24
Rufus was taking a well-deserved nap after just having gone for a walk with his human and his two new feline friends, when the hair at the back of his neck suddenly stood up, a clear sign someone was watching him. And when he opened one eye, he saw that his neck hairs hadn’t been mistaken: Harriet was staring straight at him, not looking like a new feline friend should.
“Rufus!” she cried. “Are you kidding?”
“Um… no?” he said tentatively. It was one of those questions it’s very hard to give the right answer to, he’d discovered, as it was a question Harriet liked to use a lot, and he still had to find an appropriate response.
“What were you thinking!”
“Um… I was thinking of my ball, actually,” he confessed. He often thought of his ball, now more than ever, since Brutus had gotten it into his head to try and catch it as much as he possibly could, which meant there was less playtime for Rufus, unfortunately.
“Smoochie poo, just leave Rufus alone,” said Brutus.
“No, I’m not going to leave Rufus alone,” said Harriet decidedly. “He has to learn that there are consequences to his actions.”
“What consequences? What actions?” asked Rufus, absolutely unaware of what he could possibly have done to deserve this harsh rebuke.
They were in the backyard, with Rufus lying in his usual spot on the paved stone that he considered his personal paved stone. It was nicely heated up by the sun, and had a good view of the backyard and those tweeting birds dipping into the fountain Ted had recently placed there. And of course his ball was nearby, just in case Ted decided to come out of the house and play around with it for a while—always a possibility.
“You stole my spot!” said Harriet.
“What spot?” asked Rufus, mystified.
“That spot you’re lying in—that’s my spot!”
“But…”
“I picked that spot and now you stole it. Get up!”
“But I don’t want to get up,” he said.
“Get up right now!”
And since Rufus was basically an easygoing dog, he did as he was told. All those Saturday mornings spent at the obedience school had drilled it into him that he had to listen to the voice of authority, and if there was any voice that was authoritative, it most definitely was Harriet’s.
“Thank you,” said Harriet. “Now move.” He moved, and Harriet lay down in the spot he’d just vacated. “I like this spot,” she said. “It’s the spot I chose for myself, and so from now on you will never steal this spot away from me, is that understood, Rufus?”
“Yes, Harriet.”
“Good. And one more thing. Did you eat your entire bowl?”
“I did.” He always ate his entire bowl. That was the point of having a bowclass="underline" you ate it all until it was empty, and then Ted or Marcie filled it up again. It was the circle of life.
“You can’t do that,” said Harriet.
“I can’t?”
“No, of course you can’t! You have to learn how to share, Rufus. Now I know you’re not used to sharing, at least not like me and Brutus, but if we’re going to live together you need to learn this very important part of living together with two other… dogs.”
Rufus narrowed his eyes. He still found it a little hard to accept that Harriet and Brutus were dogs now. They looked like cats, they behaved like cats, and so in his view they were cats. But apparently that was no longer the case.
“So from now on you’re going to leave half of your bowl uneaten, and Brutus and I are going to take turns eating what remains. That way we all get equal nourishment.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, because he didn’t.
Harriet sighed an exaggerated sigh.“Look, for some reason the Trappers have gotten it into their nuts that just because Brutus and I are new that we have to have the smaller bowls.”
“Oh, right,” said Rufus. He had noticed how Harriet’s bowl and Brutus’s bowl were much smaller than his, but had naturally assumed that this was because they were also much smaller animals. He was easily five times Brutus’s size, so he probably needed five times the amount of food he got.
“It’s not fair. You know it, I know it, and Brutus knows it. But unfortunately it’s very hard for us to explain to Ted and Marcie. So for now, and until I can get Gran or Marge or Odelia to talk to Ted and Marcie, you’re going to share your kibble with us. Is that clear?”
“Um…”
“Do I make myself clear?!”
“Yes—Yes, Harriet, it’s very clear!” he hurried to say. About as clear as mud.
Half an hour later, when Harriet and Brutus had left to go traipsing about unleashed, as they liked to do—proving once more that they were, in fact, cats and not dogs—Rufus saw that another cat had joined him. It was none other than Max, and he was looking at him through the hole in the fence.
“Hey, buddy,” said Max. “How are you holding up?”
“Not well, Max,” he admitted. “Harriet wants to eat from my bowl, and she’s also taken over my favorite spot. And Brutus has taken over my ball and he’s now playing with Ted all the time, seriously cutting into my playtime.” He sighed deeply. “How did you live with these cats all thistime and not go stark-raving mad?”
Max laughed at this.“I guess it takes some getting used to. But in time I’m sure you’ll reach some kind of entente and you’ll find that Harriet and Brutus are great friends.”
“But Harriet is horrible, Max! She drives me crazy!”
“She probably needs a little time to settle in.”
“Can’t you please get rid of her for me? Can’t you convince your humans to take her back? I had a good life, and now it’s completely ruined. And besides, she’s not a dog, and Brutus is not a dog, and still they both insist that they’re dogs now. But they’re not!”
“Brutus is having a difficult time,” said Max, “but I’m sure it will soon blow over, and then he’ll understand that his old life wasn’t as bad as all that.”
Hope surged in the big sheepdog’s bosom. “So you think this is all just a temporary thing? That things will soon go back to normal?”
“I’m not sure, Rufus, but I certainly hope so.” He gestured to the Pooles’ house, or what was left of it, and where now builders were busy creating a brand-new structure on the ruins of the old foundations. “Brutus and Harriet lost their home, you see, and I think it messed with their minds a little—especially Brutus. Once the house is ready I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to come home again.”
“And how long is that going to take?”
“Oh, about three months or so?”
“Three months! Max, you have to do something. I can’t take three months of this!”
“Just hang in there, Rufus. You can do it.”
“No, I can’t. If this keeps up, I’m going to elope, I swear. Harriet has even ruined dog choir for us—dog choir! Which is now run by a cat!”
“Look, I’ll talk to Marge, all right? See if she can’t talk some sense into Brutus.”
“Oh, please, Max, do. Save me from—”
“Save you from what?” suddenly asked Harriet. Rufus saw to his horror that the monster had returned, to make his life miserable once more.
“Save him from that terrible noise,” Max was quick to say.
“What noise?” asked Harriet, looking as irritable and unreasonable as ever.
“The construction,” said Max. “It’s messing with his peace of mind, isn’t that right, Rufus?”
“It does,” Rufus said, directing a grateful look at the big blorange cat. “It really does.”
“I don’t see how Max can save you from that noise,” Harriet snapped. “It’s called building a house, Rufus. Noise is a given. So just get over it already, will you?”
And with these words, she directed a pointed look at Rufus, causing the latter to quickly jump up from his favorite spot and abandon it so Harriet could take over.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Harriet,” Max warned.
“Do what?” asked Harriet as she lay down comfortably.