Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives

Janet curled her lip briefly and then made her way back toward the house without saying a word. I leaned the ladder up against the massive trunk of the tree and muttered at the back of her head, “Oh, Janet, you jokester you!”

She didn’t answer. She was probably headed back to her servant’s lair somewhere deep in the bowels of the mansion, where she sat staring in the mirror and practicing her stink-eye. Of course, if the Silverthorns were paying her anywhere near what they were paying me, I’d be in a foul mood, too.

The ladder was actually two ladders joined together on a sliding track, with a yellow rope attached on one side to a pulley that could be used to extend the length as needed. I pulled on the rope and hoisted the extension ladder up until it reached as far as it could go, which was about twenty-five feet.

The trunk of the tree was easily ten feet around, with braided ropes of bark winding their way up into the canopy. The north-facing side of the trunk, where it received the least amount of sunlight, was covered in a fine carpet of green moss, and there was a column of tiny black ants traveling up and down a two-lane highway.

On my way up the ladder I had a few more choice words for Janet, and by the fifth rung or so, only five or six feet off the ground, my heart started skipping and I made a point of grasping the rails a little tighter. I couldn’t imagine Janet’s fear of heights being any worse than mine, but since it was in the service of rescuing a cat, I forged ahead.

Moving slowly, I climbed all the way up to the top of the ladder, where the glossy magnolia leaves formed a darkened cavern. I immediately knew why Mr. Peters might want to hang out here. He could lie about in the cool comfort of the shade while spying on all the birds flitting from branch to branch. I hoped for the birds’ sake that he was only enjoying the view and not hunting for a late-afternoon snack.

Mr. Peters watched me with a bemused twinkle in his eye, as though he’d done this a million times before and knew the drill. When I got to his branch, he twitched his whiskers and tipped his chin as if to say, “Evenin’.”

I said, “You know, Mr. Peters, this would be a lot easier if you’d just come down to me.”

He didn’t say a word. Cats are perfectly engineered for climbing up anything they can sink their claws into, but coming down is a whole different story. I reached down into the pocket of my cargo shorts and pulled out the little plastic bag I’d grabbed from my backpack on the way out. I figured a few irresistible kitty treats might give him the extra bit of encouragement he needed, and it turned out I was right.

I held a cube of cheddar cheese between my thumb and forefinger and held it out so Mr. Peters could see it. He sniffed the air and then tentatively put one paw forward.

I said, “That’s a good kitty. Come and get it.”

He stood up now on all fours and crept down the branch about a foot, and just when I thought I’d have him in my arms in no time, a gray squirrel, its mouth full of strips of paper, popped out of a hole in the trunk not half a foot from my head. It scared me so bad I nearly fell right off the ladder.

For a brief moment, the squirrel and I just looked each other in the face, each of us equally flabbergasted. I giggled silently when I realized the strips of paper in his mouth had an archaic-looking print on them.

I said, “Well, it looks like Mrs. Silverthorn isn’t the only one around here with their own private library.” Mr. Peters ignored me and took a few more steps forward. He was just as interested in the squirrel as he was in the cheese, if not more so.

Suddenly the squirrel hopped out of the hole and scampered down the tree, and Mr. Peters and I watched as he ran across the tangled lawn of vines and slipped into a hole near the foundation of the gardening shed. I turned to Mr. Peters. Now I knew what he’d been up to.

I said, “You know, it’s not very nice to go around hunting poor defenseless squirrels, especially when you have a devoted owner who I’m sure keeps you very well fed with the finest cat food available.”

He gazed at me, unblinking, and I wondered if that was even true. If the Silverthorns’ financial situation was as dire as it appeared, it was possible Mr. Peters was wholly responsible for rustling up his own dinners.

I held the cube of cheese up again, cooing softly at him, and even though he eyed me suspiciously the entire length of the branch, it only took a little more encouragement to get him to come all the way down and gingerly take it from my fingers. As he gobbled it down and licked his chops, I could see his eyes were even more beautiful up close. They were an impossibly clear baby blue, like something an artist could only come up with in a dream.

He flashed me an expectant look, so I took that opportunity to make my final move—one more tiny offering of cheese, which worked like a charm. He fluttered his tail in the air and rubbed his cheek up against the back of my hand, purring like a tiny salad spinner. Now I knew I’d won him over completely, so I gently scooped him up in my arms and handed him another morsel. He barely argued, which was a good thing since I had no idea how I would have managed to climb down that ladder and hold on to a flailing cat at the same time.

Just then, I noticed one of the strips of paper hanging halfway out of the squirrel’s hole. It had perfectly aligned bite marks all the way down one end, but that’s not what caught my attention. It was the color of the paper—a pale, creamy yellow.

I have no idea what possessed me to do what I did next, because in my mind, every nook and cranny in the entire state of Florida is teeming with venomous snakes just waiting for an opportunity to strike, but sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me. Cringing, I reached my arm down into the hole and my hand fell on something at the base of it, something fluffy, like a cheerleader’s pom-pom, but solid underneath. I closed my hand around it and slowly drew it out.

My jaw fell open and my eyes must have grown ten times bigger.

Now I knew exactly where I’d seen that paper before, plus the old-fashioned print. I was certain. The bottom half was nibbled and shredded, and the whole thing was wrapped in a water-stained lavender scarf, which was also pulled and chewed through, but I knew without a doubt that it was the missing chapter from The Furry Godmother’s Guide to Pet-Friendly Gardening , by V. Tisson-Waugh.

I said, “Huh,” and pursed my lips together, making a little sucking sound of air through my teeth.

Mr. Peters cocked his head to one side and stared up at me quizzically.

“Mr. Peters,” I said. “I have no frickin’ idea.”

Part of me knew it was wrong. Part of me knew I should have dropped the stupid thing right back in its squirrel hole and never thought of it again, but I didn’t care. In a way, it was mine. I folded the whole fluffy mess up as neatly as possible and was tucking the wispy ends of the scarf between the pages when something slipped halfway out the bottom.

It was a drawing—a pen-and-ink drawing, to be exact—of an attractive woman with long dark hair cascading off her shoulders. She was sitting on a couch, her knees drawn up beneath her, with one arm draped casually over the side cushion, and looking straight at me with a slyly seductive look in her eyes. I recognized her immediately.

It was the same woman in the drawings hanging behind the register at Beezy’s Bookstore, the same woman with the diamond ring and the tiny kitten in her lap. This drawing, however, was a little different from the rest—the woman was completely naked.

When I got to the bottom of the ladder and was back on solid ground, I turned to find Janet standing behind me, her arms folded over her chest.