Cat Trick

“Thanks, Kathleen,” Elizabeth said. She looked down at the boys and waggled her fingers good-bye at them.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “If you’d like to go out with me sometime to feed the cats, just let me know.”

“I will,” she said.

The cats and I walked them to the back door and said good night. Owen climbed up on the bench to look out the window. I carried Hercules back into the kitchen and dropped into my chair. Wren was so wounded, she reminded me of the tiny birds that shared her name.

Herc studied my face. “We have to figure out what happened, don’t we?” I said. He meowed his agreement and laid his head on my chest. I stroked his soft black fur. “Yeah.” I sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

10

Hercules went back and forth from the bedroom to the hallway while I got dressed in the morning, which I didn’t seem to be doing fast enough for him. Now that he’d met Wren, he was clearly motivated to help her and he wanted to get going. The third time he went into the hall, he didn’t come back. I figured he’d given up and gone to wait for me downstairs.

I found him sitting next to my briefcase underneath the coat hooks. Since he knew my laptop was inside, I wondered if he was suggesting I get started on some research.

Owen seemed to have other priorities. He’d nosed his food dish into the middle of the floor and was waiting beside it.

Hercules meowed the moment he caught sight of me. Owen leaned over so I couldn’t miss seeing him and meowed as well, just a little louder. But Hercules was a cat on a mission. He stalked across the floor and sat in front of Owen’s bowl, looking up at me with serious green eyes.

They weren’t brothers for nothing. Owen immediately began pushing the dish around his brother. I could see the fur was going to be flying—literally—in just a minute if I didn’t step in. I held up one hand. “Stop, stop, stop,” I said sharply.

They didn’t even look at me. Owen was staring at Hercules through slitted golden eyes. Hercules glared back, unmoving except for his tail. I clapped my hands together, which made them both jump.

“Cut it out!” I said.

I pointed at Hercules. There was something a little self-righteous in the way he sat there perfectly straight, head up, neck a smooth expanse of white fur. “I know you want to help Wren,” I said. “So do I. But these are not the Middle Ages and we are not the Knights Templar. We have time for breakfast.”

He dropped his eyes and meowed softly.

“Your heart’s in the right place,” I told him.

Owen lifted his head, his eyes darting sideways to his brother. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hang on a minute, Fur Ball,” I said.

He turned his attention to me, at the same time setting a paw on the edge of his bowl. “You are not starving to death. I know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but you can wait five minutes while I figure out what I’m going to do first.”

I pressed my lips together and shook my head. Had I actually just told a cat that breakfast was the most important meal of the day?

Owen took a step forward then—or at least tried to—except he ended up putting his weight down on the side of the bowl where his left paw had been resting. I don’t know if it was all the stinky crackers he’d been eating, or the extra racing around the backyard, but he seemed to have more strength than he realized. The plastic dish somersaulted into the air end over end like it had been launched from a catapult. I lunged for it, but I was too slow. It landed, upside down, on Owen’s head and slipped a bit sideways so it looked like a jaunty, oversize beret. He gave a yowl of outrage and shook his head furiously, which just made the bowl dip down over his eyes. I grabbed it before he got any madder.

And he was mad. His gray fur was standing on end, one ear was turned inside out and a bit of something—a crumb of cracker maybe—was stuck to a whisker.

“Are you all right?” I asked, swallowing down the bubble of laughter that was threatening to get loose. Hercules had wisely become engrossed in sniffing the end of his tail and wasn’t even looking at us.

Owen bobbed his head and sneezed away whatever had been stuck to his whiskers. I reached over and fixed his ear, smoothing down his fur while he made huffy noises of indignation. His dignity was wounded, but otherwise he seemed to be okay.