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“Can’t tell you,” said the bird curtly, “but the message goes as follows: ‘Your assistance in a matter of the greatest importance is required ASAP. Please proceed to the old shack in Blake Carrington’s field. You will be richly rewarded.’” The bird stared at me expectantly, gauging my response to this mysterious missive.

I think our feathered friend must have been disappointed, for I merely stared at the fluttery creature.“I don’t get it,” I said finally, presumably a testament to the sluggishness of my mental processes at that very moment.

The bird shook its tiny head.“And here I thought you were so clever.”

I blinked.“The person who gave you this message said I was clever?”

The bird nodded thoughtfully, but I thought I could detect a glimmer of scorn in its beady little eyes. Then again, it’s very hard to read a bird’s face. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but birds have particularly expressionless faces. If birds were allowed to enter casinos and place bets, I think they’d beat any poker player hands down. Then again, since birds don’t carry wallets, it would be tough for them to pay for their chips, or even collect and tuck away their winnings.

“Look, I’m just the messenger here,” said the bird finally, with a tiny shrug of its tiny shoulders. “So you do with the message what you will. But I can assure you that my client is for real, and you’d be well-advised to do as you’re told.”

The bird cocked its head, gave me a final scrutinizing glance, then flew off in a flutter of wings and feathers and was gone as unexpectedly as it had arrived.

“Birds aren’t as affected by this global warming as we are, are they, Max?” said Dooley as he lazily watched the bird take flight and disappear from sight.

“That’s because birds are a lot smaller than us cats,” said Brutus. “The smaller a creature, the less affected they are by things like heat or cold and such.”

It was an interesting theory, and one I didn’t know was true or not, but I must say that the bird’s message had certainly piqued my curiosity, heat or no heat.

“So are you going to this meeting?” asked Harriet, who was fanning herself with her tail, which I couldn’t see made much sense at all. Moving her tail required a considerable effort, which would cause her to get even hotter.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I mean, I want to, but for the life of me I can’t imagine why anyone would use a bird to set up a meeting.”

“And then of course you gotta ask yourself who’d set up a meeting with you,” said Brutus, nodding. “Unless it’s some kind of predator and they want to eat you.” He produced a low chuckle at his own little joke.

“I think I should go with you, Max,” said Dooley. “Just in case it’s a trap.”

“If it’s a trap whoever is setting this up will catch you both,” Harriet pointed out.

“Why don’t we all go,” Brutus suggested, yawning cavernously. “Max will go to this shack out on that field, while the three of us hang back and keep an eye out for possible danger. Then in case he does get caught—”

“We can fight back!” Dooley said excitedly.

“—we can run and get help,” Brutus finished.

“So basically you’re going to use me as bait,” I said in conclusion.

Brutus shrugged.“It’s your call, Maxie baby. Either you sit this one out and spend the rest of your life wondering what this meeting was all about. Or you put yourself out there and brave danger.”

The prospect of braving danger didn’t hold a lot of appeal to me, but I had to admit that Brutus had a point. If I didn’t go, I’d wonder what this strange message from that irreverent bird was all about. And I must say I’m a sucker for a mystery.

So I finally heaved a deep sigh.“Oh, all right. Let’s go and find out.”

CHAPTER 3

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There is a great divide between the civilized part of our wonderful neighborhood, or more in particular our backyard, and what we like to call the wild, more specifically the field that stretches out behind the house. It belongs to a local businessman named Blake Carrington, who has been reluctant to either sell or develop the land, since it’s where his only son and heir died in a car crash many moons ago, which lends it an extra-creepy vibe in my personal opinion and that of many others. Unfortunately for us the field is extensively used by the local dog population and its collective ownership for their daily sanitary requirements,and is now probably teeming with discarded dog excrement and other canine droppings. In other words: it’s pretty much a wasteland in any sense of the word.