I almost had it back in when I heard Joe’s voice—louder than it should have been—say, “Hey, the attic is open... I wonder if she went up there!”
I froze. I knew the cat they were chasing had not come up here. But then again, the cat they were actually looking for was up here!
Gripping my phone in my teeth, I fled through the trusses.
Getting as far from their voices as I could, I squeezed myself into the tightest ball possible and fired off one last text message to Keith.
Men in attic. Do NOT call/look for me. If I don’t come home pls do obituary.
I turned off the phone so the glowing screen wouldn’t give away my location. I heard distant wood creaking as the men entered the attic. They spoke in whispers I could barely make out even with my heightened hearing.
Mr. Special Forces had been right: one of these guys was definitely wearing too much cologne. The overpowering smell filled the attic like a cloud. I held my breath.
The creaking grew louder as they made their way closer to my hiding place. They were close enough that I could hear them breathing heavily in the stuffy attic.
I heard the click of a door opening below and multiple stealthy footsteps. The men in the attic didn’t notice.
“THIS IS THE POLICE! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!”
The creaking stopped.
We’d done it. We’d caught the cereal robbers red-handed! The victory was bittersweet for me, since I’d also discovered the scientists suspected I was still alive and in the area.
Nine
I didn’t budge from my hiding place when police came up into the attic to bring the robbers down. All the police procedures seemed to take an eternity. I heard Keith’s voice sometimes. After what had to be several hours, things began to settle down, and I dared to move. I worked on getting my phone back into the harness. It was painfully difficult, but I finally wiggled it back in.
I crept out of my corner and padded quietly across the trusses. I had to get out of here before someone closed the attic trapdoor. Just before I reached the opening, I paused and listened.
There was a distant murmur of voices, but nobody nearby. I jumped down to the stack of totes with a soft thump. I froze, twitching my ears to pick up any noises headed my way.
Nothing. I slunk to the open window and made my escape into the darkness.
It was raining.
Lovely.
I disgustedly scurried through the drizzle until I reached the community mailbox. Scrunching up in the dry patch underneath the structure, I began licking my fur, hoping to dry it.
As I went over every inch of my coat, I prepared myself for what I had to do next. During my waiting time in the rafters, I had formulated a plan.
It wasn’t a plan I particularly liked, but it was necessary. There was no way I would ever allow myself to be taken back to the lab. I had to disappear and it had to be for good—or at least it had to appear that way to the scientists.
Our apartment was right around the corner. It would only be a matter of time before the other scientists from the lab sent someone else to knock on our neighbors’ doors asking who owned a cat. Everyone knew Keith had a cat (although, let’s be honest: he didn’t really own me since I had picked him out).
I didn’t want to put Keith in the position of having to lie about me. The official term was plausible deniability. That’s what I was going to give Keith: the ability to truthfully say he didn’t have a cat anymore.
I had decided to borrow a trick from the great detective, Sherlock Holmes.
All my licking hadn’t really gotten me much drier.
Oh, well, I thought wryly, this will probably look more tragic and convincing if I’m soaked.
I growled in disgust as I headed back out into the rain, scurrying in the direction of home. Once I reached our apartment complex I parked myself under a bush, wriggled out of my harness, and waited for a car to come.
I really needed it to be a neighbor who would recognize me. Preferably one who would be easily fooled.
I waited until a vehicle passed under the streetlights at the entrance to our complex, I recognized the car of a college-aged girl who lived with two of her friends a few doors down from us. She was the perfect candidate, although I did feel bad about traumatizing the poor girl this way.
My heart pounded. This was actually really dangerous. My timing had to be perfect.
I waited. Waited just a bit more... and then dashed out in front of the car where I knew Breanna would see me in her headlights. I skidded to a stop and hunkered down where the car would roll harmlessly above me.
I sank down to the wet asphalt in a pathetic you-just-hit-me-with-your-car pose. The car squealed to a halt, and the driver’s side door popped open.
“OH NO!!! Kitty-kitty? I’m soooo sorry! Oh, goodness! Are you...?”
I made a wheezing noise and stretched one leg out a little. She gave a little scream and gingerly moved closer.
Recognize me! Recognize me!
“Oh, dear! You’re Heath’s cat! Oh I can’t believe I did this! I’m so sorry!” she babbled. Heath—Keith. No matter.
I moaned for effect and cracked one eye open just a tad. Bad move. She had tears streaming down her face, and she was soaked through from the rain. I felt so, so guilty for doing this to her. She wrung her hands and then fished her phone out of her pocket.
“Candy!” she nearly shrieked a moment later. “I just hit a cat and I don’t know what to do! No I’m here... in the parking lot. I don’t think she’s dead; she moved a little. I haven’t picked her up... um... I probably should, but... I need a towel or something.”
Man. I could not wait to get off this wet asphalt. I slowly lifted my head a couple inches off the ground.
When she saw it, Breanna shrieked into the phone and started talking a mile a minute to her probably-now-deaf friend. Something about how I was waking up and what was she going to do and what if “Heath” sued her for hitting his cat...
