The Mysteries of Max: Books 25-27

Chapter 1

There comes a time in every cat’s life when he’s forced to face his greatest fears—or at least one of them—and today that day had come for me. Odelia, having made this promise a long time ago, had finally decided to make good on the swimming lessons she felt we all needed.

As you may or may not know, cats don’t like water. We don’t like getting wet, and we certainly would never volunteer to enter a large, or even a medium-sized or small body of water if we could help it.

But I could see she had a point. In the recent past we’d been faced with the kind of emergency that befalls all of us from time to time: Brutus had fallen into a duck pond, and only happenstance had prevented him from meeting a watery death at the time. Happenstance or, as the case may be, Chase Kingsley, who’d saved his life and had earned our eternal admiration and gratitude in the process.

Chase, if you happen to come upon these chronicles for the first time, is my human’s boyfriend and future husband, and a local cop with the Hampton Cove Police Department. We also think he might be Jesus reincarnate, but the jury is still out on that.

“Look, it’s very simple,” Odelia said now as she pointed toward the small inflatable paddling pond Chase had acquired especially for the occasion. It was one of those garishly colored plastic thingamabobs Chase had managed to inflate to the right proportions and that Tex had filled to capacity with his garden hose. “All you have to do is step into the little pool and get acquainted with the feel of the water on your bellies. That’s all.”

“But we’ll get wet,” said Dooley, who’s my best friend and a cat, just like me.

“Of course we’ll get wet, Dooley,” said Brutus, another one of my feline friends. “It’s water. What do you expect?”

“But… I don’t like to get wet,” Dooley pointed out.

“It’s a beautiful day,” said Odelia, gesturing to the sun which was high in the sky and giving of its best as it had for the past couple of days. “The moment you step out of the pool you’ll be dry in no time.”

Dooley directed an uncertain glance at the sun, as if trying to ascertain the veracity of Odelia’s statement. He didn’t look entirely convinced.

“So who’ll go first?” asked Odelia, clapping her hands like a den mother.

“I’ll go first,” said Odelia’s grandmother, who’d joined us for this auspicious occasion, and true to her own words stepped into the pool and uttered a sigh of ecstasy. “Nothing like a cool bath on a hot day like this,” she said with visible relish. “My dogs love it.”

We all looked at her in alarm, but to my surprise I didn’t see any sign of dogs. “Where are the dogs, Gran?” I asked, figuring the old lady might be seeing things.

“I’m talking about my feet, Max,” she said.

Why anyone would refer to their feet as dogs is beyond me, but then we all know that humans are strange.

“Gran, the idea is to teach the cats how to swim,” Odelia pointed out. “Not for you to cool your feet.”

“I’m the designated lifeguard,” Gran said, tying the straps of the funky straw hat she’d placed squarely across her little white curls. “And a lifeguard should be right there where the action is. Which means right here in this here pool. Now are you going to start swimming already?” she asked, giving us the kind of look that spelled doom. Gran isn’t one of those people who like to be kept waiting, and it was clear she was going to start dunking us into the pool if we didn’t get a move on soon.

“Why don’t you go first, Max?” Harriet suggested. She’s a pretty Persian and didn’t look all that excited at the prospect of getting that gorgeous white fur of hers all wet.

“Me? “I cried, my voice rising an entire octave. “Why me?”

“Well, someone has to go first, and your fearlessness is legendary,” she said sweetly.

It sounded like a compliment, but I had the feeling there was a hidden snag.

Brutus, who dislikes his girlfriend being complimentary to other male cats, now stepped forward with the kind of bluster that is typical for the butch black cat. “I’ll go first,” he announced, and approached the inflatable pool with a devil-may-care attitude that is typical for Hollywood movie stars of the James Bond variety. The moment he got closer to the pool, though, his resolve faltered and he stopped short of stepping into the inviting cool waters. “Um…” he said. “Are you sure this water is clean? I’m allergic to bugs, as they might do irreparable damage to the internal organs, and the external ones.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” grunted Gran, and bodily picked up Brutus and placed him squarely into the water.

Brutus emitted a very unmanly high-pitched scream, and within seconds was scrambling out of the pool again, then squealed, “It’s cold! Cold and wet!”

“Oh, Brutus,” said Harriet with an expressive eyeroll. “Of course it’s cold and wet. It’s water. Now let me show you how it’s done.” And with a death-defying leap, she actually jumped… a few feet short of the pool. She produced an embarrassed little chuckle. “Oops. Must have miscalculated my approach shot. Let’s try that again, shall we?”

This time, however, she didn’t jump as much as ever so slowly trip up to the waterfront, daintily dipped in one paw, then shook it with a horrified expression of loathing on her face. “Brr,” she said. “Brutus is right. It is very cold and very wet, isn’t it?”

“Max?” suddenly whispered Odelia into my ear. She’d crouched down right next to me. I gave her a startled look. It’s never a good sign when you’re on the verge of being dunked into a very uninviting body of water and your human starts whispering into your ear. It can only mean one thing: doom! “Why don’t you go first?” she suggested ever so sweetly, confirming my worst suspicions. “If you go the others will surely follow.”

And I must confess it was at this moment that a mercenary streak in my character suddenly manifested itself, much to my own surprise. I didn’t go so far as to ask ‘What’s in it for me?’ but I did say, “And if I do go first…” and wiggled my eyebrows meaningfully.

