As the humans batted around the cost, the need, and the choice of color for the carpeting, Harry's three dear friends lurked in the hallway outside the large room.
Mrs. Murphy, a most intelligent tiger cat, listened to the intensifying sleet. Her sidekick, a large round gray cat named Pewter, was getting fidgety waiting for the meeting to end. Tucker, the corgi, patient and steady as only a good dog can be, was happy to be inside and not outside.
The Christ cats-as Herb's two cats were called by the other animals-had escorted Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker around. They'd gossiped about every animal in the small Virginia town of Crozet, but as the meeting was entering its second hour, they'd finally exhausted that topic.
Cazenovia, the elder of the two cats, nestled down, her fluffy tail around her nose. A large calico, she had aged gracefully. The young foundling which Herb had taken in a few years ago, Elocution, had grown into a sleek pretty cat. A touch of Siamese in her, she never stopped talking.
"-tuna breath!" Elocution uttered this insult. "How can you stand it?"
"She doesn't." Mrs. Murphy giggled.
They'd been discussing the blue jay who tormented Pewter. He also tormented Mrs. Murphy but with less enthusiasm, probably because he couldn't get a rise out of the tiger.
"Oh, I will snap his neck like a toothpick someday. You take my word for it," Pewter promised.
"How thrilling," Cazenovia purred.
"And un-Christian," Tucker chuckled.
"Well, we are cats," Pewter sniffed.
"That's right. Our job is to rid the world of vermin," Elocution agreed. "Blue jays are beyond vermin. They're avian criminals. Picking up stones and dropping them on neighbors' eggs. Dropping you-know-what on freshly waxed cars. Do it on purpose. They'll sit in a tree and wait until the job is finished and then swoosh." Elocution glanced up at the rat-a-tat on the window. "Not today."
"Why don't blue jays go south in the winter?" Pewter mused. "Robins do."
"Life in our barn is too good, that's why. Harry puts out birdhouses and gourds and then she plants South American maize for the ground birds, cowpeas, and bipolar lespedeza. The winter might be cold but she serves up all kinds of seeds for those dumb birds."
"Birds are descended from flying reptiles," Elocution announced with vigor. "That alone should warn us off."
"What in the world is going on in there?" Tucker listened as Matthew Crickenberger raised his voice about labor costs.
"Say, have I shown you how I can open the closet where Herb stores the communion wafers?" Elocution puffed out her chest.
"Elo, don't do that," Cazenovia warned.
"I'm just going to prove that I can do it."
"They'll believe you. They don't need a demonstration."
"I wouldn't mind," Pewter laconically replied.
"Thanks, Pewter." Cazenovia cast her a cold golden eye.
"Come on." Elocution, tail held high, bounded down the hall.
The others followed, Cazenovia bringing up the rear. "I know I'll get in trouble for this," the old girl grumbled.
Elocution skidded at the turn in the hall where it intersected with another hall traversing the width of the rectory, itself an old building constructed in 1834.
Pewter whispered to Mrs. Murphy, "I'm hungry."
"You're always hungry."
"I know, but you'd think the Rev would put a bowl of crunchies out somewhere. And I don't smell anything edible."
"Me neither," the mighty but small dog whispered, "and I have the best nose."
"Here." Elocution stopped in front of a closet under the stairwell that ascended to the second story. "You all stay here."
"Elocution, this really isn't necessary," Cazenovia sighed.
Ignoring her, the shiny cat hopped up the stairs then slipped halfway through the banisters. Lying on her side she could reach the old-fashioned long key which protruded from the keyhole. She batted at it, then grabbed it with both paws, expertly turning the key until the lock popped.
"Oh, that is impressive." Pewter's eyes widened.
"The best part is, Herbie will flay Charlotte for leaving it unlocked." Elocution laughed.
Charlotte was Herb's secretary, second in command.
As the lock opened, Elocution gave a tug and Pewter, quick to assist, pulled at the bottom of the door with her paw. The door swung open revealing bottles of red wine and a shelf full of communion wafers in cracker boxes with cellophane wrappers. Elocution knocked one on the floor then squeezed her slender body all the way through the banisters, dropping to the floor. Within a second she'd sliced the cellophane off the box, and using one extended claw, she opened the tucked-in end.
The odor of wafers, not unlike water crackers, enticed Pewter.
"Elocution, I knew you were going to do this," Cazenovia fretted.
"Well, the box is open. We can't let it go to waste." The bad kitty grabbed a wafer and gobbled it down.
Temptation. Temptation. Pewter gave in.
Cazenovia suffered a moment. "They're ruined now. The humans can't eat them." She, too, flicked out wafers.
Tucker, being a canine after all, rarely worried about the propriety of eating anything. Her nose was already in the wafer box.
Mrs. Murphy allowed herself the luxury of a nibble. "Kind of tasteless."
"If you eat enough of them you get a bready taste, but they are bland." Cazenovia's statement revealed she'd been in the communion wafers more than once.
"Does this mean we're communicants?" Pewter paused.
"Yes," Mrs. Murphy answered. "We're communicats."
"What if I'm not a Lutheran? What if I'm a Muslim cat?"
"If you were a Muslim cat you wouldn't be living in Crozet." Tucker laughed.
"You don't know. This is America. We have everything," Pewter rejoined.
"Not in Crozet." Cazenovia wiped her mouth with her paw. "You've got Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Catholics. More or less the same thing and I know Herb would have a fit, a total fit, if he knew I'd said that, but fortunately he doesn't know what I or any other cat in this universe has to say." She took a deep breath. "Then you've got the Baptists busily fighting among themselves these days and then the charismatic churches and that's it."
"Let's open a Buddhist shrine. Shake 'em up a little." Elocution hiccuped. She'd eaten too many wafers too quickly.
"No. We build a huge statue of a cat with earrings like in ancient Egypt. Oh, I can hear the squeals now about paganism." Mrs. Murphy laughed as the others laughed with her.
Tucker swiveled her ears. "Hey, gang, meeting's breaking up. Let's get out of here."
"Help me push this back in the closet and close the door," Elocution said with urgency.
Cazenovia knocked the box in as though it were a hockey puck. Tucker, larger than the cats, pushed against the door. It closed in an instant. They scrambled out of there. Luckily for them, the doors to the meeting room weren't yet open. They made it back in the nick of time.
"-tomorrow afternoon," Matthew told Tazio.
"I'll be in the office."
"I know you're disappointed about the chestnut flooring but, well." Matthew shrugged.
"I guess I'm a perfectionist. That's what they say back at the office and on the sites, only they say it a lot more directly there." She smiled.
"You've got a lot on your plate, young lady." Hayden McIntyre joined them. "Your design for the new sports complex is just the most ingenious thing. Is that the right word?"
"As long as it's a good word." Tazio picked up her coat hanging in the hall.
"I know H.H. has none for me." Matthew shrugged.
"He'll get his shot." Hayden shrugged right back.
Tazio pointedly did not comment on the animosity between Matthew and H. H. Donaldson, head of a rival construction firm. The bad blood had been made worse when Matthew won the bid to construct Tazio's new stadium. She had hoped H.H. would win the bid because she especially liked him, but she could work just fine with Matthew.
Herb walked out with Harry and BoomBoom. "I sure appreciate you girls coming on over here. You're a welcome addition to the guild."