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“Oh, Max,” said Clarice with a sigh. “Look, this really is none of my business, but I care about you, so I’m going to tell you this once, and then I’m out of here.” She fixed me with an intense look. “Watch out for this Dudley kid. Okay? Watch your back, and watch your humans’ back.”

“But…”

“I gotta go. Take care of yourself, and thanks for sticking your neck out just now.” She smiled. “No one has ever stood up for me like that before. I appreciate it, big buddy.”

“Don’t go, Clarice. I’m sure if I just talk to Odelia—”

“Don’t sweat it, Max. I’m used to being screwed over by humans. See ya around.” And with these words, she walked away.

And as I returned to the house, thinking about everything Clarice had said, I suddenly saw a car pull over in front of Marge and Tex’s home. Dudley then came walking out, talked to whoever was driving the car, and accepted a package from the driver, then the car took off before I reached the house and could see who was behind the wheel.

And by the time I arrived, Dudley had already returned indoors.

Could Clarice be right? Could Dudley be a threat to us and to our humans? But why? What was he playing at?

And so it was a slightly downcast Max who walked in through the pet flap again, and installed myself on my favorite spot on my favorite couch.

“Is she gone?” asked Dooley sadly.

“Yeah, she’s gone,” I said, just as sadly.

“I like Clarice. I like her very much.”

“Me, too,” I said. “I think she’s just great.”

“And I don’t think she’s got parasites, Max.”

“No, I don’t think so either, Dooley.”

Brutus and Harriet had already returned next door, and were probably getting ready to go to bed. With Chase being relieved of guard duty, and Clarice having been dismissed, that only left Rambo as our guard dog, and Odelia didn’t think it was a good idea to entrust the safety of her cats to the old dog, so she’d told us there was to be no cat choir tonight.

It wasn’t fair, I thought, but then I’m just a cat, right? And clearly Odelia wasn’t going to take my advice, as the Clarice incident had clearly shown.

So I simply closed my eyes and decided to take a long nap—preferably until this whole ordeal had somehow sorted itself out—or longer.

And I probably would have made good on my promise if I hadn’t been awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of the pet flap flapping not once but twice. And suddenly Harriet and Brutus materialized in front of me.

“You have to come, Max,” said Harriet, sounding worried. “It’s Marge. She’s fallen into some kind of coma.”

They were words that had the effect of making me jump off that couch and immediately follow my friends, with Dooley right behind me.

Moments later we were in the upstairs bedroom, where Tex was bent over his wife’s prostrate body, trying to revive her. Outside, the sounds of an approaching ambulance could be heard, and Vesta, who’d been hovering nearby, now hurried down the stairs to open the front door for the paramedics.

“Marge!” said Tex, extremely distraught. “Please, Marge, wake up!”

But Marge didn’t respond. What was more, she was white as a sheet, and looked as if she’d already passed on to meet her maker.

“Oh, dear,” said Harriet in hushed tones. “This is bad, isn’t it? This is very, very bad.”

And immediately Clarice’s words came back to me, and when I turned and saw Dudley hovering in the doorway, looking on, I thought I saw a small smile flit across his handsome face. Then, when he saw me looking at him, he gave me a wink, and put his finger to his lips in the universal gesture of ‘Keep quiet…’

Oh, dear. So Clarice had been right all along!

Chapter 38

It was only when the ambulance siren stopped right outside the house that Odelia woke up with a start. She swung her feet from between the covers and hurried to the spare bedroom, which had a window looking out onto the street. When she saw that the ambulance was parked right outside her parents’ house, her heart skipped a beat.

And then she was crying,“Chase! Wake up!” and was thundering down the stairs, hurrying next door. As she flitted through the kitchen door, she almost fell over Harriet.

“I was just coming to get you,” said the Persian. “It’s your mom. I think she’s… dead.”

“Oh, God, no!” she said, and arrived upstairs just in time to see the paramedics strap her mother onto a stretcher and then carry her downstairs.

“What happened?” she asked her dad, who looked as white as her mom did, maybe even whiter.

“I don’t know,” said Dad. “She… started convulsing—woke me up. And then suddenly she breathed a long rattling sigh and… was gone.”

“Oh, Dad! Don’t tell me she’s…”

“I managed to bring her back, but she’s practically unresponsive.” He shook his head. “Looks like catatonic shock to me.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know, honey. Could be something she ate that she responded badly to, or something she drank…”

“But you both ate the same thing, right?”

“We all ate the same thing,” said her grandmother. “And drank the same thing, too.”