“Look, can you help us or not?” I asked. Even though I always enjoy seeing Clarice, long moments spent in her company have a tendency to depress me, her world views not exactly the most uplifting ones.
“Sure I’ll help you find them,” said Clarice, “but I’m not sure if Dooley should join us.”
“Why not?” asked Dooley, blinking rapidly.
“Because when we do find them the sight will be a pretty horrible one.”
“I’m sure it won’t be as bad as all that,” I countered.
“And I’m sure it will be. Have you ever watched The Walking dead, Dooley?”
“Um… I don’t think so,” said Dooley. “Is that on the Discovery Channel?”
“No, it’s not on the Discovery Channel,” said Clarice. “The Walking Dead is a documentary about what happens when a deadly virus affects the world’s population, and turns humans into these disgusting, monstrous, homicidal, flesh-eating—”
“It’s not really a documentary, though, is it?” I said quickly. “It’s fiction, Clarice.”
“It could be real.”
“But it isn’t.”
“But it could be.”
“Okay, so let’s just find Chouchou and the others, shall we?” I suggested, tiring a little of this talk of flesh-eating whatevers.
“Suit yourself,” said Clarice with a shrug. “But when we find them, and Dooley is traumatized for the rest of his life, don’t blame me, all right?”
“I won’t blame you, Clarice,” I said.
And so we set out for the woods, in Clarice’s wake. I have to hand it to her: if anyone can find a cat, whether dead or alive… or even undead, I guess—it’s her. She’s simply more in touch with her wild side than us pampered cats—Clarice’s words, not mine!
It didn’t take us long to arrive at the outskirts of town and enter the woods that Clarice calls home, and soon we found ourselves at the little cabin in the woods where many an aspiring or even unaspiring writer likes to spend time working on their next masterpiece. It’s called the Writer’s Lodge, and provides a secluded spot where writers work on their craft in peace and absolute quiet. And while they’re at it, they enjoy the distraction of seeing Clarice roam around, keeping them company, and never cease to provide her with those precious little nuggets of food your hungry feline enjoys so much.
“Do you think they’re around here somewhere?” I asked, a little breathless, for we’d traveled uphill for the past half hour or so.
“No idea,” said Clarice, “but the dumpsters proved a bust today, and I’m starving.”
She made a beeline for a battered bowl, and when we arrived thither, I saw that it was filled to the brim with what looked like… liver pâté.
“Ugh,” she said, making a face. “Liver pâté. Again.”
Liver pâté is one of those things every cat considers a delicacy, and gobbles up without delay when given the chance, so Dooley and I gave our feral friend a look of surprise.
“You don’t like liver pâté?” I asked.
“Well, you know how it is,” she said. “When you have to eat the same thing every day it quickly loses its attraction.” Nevertheless, she still dug in and manfully ate it all.
Dooley and I shared a startled look. Odelia is probably the best human for miles around—perhaps even the best human a cat can hope to find in the whole world, but even she doesn’t give us liver pâté on a daily basis.
“You eat this stuff every day?” I asked.
She licked her lips. “Oh, sure. James Patterson is staying at the Lodge this month, and he’s always generous with the liver pâté, bless his heart. Last month John Grisham was here, working on his next bestseller, and with him it’s always beluga caviar.” She sighed. “And then next month Danielle Steel will be here, and I already know it’ll be lobster sushi rolls again, just like last year. Can you imagine? Three weeks of lobster sushi rolls?”
I would give my right paw for three weeks of lobster sushi rolls, or beluga caviar.
“I like liver pâté,” said Dooley. He gave Clarice a hopeful look. “Can I have some?”
She smiled. “Oops, sorry. I’m afraid I ate it all.”
We both took in Clarice’s skinny frame, and were probably wondering the same thing: for a cat who eats liver pâté, beluga caviar and lobster sushi rolls on a continuous basis, not to mention the contents of half the dumpsters in Hampton Cove, how did she manage to stay so thin?
“Okay, let’s go,” she said now. “Or don’t you want to find this choo-choo of yours?”
“Chouchou,” I corrected.
And then we were off again. I was a little troubled by the lack of sustenance. You see, I’m not as skinny as Clarice, and us full-bodied, big-boned types need our intake of food at regular intervals. And if my calculations were correct it had been at least three hours since I’d last had a bite to eat and I was starting to feel a little faint. Still, we’d promised Odelia we’d find those missing cats for her and that’s what we’d do.
And as we traipsed after Clarice, deeper into those woods, Dooley whispered, “Couldn’t she at least have left some for us, Max?”
“Apparently not,” I whispered back.
“I heard that!” Clarice growled.
We followed her up what looked like some kind of mountain trail, and soon had left civilization behind, an area where no man or beast dares to tread, and before long I was starting to question the wisdom of this mission. What if we encountered some wild animal preying on innocent and soft-bellied cats like myself? Then again, we were in the company of the wild animal, and as far as I could tell no other wild animal would come anywhere near Clarice.
“I think I’ve got the trail,” suddenly Clarice declared. She put her nose to the ground and was sniffling freely.
“You have?” I asked, surprised. I put my nose to the ground, too, but all I got was a noseful of the musty scent of decaying leaves and moss.
“Cats have definitely been through here,” she grunted. “Let’s keep going.”
“Clarice is pretty amazing, isn’t she, Max?” said Dooley admiringly.
“She is,” I confirmed. She might have fooled us all into thinking that all these years she’d been feeding on rats and mice while actually enjoying a steady diet of the most delicious and expensive food known to man, but she did have a good nose on her, that much was definitely true.
We were in a part of the woods where the brush was thick on the ground, and brambles were thick on the brush, and suddenly Clarice halted, her tail in the air and her ears pricking up. “We’re close!” she declared excitedly. “We’re definitely close, you guys.”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” I said, feeling her excitement rubbing off on me, too. I just hoped we wouldn’t find Chouchou and the others dead or dying—or even undead!
And then suddenly we arrived in a clearing, and lo and behold: five cats were sitting there, looking at us with fear written all over their features, hugging each other close, and shivering freely!
“Don’t hurt us!” said one of the cats, a very hairy Maine Coon. “Please don’t hurt us!”
Chapter 5
The cats all looked pretty bedraggled—and also pretty scared.
“We come in peace,” I said therefore, holding out my paws in a peaceable gesture.
“Are you the pussies that have gone missing?” asked Clarice, a lot less peaceable.
The Maine Coon, who seemed to be the spokescat of the bunch, blinked. “Max? Is that you?”
“Yep, it’s me,” I confirmed.
The cats all seemed to rejoice at this. “It’s Max!” said one of the others.
“We’re saved!”
“Actually it’s Clarice who found you,” I said, pointing to our feral friend.
They all stared at Clarice for a moment, then back to me. “Oh, Max, thank you for saving us!” said the Maine Coon, whom I assumed was the Chouchou we’d been looking for.