Out in the alley, there were animals. Lots of animals! More cats and dogs, hamsters and rabbits, and so many squirrels it was hard to tell where one ended and another began.
“What are they doing?” Berlioz asked.
“What do you think?” Louis said. “They’re waiting to get into the café! News travels fast among the animals of Paris. Oh, my, you’re going to be busy. Can you handle it?”
Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse exchanged smiles. It was like a secret language between them now. The smile said:Together, we can do anything.
Marie said,“Open the door, Louis. We’re ready!”
2. THE GREAT BISCUIT BAKE-OFF
Toulouse looked up at the wide, empty canvas sitting on the easel in front of him. Then he closed his eyes and thought:Which color should I start with?
He tried to remember exactly what he’d seen on that morning a few months earlier when he’d woken up on a riverbank in the French countryside. Toulouse; his brother, Berlioz; his sister, Marie; and their mama, Duchess, had all been “catnapped” away from their home. It had been confusing and scary at the time, but now Toulouse looked back on it as a great adventure. After all, they’d met their stepfather, Thomas O’Malley, that day…and it had been their first time ever outside of Paris.
Now it all started coming back to Toulouse: the tall, thick blades of emerald-green grass, the brown cattails waving in the breeze, and the deep blue water that sparkled with sunlight.
“Hmmm,” Toulouse said to himself. “What color were the flowers on the lily pads? Were they orange or pink? Or maybe orange-pink?”
Toulouse was working on a painting for a new“City Versus Country”–themed art exhibit at the Purrfect Paw-tisserie, the hidden creature caf? he ran with Marie and Berlioz. They’d opened just a month earlier, in the basement of a famous restaurant.
Jingle. The front door of the caf? had a bell that rang every time a new customer came in. That day, the Paw-tisserie was quite busy, with the bell jingling every few minutes. This time, a pair of skunks sashayed in from the alley and up to the pastry case. It was filled with a rainbow of colorful treats that appealed to every type of animal. The skunks ordered two half-black, half-white cupcakes from the French bulldog working behind the counter. This was the kittens’ friend Pierre, who lived with his human family upstairs and had helped Toulouse and his littermates start the caf?.
Toulouse glanced at the other customers filling the tables, and at his brother, Berlioz, who was finishing a song on the piano.
Next to the piano, a small hedgehog sat by himself, listening.“Can you play ‘Curl Into a Ball and Roll’?” he asked Berlioz. “My mama used to sing that with me.”
[Картинка: img_3]
“I’m sorry, Spike,” Berlioz replied. “I don’t know that one, but here’s a little something I came up with the other day when I was trying to catch my own tail.”
Berlioz began to play again, and the hedgehog happily bobbed his head to the beat as he took another bite of earthworm mousse.
The thought of earthworms reminded Toulouse again of the French countryside and that riverbank.Aha! He finally remembered the color of the water lilies. He dipped his paw in the pink paint.
“Ooh la la!” someone squealed.“Marie, that looks so cute!”
The new sound made Toulouse lose his concentration. His beautiful flower ended up as a beautiful smudge.
Someone else let out a giggle.“Nowyou try! See if you can make a swirly design with the red icing.”
Marie sat at a counter behind the pastry case. Next to her perched a white French bulldog puppy with three brown spots on her back. The puppy held a pastry bag, trying to squeeze red icing onto the top of a Bow-Wow Bonbon. It was one of Marie’s specialties: a dog biscuit made with vanilla yogurt and fresh berries in the shape of a giant bone.
Blurrrrrrp.
Red icing squirted all over the dog biscuit, the counter…and Marie’s whiskers.
Toulouse glared at them. He was the painter. Why didn’t they ask him for help with the treat decorations?
“Oh, no!” the puppy cried, dropping the decorating bag. “Marie, I’m so sorry! I’m really bad at this!”
But Marie laughed.“It’s okay, Claudette. At least you decoratedsomething! Don’t you think my fur looks pretty this way?”
With one paw, Marie wiped some icing off her longest whisker, stared at it, and then flung it at Claudette. Giggling, Claudette squeezed the tube and squirted some more at Marie.
[Картинка: img_4]
“Knock it off!” Toulouse yowled at them, jumping down from his stool. “Nobody will want those messy treats.”
“Oh, Toulouse,” Marie said. “Don’t be such a grump. I promised Claudette I’d teach her how to decorate pastries before her visit with her uncle Pierre was over. Her human family will be leaving Paris soon.”
Marie put her paw on top of Claudette’s.
“I’m going to miss you terribly, Claudette,” Marie said. “It’s been so much fun having you around here.”
Toulouse flattened his ears as he glanced at the tray of Bow-Wow Bonbons.“How come you’ve never taughtme to decorate your treats?”
Marie laughed.“You’ve never liked baking, Toulouse. Besides, your job at the caf? is to be the artist.”
Toulouse looked sadly at his canvas.“I guess you’re right. I do have a lot of artsy things to do around here. But…”
He took a deep breath, gathering the courage to tell Marie he reallydid want to learn to bake and decorate. But she and Claudette had gone back to the treats, giggling about how funny they looked. So he wiped his paw clean on a rag and went over to the piano, where Berlioz was playing the final notes of his song.
Spike, the hedgehog, clapped his tiny paws together.“Bravo! Bravo!”
“Thanks,” Berlioz said to him, then turned to Toulouse. “Uh-oh. I know that look. It’s your I’m-mad-at-Marie look.”
Toulouse glanced back at Marie and Claudette, who were leaning in close to each other, smiling and whispering.“It’s just strange to see our sister having so much fun with someone who’s…”
“Not us?” Berlioz suggested.
Toulouse’s ears and tail drooped. “I thoughtwe were her best friends. And why is Marie letting Claudette decorate the Bow-Wow Bonbons? She’s not a chef.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to take us away from our art and music,” Berlioz replied. “Besides, you don’t even like baking.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Toulouse said. “I’ve never tried it, but I’d like to. It looks fun.”
Berlioz smiled, hopped down off his piano stool, and gave Toulouse a little boop on the nose with his paw.
“Don’t be jealous,” he said.
“I’m not jealous,” Toulouse insisted, playfully swatting back at his brother.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think if you were any more jealous, you’d go from being an orange cat to agreen one. As ingreen with envy.”
“You’re going to get it for that!” Toulouse said, breaking into a mischievous smile.
“Just try!” Berlioz dared him, and took off running across the caf?. Toulouse started chasing. The two kittens raced around chairs and tables, accidentally bumping into a few of the legs.Thump-thump-thump.
[Картинка: img_5]
Marie shook her head and sighed.“I apologize for my brothers!” she announced to all the customers. “It’s a kitten thing.”
Toulouse chased Berlioz toward the front door of the caf? and into a corner. “I’ve got you trapped!”
“Mrow!” Berlioz spat back, swiping at the air.
Suddenly, the door to the caf? burst open.
“AAAHHH-OOO!”
Berlioz and Toulouse froze in fear, puffing up their fur.
A brown basset hound puppy with stubby legs and long, long ears stood in the doorway, howling at the top of his lungs.
“AAAHHH-OOO!” the basset hound howled a second time.
The caf? door opened again, and a chocolate-colored bloodhound puppy barreled in.
“Oh, shush, Leon,” the bloodhound puppy said to the basset hound puppy. “You don’t need to do that every time you walk into a place. Here, let me do it.”