But as I turned on my heel, I almost bumped into Odelia, who was rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Wassup?” she muttered, taking a leaf out of Dooley’s book.
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
“No, but I heard something. Is that… a cat?”
“Nope. Not a cat,” I said. “Not a cat at all. And I should know, being a cat and all.”
“But—”
“No buts. Let’s go back upstairs. You and I both need our beauty sleep.”
But I could tell the strange fascination the kitten exerts was already working its pernicious magic, for Odelia stepped to the door, arm outstretched, going for the knob.
“Noooooo!” I yelled, but too late.
Already her hand was turning the knob and opening the door.
And there they sat: three kittens, in a carton box, right on our doorstep.
“Oooh!” said Odelia, crouching down. “Oooooooh! Look at those cuties!”
Crap. Even before I could intervene, the poison had entered the bloodstream.
Odelia had spotted the kittens and had gone kitty gaga.
Chapter 2
“Who could have put them here?” Odelia asked.
I could very well have asked her the same thing. I, for one, had never given permission to have my home infested by the pesky little pests.
“Isn’t there a letter or a card?” I asked.
Odelia, who’d taken the box inside and closed the door, checked for a sign of ownership of the threesome.
She took out a tiny slip of paper and read the message it contained.“I hope you will take good care of my babies. For reasons I cannot disclose, I no longer can. I’m sorry.”
She’d placed the box on the kitchen counter and took out the first kitten. It was a ginger specimen, with little white dots, and mewled piteously.
I could tell that Odelia’s heart melted even more, for she started making weird sounds herself now.“Googoogagagoogoo,” she said.“Booboobeebeebooboo.”
I rolled my eyes. Humans tend to lose their heads when they see a kitten. Of course this fatal appeal is exactly the reason our species has endured and has been adopted into the home of no less than one out of three American families: we know how to entice.
“Googoodoodooweeweewoowoo,” Odelia said.
The kitten, which had been wriggling, suddenly focused its tiny eyes on Odelia, then produced its first real meow. Gibberish, of course, but still a sign of recognition. Cat, meet cat lady. Cat lady, meet cat.
Odelia laughed.“Hello there, little one. So who put you in a box and left you on my doorstep, huh?”
The kitten meowed some more, then licked its lips. It started looking around, and I could tell it was already adapting to its new home. Uh-oh. It was wriggling and squirming.
“You want to explore my home?” asked Odelia.
I could have told her this was a bad idea, but she was already putting the kitten down and we both watched as it hobbled off at an awkward and unbalanced gait towards the first potted plant it could find. It then climbed into the terracotta pot and relieved itself.
And Odelia, instead of rectifying this behavior with word and gesture, laughed!
She now picked up the two other kittens and cuddled them, rocking them in her arms. One was a velvety black and the third one pure white.
“Oh, you sweet little cuties,” Odelia cooed. “Sweet sweeties. Did your mama leave you? Couldn’t she take care of you? Don’t you worry about a thing. Odelia is here and she’s going to make sure nothing bad happens to you.” And then she googoogaga’d some more.
I could sense that smarter heads needed to prevail here, so I addressed Kitten Number One, the whizz kid.
“Hey, you,” I said, inserting a note of steel into my voice.
The kitten didn’t even look up from sniffing at its own wee.
“Don’t pretend you can’t hear me. I know you can.”
The kitten finally looked up, opening its mouth and mewling questioningly.
“There are rules in this house,” I said. “And you’d better follow them or else.”
It was mewling softly now, opening and closing its little mouth.
“Or else what, you ask? Or else I’ll tan your tiny little hide, that’s what.”
“Max!” Odelia cried behind me. “That’s no way to speak to our new guests.”
“But—”
“Apologize.”
I must admit my jaw had dropped at these harsh words from one I’d always known to be in my corner. The kitten fever had clearly taken a hold of my human, and had altered her personality to such an extent she was now a different human altogether.
“I’m sorry,” I told the kitten begrudgingly.
“And now say it like you mean it,” said Odelia.
“Okay, I’m sorry, all right!” I cried, then stalked off. Or at least I started stalking off, but then my tail got snagged in some immovable object and my progress was halted. When I abruptly swung my head around to see what had snagged me, I saw that it was the kitten, which had planted itself firmly astride my tail and was now playing with the tail’s tail end, which invariably tends to sway as if possessing a mind of its own.
“Stop that,” I snapped, but the kitten seemed to enjoy the swishing movement so much it kept grabbing at my fluffy appendage.
“Max,” said Odelia warningly.
“Stop that, please?” I asked.
But then the kitten suddenly dug its teeth into my tail and I screamed,“Yikes!”
“Max!” Odelia said. “Don’t be rude!”
“But she just bit me in the tail!”
“She’s just playing,” she said, then picked up my little nemesis, and checked her. “So you think she’s a she?”
“Of course she’s a she. Don’t you think a cat can tell whether another cat is a he or a she?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass. Here,” she said, planting the other two kittens in front of me. “Tell me what they are.”
I scowled at the foul creatures, then pointed at the black one.“He,” I said. Then pointed at the white one. “He.”
“Thanks, Max,” said Odelia, and picked up all three kittens. “Now for the most important part. What shall we name them? Any suggestions?”
She was rocking them in her arms now, even though they tried to squirm away.
My suggestion was Menace Number One, Menace Number Two and Menace Number Three, but something told me Odelia might not agree with my naming convention. So instead I said,“Why don’t you ask Gran? She named the rest of us.”
Odelia nodded.“Great idea. I’ll ask her.”
I didn’t know if this was such a good idea, for Gran has a habit of picking names from the soaps she watches. I was named after Max Halloran, a doctor onGeneral Hospital who was accused of fathering triplets with his mother’s twin sister’s mobster fianc?’s younger sister’s best friend. And Dooley could trace the origin of his name to a casting director onThe Bold and the Beautiful.Harriet, on the other hand, was named afterHarriet the Spy, apparently a book Odelia’s mom had always liked.
Brutus, of course, had been named by Chase’s mom, his original owner. I have no idea what inspired her, but Brutus has always been a butch cat, so the name seemed apt.
The kittens, meanwhile, had managed to tumble back onto the kitchen counter, and were now digging their teeth into the carton box, ripping it into tiny pieces and spreading it across the floor like confetti.
I had to bite my tongue not to make a scathing remark about littering, but managed to restrain myself with a powerful effort. This was, after all, Odelia’s house, and if she felt like raising a trio of hell-raisers, that was her prerogative.