Queenie was alone. Queenie loves being alone.
I didn’t want to be alone.
Somewhere not far away a phone rang. The phone that rings most often at the inn is the one at the main desk. It makes a sound like br-ring, br-ring. The phone ringing now made a sound more like bzzz, bzzz.
Then came a woman’s voice. Not Mom’s, not Bertha’s. This woman sounded much older, her voice thin and a bit scratchy.
“Hello?” she said. After a pause, she went on, “No, you didn’t wake me. I’ve just gone to bed.” Then there was a longer pause before the woman said, “I’m actually thinking of calling the vet in the morning. She doesn’t seem like herself. She’s even a bit … aggressive.”
Another silence.
“Yes, hard to believe, I know, from such a loving creature,” the old woman said. “Maybe it was all the excitement. I finally put her in her special place and she hasn’t budged. With a person you might say she’s in a funk about the outcome, but she’s not a person so … what? You think she knows?”
After that, a long silence. Was the old woman finished with the phone call? Who had they been talking about?
“Okay, then, talk to you tomorrow.”
Then came a click, the click of a phone call ending for sure.
Somewhere far away an owl hooted. Was it my owl? The huge white one who’d made off with my mousy friend? The huge white owl was not my friend. I had a strange and horrible thought: The huge white owl was coming after me, would find its way somehow into the laundry room. I rose up and clawed at the metal door or wall or whatever it was.
A dim light shone behind me, enough for me to see that I was clawing at a washing machine. I turned my head, saw a narrow shaft of light shining through the crack under a door. I was in a laundry room, all right, but not my laundry room.
Pat pat pat. I heard the approaching sound of a barefooted human. The pat pat pat stopped outside the door. Human listening makes no sound, but when you’re near a human who’s listening you can feel them doing it. I felt human listening.
And then came the voice of the old woman. “Princess? Are you all right?”
HAIL THE CONQUERING HEROES!” said Mom.
We were out on the patio behind the inn, the evening air soft and warm, the sky all purple and fiery, everyone in a circle around us—us being me next to Bro, and Queenie in her backpack on Harmony, and everyone being Mom, Bertha, Big Fred, Elrod, some friends like Mr. and Mrs. Salming, Mrs. Hale the librarian, Mom’s cousin Matty Comeau, the twins’ friend Jimmy Doone, and a bunch of guests. All those happy faces! This appeared to be some sort of party, although not a birthday party since there was no cake with burning candles anywhere to be seen. Cake isn’t at the top of my list when it comes to snacking, but any kind of food at all would have been good right now. I’d never been so hungry! And I knew why. I’d had way too much exercise. All that running and leaping and charging around, really enough to last me the rest of the summer and possibly all the way through winter, if I was lucky, since I much preferred the indoors in winter.
Bertha raised her glass. “Here’s to Queenie and Arthur!”
Glasses got raised all around. “I can understand Queenie’s victory,” said Mrs. Hale. “But—pardon me—I never pictured Arthur as an athlete.”
That got a big laugh. Something about me? An athlete was what again? Before I could figure that out, I got distracted by all the pats I was getting.
“Way to go, champ!”
“Numero uno!”
“Yay, Arthur!”
Ah, how nice of everyone. What had I done, exactly? I’d hopped into Mom’s car all by myself when she came to pick us up at the fair, not needing my usual boost. Was that it? If that was all it took, I’d certainly do it again, although not for a bit, my legs quite suddenly feeling a little on the tired side. I wandered over to the lawn and curled up. Mom came over and looked down, a big smile on her face.
“Well well,” she said, “aren’t you amazing?”
I raised my tail, not very high, what with my energy level sinking fast, and let it thump down on the grass.
“I’m proud of you, Arthur. Although I’m having a lot of trouble believing it. How have you kept this talent hidden for so long?”
That was a tough one. How does anyone do anything? Don’t you just sort of do it and try to understand after? Or not? Works for me.
Bertha appeared and topped up Mom’s glass.
“The champ’s taking a well-earned rest?” she said.
