We all stared at Brutus. “You’re looking for another home, Brutus?” I asked.
“Well, no—or yeah, maybe. Look, this family is lovely and all, but it’s always something, you know. Like with this house falling apart. I mean, it’s all very stressful, you guys. And yesterday I spotted my first gray hair. Can you imagine? Me! A gray hair!”
“It’s only the one gray hair, Brutus,” said Harriet.
“Where is it?” asked Dooley solicitously.
“Here, on my ear,” said Brutus, bending his head to show us.
“Yeah, that’s a gray hair all right,” I confirmed.
“It’s very small,” Dooley said as he studied the hair.
“It’s the beginning of the end, Dooley. Things can only get worse. And I know why this is happening to me. It’s the stress. Murderers and thieves and criminals galore, and now my own home collapsing, practically falling down around me. Imagine if we’d been inside when that thing fell down. We could all have been dead now!”
“Every home has its advantages and disadvantages, Brutus,” I said. “I think all in all we can count ourselves lucky with humans like the Pooles.”
“Yeah, I know, but why do they have to skirt danger all the time? Between Odelia who’s always getting involved with murderers and crooks, and Chase who’s a cop, and then of course Gran with her neighborhood watch?” He shook his head. “It’s all too much for me, and if you’re smart you’ll all join me in looking for another family to live with—a nice and peaceful family. A family like the Trappers, for instance.”
He was referring to Marge and Tex’s neighbors Ted and Marcie Trapper.
“The Trappers have a dog, Brutus,” Harriet pointed out. “I don’t think they’re going to take a bunch of cats.”
“And why not?!” Brutus cried, getting a little worked up. “Rufus is a nice dog. He’s a cat-loving dog. I think I could live very happily side by side with a dog like Rufus.”
“Well, if you want to get yourself adopted by the Trappers, go right ahead,” said Harriet. “But I’m staying right here.”
Brutus frowned, grumbled something, then shut up. He might be willing to get rid of the Pooles, but he wasn’t ready to get rid of his lady love, that much was obvious.
“Max is right,” said Harriet. “Every family has its advantages and disadvantages. I’m sure that the Trappers will have something that’s not so great, too. And it only takes one conversation with Rufus to find out.”
But before we could have that conversation, suddenly there was the loud sound of an explosion, and when we looked up we saw that Tex had managed, through some inexplicable procedure, to blow up the entire grill!
Pieces of fish and meat and veggies had been catapulted in all directions, and the grill itself was now a charred piece of twisted metal!
“That does it!” Brutus declared as he jumped down from the porch swing. “I’m going over to the Trappers and ask if they’re willing to adopt a gorgeous black cat!”
And with these surprising words, he was off at a trot, in the direction of the next-door backyard. Well, the next-door, next-door backyard if we’re being nitpicky, and I am—at least according to Harriet.
“Brutus! Wait!” Harriet yelled, and before we could stop her, she was tripping after her mate.
And then it was just me and Dooley.
After a pause, in which we both tried to imagine life without Harriet and Brutus, Dooley said, “They’ll be back.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I mean, I can’t imagine they’d really move out. You, Max?”
“No, I don’t.”
“So they’ll be back. Right?”
“Well, I certainly hope so.”
But five minutes passed, and then ten, and Brutus and Harriet still hadn’t returned.
The Pooles were picking up pieces of the grill, and collecting the scattered foodstuffs, and so they weren’t paying any attention to us cats. Odelia probably hadn’t even noticed Harriet and Brutus had left, and neither had Gran or Marge, who’d been hit by a sausage, or Uncle Alec, whose practically bald pate had been scalded by a flying piece of steak.
But when another half hour had passed, I had to admit the impossible had happened.
Harriet and Brutus had gone over to the dark side: they’d gone to the dogs!
THE END
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Excerpt from Purrfect Swing (Mysteries of Max 34)
Chapter One
There was a commotion that seemed to center on the bathroom. Now don’t get me wrong: I understand perfectly well the important role a bathroom plays in the lives of humans. They use it for all kinds of things, many of them a little mysterious in my view, and most of them perfectly superfluous, too, but it’s clear that along with the kitchen the bathroom is at the heart of their existence.
And so it was with a modicum of indulgence that I witnessed the events that morning: a long line had formed outside the bathroom and there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth going on. Odelia was there, of course, still in her pajamas, and also Chase Kingsley, Odelia’s husband, also in his pajamas. In fact when I looked more closely I noticed that all of the humans standing in line outside the bathroom were dressed in their pajamas: apart from Odelia this small gathering consisted of Odelia’s dad Tex Poole, and also her mom Marge.
Tex was pounding on the door of the bathroom with his fist and saying things like ‘Hurry up!’ and ‘How much longer is this going to take?’ and ‘It’s been over an hour!’
“What’s going on?” asked Dooley as he came tripping up. He’d enjoyed a leisurely time at the foot of Odelia’s bed, as I had, and was wondering what all the fuss was about.
“Gran is in there and she’s taking too much time,” I explained. “Or at least the others all seem to think she’s taking too much time.” Personally I’m not sure how much time a human needs to get ready in the morning. I’m not a human, you see. I’m a cat, and cats don’t use bathrooms to get ready. In fact you might even say that cats were born ready: we don’t need showers, or to wash our hair or even use a blow-dryer to dry that same hair—silly things, by the way, blow-dryers: first you make your hair wet and then you make it dry again. In other words an exercise in futility as far as I can tell. But what do I know?
“What is Gran doing?” asked Dooley.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But whatever she’s doing, they all agree it’s taking too long.”
“How much time does a human need to get ready in the morning, Max?” my friend asked, posing the question that had been on my mind ever since this story had begun. You see, Marge and Tex and Gran used to live in their own house, and their bathroom issues weren’t my issues, as I live with Odelia and Chase, next door from Odelia’s parents. Only Gran had hired a contractor who promised to build her a new kitchen, but instead of building a kitchen this contractor had managed to tear down the whole house, and as a consequence a new house had to be built, and in the meantime the Pooles had moved in with their daughter and their daughter’s new husband Chase.
“I think it all depends,” I said. “Chase usually takes about ten minutes. Odelia needs at least half an hour, but Gran has been in there an hour… and counting.”
“So…” Dooley made a few quick calculations in his mind, “before all of our humans are ready in the morning, it’s going to take… at least half a day?”
“Not half a day,” I said with a laugh. “That would be ridiculous.”
“No, but there are now five adult humans living in this house, and there’s only one bathroom, so if my calculations are correct it’s going to take them an hour and a half to get ready. So if they want to be at work on time, they’ll have to get up at…” More mental acrobatic feats were involved here, and plenty of frowning, but finally the answer rolled from my friend’s lips: “Six!”