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19. PURRFECTLY DOGGED

Chapter 1

Victor Ball was wending his way home on his bicycle after an evening spent at his favorite bar. His bike was swaying across the narrow dirt road, as its owner had had a teensy-weensy too much to drink.

Victor, a middle-aged man with a formidable handlebar mustache and a sizable paunch, was singing loudly and out of key. He was in excellent mood, which was not unusual after imbibing his body weight in alcohol, and if he had trouble navigating the road that led to his modest home, where his wife had presumably given up waiting for him and had retired to bed, he didn’t show it.

In fact it was a minor miracle that he managed to stay upright at all, but he did, and with every mighty push on his pedals he was another couple of inches closer to home.

And he would probably have made it, without aiming his rusty old bike into a ditch, if not suddenly a dark figure had loomed up large and menacing while crossing his path.

Victor, even though drunk as a skunk, still had the presence of mind to pull his brakes and stare at the figure. It was not the kind of thing a man in his state of inebriation was accustomed to: the figure wasn’t merely large and imposing, it was also possessed of the kind of sharp fangs and glittering red eyes one usually only sees in movies. Its furry hide was shiny and thick, its pointy ears erect, its lips drawn back into a menacing snarl.

If someone had asked him at that moment to describe the hideous creature, he would have told them it was a wolf, and a very strange wolf at that, for the creature was walking on its hind legs, its front paws clawing the air with distinct malice in mind.

And then, as the monster threw its head back and howled at the full moon, Victor finally did what any sane man in his position would have done: he uttered a broken cry of anguish and terror, dropped his bike, and ran off in the opposite direction as fast as his weak-kneed legs would carry him.

The monster, meanwhile, instead of pouncing on this easy prey—this plump and juicy victim—continued howling at that big ball of cheese in the sky, then turned on its mighty heel and vanished into the woods, presumably eager to scare another drunkard.

Chapter 2

Marge Poole was cleaning her attic. She’d long wanted to take a broom and a duster to the cluttered space and get rid of some of the stuff that had been piling up there for years, but had never found the time—or the willpower. But when she’d been up there the week before and had almost been crushed by a falling stack of books, she’d decided to tackle the matter head-on. So she’d changed into a set of old clothes, had tied a scarf around her head, and had mounted those stairs with a take-no-prisoners attitude.

And she’d just gone through the first rickety rack, when she’d come upon an old photo album and had been idly leafing through it with a wistful expression on her face.

The pictures in the album were of her and her first boyfriend Jock Farnsworth. She’d known Jock long before she’d ever met her current husband Tex, and seeing those old photos of her and Jock brought back a lot of memories.

And she’d been sitting there reminiscing, having forgotten all about attics that needed to be cleaned out, when a voice suddenly sounded from downstairs.

“Mom! Are you up there? Mom?”

“Up here, honey!” she shouted.

Her daughter Odelia’s head came peeping up through the attic door, a quizzical look on her face. “What are you doing?” she asked, glancing around at the cluttered space. “Yikes. Someone needs to clean this mess up.”

“Well, I was, actually,” said Marge, “but then I came upon this album full of old pictures and I kind of lost track of time.”

Odelia joined her and took the album.“Is that you? You look so young!”

“I do, don’t I? I was even younger than you are in these pictures. Sixteen, seventeen.”

“And who’s that guy with you?”

“Jock Farnsworth. We were boyfriend and girlfriend two summers long, until he broke it off and hooked up with Grace Beasley instead.” She still felt the sting of betrayal at the memory, even though she’d hardly thought about Jock or Grace for years.

“Jock Farnsworth, as in chicken wing king Jock Farnsworth?”

“Didn’t I tell you about him? I thought I did. Or maybe I didn’t. Yes, Jock and I were together for a while, until we weren’t. But then I met your dad and so all’s well that ends well. If I’d stayed with Jock I’d never have met Tex, so it was all for the best—even though I didn’t see it that way at the time.”

“Imagine that,” said Odelia as she leafed through the album. “The richest man in Hampton Cove could have been my dad.”

Marge laughed.“Yeah, I guess he could have been.”

“Are they still together, Jock and this Grace person?”

“Last time I heard they were.”

“I think I’ve seen his daughter at the office once. She’s Dan’s goddaughter.”

“Oh, that’s right. Isn’t Jock one of theGazette’s main sponsors?”

“He is. Dan owes a great deal to the Farnsworth chicken wing bling.”