Did I mention feeling guilty? Breanna turned to check in her car for something to pick me up with, so it was time for my dramatic exit. I staggered to my feet... or at least two of them. I left my back legs hanging limp, mostly dragging myself forward with my front legs.
She turned just before I made it safely to the cover of the somewhat overgrown landscaping. “Wait, kitty! Oh, you poor thing! Oh, it’s dragging itself away!” she whimpered into her phone. I kept to my slow, pathetic pace until I reached a darker, more overgrown area.
Breanna’s voice was more faint, so I stopped the act and high-tailed it out of there.
I found shelter from the rain underneath a parked car a few blocks away and waited out the rest of the rainy night there. I alternated between wallowing in guilt and at the same time reminding myself it was really the best solution.
The scientists would eventually knock on doors in our neighborhood. The neighbors would mention Keith had a cat but that it had recently died after being hit by a car. The scientists would then talk to Keith. If he’d followed my instructions, he’d have a pet obituary to show them in the local paper.
He’d maybe admit to me being unusual, but he’d keep my secret even after he thought I was long gone. That’s just the kind of guy he was.
The scientists should stop looking for me—hopefully, this time for good. In a sense, I’d escaped the lab a second time—and if everything went as I expected—the last time. When the whole thing was history, I could even go home.
Home.
I truly had a home that I missed. I would find a way to get back to Keith. Even though I was still wet from the nasty rainstorm, that thought warmed me.
The Kitten Files #4
The Case of the Very Bad Cat
Perry Elisabeth Kirkpatrick
One
My headquarters in the crawlspace under the Lobster Line Restaurant was getting colder every day. Despite its prevalence among fictional detectives, pretending to be dead was no fun.
It was hard to be
sure if the creepy scientists from Caput Laboratories were still looking for me, so I continued to lie low in a neighboring part of town until I knew it was safe.
I fired up my cell phone (a gift from my first client and great friend Ms. Thornblood), and connected to the restaurant’s WiFi. It was December 18th, and apparently the temperature was about 40 degrees. There was even a slight chance of snow that night.
I really needed to find a better place to stay. Preferably somewhere inhabited by a warm and friendly human who would feed me and make a nice blanket nest in a cardboard box.
I shook myself out of the daydream as a new message popped up on my phone screen.
So, someone is adopting cats and giving them to this lady each day. Seems to be a 12-cats-of-Christmas thing. Wants advice. Ideas?
It was fun having Keith text me for help with cases. He didn’t know it was me, of course. I was using a secondary messaging app with a fake phone number. I’d begun messaging anonymous tips to him when I couldn’t stand hearing about him bumble through cases without me anymore.
It did make me miss being there with him, though. I mean, not like a dog misses his owner. That’s a bit overboard for my taste.
I concentrated on moving my phone’s stylus across the screen, guiding it with my paws and mouth. The handwriting recognition (or paw-writing recognition, in my case) changed my writing to typed text.
Check with local animal shelters. See if they’ve noticed any one person adopting multiple cats recently.
Double-checking for typos and anything that might blow my anonymous identity, I tapped send. I couldn’t wait to hear all about that story!
If it was ever safe to go home.
I wiggled the stylus back into place, turned off the phone to conserve power, and then slipped it back into the pouch I wore on a harness. The first time I’d used the harness to carry my phone, I’d had a hard time getting the device in and out, but over the past several weeks, I’d become a pro.
I made my way past water pipes, supports, and electrical conduits to the gap in the skirting around the base of the restaurant. Swiveling my head to make sure the coast was clear, I slipped out into the late-afternoon light.
Sneaking and skulking with a cat’s skill, I made my way through the nearby neighborhood, undetected by humans, dogs, and cats alike.
I knew exactly where I was going. I’d been keeping tabs on a couple different houses over the past week, noticing the habits of the people who lived there, and trying to decide who had the most cat-friendly home.
College-Guy was looking promising.
The last of his roommates had left to visit family on Christmas break. I could finally make contact and see what he thought about taking in a cold, hungry cat.
The sun had nearly set by the time I approached the small tract home he normally shared with three other students.
His neighbors were all indoors, eating dinner and staying out of a biting breeze that had sprung up, their houses twinkling with Christmas lights of every hue.
I circled his house and found a safe, dry hiding place for my phone in his basement. I guess he didn’t know there was a cat-sized hole in one of the windows. After I’d wriggled out of the harness so I looked like any cat—not a high-tech detective—I headed for the front porch.
A single strand of white lights outlined the doorframe, the boys’ one stab at Christmas decorating.
The smell of something yummy and meaty cooking inside seeped out around the door, and I sat down hurriedly. Tipping my chin up, I let out a Loud Meow.
My voice echoed around the small stoop. I knew there was no way the guy wouldn’t hear the Loud Meow.
I did it again.
Sure enough, after a moment, I heard the deadbolt click back. The door opened to reveal College-Guy wearing grey sweatpants and a sweatshirt with what must have been his school’s logo on it. He peered out at me in surprise.
“Well, hi,” he said, looking around uncertainly.
I meowed again: quieter, high, and squeaky. I tipped my head. People always take that as a sign of intelligence—that animals are listening. Or else they think it’s just plain cute. It can go either way.
