Cat Shining Bright

Racing upstairs they found, at the top of the steps in Clyde’s study, nothing at all amiss. Ryan moved to her right into the big master bedroom. The doors to the dressing room and bath were closed. She looked in both but everything was in order; the entire room was undisturbed, even the space under the bed.

They headed for her studio.

Sunlight blazed in through the glass walls that framed the oak and pine trees. Sun shone on Ryan’s beautiful, hand-carved drafting table, picking out the ornate curves of its metal stand and its sleek oak top. The table lay on its side, the big, movable drafting surface wrenched away from the intricate metal stand, the floor dented where the table had crashed and broken.

Three pairs of blue eyes peered out from among the wreckage, two innocent buff faces and Courtney’s calico face serious with guilt. The kittens were too chagrined to even run away.

Dulcie, her ears back, her striped tail lashing, hauled Buffin out from beneath the curved metal legs, her teeth in the nape of his neck. Holding him down with one paw, she nosed at him, looking him over. “Where are you hurt?”

Buffin shook his head. “Not hurt.”

“Get up, then. Walk quietly over to the daybed, get up on it and stay there.” She watched him walk, saw he wasn’t limping. Turning, she bore down on Striker. “Are you hurt? Oh, Striker! Your paw is bleeding through the bandage.”

Ryan grabbed some scrap paper from the wastebasket, laid it on the floor. Dulcie said, “Come out from under there and sit right here, put your paw on that. Now, Courtney. Are you all right?”

Courtney nodded, her ears and tail down. She wouldn’t look at her mother.

“Then you can tell me what happened,” Ryan said as she grabbed a roll of paper towels for Striker.

“Rocking,” Courtney said guiltily, her eyes still cast down. “We were rocking. We . . . we loosened those bolts just a little . . .” She indicated the handles that held the drafting table at whatever angle Ryan chose. “And we jumped on it and it rocked and rocked and it was such fun that we rocked harder . . .” Now she looked up, her eyes bright. “Rocked harder still, all three of us back and forth, and . . .” She looked down again with shame.

“And the table fell,” Dulcie said furiously.

So far Joe Grey had stayed out of it. He was too mad to let loose with what he wanted to say. He watched Ryan wrap the paw in the paper towels, then retrieve rolls of gauze and tape from the master bath; then he turned his fierce scowl on Dulcie. “And where,” he said, “where were you when this happened? I thought you were watching them.”

Now Dulcie’s own look was guilty. “I was on the roof. I heard a car come down the street real slow, heard it stop then creep on again. I got that funny feeling—you know the feeling . . . I thought it might be the burglar, that he’d seen Ryan pick us up this morning, and I raced up for a quick look. The kittens were quiet, nosing at the cabinet drawers and at the mantel, smelling everything. I thought I could leave them for a minute. They loosened the bolts and started this rocking after I left,” she said quietly.

“I thought at first it was Wilma’s stalker, I’m still not sure, you can’t see much inside a car from the house roof. I could see the driver’s arm, part of a thin face. He was wearing a cap and I think his passenger was, too, a heavy man. They moved on slowly and then paused, moving and pausing, looking at all the houses. There was someone in the back, someone smaller, maybe a woman or child. I was about to race down to the street for a better look when I heard the crash.” She looked at Ryan and at Joe. “I’m sorry I left them. Your lovely antique drafting table, Ryan. Can it be mended?”

“It can be mended just fine, Scotty can mend anything,” Ryan said, stroking Dulcie, giving her a little kiss between the ears.

“And the kittens are sorry, too,” Dulcie said, looking pointedly at Courtney who had seemed to have been the instigator of their game: Rocked and rocked, she’d said, rocked harder still . . . her blue eyes bright with the fun.

Joe Grey remained quiet, his ears flat, his yellow eyes blazing. The kittens had never seen their father so angry—though, in fact, Joe wasn’t nearly as mad as he looked. Half his mind was further away than broken drafting tables as he put together a plan that he thought might trap Wilma’s stalker.

He watched Ryan call Clyde at the shop. “Could you come home for a little while? Wilma’s here, and Rock’s here, but . . . I have to run an errand and . . . we think the burglar could be watching the house. I’ll explain later.”