Cat In A Topaz Tango

It is rank, but artificial. In fact, it makes me draw back and box my snout to stifle a sneeze. Itching powder? I have heard of such an item being used for practical jokes, but this is no joke.

The first solo dance in the junior division has turned into a debacle. Although Miss Sou-Sou is something of a snot deserving of a comeuppance, I cannot endorse dirty tricks among the young teen set.

As the fascinating feet in my purview are lifted aloft by the awesome CC, I resolve to do what my human associates cannot do in their present guises. I will accompany the victim until I learn what is going on, and who and what might be behind it.

Ouch! Of course some careless foot has kicked me in the puss.

Dodging these ticky-tacky boxes of milling footwear, I manage to maintain a low profile by stifling any indignant meows.

At last I insinuate myself into the junior girls’ dressing room, although I am by no means either a junior or a girl, and join the privileged circle surrounding the now crying child, who alone of her group is still in the set area. For a thirteen-year-old human kit in pain is just that, no matter how many slinky costumes she wears.

In a moment or two, it is as if I am back in my checkered past, fence-sitting at midnight and yowling some selected riffs guaranteed to attract any nubile females in the vicinity. Only I do not attract nubile females of any species, just the usual hurled footwear reeking of abysmal pedal swamps . . .

These are a pair of petite mary jane-style shoes ripped off the feet of the suffering little doll. I dodge the Cuban heels, which could make a nasty dent in my cranium, and put my nose to work. You may notice I understand the fine points of female footwear, thanks to my roomie’s formidable shoe collection.

The whines of the victim and coos of the comforters vanish from my consciousness as my nose for trouble inhales a big gulp of the hot and bothered linings of the shoes in question.

Yeow!!! I leap back, forced to swallow my natural vocalizations. My pea-green peepers beloved of females of all species tear over and cry crocodile tears onto my jet-black bib. My sensitive, exposed nose skin burns like the very devil was exhaling the breath of Hell itself on it.

I know what has happened, if not why yet.

What a despicable plan, a dirty trick of the first water, and I do mean watering eyes! I backpedal out of the room as fast as I can, my mitts eager to box the obnoxious, polluting fumes from brutalized nostrils.

No wonder the poor girl was screeching.

Who would commit such a nefarious act?

It is clever and underhanded and mean, and thus totally and utterly human in its conception and execution from first to last. I cannot wait for my humans to find out what has gone wrong.

Mama’s Girls

Molina came charging down the hall outside the junior girls’ hotel suite so fast the two hotel security guards at the door put their palms on their gun butts.

“Chill,” she said, “LVMPD shield.”

She produced it after transferring the tote bag containing Midnight Louie to Temple’s custody.

“He was in the dressing-room area already. Pesky cat,” she growled at Temple. “And he weighs the advertised ton.”

The guards glanced from the tote bag cat to Molina’s retro-sixties headband and love beads to her jeans and moccasins.

“We’ve been told there were undercover city cops on the premises,” the old guy said.

“The little girl will be all right,” Molina said. “It was a nasty prank. I want to interrogate the other girls and their mothers without it looking like it, so Ms. Ozone here and I will be doing that. And I’ll probably take a couple of the girls back to our high-roller suite, where your assistant security chief is . . . on duty 24/7. Of course no one is to know who I am or any of this, right?”

“Got it, Lieutenant,” the young guy, Hank, said. “Rafi Nadir made me floor boss on this detail. You can count on me.”

The older one just gawked. Lieutenants weren’t usually out in the field. Then he eyed Zoe Chloe and Midnight Louie and swallowed.

“I’ll be ordering a couple of room service pizzas,” Molina added. “Check ’em and the waiter out, even though I said they’re coming. You know the room service waitstaff, right?”

“There are an awful lot of ’em in a place this size,” Roy said.

“I know the equipment and the drill, Lieutenant,” Hank assured her. “I’ll call human resources on them if there’s anything suspicious.”

“I got a granddaughter these girls’ age,” Roy added as further reassurance.

“Okay.” Molina knocked at the door and nodded at Temple to go in first. “Tell ’em the Goth fairy is bringing cat hair and pizza.”

Molina might be a security fanatic, but did she know kids.

Everybody in the room squealed when Zoe Chloe fronted in. She was the next best thing to a Los Hermanos brother.

An announcement of pizza for all was the third best thing.

And Louie to coo over was a solid fourth.