“I don’t think I want to do that, Dooley,” I said when the video had run its course and so had the dogs. “I mean, I really, really don’t want to do that.”
“I think it would be good for you, Max.”
“No, it won’t.”
“It will make you strong.”
“I am strong already.”
“It will make you fit.”
“I’m perfectly fit.”
“Then I suggest we hire a guard dog.”
Faced with these two options, I have to admit neither one looked very appealing to me. I didn’t want to be protected by a dog, and I didn’t want to be trained as a member of Paw Patrol either. But on the other hand Dooley was right: we had to do something, for it had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that we weren’t ready in case of an attack.
“Fine,” I said finally. “So maybe we should go ahead with your scheme.”
He perked right up. “Do you really mean that, Max?”
“Yes, I do,” I said, though not wholeheartedly, as you can imagine.
“Great!” he said. “I’ll go and tell Odelia right away!”
And happy as a Paw Patrol puppy, he jumped down from the stool and pranced off.
Sometimes, I thought, Dooley’s excitement was really tiring. Then again, maybe that just proved he was right: I was unfit, untrained, and as such the perfect target.