The Mysteries of Max: Books 25-27

Chapter 35

I was relaxing on the couch, recovering from my harrowing adventure in the inflatable pool, when the mail slot clattered, a sure sign a letter had been delivered. And since it was late at night at that point, and I’d recently learned from Odelia that the postal services rarely if ever deliver letters at such an ungodly hour, I immediately pricked up my ears.

I’m not one of those pets that lay in wait for the mailman or mailwoman to arrive, hoping to bite their ankles or generally cause grievous bodily harm—that’s dogs, not cats. But after the previous message about a ‘real sleuth’ possessing a ‘sweet tooth’ I’d secretly been hoping this mystery letter deliverer would keep up the good work and deliver another sample of his or her rhyming prowess.

So I ambled into the hallway and lo and behold: another pristinely white letter lay on the doormat, right across the words, ‘Welcome Home!’

Odelia and Chase had already gone to bed, and Dooley was sleeping soundly, so it was just me and the letter, and for a few moments we faced off. Then I could no longer curb my curiosity and pounced on the thing: I neatly sliced it open with a single nail and expertly extracted the missive that was concealed inside.

And as I placed it on the floor, I frowned when I scanned its contents.

‘Follow the herder,’ the epistle read.

“Follow the herder,” I murmured. “Shouldn’t it be ‘Follow the herd?’”

But then I suddenly remembered how this whole adventure had begun: with that little figurine of the goatherder. Could it be that our unknown letter writer was referring to that little gem that Harriet had so expertly destroyed with a single flick of her tail?

I sat back on my haunches and gave myself up to thought for a few moments. As far as I could tell Marge had all but forgotten about the figurine, and the pieces had probably been swept into the dustbin by now. Or had they? I remembered she’d carefully tried to glue it back together, with Tex sabotaging her efforts by accidentally demolishing the thing. So maybe it was time to pay some closer attention to that infamous goatherd once more? At least according to our anonymous and highly mysterious letter writer, it just might hold the solution to the mystery of the disappearance of Vicky Gardner…

I briefly considered picking up the letter between my teeth and taking it upstairs to bring to Odelia’s attention, but then decided against it.

First of all, I’m not a dog, so unless I have to, I prefer not to pick up assorted items (for instance newspapers and slippers) and deliver them to my master, and secondly: once Odelia is fast asleep not even a cannon-shot has the power to wake her up.

So I simply decided to leave the letter where it lay, and where Odelia would no doubt find it in the morning, to do with as she saw fit.

I wandered back into the living room, and saw that my friend was awake and yawning widely.

“Dooley, I suddenly feel a certain need.”

“A need for speed?” he suggested.

“Not exactly,” I said. “But I do feel the need to go out and join cat choir.”

“But I thought you said you weren’t going to show your face there again until all of your fur had grown back?”

“I know what I said, but it has grown back a little bit already, and besides, I miss our friends and I’m sure they won’t laugh at me, right?”

Dooley wasn’t as relaxed about my prospects of being laughed at as me, but he, too, said he missed socializing with our friends, so moments later saw two cats flit through the pet flap—well, flit perhaps isn’t the right word for a cat weighing in at twenty pounds moving through an opening designed for a much slimmer cat, but please bear with me.

So Dooley flitted through the pet flap, I wormed my way through, and then we were zipping along the sidewalk, and soon swept into the park to join our friends for cat choir.

Harriet and Brutus were already there, of course, and so was Kingman, holding court near the jungle gym as usual. Shanille, Father Reilly’s cat and also cat choir’s conductor, was frowning before herself, probably deciding what musical pieces she was going to teach us this time, and plenty of other friends were milling about shooting the breeze.

As you may have guessed by now cat choir is basically just an excuse for us cats to get together of an evening and socialize.

“Max! What happened to you!” Buster cried when he caught sight of me.

“I had a close shave with danger,” I quipped, having decided to make light of my predicament.

“More like a close shave with a razor blade,” said Buster, who is intimately familiar with all things sharp. He inspected my midsection more closely. “Pretty rough work,” he said. “At a glance I’d say they used a blunt blade. Definitely not Fido’s work. I’d recognize his signature style anywhere. So where did you go?”

“Max didn’t go the hairdresser’s,” said Dooley. “He got stuck in a window and was shoved through by an angry homeowner who doesn’t like cats.”

“Oh,” said Buster, taken aback by this, then made a face. “Brrr. You were lucky to make it out of there alive, Max. Those cat haters can be brutal when allowed to go unchecked.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“So who was this cat butcher?”

