“Yeah, you’ve been here many times before,” said Brutus. “Maybe you could show us the way to these cloning people?”
“I could help you,” Prunella said, much to my elation, “on one condition.”
“Of course. Anything,” I said.
“That you finally tell me your names! I can’t believe we’ve spent all this time together and you still haven’t given me your names.” She tapped my chest. “Rude!” She tapped Brutus’s chest. “Very, very rude, sir!”
“Well, I’m Max, this is Dooley, this is Harriet, and that black butch fellow over there is Brutus.”
“Nice to meet you, Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus,” she said pleasantly. “Now let’s get going, shall we? Time and tide wait for no cat.” And off she went, in the direction of the door.
Lucky for us, it was conveniently outfitted with a pet flap, and so we all slipped through in Prunella’s wake.
“Keep up, keep up,” she said as we tripped down a hallway and up a flight of stairs.
“I’ll bet she’s taking us to another playroom for pets,” said Harriet. “She probably doesn’t even know what cloning is.”
“Maybe she will and maybe she won’t,” I said. I had faith in her, though, and had a feeling she was finally coming through for us.
And as we burst into a room located on the second floor, I saw that Prunella hadn’t been kidding: she had been there before, and this place did look like a cloning lab, even though I’d never seen a cloning lab before. There were white-washed walls, though, and clean countertops with a multitude of instruments and test tubes, there were complicated and expensive-looking machines, and, finally, there was a wall of freezers near the back, and as we came to a full stop in front of them, we all took a deep breath.
There, inside those freezers, presumably rested our original selves. And now that we had finally arrived, I suddenly wasn’t so sure I really wanted to know if I was in there!
There were several people working at their workstations. They were dressed like doctors, or lab technicians, in white coats, and all looked appropriately serious. They didn’t pay any attention to us, though, probably used to working with animals all day long, dead or alive. One man was peering through a microscope and handling some strange device that looked like a pipette, dropping something onto a glass plate.
I returned my attention to the bank of freezers.
“So how are we going to find out if we’re in there?” I asked.
“We’re just going to have to open them all,” said Harriet.
“And how are we going to do that? These are not desk drawers, Harriet. You can’t insert a nail and pull. These freezers take a strong hand to open. A human hand.”
“So? We’ll simply ask one of these humans to open them for us.”
I laughed. “Since when do humans listen to anything we say? Unless their names are Odelia, Vesta or Marge?”
“You said it, Max,” said Brutus, gesturing to the door.
And as I looked over, I saw that Odelia was walking up to us!
“Oh, there you are,” she said.
Shoot! She’d caught us red-pawed!
“The lab people told me you were up here. What are you doing sneaking off like that? Max?”
“Um… well, you know what cats are like,” I said, going for blatant flippancy. “Always sneaking off and sticking their noses where they don’t belong.”
“We want to look inside these freezers,” said Harriet, blowing my strategy straight out of the water. “We want to know if our original selves are located inside of them.”
“Your original selves? I don’t understand,” said Odelia, frowning.
“She’s just kidding,” I said, laughing a laugh that sounded fake even to my own ears.
“They think they’ve been cloned,” suddenly Prunella spoke up. “And now they want to find out of their bodies are in these freezers just to be sure whether they’re clones or not.”
Odelia started to laugh, but when she saw the serious expressions on our faces, immediately stopped. “You’re serious? You really think you were cloned?”
“Yes, we do,” I said.
“They took one good look at me and figured that if it can happen to such a gorgeous, attractive, intelligent feline creature like me, why couldn’t it have happened to them?” said Prunella, suddenly sounding a lot less flaky than before. “Max,” she added, “you weren’t cloned. And I would know. I’ve been there.”
“But… you remember my name?” I asked.
“Of course I remember your name. Even before you arrived at the house Opal already told me you were coming. You and your friends.”
“But… you never remembered our names before,” said Harriet.
“I was just messing with you guys,” she said with a Cheshire grin. “And you fell for it, too!”
“But you are cloned, right?” asked Brutus.
“Of course I’m cloned. And the weirdest thing? I remember everything from my previous life and my current one. Hard to believe, huh?”
We stared at this peculiar cat, too stunned for speech, until finally Odelia crouched down and said, “Prunella is right. You weren’t cloned. None of you.”
“Is that the truth, Odelia?” asked Dooley anxiously.
“That’s the truth, Dooley,” she said. “Besides, apparently you would know if you were cloned, right, Prunella?”
“Hey, you speak our language,” said Prunella. “That’s something Opal didn’t tell me.”
“Can Opal speak our language?” I asked.
“No, she can’t. I mean, she talks to me all the time, and of course I understand what she is saying, but unfortunately she can’t understand me. Though after all these years we’ve created such a close connection she can feel me. Feel me?”
“Yes, I feel you,” I said.
“So you see, Max? If you really were cloned, you’d know.”
“What a relief!” said Brutus. “I’d hate to be cloned—no offense, Prunella.”
“None taken,” said the ginger cat. “Cloning is not for the faint of heart. No offense, Brutus.”
“Um… none taken, I guess,” he said.
“It’s a strange and wonderful experience, and a little scary, but when you come out on the other side, it’s great to know that you survived, and get to spend another couple of years with your precious human.”
She was making cloning sound like fun, I thought, and clearly Harriet thought so, too.
“Can I be cloned when I die, Odelia?” she asked now.
“I don’t know, honey. I’d have to give it some thought. Besides, you’re not going to die any time soon, are you?”
“Oh, no. I intend to live a long and fruitful life.”
“Me, too,” said Dooley.
“And me,” said Brutus.
“And me,” I added my voice to the choir.
“That’s the spirit,” said Odelia with satisfaction. “And now let’s get you back downstairs. These lab people get nervous when a bunch of cats suddenly invade the place.”
I wondered why that was. They should have been used to us by now.
And as we traversed the lab, I watched on as lab technicians went about their business of creating new life. And I wondered if one day I might end up here, and emerge a new Max.
I shivered. Okay. So maybe not.
Chapter 25
“I really had you going there, didn’t I?” said Prunella cheerfully.
“Yeah, you really had us going there,” I admitted.
“Do you even like bananas?” asked Harriet, “or was that a lie, too?” She didn’t seem particularly pleased with the joke Prunella had pulled on us.
“Oh, no, I do like bananas. That was no lie,” said Prunella.
We were back downstairs, in the pet playroom, and while Dooley was having his nails done and Brutus was getting a new coiffure, we were chatting amongst ourselves.
Odelia hadn’t lied: we were there to be pampered and being pampered we were.
“I should be the one getting my nails and hair done,” Harriet complained as she directed a jealous glance at Brutus and Dooley.