THE CAT WHO SAW STARS_

“A fryer, Qwill, is a young chicken - not an egg that you fry!”

“Hmmm…learn something every day.”

“We’re going to call our theater the Fryers Club Summer Stage… But I’m doing all the talking,” she said. “What’s your news?”

“Only that the cats and I are moving to the beach for a month.”

“Have you seen your new guest house?”

“Not yet. I hope you didn’t make it too comfortable or too attractive. I don’t want to find myself in the motel business.”

“Don’t worry. I did it in bilious colors with lumpy mattresses, flimsy towels, and framed pictures of drowning sailors.”

“Good!” he said. “See you Friday night. Break a leg!”

Driving back to the barn to collect the Siamese for the Mooseville expedition, Qwilleran considered what he would need to pack in his van. For himself it would be, first of all, the automated coffeemaker. Otherwise he would require only polo: .shirts, shorts, and sandals, plus writing materials and a few books. There was no point in taking the revolutionary high-tech recumbent bike that had been presented to him by the community as a token of their esteem. The rider reclined in a bucket seat, pedaling with elevated feet. Needless to say, it was such a sensation in Pickax that he seldom ventured out on the highway; instead he displayed it in his living room as a conversation piece and even an art object. On this occasion, he decided to leave it where it was; after all, there was a trail bike in the tool shed at the cabin.

The cats’ vacation needs were more complex. He would have to take their blue cushion from the top of the refrigerator; the turkey roaster that served as their commode; several bags of their favorite cat litter that was kind to the toes; grooming equipment; their special dishes for food and water; a month’s supply of Kabibbles, a crunchy treat prepared by a neighbor; and a few cans of their preferred brands of red salmon, crabmeat, lobster, and smoked turkey.

Right now it was time for their midday snack, and they would be waiting for him, prancing on long thin legs, waving eloquent tails, raising eager eyes that were pools of blue in their brown masks. When he unlocked the door, however, both were asleep on the sofa - a tangle of pale fawn fur and brown legs and tails, with heads buried in each other’s underside, except for three visible ears.

“Treat!” he said in a stage whisper. Two heads popped up!

“Yow!” came Koko’s clamoring response.

“N-n-now!” shrieked Yum Yum.

After the luggage was packed and the van loaded, and after Yum Yum had been chased and captured and pushed into the cat carrier, Koko was found sitting in the bucket seat of the recumbent bike, looking wise.

Oh, well, Qwilleran thought, I might as well take it along. I can practice on the back roads.

-2-

The two passengers in the cat carrier on the backseat complained and jockeyed

for position, then settled down as the brown van picked up speed on the open highway. The route to Mooseville lay due north. For Qwilleran, it was a highway of memories, crowded with landmarks from his earlier experiences in the county:

Dimsdale Diner (bad coffee, good gossip) … Ittibittiwassee Road (turn left to Shantytown, right to the Buckshot Mine) … old turkey farm (once owned by Mildred Riker’s first husband) … abandoned cemetery (poison ivy) … state prison (famous flower gardens, infamous scandal).

At the prison gates, the dozing Siamese perked up, stretched their necks, and sniffed. It was not roses they smelled; it was the lake, still a mile away. They detected open water, aquatic weeds, algae, plankton, minnows! Their excitement increased as the van traveled along the lakeshore road. On the left, Qwilleran saw Avery Botts’s farmhouse and the Fryers Club Summer Stage… on the right, glimpses of the lake between the trees… on the left, pastureland with cattle ruminating or horses showing off their glossy coats and noble bearing… on the right, the rustic gate of Top o’ the Dunes Club, where the Rikers had their beach house… on the left, a solitary stone chimney, all that remained of an old one-room schoolhouse… on the right, the letter K on a post.

This was the old Klingenschoen property, a half-square mile of ancient forest on ancient sand dunes, with a sandy drive winding among pines, oaks, maples, and cherry trees. After dipping up and down aimlessly, it emerged in a clearing where a cabin overlooked a hundred miles of water. Built of full-round logs interlocking at the corners, the small cabin seemed anchored to the ground by its enormous stone chimney. Eighty-foot pine trees with only a few branches at the top surrounded it like sentinels.