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“It’s bad if you do it without asking them first. And also, after you destroyed their house I don’t think you’ve got many strikes left, Vesta, to be honest. The next one just might land your ass in that nursing home after all.”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“Don’t tempt them, okay?”

“Oh, tush. You’re just jealous cause I’m going to have a new kitchen soon and you don’t.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes.“Sometimes I wonder why I ever thought being your friend would be easier than being your enemy.”

“Cause you love me!”

“I do, but don’t ask me why.”

“Come on. Let’s go and dig my ball out of that there sand.”

“You can’t dig out your ball. You need to hit it back onto the fairway with your club.”

“Says who?”

“Says the rules!”

“Rules are there to be broken, Scarlett, didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

“Oh, dear God,” said Scarlett, shaking her head. But she followed her friend as they trudged up a steep incline, then walked into the sand bunker to look for Vesta’s ball.

“Isn’t this fun?” asked Vesta as she picked up her ball and threw it back onto the fairway.

“If I’m absolutely honest I like my idea of going to the spa a lot more.”

“The spa! What’s fun about that! At least here you can meet the movers and the shakers of the world. Golfing is what it’s all about.” And with this, she crawled out of the bunker again, and gave her ball a good whack—this time in the right direction. Or at least it would have been the right direction if only a woman hadn’t been standing in the ball’s trajectory. It hit her in the side of the head with a dull thwack and she went down.

“You’ve definitely shaken that woman,” Scarlett said. “And moved her, too.”

7

“This isn’t right, Brutus,” said Harriet. “And you know it isn’t right.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Brutus. “We’re just going for a walk, that’s all.”

“In a dog park!”

“So? It’s just a park.”

“For dogs!”

Ever since they’d decided to leave the warm embrace of the Poole family, Harriet had had a tough time of it. Brutus’s big idea had been to leave the Pooles and join the Trappers instead, figuring that the Poole family was a guarantee for trouble and mayhem and the Trappers were exactly that kind of middle class family that they needed: quiet, peaceful, respectable, and guaranteed to offer them a warm and loving home. The kind of home they needed. Harriet hadn’t agreed, but she hadn’t wanted to see her one true love leave the nest either, and so she’d found herself joining him in staging an escape.

The Trappers at first had thought it a little strange that their small menagerie of one dog had been augmented with the arrival of two cats, but soon had seen the benefits: Brutus and Harriet were, after all, house-trained, and as everybody knows cats are the best mousers in the world, and since they’d recently suffered from a mouse infestation, they just figured that maybe this was the best thing that could have happened to them.

They’d talked things through with Marge and Tex, rightful owners of these two cats, and it had been decided that Ted and Marcie would take the two cats in on trial. If things ran smoothly, they got to keep them, and if not, they could always give them back.

The only problem was that Ted and Marcie weren’t used to having cats, and labored under the misapprehension that cats are exactly like dogs and should be treated as such.

Hence the twice-daily walks along the neighborhood to do their business.

And now the dog park.

“I just hope for your sake that there are no other cats around,” said Harriet. “Cause if there are, and they see us, we’re going to be the laughingstock of this town.”

“No other cats will be there, Harriet,” Brutus assured her. “It’s a dog park, remember? Cats wouldn’t want to be seen dead in a place like that.”

“Oh, and we would?”

“That’s different. The Trappers still have to get used to having cats. They need time.”

“This morning they took us for a walk again, Brutus!”

“Well, that’s not so bad, is it? Walking is good for you. And besides, I managed to have a pee and you should have seen Ted’s face when I did. He looked so happy and proud!”

“I had a pee, too, but that doesn’t make it any less humiliating. Cats aren’t meant to do their business on the street, Brutus. And in a recent past you would have railed against exactly that kind of unhygienic practice yourself!”

“I know, I know,” said Brutus soothingly. “But let’s humor them for now, shall we? I’m sure that once they get the hang of things, they’ll stop treating us like dogs and start treating us like cats instead.”

They’d arrived at the dog park, and Rufus, the Trappers’ big sheepdog, exclaimed, “We’re here, you guys. This is when the fun begins.” He actually looked excited to be at the park, which struck Harriet as very odd indeed.

“You really like this place, don’t you?” she said.

“What’s not to like! There’s other dogs, whose butts I get to sniff, and trees, and… other dogs whose butts I get to sniff!”

“Oh, Rufus, you are a very shallow dog,” said Harriet with a shake of the head.