“Looks that way,” said Mom. “The strangest thought has come into my mind, Bertha.”
“What’s that?”
“The 1919 World Series.”
“The one that was fixed? The Black Sox scandal?”
“Exactly,” said Mom. “But how would you fix a Frisbee contest where the competitors are dogs?”
Bertha’s eyes shifted. I’ve come to believe that can be a sign of something going on in the human head. Lying in the grass by the patio on this warm and happy evening, I had the most amazing thought. Do my own eyes shift when something is going on in my head? Wow! Just wow! Had I gone too far? Probably.
Meanwhile, Mom was giving Bertha a very close look. I’d seen that close look before. There was only one Mom. The very best, but a real tough cookie, as I’d once heard Deputy Sheriff Carstairs say. No longer deputy sheriff, if I’d been following things recently, on account of some mess-up actually involving Jimmy Doone’s cow and Queenie’s missing cream, a whole big complicated case that I hadn’t understood well at the time and understood less well now. As for cookies, I’d never come upon one too tough for me.
But back to Mom’s very close look. Folks on the receiving end—even folks who are pretty tough cookies themselves, like Bertha—usually get a bit flustered.
“Uh, Yvette,” said Bertha, Yvette being Mom’s other name, besides Mom. “What are you suggesting?”
“You tell me,” said Mom.
Bertha sighed. “It wasn’t my idea.”
“Go on,” Mom said.
Bertha turned and spotted Big Fred, somehow popping a bottle cap off a bottle with his thumbnail and handing the bottle to a guest who seemed a bit startled. Bertha made a little finger gesture and Fred came at once. They’re boyfriend and girlfriend, in case that hasn’t come up yet.
“Fred?” said Bertha. “Anything you want to tell Yvette?”
“Sure thing.” Fred beamed down at Mom. “Thanks for the great party, Yvette. So nice of you to invite me and—”
“Uh, Fred?” said Mom. “What are you talking about? You’re practically family.”
“Fred!” Bertha said. “That’s obviously not what I meant. I’m talking about—”
And here came a bit of a surprise. Bertha jerked her thumb in my direction. High above me their faces formed a little circle, a peering sort of circle with all eyes—Mom’s, Bertha’s, Big Fred’s on me. Were they planning some treat for ol’ Arthur? No other thought came to mind.
“Yeah?” Big Fred said.
“Yeah,” said Bertha.
“Aw,” said Big Fred. He shuffled his feet. “The thing is, Yvette, he really wanted that mountain bike. And of course Harmie was going to win one. I mean, jeez, Queenie. Ever seen another cat like her? Not me. So …” He shrugged his huge shoulders.
“So—so you … you gave the other dogs something in their food?” Mom said.
Big Fred tilted his head to one side. “Something in their food?”
“To slow them down,” Mom said.
Big Fred put his hand to his chest. “Yvette—I would never—”
“Do something like that,” Bertha interrupted. For a moment she seemed to be glaring at Mom.
And Mom’s face turned a bit pink? And she looked away? I’d never seen that before, not in all the time I’d spent with Mom.
“I’m sorry, Fred,” she said. “I was way out of line.”
“No worries,” Big Fred said. “I can see how crazy it seems. And I can’t believe it actuall
y worked. I didn’t know Arthur had it in him.”
“Had what in him?” said Mom.
“The physical ability,” Big Fred told her. “All I was trying to boost was his motivation.”
“The get up half of get up and go,” Bertha said.
“Yeah.” Big Fred flashed her a quick smile and she flashed him one back. Kind of like … like teammates. Harmony and Bro play baseball and hockey, so I’ve watched a lot of games, and you see quick stuff like that sometimes between the players. So Bertha and Big Fred were kind of a team, where … where Mom and Dad were not. Whoa! Why would I have such a thought? I didn’t even understand it myself. But I’d never seen Mom and Dad share a quick look like that.
“Gotcha,” said Mom. “So what’s your secret sauce for motivating this guy?” She pointed in my direction with her chin, meaning they were still talking about me. As for precisely what about me, I seemed to have lost the thread.
“You’re actually pretty close,” Big Fred said. “Not an actual sauce but more like a dollop of—”
Bertha leaned toward Mom and whispered in her ear, a human move for making sure no one else hears. Meaning no one else with human ears. It just so happens that I’m not human, so I could hear what Bertha was saying perfectly well.
“A dollop of bacon grease from the pan. I was frying up some of the bacon that Fred makes in that smoker of his.”
“Ah,” said Mom.
“I kind of improvised,” said Big Fred.
“Brilliantly,” said Mom. She gave me a look. “Bacon has magical power in Arthur’s world.”
How true! But not what you’d call an amazing thought. Bacon has magical power, no question, but isn’t that the first thing everyone learns about bacon? You’re cruising along, just living your life, and then one day you run into bacon, and nothing’s ever the same.
“Do you ever wonder what Arthur’s thinking when he looks like that?” Bertha said.
“I know what he’s thinking about now,” Mom said. “Five letters. Starts with B and ends with N.”
Bertha and Big Fred laughed. They were nice people so I hoped they weren’t laughing at Mom for messing up. I wasn’t thinking about letters at all, whatever those were. I was thinking about bacon. Specifically how at parties—and wasn’t this some sort of party out here on the patio?—there were sometimes plates of shrimp wrapped in bacon, which happened to be a delicious combo. Any chance a plate or two would be appearing anytime soon? Perhaps not. There wasn’t a trace of bacon aroma in the air, air that otherwise smelled quite lovely on this summer evening. I was having a good day. The truth is almost all my days are good. For no reason at all, I licked Mom’s toes, bare on account of the sandals she wore.
“Oh, Arthur,” she said, “what are we going to do with you?”
Just keep it up, doing what you do. For example, no need at all to move your feet right now. That seemed simple enough.
“Uh, Yvette,” Big Fred said. “Speaking of what we’re going to do, I hope you’re not thinking of letting Bro in on our little secret.”
Mom thought for a bit. “I’m guessing it was a very small dollop—otherwise Bro might have detected it.”
“Tiny,” said Big Fred.
“Minuscule,” said Bertha.
Mom nodded. “I’ll carry the secret to my grave.”
Uh-oh. Whatever this was had taken a dark turn. But maybe not, because Mom, Bertha, and Big Fred started laughing, even did a bit of high-fiving.
Right then Harmony came up.
“What’s so funny?” she said.
The high-fiving and laughing stopped. The adults looked a bit awkward and … and sort of kid-like, while Harmony was having one of those moments when she looked all grown up.
“You’re laughing at Arthur?” she said. “What did he do now?”
“Not at him,” Mom said. “Where’s our other winner?”
“I put her on my bed,” Harmony said. “She’s real sleepy. Actually kind of droopy. Do you think she could’ve caught something, Mom? Like a cold from one of the other cats?”
“Is she sneezing?”
“No. And she’s actually being very affectionate. She even licked my hand.”
“I don’t believe it,” Mom said.
“It’s true.”
But I didn’t believe it, either. Queenie? Affectionate? That was not the Queenie I knew. Also the Queenie I knew had a different smell from … from … I got a little lost.
Meanwhile Mom was saying, “Probably worn out from all the excitement. Let’s see how she is tomorrow.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“Looking forward to riding that brand-new mountain bike?” said Big Fred.
“Oh, yeah,” Harmony said. “They’re getting delivered in the morning.” She gazed down at me. “I still can’t believe what he did.”
There was a silence. Then Bertha said, “It is pretty incredible.”
They all nodded. My takeaway? I was pretty incredible.
Later that night, I bedded down in Bro’s bedroom, first beside the bed, then on it, and after nothing I’d call an actual dispute over who got which pillow, me or Bro, I settled into one wonderful dream after another. Such as a dream where Burner was eating my dust. Sometimes dreams can come true! Was I even dreaming or back at the fair and charging across—
Someone was in the room. My ears went up right away. Then I smelled who it was: Harmony. No lights were on out in the hall, but I could see her form, the moving part of the darkness. She came close to the bed.
