“Why did you write that the President is the Sexiest President Alive, Odelia?” asked Marge. “I don’t think he’s that sexy.”
“I have a great new source,” said Odelia. “He keeps calling me with all kinds of exclusive scoops.” Just then, her phone sang out a song and she picked it out. “Oh, look, it’s him. My source.” She picked up. “Yes, hi, Mr. Paunch. Thank you. Yes, I thought it was a lovely article, too. Especially that bit about the President being voted Best Dressed Politician by the White House Correspondents’ Association. Yes, I think he’s a very natty dresser, too.”
She’d switched her phone to speaker, so we could all listen in to her exclusive source. His voice sounded awfully familiar, though. As if I’d heard this Mr. Paunch before somewhere.
“And Odelia,” Mr. Paunch was saying, “this is a real scoop for you right here. President Wilcox has just been informed that he’s a shoo-in for an actual Nobel Prize!”
“Wow, that’s amazing,” said Odelia, her eyes gleaming. “A real Nobel Peace Prize.”
“Not just the Peace Prize. He’s getting the Nobel Prize for Literature, too.”
“Literature? I didn’t know the President was a writer?”
“Oh, sure. He’s only one of the best writers in the world. Bestselling writer.”
“What… books did he write?” asked Odelia, clearly confused.
“Oh, you name it, he wrote it. Amazing, huh? I thought you’d be impressed.”
Odelia looked up when her mother was pointing at the screen, where the President of the United States was talking on the phone now. And as he talked, it quickly became clear that his lips were forming the exact words that were coming out of Odelia’s phone.
Otto Paunch… was President Wilcox!
“Oh, and another little scoop. My good friend Van Wilcox is also in line to join the ranks of EGOT winners. That’s an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and a Tony! He’s the first President in history to pull off such a hat trick. Amazing, huh? Yeah, he is a great man. In fact he’s the greatest man in a long line of great men. The greatest great, you might say. So how abou—”
Odelia switched off her phone, gazing dazedly at the screen, where President Wilcox could be seen shouting into his phone, then looking annoyedly at the little gadget, before tucking it away again and shaking his head at so much insolence.
“I think… I’ve just been played,” said Odelia uncertainly.
“Don’t worry, honey,” said Grandma, patting her on the arm. “We’ve all been there.”
“And here I thought you were the nymphomaniac,” Dooley told Milo.
“Mythomaniac, Dooley,” Harriet was quick to correct him.
Even Milo could see the humor in that, for he laughed loudly.
“How about another burger?” said Tex, breaking the embarrassed silence that had descended upon the company. “I’ll do the honors, shall I?”
“No!” Marge shouted before Tex reached the grill.
Chase, who’d turned off the TV, took over from the doctor, and soon the party was in full swing again.
Milo drifted off in the direction of Grandma, who was now feeding him pieces of burger and even bits of coleslaw. Harriet and Brutus had snuck off into the garden next door, where they planned to make good use of those hills and valleys Gran had created, and then it was just me and Dooley.
“Milo seems fine, doesn’t he?” said Dooley. “He hasn’t told a lie all day.”
“Except for the part about pulling your tail,” I reminded my friend.
“The jury is still out on that one,” said Dooley. “No one has pulled my tail so he could be right.”
I pulled Dooley’s tail, hard, and he yelped in surprise. “See?” I said. “No gold.”
He eyed me sheepishly and rubbed his tail. “I really hoped he was right.”
“Maybe I didn’t pull hard enough,” I said, and made to pull again.
“No! I believe you,” he said quickly.
“At least spitting out nuggets of gold beats scooting your poop across the carpet.”
“I think we all learned a valuable lesson, Max.”
“Which is?”
“If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
I looked at Dooley, surprised. “Those are regular words of wisdom, buddy.”
“I read that on Odelia’s calendar.”
Of course he did.
“You know? If Milo went into politics, he could be one of the greats,” said Dooley.
And so he could. But fortunately for humans Milo is a cat, and cats aren’t eligible to go into politics and lead countries. Then again, maybe if they were, the world would be a better place. No politician licking his own butt in the middle of a speech would ever be able to be taken seriously when declaring war on another nation or making budget cuts and lowering pensions. And no stump speech would go over well if the one giving the speech suddenly yawned in the middle of a sentence, stretched and promptly fell asleep.
But wouldn’t it be fun to watch the video on YouTube?
THE END
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Excerpt from Murder Motel (The Kellys Book 1)
Chapter One
The car was moving along at a snail’s pace. The snow was coming down hard now, and the freeway had become practically impossible to navigate. Tom Kelly was still determined to soldier on, though, in spite of the warnings from his family. He’d promised Dee and the kids he’d get them to Cincinnati safe and sound and he’d be damned if he was going to fail them.
“Honey, you have to pull over,” his wife was saying, repeating the same mantra she’d stuck to for the past ten miles. “It’s not safe to be out in this weather!”
“Yeah, Dad, quit trying to act like you’re Liam Neeson in Taken 4: The Snow Apocalypse,” said his son Scott. At twelve, Scott rarely took his eyes off his iPhone, and the fact that he hadn’t even glimpsed at the thing since this deluge began was a testament to how bad the weather had become.
“Isn’t there a motel where we can stay until the storm blows over?” Maya asked. She was petting the Kellys’ Goldendoodle Ralph, who was howling like a wolf, his nose in the air.
“I think he needs to pee,” said Dee. “And as a matter of fact so do I.”
“We’ll pee when we get there,” said Tom, his face practically plastered to the windshield now, hunched over the wheel and praying he wouldn’t hit something.
“I’m not going to pee when I get there, Tom. I’m going to pee now,” his wife insisted.
It was just a trick to get him to pull over, he knew. They’d stopped less than an hour ago, and he hadn’t seen her drink anything so it was physically impossible for her bladder to be full already. The dog was another matter entirely. If he had to go, he had to go, and if he wasn’t able to keep it in, he’d let it out on the back seat of the car, which, since it was a rental, he didn’t advocate.
“All right, all right, all right,” he grumbled.
At forty-eight Tom Kelly, or Professor Kelly to his economics students back at the University of Washington, looked younger than his years, with his floppy brown hair, square chin and engaging smile. He wasn’t smiling now, though, more like trying to keep it together, his fingers gripping the wheel until they were white at the knuckles and fervently praying the weather gods would show them some much-needed clemency. “What does the weather forecast say?” he asked for the umpteenth time. “Scott?”
“Sorry, Dad,” Scott said. “No reception. Must be the storm.”
Which would explain why his son had suddenly lost interest in his precious phone.
“There!” said Dee, pointing to some to-him-invisible spot in the distance.