Odelia smiled. “An unlimited supply of Cat Snax,” she said promptly. “For the next two—”

I raised an eyebrow.

“—three weeks.”

I like Cat Snax. In fact I love it, and I could probably eat a ton of the stuff. But even the prospect of feasting on my favorite treat did little to allay my fears. “So… if I step into the water, is Gran going to save me when I go under for the third time?” I asked.

“You’re not going to go under, even for the first time,” said Odelia. “The water isn’t deep enough.”

“Mh,” I said doubtfully. It was true that Odelia had explained that this was only the first step in teaching us how to swim, and if we passed this hurdle, in the next phase of the program we’d visit an actual pool and proceed to the next step: learning how to stay afloat by the judicious application of our paws and certain techniques she’d teach us.

“So is this happening or not!” yelled Gran, who was clearly getting fed up.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.” And before I could convince myself this was a very bad idea, I stepped up to the inflatable pool, put one paw over the edge, and stepped in. When the water suddenly reached my belly, there was a momentary panicky cry bubbling up my throat but I heroically stifled it and hoped for the best—and Gran’s immediate response if I would, indeed, suddenly find myself submersed in these cold waters.

“Max!” said Dooley, running up to see if I was drowning. “Are you all right?”

I gulped a little. “I-I’m not sure, Dooley,” I said. I glanced down, and had to admit that Odelia had been right about one thing: the water wasn’t nearly deep enough to drown in. And even though the sensation of getting wet set off a sense of rising panic, I also found the coolness of the water quite… enjoyable.

The day was really hotting up, and being up to my shoulders in these cooling streams—even though the water wasn’t actually streaming—was actually not all that bad.

I looked up at Gran, who gave me an expectant look.

“It’s… not so bad,” I finally announced, causing the elderly lady to give three rousing cheers, and pump the air with her fists.

“He did it!” she cried. “Max has braved the raging waters of the inflatable pool!”

I smiled and looked back at my fellow cats, who were all staring at me, mouths agape. “Come on in, you guys,” I found myself saying. “The water is fine.”

Now it was their turn to gulp, but before long, and after careful deliberation, they all followed suit, and moments later four cats were standing side by side in the plastic inflatable pool, not entirely happy, but not all that unhappy either.

“I think we can call lesson one a total win,” said Odelia with a satisfied smile on her face. “That’s it for today, you guys. You can stay in there for as long as you like. And tomorrow we’re moving to the outdoor municipal swimming pool for lesson two.”

Harriet closed her eyes. “Somehow I’d hoped lesson one would also be the final lesson,” she said.

“No such luck,” said Brutus.

“Oh, don’t be so glum,” I said. “It’s fun to be in the water, isn’t it? Nice and cool.”

They gave me dark looks, conveying the sentiment that I’d lost my mind, then stepped out of the pool, carefully examining the damage the water had done to their fur.

Dooley sidled up to me. He’d been trying to suck in his belly, hoping to avoid contact with the water, but since his legs were pretty short, it was swimming against the stream. He relaxed his belly, fully immersing it in the water, and let out a high-pitched scream.

“It’s all right, Dooley,” I said. “It’s just water. It won’t kill you.”

“No, but it will make me wet,” he said with undeniable logic.

“I’m getting out of here,” said Gran, stepping out of the pool. “Too hot,” she grumbled, and headed inside for some cooling shade.

“It is pretty hot out here,” I said, peering up at that big ball of searing heat treating us to its relentless rays.

“It’s global warming,” Dooley announced knowingly. “I’ve seen it on the Discovery Channel. The planet is heating up, and soon it will be so hot we’ll all melt, just like those Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,” I said as I gawked at the water reflecting my face. For a moment I contemplated submersing myself fully but then dispelled the silly notion. Soon we’d be floating in an actual pool, but why hasten the terrifying process?

Odelia, who was tapping away on her smartphone, was walking back toward the house, and Gran, our self-appointed lifeguard, had also vanished from view, as had Brutus and Harriet. So now it was just me and Dooley, alone in that inflatable pool.

“Max?” said Dooley. “The floor of this thing is really slippery.”

I’d noticed the same thing. The bottom of the inflatable pool was extremely slippery.

“What if we trip and fall and go under?” he asked, a rising sense of alarm making his voice quake.

“Let’s all try to stay calm,” I said, even though I was starting to lose my cool, too.

We were in the middle of a water-filled inflatable pool, far away from the safety of the shoreline, and if we slipped and fell now we’d go under with no one there to save us!

“Let’s just… not move,” I suggested therefore.

“What do you mean?” asked Dooley, giving me panicky glances while he stood frozen to the spot, afraid to move an inch for fear of slipping on that slippery bottom.

“If we don’t move we can’t fall,” I pointed out. “And if we don’t fall we can’t go under.”

“You’re right,” said Dooley. “If we don’t move we can’t fall, and if we don’t fall we won’t drown. I like your idea, Max. It’s a very good idea.”

So we simply stood there, motionless, hoping someone—anyone!—would come and fish us out of the inflatable pool, which was slowly but surely becoming a death trap.

And as the sun beat down upon our heads, I was starting to rue the day I’d said yes to Odelia’s cockamamie idea!