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“Well, she shouldn’t be,” said Harriet. “It’s the most beautiful day of her life. She doesn’t have anything to be nervous about. She should just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

“I think she would like to be uninvited,” said Brutus. “Just like us.”

Dooley smiled at this.“Imagine if Odelia decides to skip her own wedding. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“If Odelia skipped her own wedding there wouldn’t be a wedding, Dooley,” said Harriet.

“What do you mean?”

Harriet gave an exasperated groan.“How can there be a wedding when the bride is missing? Think, Dooley,” she added, tapping my friend on the noggin. “Think hard!”

Dooley gave himself up to thought, and judging from the frown that appeared on his brow, and the steam that gently started pouring from his ears, he was indeed thinking very hard. Finally he gave up.“No,” he said. “I don’t get it.”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet, and Brutus grinned, thinking the whole thing hilarious.

Just then, the sliding glass door that offers such a nice view from the living room straight into the backyard, opened and closed and Gran walked in. Odelia’s grandmother is one of those early risers. In fact she often gets up before we do, which is saying something, as we’re usually up at the crack of dawn. Though in our defense by that time we’ve usually been up half the night. She looked her usual energetic self: blue tracksuit lined with pink, little white curls topping her head like cotton candy and a cheeky grin.

“Heya, fellas,” she said. “Wanna hear the latest?”

“The latest what, Gran?” asked Dooley.

“The latest news, Dooley. Some truck just lost its cargo on the road into town. Ten tons of grade-A potatoes, if you please. Wanna go and have a look-see?”

“What’s there to see about a bunch of potatoes lying in the road?” asked Harriet, who clearly wasn’t in the mood for the introduction of this agricultural theme.

Gran shrugged.“Nothing much, except this.” And she spirited a large canvas bag from behind her back. It was the kind of canvas bag that can easily hold a very large quantity of grade-A potatoes. A slow smile spread across her features when she saw the light of understanding appear in three pairs of cat’s eyes: mine, Harriet’s, and Brutus’s.

“You’re going to steal a bunch of potatoes,” I said, nodding.

Gran’s smile disappeared. “Who’s talking about stealing? I’m just going to help that poor truck driver clean up the road. And if a couple of spuds end up in the trunk of my car, then so be it. My reward for being a good Samaritan, right?”

And so we set out for this kind intervention. Nothing too exciting, mind you, simply four cats helping out their human, and getting away from Odelia’s new kicking habit.

And as we made to follow Gran out the door, Dooley said,“I don’t get it. Where are we going, Max?”

“We’re going to help Gran help a potato truck driver,” I explained.

“Oh, okay,” he said, though he didn’t look convinced.

He had a point, of course. Potatoes aren’t exactly a staple of a cat’s healthy diet. Then again, they are a staple of our humans’ diet, and cats might not have a reputation for being charitable, some of us do have an altruistic streak. Besides, if we helped Gran bag a couple of nice potatoes, I’m pretty sure she’d fill our bowls to the brim come dinnertime.

How does that saying go? You scratch my back and I scratch yours?

Though I’m not sure Gran would like it if we scratched her back. Oh, well.

Chapter 2

Odelia wasn’t having a good time. She knew she should be ecstatic, over the moon, delirious with happiness at the prospect of finally tying the knot and engaging in matrimony with the man currently snoring away to his heart’s content right next to her. But as she lay there, wide awake, even though it was still dark outside, she couldn’t help experiencing a powerful twinge of concern. The worst part was that she had no idea why. When she thought things through logically there was nothing to be concerned about: the wedding had been arranged and would soon be taking place at St. John’s Church, officiated by Father Reilly. The invitations had all been sent out, the reception nailed down, as well as the wedding dinner and party, the caterer and the DJ booked and paid for, and the jamboree promised to be a big hit with those guests lucky enough to have snagged an invitation to what promised to be the social event of the season.

So maybe that was what was troubling her: she hadn’t planned for her wedding to become an event. Somehow, though, it had quickly ballooned into this big thing and now she had a hard time reconciling the shindig as planned with the one she’d had in mind.