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“I tried to tell him,” the white cat said, sitting down. “And I’m hardly a FLUNKIE.”

Oscar cleared his throat and dropped the most incriminating photo down on the floor.“Reginald, I apologize for bringing you here. But take a look again. I’m sure you’ll see this called for drastic measures.”

Reginald picked up the photo and looked at it briefly.“What? We trashed the place, just like we said we would.”

“Not exactly like you said,” Polo piped up.

“EXACTLY like we said.” Reginald glared at the rats.

“Except?” Oscar prodded.

“Except?” Reginald looked confused. “Except what? Oh! Except for yours. We figured you wouldn’t want us trashing your stuff, right, guys?” Reginald called over his shoulder at the couch. “Wasn’t that nice of us?”

The tube-top raccoon peeked her head out from behind the couch. She was quickly joined by more raccoons, each peeking their heads out until the whole side of the couch was nothing but raccoon faces.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Walt said, shooting a look at the apartment door. Mrs. Food had gone downstairs to meet with Bob, but they had no idea how long that meeting was going to take.

“Who are these guys?” Butterbean gasped. “Tulip, is that you?”

“You KNOW her?” Marco said, staring at Butterbean. He had a feeling he’d missed a lot while he was asleep.

The tube-top raccoon waved shyly.“Hi, Butterbean.” She nudged one of the other raccoons. “She knows my NAME!” she whispered excitedly.

“You brought an ENTOURAGE?” Walt asked, turning on Reginald.

“Look, where I go, they go. It’s how we operate.” Reginald looked at the photo again. “So what’s your problem, exactly?”

“Look at that photo. Can’t you see how suspicious it all looks?” Walt said, lashing her tail in frustration. “The whole room is trashed except for ONE UNIT. And that’s the unit belonging to Mrs. Food and Madison.”

“Yeah, but who’s going to notice that,” Reginald scoffed. “We did you a favor.”

“MRS. HATES DOGS ON SIX NOTICED!” Butterbean barked. “She came over and was MEAN.”

“Oh, that lady,” Reginald rolled her eyes. “You know, she should’ve just been happy to get her stuff back. We made sure we put it out in a safe place. Right where it was easy to see.”

“Yes, about that,” Oscar said, controlling his voice carefully. “You put it out IN MRS. FOOD AND MADISON’S STORAGE UNIT.”

“WHICH WAS LOCKED,” Walt added.

“Well, yeah. Since that one wasn’t trashed, it would be easy to spot.” Reginald said. “Duh.” The other raccoons murmured in agreement. One of them plucked a few notes on what sounded like a ukulele.

Oscar shut his eyes.“You trashed the entire room. Except for the unit that belongs to Madison. You put the stolen merchandise in Madison’s unit. Which was locked. And one of the only people to have a key was Madison. And this is supposed to clear Madison’s name?”

It was like a light bulb went off over Reginald’s head. He made a face. “Oh. Yeah, that. Hmm. Yeah, that does seem kind of bad,” he admitted. “Okay, I see it now. So, what, should we trash your unit too? Because we can do that.”

The raccoons nodded and looked hopeful.

“Oh, Bob will LOVE that,” the white cat said sarcastically.

Oscar shook his head.“I don’t think that will work. Mrs. Hates Dogs on Six will just think Madison managed to sneak in somehow. That’s what she already thinks.”

“And Madison can’t even fit in the vents!” Butterbean said.

“We’ve got to come up with something else. Something big,” Walt said. A harmonica started playing somewhere in the corner of the room. “If we all work together, we can figure this out. I know we can.” The harmonica accompaniment continued as she spoke, this time punctuated by random notesfrom a musical triangle. It sounded like she was doing a dramatic speech from a movie.

“Madison is depending on us. We can’t let her down. We can’t just— Excuse me, do you mind?” Walt whipped her head around to look at the tall raccoon in the corner. He lowered the harmonica and blushed.

“Sorry about that,” the raccoon said, tucking the harmonica behind his back. He bowed his head in apology.

Ding! The stocky raccoon with the triangle accented the move.

Walt whipped her head around again.“You too, buddy.”

The raccoon clutched the vibrating triangle to his chest.

“Where’d you get that, anyway?” Butterbean asked, going over and examining the triangle. “Was that in the storage area?” She hadn’t realized raccoons were so musical. She sniffed at the triangle. It smelled like it belonged to Old Mothball Lady on two. Butterbean shrank back. She hated mothballs.

The stocky raccoon clung to the triangle protectively.“Reginald said we didn’t have to put things back, so it’s okay that I took it. Right?” He looked to Reginald for confirmation.

“Right.” Reginald nodded.

“So how many of you raccoons have instruments, anyway?” The white cat stood up and stalked around the room. “Is it just you two?”

The raccoons exchanged awkward looks, shrinking back as the white cat approached.