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“Emergency meeting.” Oscar jumped to the end of his perch. “Rats, OUT. NOW. Stay in the vents if you have to, but no apartments. Apartments are OFF LIMITS. We’ll be in touch soon.” He pointed at the vent opening and kept pointing until the grumbling loading dock rats had all left the room.

Then he opened his cage door and landed in the middle of the floor.“Okay, first things first. Wallace, we need to get that sailor shirt back before Mrs. Power Walker notices it’s missing. Marco and Polo, we’ll need to get Biscuit an update. As for the rest of us… whatever we have to do to keep those rats from being discovered, we do it. But first, we can forget about retirement. Officially.”

“WHOOHOOO!” Marco jumped up doing a fist pump.

“So we’re officially spies now? Officially official?” Polo clasped her hands together.

“Officially official,” Oscar said grimly. “There’s no going back now. Get ready for Operation Raccoon.”

— 10 —

OPERATION RACCOON WAS OFF TO a rocky start.

The first thing Oscar had done was to send everyone out on secret reconnaissance missions. (Marco and Polo insisted that he call them reconnaissance missions instead of Oscar’s preferred term, “things on their to-do list.” Oscar’s cage was also now known as Command Central.)

Marco and Polo’s mission was to tell Biscuit what was happening. Wallace’s mission was to try to get the sailor shirt back from Ken. Walt and Oscar were responsible for coming up with the actual details of Operation Raccoon. And Butterbean’s mission was to provide cover for the rest of them by chewing the face off of her new squeaky lamb toy. She was very good at chewing the faces off of her toys.

So far the biggest problem with Operation Raccoon was that Walt and Oscar had no idea what the plan should be. Oscar had tried everything—staring at the ceiling, throwing fruit onto the floor, examining his feathers—but nothing had helped. He just didn’t know what to do about the raccoon problem.

“Anything?” Walt said finally. She had spent her time pacing back and forth across the living room, hoping inspiration would strike. But it hadn’t given her a single idea.

“Nothing,” Oscar said, his feathers drooping. “What are we going to do?”

“Maybe it’s not that big a deal,” Butterbean said, spitting out a piece of cotton fluff. (Her mission was turning out to be a complete success.) “You told those rats to stay in the vents, right? I’m sure they’ll listen to you.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Oscar sighed. “They did seem to respect my natural leadership qualities.”

“I hope so, because HOOOBOY is Biscuit mad,” Marco said, crawling out from behind the sofa and brushing himself off. “We succeeded in our mission. We told him all about the raccoon situation.”

“And we explained that you had a plan and it would be fixed in no time,” Polo added, climbing out after Marco.

“But he’s having a hard time keeping it together. He really wants to bark,” Marco finished. “I mean, a LOT. He’s just barely holding it in.”

“He looked like he was going to explode,” Polo said, making big explosion motions.

“I think his exact words were ‘I can take them, let me at them, I’ll rip them all to shreds,’ ” Marco said. “Then he shrieked into a couch pillow for five minutes straight.”

“We had to help him take some deep cleansing breaths,” Polo said. “He couldn’t find a paper bag, though.”

“I give him maybe a day before he snaps and starts barking again,” Marco said.

“Totally.” Polo nodded in agreement.

“Maybe I could talk to him again,” Butterbean said, blowing a piece of fluff off her nose. “It helped last time.”

“Maybe,” Walt said, watching. She hated the idea of going back down to that apartment, but they might not have a choice. Butterbean may have totally misunderstood what therapy dogs did, but Walt had to admit she did have a calming effect on Second Floor Biscuit.

“Thanks for the report,” Oscar said, watching Butterbean spit out another mouthful of fluff. (Butterbean’s mission was maybe a little too successful. Someone was going to have a lot of cleaning up to do.)

“Did you happen to see Wallace while you were in the vents?” Walt asked.

“Yeah, he was right behind us.” Marco leaned back toward the couch. “HEY WALLACE, TIME TO REPORT!” he yelled. “I think he had a rough time. He looked kind of messed up.”

Wallace staggered out from behind the couch. Marco hadn’t been kidding. Wallace’s hair was sticking up in weird places, and he had a dazed expression on his face. He also had something orange and powdery on his hands and cheek that Butterbean was itching to sniff. She restrained herself.

“What happened to you?” Butterbean’s nose quivered.

“That rat. Ken. That’s what happened,” Wallace said.

“You couldn’t get the sailor shirt back?” Polo said sympathetically.

“No, I got it.” Wallace grimaced. “He wasn’t happy about it, but I got it.”

“Did you have to go for the eyes?” Walt asked. (It was her number one recommended move.)