We’d ambled along through the neighborhood without meeting a single fungus and decided to wend our way into town. There are always fellow cats to be found downtown, and maybe they’d be able to give us some ideas. Show us in the right direction.
We took a left turn at the end of the next street and saw a very old cat lying in the window of a house. It opened one eye to give us a curious glance, then closed it again. Apparently it didn’t like what it saw, for it went on sleeping as if we weren’t even there.
“How old do cats get, Max?” asked Dooley now.
It was a point I’d often wondered about myself. “I honestly don’t know, Dooley,” I said. “Though I’m guessing very old. We’re very wise creatures, you know, and wise creatures usually get very, very old.”
“I think so too,” Dooley agreed. “I once saw this documentary about how the Egyptians loved cats so much they thought they came from the gods, and we all know that gods can get very old indeed.”
“I know, just look at their beards. Only very old beings have beards like that.”
We’d arrived on the outskirts of downtown Hampton Cove and decided to go in search of the feline mayor of our town, a title worn with pride by Kingman, a voluminous piebald who likes to hold forth on Main Street, in front of his owner’s general store. When we arrived, Kingman was dozing on top of the checkout counter, while his human Wilbur Vickery was busy ringing up his customers’ purchases.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, Kingman.”
He opened his eyes and yawned. “Oh, hey, guys. How’s it hanging?”
Dooley looked at me, I looked at him, and then we both looked at Kingman.
“How is what hanging?” I asked.
“How should I know? It’s an expression.”
“Oh, right,” I said. I’m not always hip to the finer points of the feline language, even though I am a feline myself. I wasn’t going to let that stop me from asking a most important question, though. “What is the oldest animal in Hampton Cove, Kingman?”
He thought about his for a moment, then said, “I guess that would be Camilla.”
“Who is Camilla?” asked Dooley.
“Camilla is a bird, and not just any bird, mind you. Camilla is a macaw, and currently lives with her owner out on Morley Street. Why do you want to know?”
“Marge found a body in her basement,” said Dooley.
“Well, not a body,” I said. “A skeleton.”
“A skeleton is a body, though, right, Max?”
“No, a body is more than just a skeleton, a body still has all of its fixtures attached.”
“The juicy bits,” Kingman confirmed. “A skeleton is a body without the juicy bits.”
“Oh,” said Dooley, nodding. “You mean like a fishbone after we eat the meat?”
“Yeah, exactly like a fishbone,” I said.
“So a body, huh?” said Kingman. “Why is it that the Pooles keep stumbling over bodies everywhere they go?”
“Not a body,” I said. “A skeleton.”
“Same difference. It must have belonged to a human once, right? And that human is now presumably dead?”
“I would think so,” I said. “I didn’t see the skeleton but I imagine it wasn’t jumping around and dancing the hornpipe.”
“So who is it?” asked Kingman. “Anyone I know?”
“Odelia seems to think it must have been there for a very long time, possibly many decades,” I said. “And now she wants us to figure out who it could have belonged to.”
“Many decades, huh? Now I see why you want to find the oldest animal in town. Well, your best bet will be Camilla, though there are other, maybe even older organisms, of course. Mollusks tend to get very old, too.”
“Mollusks?”
“Sure. The oldest known clam lived to be over five hundred years.”
“A clam, huh?”
“I doubt whether a clam would be able to tell us a lot about the skeleton in Marge’s basement, though,” said Dooley, echoing my thoughts exactly.
“Yeah, I guess you may have a point,” Kingman conceded.
“Well, thanks, Kingman,” I said. “And if you find out anything else about the former owners of Tex and Marge’s house, you will let us know, right?”
“Sure thing, boys,” said Kingman, and promptly dozed off again.
“Kingman must have had a rough night,” said Dooley as we walked on. “He seemed more sleepy than usual.”
“He was probably up all night chasing mice,” I said. “Kingman loves to chase mice.”
“Most cats love to chase mice,” said Dooley. “We’re the only ones that don’t. Why is that, Max?”
“Um, I guess we’re the only cats with a moral compass?”
“I wonder if Harriet and Brutus have caught the mouse in Odelia’s basement.”
“I’ll bet she has. Harriet seemed dead set on catching that mouse.”
“Poor Mr. Mouse,” said Dooley, shaking his head in dismay.
“Are you actually rooting for the creature now, Dooley?”
“I am. We are all members of God’s great flock, Max, and I feel for that poor thing, with Harriet on his tail, trying to eat him at every turn. I’ll bet that poor Mr. Mouse is scared stiff right now, running for his life and wondering where the next attack will come from, and then, just before the final blow lands, looking into Mrs. Mouse’s eyes, and together gazing at all of their sweet little baby mice…”
My heart sank at Dooley’s words. Poor Mr. Mouse. Poor Mrs. Mouse. Poor baby mice.
“We have to save that mouse, Max,” he said. “What are those precious little baby mice going to do when Harriet and Brutus have brutally slain and eaten their mom and dad?”
The picture Dooley had painted was so poignant I felt compelled to wipe away a tear. “I think it’s probably too late, Dooley,” I said. “That poor mouse has probably gotten it in the neck by now.”
“That poor, poor Mr. Mouse,” he said in sad lament.
Chapter 7
“That horrible, horrible mouse!” Harriet was yelling as she stomped around the basement, furious.
“Maybe we should preserve our energy,” Brutus suggested. “We could be down here for a long time.”
“I can’t believe this. Imagine what the members of cat choir are going to say when they find out we’ve been bested by a stupid little mouse. They’re going to turn us into the laughingstock of Hampton Cove. They’ll make fun of us until the day we die!”
“Speaking of dying,” said Brutus as he nervously glanced at the locked door. “How long do you think we can go without food or water?”
“Oh, days and days and days,” said Harriet with an airy wave of the hand. “And even then we’ll find something to sustain us down here.” She glanced at the fungus-covered wall in the more dank part of the basement. “Do you think that’s edible? It looks edible.”
Brutus shivered. “I don’t want to find out, do you?”
“No, maybe not,” said Harriet. “Though it looks a lot like that chlorella Odelia likes to eat, or even spirulina, and that’s supposed to be very good for you. She says they’re superfoods, and superfoods are very beneficial to the health of your gut, Brutus.”
Brutus took a hold of his gut. It felt very empty, but even then he wasn’t so far gone he was willing to eat mold from the walls. Something told him his gut wouldn’t like it.
“And we can always drink our own pee,” said Harriet. “I could drink yours and you could drink mine. People have been known to survive that way,” she explained. “It was on the Discovery Channel last week.”
“I thought you hated the Discovery Channel?” asked Brutus.
“Oh, it’s all right. Tex loves to watch it, and Gran does, too, from time to time, and since us cats don’t have control over the remote, we’re forced to watch with them.”