eb93c43e214c621f9157c05b4b6a6878

“Right. Well, that’ll be all for now,” she said, and directed a scathing look at the two dogs. “That won’t do,” she muttered, and stalked over there to rearrange their blanket, which had become crumpled. But then Chase saw that it was actually Max and Dooley’s favorite blanket, and hewondered if he’d suddenly entered the Twilight Zone, and Odelia had been replaced by this strange demanding woman, and Max and Dooley by these two dogs. But if that was so, who was Boggle?

“Prime Minister of England,” said the man as if he’d read his mind. “Taking a holiday in Bumpkin Cove, your bucolic little town. Lying low, so to speak.”

“You’re… Prime Minister of England?” asked Chase. Curiouser and curiouser.

“Guilty as charged. Been the top man for years now, and I’m afraid people are starting to get bored with me. You know how it is. One moment you’re more popular than Harry Styles, the next they’re sick of you. Can’t stand your face. Just the way these things go. Even Churchill lost his first election after the war.” His face crumpled. “Though that thing with Janine didn’t help matters, of course.“

“Janine?”

“My wife,” he said, gesturing to the horse-faced woman. “She insisted on giving 10 Downing Street a major overhaul, you see. Figured the previous chappies had despicable taste, and the thing needed sprucing up a goodish bit. I gave her free rein, of course, and I have to say she did a smashing job. Absolutely topping. Only it cost rather a good deal of doubloons, I’m afraid, and when the papers started throwing exorbitant sums around, it rather sunk my popularity. Which is why it was decided I needed to go into hiding for a while in the arse end of nowhere where those johnnies of the press would never find me.” He slapped Chase on the back in a jovial manner. “Which is how we ended up here in Bumpkin Cove!”

Chase would have said something, but at that moment the pet flap flapped and four cats came racing in and made a beeline for the dogs ensconced on the couch. And the next few minutes were taken up by a sort of catfight, or cat-slash-dog fight, for there was a lot of hissing and a lot of barking, and Janine Boggle, if that was the woman’s name, did a lot of hysterical screaming, furiously trying to extricate her dogs from the m?l?e.

“Oh, my,” said Mr. Boggle, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Rather reminds me of a sitting of the House of Commons.”

CHAPTER 15

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

I could have said that the contretemps with Little John and Little Janine ended in a resounding victory for Brutus but I would be lying. Then again, it wasn’t as if the fight proceeded entirely fair and square. As it was, Janine intervened by expertly yanking her dogs from the tussle and pressing them to her bosom in an attempt to vouchsafe them from being filleted by a justifiably outraged Brutus.

Even now, half an hour later, our friend was still licking his proverbial wounds.

“It’s not fair,” he was saying as we convened in the backyard. “And Chase just standing there like a big doofus didn’t help.”

“He should have taken your side, sweet pea,” said Harriet.

“He’s our human, isn’t he? Then why did he choosetheir side?!”

“To be fair, Chase didn’t pick any side,” I said. “He decided to stay neutral.”

“Well, I think it’s perfectly horrid of him,” said Harriet. “Brutus is his cat.”

“Technically…”

“Shut up, Max,” said Harriet. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Do we have to pick sides?” asked Dooley. “Can’t we all live together in perfect harmony?”

“No, we cannot!” Harriet snapped. “And if you don’t understand that, you have no right to call yourself a feline.”

“But I don’t call myself a feline. I call myself Dooley.”

“There, there, poor baby,” said Harriet, giving her mate a loving nudge.

But Brutus wasn’t to be consoled. “I know we said we’d give the Pooles twenty-four hours to clean up their act, but now I’m not so sure. It’s obvious they have picked their side, and it’s not our side.”

And as Brutus nursed his wounded pride and Harriet tried to patch up his damaged ego, Dooley and I decided to remove ourselves from the conversation for a little while. Since no food seemed forthcoming, either from Marge (busy with Grace) or Odelia (shopping for the Boggles) or Gran (building Poole Spa& Pool) and we had developed quite an appetite at this point (amazing how invigorating an old-fashioned dog fight can be) we thought we’d try our luck elsewhere.

As we were walking along the street, neatly keeping to the sidewalk as befitting a couple of pedestrians such as ourselves, Dooley said,“We should have known that the arrival of the baby would change everything, Max.”

“You can’t blame the Boggles on Grace, Dooley.”

“But I do! If Grace hadn’t arrived, Odelia would still be working as a reporter, and she would be far too busy to open a bed and breakfast in the sky.”

“I’m sure the air in Airbnb doesn’t actually refer to the sky, Dooley,” I reiterated a point we’d discussed before.