“You look cold,” he observed. He stared at me again for another long moment and then shivered himself. Opening the door a little wider, he said, “Well, come on in.”
I stared back at him. I couldn’t let on I was that smart.
He finally bent down and clicked his tongue a few times, holding his hand out to me. “C’mon kitty-kitty! It might snow tonight. Here kitty-kitty!”
There it was.
I got up and tiptoed across the threshold into the delicious warmth of the house, pausing to delicately sniff his fingers on the way by.
Hamburgers. The guy was cooking hamburgers.
Two
Come to find out, College-Guy had an actual name: Tommy. He was great about sharing his hamburger-making skills, throwing an extra one in the pan and making sure it had cooled off a bit before serving it up on a paper plate on the floor.
I was lucky, too, that he and his housemates seemed addicted to ordering things off the internet. There were an abundance of various-sized cardboard boxes lying about. When I was ready for bed, I sat in one that was particularly cat-sized and stared at him meaningfully.
“Like the box?” he asked, smirking at me. “You’re such a stereotype.
Stereotype is a word people use when they have no respect for long-held cat traditions. Most cats wouldn’t have reacted to the word “stereotype”, though, so in order to keep from blowing my cover, I simply blinked slowly and continued staring.
“Hey, I know,” he said, snapping his fingers, “I have a ratty hand towel that somebody accidentally bleached.”
Well, the guy certainly knew how to advertise!
He disappeared down the hall, and I followed. He opened a door and headed down a set of narrow steps to the basement. I waited at the top, thinking.
This was an excellent development. If I could figure out a way around the problem of the basement door, I’d have a way to access my phone without going outside.
I could hear him rummaging around what must have been the laundry room. After a few moments, he bounded back up the steps with the promised ratty towel.
He spread it carefully into the bottom of my chosen box, meticulously smoothing out all the wrinkles. I watched from a distance, waiting until he stood up and moved on.
Tommy looked over at me and then scooped me up and deposited me in the box. I hopped right back out.
No matter how many times Keith had called me “kitten”, I was, in fact, a full-grown adult cat. As such, I would decide when it was my bedtime.
“Hmm...” Tommy said and then shrugged. He sat down on the couch and picked up his TV remote. As soon as he wasn’t looking, I hopped lightly over the edge of the box and sniffed at the hand towel.
Just as he’d said, it had been bleached at some point in its past. What used to be a dark green towel, now featured spots of an oddly ambiguous color. It was ratty, too, but in a well-worn way that made it quite soft and kneadable.
Before I knew it, I was sinking my claws in and out, enjoying the feel of the towel as a purr whirred to life in my throat. I pulled the smoothed towel back up into lots of nice bumpy wrinkles, getting sleepier and sleepier the more I kneaded.
Tommy had flipped to a channel playing some old Christmas movie, so I fell asleep to an orchestral score rife with jingle bells.
Several hours later, I woke to a dark and quiet house. Tommy was nowhere to be seen. I crept down the hall and sniffed under each closed door until I assured myself he was indeed in his room and—from the snoring sounds—fast asleep.
At the end of the hall was the basement door. I snuck toward it in the darkness and stared up at the handle. I had observed earlier that it was the lever-kind of handle rather than a knob. If it was as forgiving as the ones in Keith’s apartment, I should have no trouble opening it.
Swiveling my ears aro
und to check for any sign of movement from Tommy’s bedroom, I calculated the light spring I would need to make.
I crouched, repositioned my feet a little (seriously, people, it’s not a bum-wiggle—it’s jump-calibration), and leaped.
I snagged the lever handle with my front paws and let my body weight pull it downward. The latch clicked, and the door swung open.
Pausing on the top step and listening again, I assured myself Tommy hadn’t woken up.
I was thrilled I had access to my phone and a way outside—if I felt like venturing into the nasty cold.
The temperature in the basement was somewhere between the cold of the outdoors and the warmth of the house. I padded lightly across boxes and random piles of forgotten things to the corner in which I’d stashed my phone. I turned it on and connected to Tommy’s WiFi.
My messaging app showed a new notification. I tapped it quickly with the stylus, excited to hear from Keith.
Wow. I don’t know how u do it. Gloria & Amber seemed happy with the idea of checking animal shelters.
I normally would have shuddered at his use of texting abbreviations, but I was too elated at his praise.
I mean, not as excited as a dog would be.
I scratched out a reply.
Glad to help! I hope they get it figured out.
As had become my habit, I quickly ran an internet search for “Caput Laboratories.” Yeah, maybe it was a little paranoid of me to keep checking. But I really didn’t feel like I could safely go home until I was sure they were no longer looking for me, until enough time had passed since my faked death, or I heard something that—
A headline caught my eye. It was a press release from today. I tapped the link with my stylus, missed, and ended up on the Caput Laboratories homepage instead. I gritted my teeth, not wanting to see a picture of the place or the smiling faces of the scientists who had wanted to keep me there forever.
Backtracking to the search page, I tapped more carefully this time and opened the press release. My eyes widened as I read.
The Kitten Files, Season One Page 11
