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“Oh, dear,” she murmured. As she got back into her car, she showed the cats the page. “Looks like Gran is collecting money for a new car,” she announced.

“Nice,” said Brutus. “I like the look of that Escalade.”

“Yeah, I like it, too,” she said. “But the way Gran drives I pity the people who get in her way.”

In fact it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to get Gran to take her driving test again. But that probably wasn’t in the cards.

“Why don’tyou get a new car?” asked Harriet. “You could set up one of these Gofundme pages, too, and get rid of this piece of junk.”

She smiled.“It may be a piece of junk, Harriet, but I’m attached to my car.”

Her clunky but precious pickup was the first car she’d ever bought, with money she’d earned herself, and she didn’t want to get rid of it until she had to.

“As long as it keeps on rolling, I will keep on driving it,” she announced, and as she said the words, suddenly there was a loud crunching sound, and the engine… died!

Chapter 28

Harriet wasn’t feeling particularly happy. This was not an unusual state of affairs for the gorgeous white Persian, but this time she could attribute her unhappiness to a very specific incident: her boyfriend admitting that he had a habit of peeing in her bowl. The fact that he also liked to pee in Max and Dooley’s bowls didn’t much interest her, but he shouldn’t have peed in hers—that was obvious.

So she was upset, and when she was upset she liked to make it known to everyone around her, and most specifically to the person she was upset with, in this case Brutus.

Problem was that this cat killer was still around, and now Odelia had more or less corralled them all together with either Chase as their protector, or Rambo. So she couldn’t even walk off on a huff and ignore Brutus the way he should be ignored after what he’d put her through. She was forced to stick together with the offender, and act as if nothing happened, which was agony for a cat as proficient at expressing her anger as she was.

Lucky for her she was also a very clever kitten, so the moment Odelia had called Triple-A and was patiently waiting for the tow truck to show up, she sidled up to her human and said, ever so sweetly,“I had a great idea, Odelia, and I wanted to run it by you if you’ve got a moment.”

“Oh, sure, Harriet,” said Odelia. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well, you know how Rambo and Chase are supposed to protect us?”

“Uh-huh?”

“The thing is, I’m pretty sure that cat killer was in fact targeting me, not the others. So I think it only stands to reason that Chase and Rambo should protect me, and let the others go about their business the way they usually do.” She gave Odelia a mournful look. “You know the burden us females have to carry, always being targeted by some nasty element of the male species? Max, Dooley and Brutus simply don’t have that kind of experience, nor do I feel they should be punished because I’m the one under attack.”

“You think the attacker was gunning for you, is that what you’re saying?”

“Absolutely. And isn’t that always the case? So if you could ask Chase to guard my back from now on, and Rambo, too, I’d be very much obliged, Odelia, sweetie.”

Odelia, who wasn’t in the best of moods, after her car had broken down, eyed her a little strangely, Harriet thought. “You and Brutus have been fighting again, haven’t you?”

“Just one of those lovers’ tiffs,” said Harriet airily. “You know how it goes. I’ll bet you and Chase go through that sort of thing all the time.”

“No, actually we don’t,” said Odelia. “So what have you been fighting about this time?”

She sighed.“I really don’t want to bother you with my petty problems, Odelia. You have so much on your mind already.”

“Indulge me,” said Odelia.

“Well…” She glanced over to where Brutus stood chatting with Max and Dooley and Rambo, and frowned. “Brutus confessed that sometimes he pees in our bowls. Not a full tinkle, you see, but just a pre-pee or pre-tinkle, as he calls it, when he feels he won’t be able to reach his litter box in time. So he unleashes a few drops into the first bowl he sees, which just so happens to be either mine or Dooley’s or Max’s and not his own if you please, and then he proceeds to his box for the main course, as it were. And when I asked him why he doesn’t pee in his own bowl, he didn’t really have an answer for me.”

Odelia smiled, which struck Harriet as highly inappropriate indeed.“Maybe I should ask Mom to put a small plastic tub in the bedroom, just for these kinds of midnight emergencies,” she said. “In the old days people actually put a chamber pot in their bedrooms, so maybe we should dust off that old custom for you guys.”

“Oh,I don’t have a problem reaching my litter box in time,” Harriet assured her human. “It’s only Brutus who seems to have an acute bladder control issue.”

“Harriet, honey, you can’t really blame Brutus because he has a small bladder. I mean, I agree he shouldn’t have done it, but I think we can all agree that he didn’t do it on purpose. It was just an accident.”