“Quintin Gardner,” I said. “We were trying to figure out what happened to his wife Vicky, who disappeared twenty years ago.”

“Oh, I remember hearing the story,” said Buster, nodding. “Didn’t she go out for a pack of cigarettes one night and never came back?”

“You’re probably thinking of someone else,” I said.

“Right, right,” said Buster vaguely, then patted my bare belly. “Next time use some aftershave, Max. Takes the edge off.” And with these words, straight from an expert’s lips, he strolled off.

I glanced down at my belly, and saw that Buster was right: there was still a certain measure of razor burn, or, to be more exact, the scratch marks where I’d been shoved through that window. I sighed. The last couple of days had been really tough: I’d been booted through a window, almost drowned—thrice—been shat on by a crazy pigeon, and kicked out of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory by its managing director or CEO.

“I hope Odelia disinfected those wounds, Max,” said Dooley now. “Wounds like that can get infected, and you can get sepsis and die.” He studied me carefully. “How are you feeling? Any headache or nausea? Dizziness? Feeling faint?”

“None of the above, Dooley,” I said with a laugh. “In fact I feel fine.”

“Mh,” he said dubiously, clearly not inclined to take my word for it. “I think you should go and see Vena,” he said finally.

“Vena!”

“You’ve been through a lot. You may have residual trauma. Even brain damage, for all we know. Just to be on the safe side Vena will have to do a CAT scan and make sure.”

“I’m not going to see Vena and I’m not having a CAT scan, Dooley. I promise you that I feel perfectly fine.”

“Mh,” he repeated, then placed his paw against my forehead. “You’re running a fever, Max,” he determined. “If I were you—”

“Look, I’m fine, buddy,” I said, shaking off his probing paw. “I promise you.” I glanced around and caught Brutus’s eye. He was looking at me intently, and now wandered over.

“How are you feeling, Max?” he asked solicitously.

“I’m fine,” I said.

His gaze dropped down to my midsection, only this time, instead of making fun of my sixteen-pack, he shook his head. “I don’t like the look of you, Max. Are you sure you’re fine? Sometimes these traumatic experiences tend to linger, and make their full impact felt much, much later. And I’m not just talking about the door incident—you practically drowned tonight, buddy.”

He placed a paw against my brow, earning himself a nod from Dooley.

I closed my eyes. This was starting to get a little ridiculous.

“You’re hot,” said Brutus. “I don’t like it, Max. I think you should go and see Vena.”

“I’m not going to see Vena!” I cried. “I’m fine, I’m telling you—fine!”

“Delirium,” said Dooley with a knowing nod. “I see it in trauma patients all the time.”

“How would you know anything about trauma patients!” I said, quickly losing my customary equanimity.

“You forget I’m an expert, Max,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, Dooley watches General Hospital,” Brutus chimed in. “He knows his stuff.”

Dooley was glancing around. “I just wish cats carried mobile phones. We really should call 911. Get you to a hospital.”

“I don’t want to go to a hospital! I don’t need to go to a hospital! I’m fine, I’m telling you—I feel just great!”

Harriet had now joined us, and was giving me the kind of look one gives a terminal patient who’s about to expire. And then she placed a paw to my brow. “A little hot,” she determined. “You’re running a fever, Max.”

“I am not running a fever!” I cried. “If I were running a fever would I do this?” And I performed a little jig in place, kicking up my paws and generally making a spectacle of myself. “Or this?” And I actually did a high jump combined with a high kick—Jackie Chan style—landing on my tush as I did. “Ouch,” I murmured.

More cats had gathered around to watch my little show, and all of them were murmuring words of concern about my health and well-being. The words ‘Vena’ and ‘death wish’ hummed through the air, and I was starting to feel more and more that I probably shouldn’t have come to cat choir after all.

Cats, in case you didn’t know, can be drama queens—even the males of the species—and it was clear to me now that they were loving this piece of real-life drama playing out right in front of their eyes. And the more I tried to convince them I was fine, the more they thought I was on the verge of death.

“Let’s take you home, Max,” said Dooley, gently placing his paw on my arm, like one would a recalcitrant patient in a mental hospital. “Nice and easy now. That’s it.”

“Get well soon, Max,” a voice rang out, and soon more cries of “Please don’t die, Max,” and “Hang in there, buddy,” echoed through the air.

