Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Sidekick. Purrfect Deseit. Purrfect Ruse [calibre 5.14.0]

I nodded, seeing the soundness of her scheme.

“What do they say, babe?” asked Chase.

“They’re going to do it,” said Odelia.

Chase nodded. “Good boys,” he said, giving us both a pat on the head for our trouble. He’d crouched down so he was at eye level. Then suddenly, and completely out of the blue, he put a collar around my neck!

“What are you doing?” I asked, slightly alarmed. I trust Chase, of course I do, but no cat likes to be outfitted with a collar. I mean, we’re not dogs, okay?

“It’s the GPS tracker I was telling you about,” Odelia said.

“Oh, right,” I said, only mollified to a minor extent.

“Are you sure this is safe, Max?” asked Dooley as Chase repeated the procedure with my friend.

“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” I said, though to be perfectly honest I wasn’t entirely sure myself.

Harriet and Brutus had entered the house through the pet flap and now halted in their tracks when they caught sight of the recent additions to our costume. “Why are you wearing a collar, Max?” asked Harriet.

“It’s not a collar,” I told her. “It’s a GPS tracker.”

“We’re going to nab the nabber,” Dooley announced.

“Nab the nabber!” said Brutus. “And how are you going to do that?”

“You’re going to know exactly how they’re going to do that because you’re going to be nabbing that nabber along with your friends,” said Odelia. And before Brutus and Harriet knew what was happening they, too, had both been outfitted with tracking devices!

Harriet blinked and said, in a plaintive voice, “I don’t like the color. It doesn’t become me.”

“There isn’t much choice in tracking collars, unfortunately,” said Odelia. “So these will have to do I’m afraid. How do they feel?”

“Weird,” I said, grimacing and pulling at the collar.

“A little tight,” said Brutus in a tight voice.

“So if these give off a signal that transmits to a satellite,” said Dooley, “isn’t that dangerous? I mean, doesn’t that kind of thing give you cancer?”

“Don’t worry about that, Dooley,” said Odelia, getting slightly annoyed with all these objections to a plan that must have seemed perfect in her mind when she thought it up.

“So what’s going to happen now?” I asked.

“Now you’re going to walk around where the others were all taken,” said Odelia.

“And where is that?”

And as she told us where she was going to drop us off, and even was so kind to show it on a map on her phone, Harriet said in a low voice, “You guys, it’s the Bermuda triangle.”

“The Bermuda triangle?” asked Brutus.

“You know, the place where everything disappears.”

“Oh, right.” He produced a low chuckle. “It’s the Bermuda triangle of cats—the place where all cats disappear into thin air!”

“Oh, God,” I said, liking this whole endeavor less and less as time went on and the hour of putting ourselves in the path of this crazy nabber/killer drew closer and closer.

“Max?” said Dooley as Odelia and Chase talked the plan through a little more, “I don’t like this.”

“I don’t like it either, Dooley, but I’m sure it will be fine.”

“But we’re wearing a cancer-inducing collar, and Odelia is going to drop us right in the middle of the Bermuda triangle for cats. This is very dangerous, Max!”

“Just think of it this way, Dooley,” I said. “Soon we’ll have this catnapper behind bars, and then all cats of Hampton Cove can finally breathe a little easier again.”

He took a deep breath, then said in a small voice, “I just wish I could breathe a little easier now.”

Chapter 10

Marge was not in a good mood. Though she should have been in a great mood, she wasn’t, and it was all because of her mother. “Look, this is still my kitchen,” she said, “and I’m the one who has to pay for it, so I think it’s only reasonable that I’m the one who decides.”

“Excuse me, but I live here, too,” said Ma, “and also, I’m paying from my pension, so I have as much right to have the deciding vote as you have—if not more!”

Marge looked at the design her mother had chosen on the computer tablet, and shook her head. “I don’t like the cupboards,” she said finally. “They’re too small. My tableware is never going to fit. And besides, I always wanted a kitchen island.”

“So what?”

“So where is my kitchen island? There’s no kitchen island in this design.”

“If you want a kitchen island, Marge,” said Ma, sitting next to her at the computer in their cozy little living room, “you should get a bigger kitchen.” She threw up her hands. “There simply isn’t enough space for the kind of kitchen you want.”

Marge knew that her mother was right, of course, but she was loathe to admit it. “I’m sure that if we measure things again we can create enough space.”

“You can measure all you want, but as long as that measurer you have isn’t one that belongs to Harry Potter you’re not going to create more space, Marge. You knew when you bought this house that you were getting a small kitchen, an okay living room and a small sitting room.” She paused. “Though if you really want a bigger kitchen there is a solution.”

Hope surged in Marge’s bosom. She really had always wanted a bigger kitchen. In fact it was her main gripe ever since they’d moved into the place. “There is?”

“Of course. All you have to do is knock out a wall, or better yet, two walls.” She pointed to the living room walls. “If you knock out that wall, and that one, you create one big space. And then you’ll have an open kitchen, with kitchen island, and you’ll also have a lot more light in here.”

“You’re right,” she heard herself say.

Ma’s jaw dropped. “What did you just say?”

“I said you’re absolutely right.”

Ma smiled a beatific smile, which was a rarity for her. “I’m glad to hear you say it.”

They should have done it a long time ago. The living room, which was located in the center of the ground floor, didn’t get any light at all, and the sitting room, where they didn’t spend all that much time, got all the light, as did the kitchen.

“How much is this going to cost, though?” she asked, immediately putting a damper on these ambitious plans.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” Ma suggested.

“Tex is going to—”

“Tex will be happy as a clam! He wants this as much as we do. He just doesn’t want to pay for it, even though he can easily afford it.”

“It would mean remodeling the entire downstairs,” Marge pointed out.

“So? You only live once, Marge. And didn’t you tell me when you moved in that this was the original plan all along?”

“It was,” Marge admitted ruefully.

“So why not finally put it in motion?” Ma got up. “This is the way to go, honey, and you know it as well as I do. Now all you need to do is convince that Scrooge husband of yours to take out his checkbook and get this show on the road.”

“Where are you going?” she asked as Ma grabbed her purse from the table.

“Better don’t ask,” said her mother curtly.

“Better don’t ask what?”

“Exactly,” said Ma with a slight grin, then skedaddled before Marge could ask more.

“You’re not going to pull any crazy stunts, are you?!” she yelled after her aged but sprightly mother, but the only reply she got was the door being slammed shut. “Oh, dear,” she said, then glanced at that mockup on the screen again. It did look pretty wonderful, she thought, but only with the addition of a kitchen island. And bigger cupboards. And more of them, too. And maybe even a second kitchen island. And for once in her life she had to agree with her mom: if they could pull this off, they’d all be a lot happier, and could live a lot roomier. Now all that needed to be done was to convince Tex.