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“Oh my whiskers! I’ve never seen such a beautiful place! We have to go! We have to go!” Octo-Cat crooned as I opened my eyes and blinked hard.

Noticing I was now awake, my cat doubled down.“Angela, tell the old woman to get off at this exit!”

Paisley barked in an extra hyper, extra high pitch, the way she did whenever she was too excited to form actual words.

My head pounded as I tried to figure out where we were and what time it was. The night sky still hung dark above us, the road empty, and yet all of my companions seemed to be wide awake.

“Angela, take the wheel! We’re almost to the exit! We can’t miss it!” my cat continued to caterwaul.

I glanced over to Nan who appeared to be flagging behind the wheel. Her hands hung loosely over the steering column as she drove with her wrists at ten and two.

“Nan!” I cried. “You should have woken me up!”

“Huh? What?” She turned to look at me for just the briefest of moments, but it was enough.

Thump, thump! