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“What are you guys doing here?” asked a gerbil.

“Oh, just looking around,” I said. “A friend of ours has gone missing, and we have reason to believe he might be in here somewhere.”

“What does he look like, this friend of yours?” asked the gerbil.

“Well, he’s black and built pretty butch,” I said.

“And he’s a cat,” Lil Ran added helpfully.

The gerbil visibly stiffened.“We don’t have any cats around here, I’m afraid. Or dogs. This is a store where only small pets are sold, not big guys like you.”

“I’m not a big guy,” said Fifi. “I’m small and I’m a girl.”

“You know what I mean,” said the gerbil with a shrug.

A parrot piped up, “We don’t like cats in here, cat. Because cats always cause all kinds of trouble. And we like things nice and quiet. So if I were you I’d beat it.”

“Not very friendly, are they?” said Dooley quietly.

“Cats aren’t always welcome everywhere,” I told him.

“If you’ve come to see the turtles,” said a snake, making a slight hissing sound as she spoke, “they’re downstairs. But be prepared, there are a lot of them. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, I saw the turtles,” I said. “But why are there so many of them?”

“That I can’t tell you,” said the snake.

“Oh, I know!” said a sad-looking bird with some very nice plumage. “The guy who owns the store is looking to sell them. Claims he can net millions for them. Millions!”

“And who owns the store?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer: Jerry and Johnny.

“I don’t know his name. The two guys who work at the store always call him boss. He’s downstairs now, though, if you want to say hi. Short guy with a lot of frizzy hair on top of his head. He just arrived with some blond babe.”

We all stared at the bird.“You’re not referring to Randy Hancock, surely?” I said.

“Like I said, I don’t know his name, but I recognized his voice. He’s been on the phone about a million times since I arrived, and he’s always asking about the turtles, and how they’re doing, and how big they are and how many orders they got for them.”

“He’s probably mistaken,” I told Lil Ran, who was starting to look a little anxious.

“I heard that, cat,” said the bird, “and I can assure you I’m not mistaken. Johnny always puts his boss on speakerphone, and I’d recognize his voice out of a thousand.”

We decided to ignore the bird’s strange conceit that Randy Hancock would own a pet shop. It didn’t seem credible. And Johnny and Jerry calling him boss? Impossible.

So we moved in the direction of the basement stairs, and made our way down. We soon found ourselves in that cavernous space where those large tanks were set up. The temperature was a balmy eighty degrees, presumably so the turtles would be nice and warm in their tanks, and immediately I glanced around in search of Brutus.

“Brutus?” I called out. “Brutus, buddy—are you down here?”

“Max?” a voice suddenly called out. “Max, is that you?”

“Brutus!” I said, and immediately made my way over to where our friend was holed up: underneath a pile of rubble and a collection of discarded old fish tanks.

“Max!” he said, sounding extremely relieved. “How did you find me?”

“Deduction, my dear Watson,” I said with a grin.

“Dooley, Fifi, Rufus, Little Randy!” said Brutus. “Am I glad to see you guys!”

“It’s Lil Ran now,” said the large dog with a smile, “but I’m also very glad to see you, Brutus. We thought you’d gone off on some adventure.”

“I did go off on an adventure,” said the black cat, “but I guess I bit off more than I could chew.” He gestured to the tanks. “My friend Pinkie is in there somewhere, and so are her friends. She asked me to help her free them, but then I got locked in here when Johnny Carew closed and locked the window and I didn’t know how to get out again.”

“So is it true what the pets upstairs said?” asked Rufus. “That they’re going to sell these turtles for millions?”

“Yeah, it’s true,” said Brutus. “And prepare yourselves for a nasty surprise. The guy in charge of this whole operation is—”

“Randy!” suddenly Lil Ran cried. He’d caught sight of his human, and was now streaking over to meet him.

Randy, whom I hadn’t noticed until now, came walking up to us from the far corner of the basement, followed by Johnny and Jerry. The fitness star looked as surprised to see his dog as Lil Ran was happy to see him.

“Hey there, buddy,” said Randy, then saw the five of us and his brow furrowed. “And I see you brought your friends with you.”

“Yeah, we were looking for Brutus, and Max found him,” said Lil Ran, even though his human couldn’t understand a word he said.

“He’s the guy in charge,” said Brutus, “and he’s just locked Marge in that room over there.”

We all gawked at Brutus now.“Wait, what?” I said. This, I hadn’t expected.

“Yeah, he explained how he lost his entire fortune and how he now owes so much money to some very dangerous people that he needed to lay low for a while as he set up this turtle farm. He hopes to make millions selling these turtles, and in the meantime he figured he could stay at Odelia’s placefor free, where no one would find him.”