And when Shanille came up to me, placed a paw on my shoulder, gave me a sad look, and said, “If you want cat choir to sing at your memorial service, Max, you’ve got it. And I’ll be sure to give you those last rites whenever you feel ready.” And then she clapped Harriet on the arm. “And Harriet here will sing a nice requiem. Won’t you, darling?”

“Absolutely,” said Harriet solemnly. “And Brutus can deliver the eulogy.”

And then they both gave me such a sad look that it kinda broke my spirit. It’s very hard to convince people you’re not dying when they’re all convinced that you are.

So I allowed Dooley to lead me away, and soon the hubbub of cat choir died away and it was just the two of us, walking side by side.

“Do you really think I’m dying, Dooley?” I finally asked.

“Try to stay positive, Max,” he said in response. “And trust Vena. She’s our last hope.”

“But—”

“Shush, Max. You need to save your strength.”

And so we walked on, and as we approached Harrington Street, all of a sudden there was a loud screeching sound overhead, and the next moment Moses had materialized out of the blue—or I should probably say the black, as it was a dark night—and attacked!

“Please don’t!” Dooley cried. “My friend here is sick and dying!”

“Good!” Moses yelled and came rocketing down at us at break-neck speed.

So we did what we usually do when large birds attack us from the sky: we ran for cover.

Lucky for us there were some hedgerows nearby, so we ducked underneath them, neatly thwarting Moses’s line of attack.

“Get out of there, you pussies!” the bird yelled. “Get out here where I can get you!”

“Fat chance!” I yelled back.

“Go away!” said Dooley. “I need to get my friend to a doctor. He’s dying, I tell you!”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week!” said Moses, and did something I hadn’t expected: he landed right in front of us, and came trotting up to where we were hiding.

And then he started picking at us with his big sharp beak!

“Ouch!” I said when he got me in the shoulder.

“You can’t do that!” said Dooley. “You can’t attack a dying cat!”

“Watch me,” said Moses, and gave me another peck on the head.

“Leave me alone!” I wailed, and suddenly remembered that I was actually a cat, and Moses was a bird, and that usually cats attack birds, not the other way around.

So I got out my claws and when next Moses lunged at me, I swiped at him and hit him on the beak!

“Hey, you can’t do that, cat!” he said. “No fair!”

“Be careful, Max!” said Dooley. “Don’t overexert yourself!”

But I suddenly didn’t feel weak at all. And instead of cowering underneath that hedge like a coward, I decided to fight back. The events of the past couple of days suddenly made me go a little berserk, and so I walked up to the bird, who must have seen that I meant business, and he actually reeled back!

“Come here, you big bird bully,” I growled. “Let me give you a lesson in humility.”

“Too late, Frank,” said Moses. “You ate my mother—you ate my brother—you ate my father—now you’re going to have to deal with me!” And he attacked!

“Wait—what did you just call me?”

“By your name, Frank,” said Moses. “Now taste my vengeance!”

“But… my name is Max,” I said. “Not Frank.”

The bird halted in his tracks. “What are you talking about? You’re Frank. I’d recognize that chubby orange form anywhere.”

“For your information, I’m not orange, I’m blorange,” I said. “And I’m not chubby, I’m big-boned. And my name is Max, not Frank.”

“Huh,” said the bird, sinking down on its tush from sheer bewilderment. “So you’re not the fat cat who likes to climb trees and attack birds near Harrington Street 58?”

“No, I’m the big-boned cat who likes to lie around the backyard of Harrington Street 44,” I said. “Though I think I know this Frank you’re referring to. He’s a bit of a rogue element, isn’t he? Very tough on birds.”

“You can say that again. He ate my mother, ate my brother, ate my father, and he was about to eat me when I decided to fight back!”

“Well, you fought back against the wrong cat,” I pointed out.

The bird cocked his head. “Oops,” he muttered. “Look, cat. I, um, I’m sorry for the nuisance. Um…” He gave me a sheepish look. “Anything I can do it make it up to you?”

I thought for a moment, then smiled. “Actually, there is something. Have you been hanging around here long?”

“All night,” he said. “Waiting for you to show your chubby—your big-boned face.”

“Did you happen to see a person deliver a letter to number 44 about two hours ago?”

“Oh, sure,” said the bird. “I was wondering already why you’d suddenly moved from number 58 to number 44, but then figured you were trying to escape my vengeance.”

“Can you describe that person to me?”

And when Moses gave me the description, a few pieces of the puzzle fell into place.