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Dudley glanced at the thing, then up at the painting of a gnome Tex has got hanging over the mantel, and changed course.

He stepped into the room, grabbed the figurine and dumped it into his suitcase. Then he took the painting from the wall and was about to abscond with it when Rambo sneezed.

Yes, dogs can sneeze, and so can cats.

Dudley looked up, startled, and it didn’t take him long to discover our presence behind the couch.

“Well, look at you,” he said, and I saw he had a very nasty expression on his face as he said it. “Four cats and one stupid old dog.” And as he stared down at us, suddenly he got a certain gleam in his eyes that I didn’t like to see there. It was the kind of gleam that spells doom. Probably the same kind of gleam that often comes into Dracula’s eyes just before he decides to sink his teeth into the neck of another innocent young maiden.

“Max?” said Dooley.

“Yes, Dooley?”

“I don’t like the way Dudley is looking at us!”

“Me, neither!”

“You know what?” said the floppy-eared young man, “I think it’s time for me to finish what I started.” And he kicked the door to the room closed with his foot. He then expertly picked me up by the scruff of the neck, the procedure giving me a distinct sense of d?j?-vu, and dumped me into the couch. I probably should explain that Marge and Tex’s couch is one of those couches with a hidden compartment inside, where they like to store stuff they don’t need, such as: doilies, old curtains… And now yours truly, too!

In short order, he rounded up Harriet, Dooley and Brutus, and dumped us all in the couch, then slammed the thing shut, the couch springs and hinges squeaking creepily!

“You know? This reminds me of something,” said Brutus suddenly.

“Yeah, me too,” I said.

And when suddenly I smelled smoke, I knew exactly what it reminded me of. Yesterday morning in the attic, when Motorcycle Man had tried to set us on fire!

Chapter 41

“I’d dump you in there, too, but you’re too big and stupid, you old mutt,” we heard Dudley say, presumably addressing our mighty guard dog.

“Max! Why did you let him catch you?” said Harriet, indignation clear in her voice.

“Why didyou let him catch you!” I returned.

“Because it all happened so fast! And besides, he’s Tex’s son.”

“But we already decided he’s up to no good,” I said. “So why did we let ourselves be duped like this?”

“I think because deep down we find it hard to believe that Tex’s son would do a thing like this,” said Dooley. “I think deep down we all want to believe that Dudley is a good person. That deep down he loves us just like the others do, and that deep down he means well. I think deep down—”

“Oh, will you stop it with your ‘deep down’ already!” Harriet cried. “We’re in deep doo-doo right now, if you hadn’t noticed!”

She was right. The flames were licking at the couch that was our new home, and if I know anything about couches it is that they are not flame-resistant. In fact you could probably argue that the modern couch is a fire accelerant, with all the synthetic materials it’s made of.

“Let’s put our backs into it, you guys,” I said. “On the count of three, and push!”

And push we did, but the couch wasn’t budging—not a single inch!

“Again! Push!” I said, feeling like a football coach leading his team to victory.

But no dice. Obviously Dudley had put some heavy object on top of the couch, preventing our escape.

“Maybe we can scratch our way out?” Brutus suggested.

And so we hurriedly started looking for the couch’s weak spots. Unfortunately a couch, in case you didn’t know, consists of particleboard, covered with polyurethane foam, covered with upholstery. Polyurethane and upholstery are no match for four highly motivated cats with very sharp claws and teeth, but particleboard is. So we could scratch all we wanted to, but we’d never manage to make it through. At least not in time to save our lives.

“So we just wait,” said Harriet. “We wait until the fire does the work for us, and then we escape.”

It sounded a lot like her plan from the day before, when we were locked inside that old chest in the attic. If her idea had sounded too good to be true then, it certainly sounded like the lousiest idea I’d ever heard now. But since I didn’t want to undermine morale, I kept quiet. After all, what was the alternative: to announce to my friends that we would all soon be burnt to a crisp?

The smoke was coming in through the cracks already, and that orange glow was intensifying, as was the heat surrounding us.

“Max?” said Dooley.

“Mh?”

“I just want to say that you’re the best friend a cat could ever hope to find. And if we don’t make it—”

“Don’t talk like that, Dooley.”

“If we don’t make it, I just want to say that it was an honor to be your friend.”

“It was an honor for me, too, buddy.”

“I have a confession to make,” suddenly said Harriet.

Oh, no—not again with the confessions!

“I peed in all of your bowls last night,” she said, sounding contrite.

“Peed in our bowls?” asked Brutus. “But why?”