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“Gruesome,” said Brutus, duly impressed by our harrowing adventure.

“These are not very nice people,” said Dooley. “And Leo’s mother is the worst of the bunch.”

“Is she behind the whole thing?” asked Brutus.

“You mean did she kill her son?” I said. “That wouldn’t surprise me.”

“If she can kill a cat, she can kill a human,” said Dooley with iron logic.

“She’s mean,” I agreed. “Capable of just about anything.”

Just then, we heard screams and shouts coming from the other side of the pond, and to my surprise it was the same woman we’d been verbally filleting, and who seemed to have landed herself in hot water herself now. Though I should probably say cold water, for as a rule duck ponds are not hot tubs.

“It’s Mrs. Flake,” I said as we hurried over to where the screams seemed to be coming from. And just as we reached the spot, the woman was going under for the third time, and the only thing that remained were bubbles reaching the surface. Then all was quiet as the watery grave closed above her head…

“We have to save her!” said Harriet.

“Yeah, but how?” I said. Cats, to their detriment, are not equipped with the type of accessories that allow for a waterlogged existence: webbed toes and gills and such. Even if we braved all and jumped into the water, what good would it do? We’d probably perish ourselves, and end up at the bottom.

Then Dooley suddenly started yelling his head off.“Heeeeelp!” he screamed. “Heeeeeeelp us!”

I felt bad for the kid. Obviously the day’s many brushes with danger and peril had gotten to him, and now he’d lost what little sanity he had left.

Soon, though, a cow waddled up to take a closer look.

“What’s going on?” she asked in her customary amiable way.

“Somebody’s drowning!” Dooley said. “You have to help her!”

“Ooh, that’s a job for Francis,” she said, then displaced a wad of grass from one cheek to the other and hollered, “Francis! We’ve got a jumper!”

Francis the donkey came toddling up, and directed a curious look at the pond.“No can do,” he said after a moment’s deliberation. “Too deep for me, I’m afraid. But maybe Streaker can handle it. Streaker! Come here a minute, will ya?”

Streaker the horse came cantering up.“Yes? Yes?” she said, eager for any fate. It was obvious that here was a horse dying to get some serious action.

“Jumper,” said Francis, indicating the pond with his hoof.

“Ooh, wee!” said Streaker happily, and jumped headfirst into the pond!

Moments later she returned grabbing the old lady between her large teeth, then proceeded to drag her onto the shore!

“Way to go, Streaker,” said Brutus with admiration.

“Now we need to do CPR,” said Dooley, happy that his plan was working but still not fully satisfied with the outcome.

“CPR?” asked Streaker eagerly. “What is CPR? Can I do it? Please?”

“Thump her chest and then put your lips on hers,” said Brutus, “and blow.”

“Thump, lips and blow,” said Streaker excitedly. “I can do it.”

“Let me handle this, fellas,” said the pig, who’d joined the festivities. “I have the build for this kind of thing.” And so she heaved herself down on the woman’s chest for a moment, then put her lips to Leonora’s and blew hard.

“Nothing doing,” she said after a moment. “Looks dead to me.”

“Well, don’t you just stand there!” Francis told two sheep who’d come shambling up. “You perform heart massage while Empress does her thing.”

The pig, whose name appeared to be Empress, gave a curt nod of agreement, and soon the sheep showed a side of themselves I’d rarely seen in the Discovery Channel’s nature movies: they gently put their front hooves on the woman’s chest and started performing heart massage while Empress kept blowing into the woman’s mouth.

“Let me do it!” said Streaker. “I can do it! Let me do it!”

“Shush,” said Francis, who seemed to be the donkey in charge. “Empress is a natural. She’ll pull this off—just you wait and see.”

And then, suddenly, a miracle! The corpse came to life again with a start: first she spewed out a stream of mucky pond scum, and then she actually started sputtering and coughing. The ducks, who’d been awakened by all this activity, waddled up onto the shore, took one look at the drowning victim, then waddled off again. They obviously had no sympathy for landlubbers.

“Yesss!” said Francis. “We did it, you guys. She’s saved!”

“How are you doing, ma’am?” inquired Empress politely. “Anything else I can help you with? I have some nice slop in my trough you’re welcome to.”

Mrs. Flake stared at the pig with a horrified expression on her face. Unfortunately the pig mistook the look she gave her for a cry for help, and so put her lips to Mrs. Flake’s again, and blew some more hot air into her lungs.

“Blech!” the woman uttered curtly, and frantically wiped her lips. And then she threw up some more pond scum, showing us how alive she really was.

“A success story, you guys,” said the cow happily.

“A miracle,” said one of the sheep, and bleated its delight.

“Teamwork!” said Francis the donkey.