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And so it was with a certain measure of reluctance that we agreed to tag along. And as we hopped down from the windowsill, Odelia entered her office, and I remembered we hadn’t told her about Waldo and Heiko’s meeting yet. But then Gran urged us to get a move on, and so a move on we grudgingly got. That’s what friendship is all about, you see: sometimes you have to make sacrifices to keep your friends happy, even if all they want to do is kick you and squash you and exploit your humiliation to become rich and famous. Then again, I had my doubts about Harriet’s chances of success, so why not humor her?

When we arrived at the Dave James studio, this time we weren’t greeted as respectfully as the day before. But then we’d been there as part of an official police delegation, of course, whereas now we were there to try and sell them something.

We were ushered into the same conference room, and moments later Flint Kutysiak joined us, looking slightly harried and very busy.

“So what’s this about?” he asked. “You have a comic strip you want us to develop?”

“Well, actually we’ve done all the work already,” said Gran. “All you need to do is help us negotiate a deal with the syndicate and get them to publish us in the same papers Tollie the Turtle is in.”

“All two thousand five hundred of them,” Scarlett clarified, lest there be confusion.

Flint stared at the two older ladies for a moment, then a smile spread across his face.“This is a joke, right?”

“No joke,” said Gran. She nodded to Scarlett, who placed a tablet in the center of the table, and showed Flint a couple of the photo comic strips they’d made.

“What’s this?” asked Tollie the Turtle’s lead artist. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s a photo comic,” said Gran. “It’s called Harriet the Cat, and it’s going to be a surefire hit with your audience.”

“But it’s pictures. Pictures of a cat kicking another cat.” Scarlett scrolled to the next comic and Flint leaned in with a frown on his face. “Is that… Chief Lip?”

“Yeah, he’s my son,” said Gran. “So we got him to play a part.”

“But… you’ve got a cat kicking him.” He pointed to the tablet. “A cat is kicking the Chief of Police.”

“Yeah, pretty funny, huh?”

“Just like the Keystone Cops,” said Scarlett.

“Scarlett is the one who writes all the scripts,” said Gran proudly.

“I’m the one who writes all the scripts,” said Scarlett proudly.

“At first she thought she couldn’t do it, but she’s really outdone herself.”

“And Vesta is in charge of the artwork.”

“I tell the cats what to do and I shoot the pictures with my phone.”

“And here are the stars,” said Scarlett, and gestured to the four of us, seated on the floor. “Harriet, Brutus, Max and Dooley.”

“It’s just like Garfield, see,” said Gran. “Only in our strip Arlene is the star and Garfield is the sidekick. And then of course Dooley is Odie.”

“Who I get to squash and kick,” said Brutus happily, and proved this by giving Dooley a kick right then!

“And that big orange one is Max, and he’s the spider,” Gran explained.

“Who I get to squash!” Brutus declared and moved in my direction to show his mettle. Luckily I managed to avoid his squashing tendencies by getting out of the way.

Flint, who’d been staring at us with an incredulous look on his face, now said, “Are you kidding me? You’re actually ripping off Garfield?”

“We’re not ripping off Garfield,” said Gran indignantly. “We’reinspired by Garfield.”

“And also, we don’t do anything as crude as create actual drawings,” said Scarlett.

“No, we’re the cool new thing and we make pictures,” said Gran. “Drawing is so pass?.”

“This is the future, Mr. Cutiesack.”

“The name,” said Flint between gritted teeth, “is Kutysiak, and if you really think that drawing comics is pass?, what the hell are you doing here showing me this crap?!”

“Hey, this is art, buddy boy,” said Gran. “We took something that’s pretty outdated and turned it into something hot and new. And if you can’t see that, you’re an idiot.”

“I don’t think you should call Mr. Cutiesack an idiot, hon,” said Scarlett.

“Look, I don’t know what you expect from me,” said Flint, holding out his hands, palms up. “We’re the Dave James studio, which means we only produce the work of Dave James, which is Tollie the Turtle. We don’t take on board other artists, and we most definitely don’t take on board this… weird concoction of copyright infringement and… ninja cats.”

“Ninja cats,” said Brutus. “Did you hear that, mi amor? He called me a ninja cat.”

“I don’t think it was meant as a compliment, Brutus,” I pointed out.

“So what are you saying, exactly?” asked Gran, narrowing her eyes at the guy.

“I’m saying that I can’t help you,” said Flint, getting up.

“So you really want to hog all those newspapers for your dumb Tollie the Turtle?”

Flint’s expression hardened. It wasn’t the right thing to say, that much was obvious.

“I think you better leave now,” he said, pointing to the door.

With a cold look at the artist, Gran got up.“You’re making a big mistake here, sonny.”