“Bro?” she said very quietly.
No answer from Bro. His chest rose and fell in that slow, easy rhythm of a happily sleeping kid.
“Bro?” Harmony said a little more loudly.
Still nothing from Bro.
“Bro!” She jabbed at his shoulder.
“Wha—” said Bro, sitting up real quick.
“Bro! Get up!”
“Huh?”
“Get up! Now!”
“Is something wrong?”
“I can’t find Queenie.”
“Huh?”
“Bro. I need you.”
Bro rubbed his eyes, swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn during the day, shorts and a T-shirt. Harmony had on pajamas.
“Queenie’s, um … ,” he said.
“Missing,” said Harmony. “She was sleeping beside me. I woke up a little while ago and she was gone.”
“Probably on the grandfather clock,” Bro said, and started to lie back down.
“Bro! You think I didn’t look there? I tried all her usual spots. I even went down to the old cellar.”
“Gross.”
“That’s not the point. She’s been acting so strange since we got home. I’m worried about her.”
“Do you think she went outside?”
“Maybe.”
Bro stood up. “Then we better take Arthur.”
“Why?”
“So we can track her.”
They both gazed down at me.
“I suppose anything’s possible with Arthur now,” Harmony said.
Did you hear that? What great news! Certainly something to look forward to when I woke up in the morning, or afternoon, whichever the case might be. I rolled over, closed my eyes, and felt sleep on its way, just around the corner.
“Arthur?” said Bro. “Up and at ’em.”
Up and at ’em? What kind of sense did that make? Wasn’t it night? Night is the time for sleep. Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of good sleeping to be had in the day. But when it comes down to it—
“Arthur!” said both twins at once, a sort of whispered shout, very unusual and a bit alarming. I yawned a huge yawn, trying to send the message about night being good for sleeping and me being a bit on the sleepy side, in the hope that—
“Get up!”
A warm summer night, with soft breezes and a big round moon, not so bad if you had to be up and about, which seemed to be the case. We walked behind
the inn, Bro, me, and Harmony, side by side, moonlight putting a silvery sheen on everything—the shuffleboard court, the trees, the garden shed, and the faces of the twins. Hey! Their faces looked kind of worried. I wondered why.
“Arthur,” Bro said. “Do you smell Queenie?”
What? This interruption of my badly needed sleep had something to do with Queenie? That was a turn for the worse.
“Arthur!” said Harmony. “Try.”
“Sniff the air,” Bro said. “Do that scent thing you do.”
Scent thing? Did I need to sniff the air to do that scent thing? I did not. All I had to do was breathe, and I was already breathing.
“Find Queenie, Arthur,” Bro said.
“Please,” said Harmony.
Poor Harmony. She sounded upset. No way I wanted that. This was about Queenie? I breathed in a nice breath, full of interesting smells, including the smell of a flower that’s not in the air during the day. Was there some Queenie in that breath? Yes, but not a lot, and not particularly fresh, and there was always some Queenie scent around the inn, on account of the fact, recently discovered by me, that Queenie sometimes went on outdoor excursions at night. Just to be nice, I followed a weak little trail of Queenie scent until it petered out, then wandered around a bit, picked up another one, and at that moment heard a distant splash.
I paused, head up.
“Did you pick up her scent, Arthur?” Bro said.
“Take us to Queenie!” said Harmony.
Queenie? This had nothing to do with Queenie. This was about a distant splash, coming from beyond the apple orchard, where there was nothing except the old wishing well and the falling-down stone wall between our land and the back road. Sometime in the past, Mom got the idea of fixing up the old wishing well in case guests might like to take their pictures in front of it, as well as throw in money, if I’d understood Mom right, and she and I had made several trips out there and worked hard to fix it up, but not many guests ever went and none threw money. The money part ended up being wishful thinking on Mom’s part, and—Whoa! Was that why they called it a wishing well? Because you wished people would throw money in it but they never did? Wow! Was I starting to understand humans at last? What a night!
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