“Found some!” Leon shouted, then threw himself into a muddy patch. After rolling back and forth a few times, he stood up and shook the mud off his fur. It surrounded him like a gray cloud.
“Too dusty,” he declared. “We’re looking for wet mud—the kind that feels cold and soft on your fur and gets you really messy.”
“Like this,” Nadine said, sniffing at the base of another tree. She threw herself onto the ground and came back up covered in drippy brown stuff. “It’s the best.”
Leon bounded over and did the same.“Woo-hoo!”
“Getting dirty for fun isn’t really a cat thing…” Toulouse murmured, but the puppies didn’t hear him. Then Toulouse spotted something: some of the mud had splattered onto the tree trunk in an interesting shape. It reminded him of deer antlers.
Toulouse dipped his paw in the mud and drew a head underneath the antlers. Another dip into the mud and he added a body, then legs. He stepped back to admire his work.
[Картинка: img_16]
Leon looked at the tree trunk and stopped his mud roll.“Wow!”
“Toulouse, let’s give your deer a name,” Nadine added.
“Wait, you can tell it’s a deer?” Toulouse asked them.
“Of course!” Leon said, laughing. “It looks just like the one on the sign at an inn near our home. Every night we howl outside the door and the chef gives us leftovers.”
“Berlioz and Marie can never tell what I’m painting,” Toulouse said, shaking his head in amazement. “But you do.”
“Hey, let’s pretend we’re chasing that deer right now!” said Nadine.
Nadine, Leon, and Toulouse took off together through the trees, with the puppies spraying mud as they went. They scampered across another field, around a flower garden, and up a flight of stone steps, laughing the whole way.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in the parkever!” Toulouse shouted to his new friends.
And then…
WHOMP!
He ran right into something big and furry.
Toulouse stumbled backward. When he looked up, he was staring right into the eyes of an orange-and-white cat—a veryfamiliar one. The cat was thumping his tail on the ground.
It was Toulouse’s stepdad, Thomas O’Malley.
“Well, hey now,” Thomas said. “If it isn’t the kitten I’ve been sent to find because he’s late for dinner.”
“I’m so sorry…” Toulouse muttered. “I, uh, lost track of time.”
Nadine and Leon had skidded to a stop at the sight of the big alley cat.“We were working on our Dog Biscuit Bake-Off idea,” Nadine said.
Thomas O’Malley looked over the three mud-covered critters and broke into a sly grin. “If your dog biscuit is going to be made of mud, it certainly looks like you were working pretty hard.”
Toulouse turned to the puppies.“I have to go, but come by my house tomorrow. Just ask any dog you see where Madame Adelaide Bonfamille and her cats live, and they’ll show you the way.”
“Can’t wait!” Leon said. “Our treat’s going to be so yummy.”
“Better than yummy,” Nadine added. “Toulouse, with your help, it’s going towin.”
Toulouse waved goodbye and followed Thomas O’Malley out of the park, smiling all the way home.
[Картинка: img_17]
It was Monday, which meant the Purrfect Paw-tisserie was closed and the kittens had the day off to play at home. Marie had gone out to meet Claudette, leaving Toulouse and Berlioz to come up with a two-cat game.
Thwap.
Berlioz batted a red pom-pom down the long downstairs hallway. It rolled and rolled and rolled…
Until Toulouse sprang out, in a flash of orange fur, from a doorway. He caught the pom-pom with one paw.
“Good pounce!” Berlioz said. “My turn. Hit it back to me.”
As Toulouse knocked the pom-pom toward his brother, he said,“Berlioz, um…I have something to tell you.”
Berlioz jumped on the pom-pom with both paws and grabbed it in his mouth.“Zhat shounds sherious.”
[Картинка: img_18]
“I’m, uh, helping Nadine and Leon with their entry for the Bake-Off,” Toulouse said.
The pom-pom plopped out of Berlioz’s mouth. “So you really are interested in baking?”
“Yes, I really am. After all, I love eating treats. So I’d like to learn how to make and decorate treats, too, you know?” Toulouse sat down and laid his head sadly on his paws. “It seems like Marie only cares about Claudette these days, and she doesn’t think I’d be any good at baking ordecorating. But I want to prove to her that I can do it.”
“Let me guess,” Berlioz said, abandoning the pom-pom to join his brother. “Nadine and Leondo think you’d be good at baking and decorating?”
“Yes,” Toulouse said. “Also, they’re really fun. If you and Marie got to know them, I bet you’d like them, too.”
Berlioz thought for a moment.“I’m glad you’re trying something new.”
“Hey, Berlioz! Why don’t you join our team?”
“Thanks for the invitation, but no, I’m busy,” Berlioz said. “Speaking of trying something new, I had a great idea about how to get more people to come to the Bake-Off, so I’m—”
Suddenly, Duchess’s voice echoed down the hallway. “Toulouse! Toulouse? Are you back here?”
“Yes, Mama!” Toulouse replied.
Duchess rounded the corner and smiled when she saw her kittens.
“Darling, you have visitors,” she said to Toulouse. “Two puppies named Nadine and Leon, I believe? They seem very nice, even if they did forget to sayplease when they asked to see you.”
“Those are my new friends. Thank you, Mama!” Toulouse turned to his brother. “Looks like my Bake-Off team needs me, but we can finish talking when I get home.”
Berlioz’s tail dropped. “Sure.”
Toulouse dashed off down the hallway, toward the front hall. He found Nadine and Leon sniffing their way along the tiled floor.
“Hi!” Toulouse greeted them.
“Fancy house,” Nadine commented.
“With a lot of fancy smells,” Leon added.
“We did some more thinking at the park,” Nadine told Toulouse, “and we came up with the best dog biscuit recipe. With your amazing decorations, it’ll win, for sure.”
“We’re calling it Country Days Delight,” Leon explained. “It’s made up of all the yummy foods they give us at that inn near our home. The deer you painted with mud was the inspiration for the recipe!”
“But for this contest, we have to get ingredients the hard way,” Nadine said. “Toulouse, can you help us find them?”
Toulouse’s face lit up. “Of course! What do you need?”
[Картинка: img_8]
The best food market in Paris was ten blocks from Madame’s house: six blocks toward the midday sun, then four blocks toward the Eiffel Tower. Toulouse’s mission was to get a sweet potato, which was hard to find, but he knew just the right market stand. He pranced down the street, feeling proud that his new friends had given him such an important job.
At the end of the second block, he was about to step off the curb and cross the street when—KA-RUMP.
Something white and furry landed on top of him. Toulouse tried to kick it away with his back paws but stopped when he saw that the something wore a pink ribbon around its neck.
“Marie?”
“I could smell you coming from around the corner!” Marie said, laughing. “I don’t think there are any other cats in Paris who smell like oil paint, fish,and fresh cream.”
“What are you doing here?” Toulouse asked. “I thought you were at the caf?, working on your Bake-Off recipe with Claudette.”
“I was,” Marie replied. “But we need one more ingredient, and there’s only one place I’ve ever seen them in the city.”
They both narrowed their eyes in suspicion.
“Sweet potato?” they asked at the same time.
“Why doyou need a sweet potato?” Marie asked Toulouse.
“It’s…um…for Nadine and Leon’s recipe.”
The fur on Marie’s tail puffed up a bit. “You’re helping them?”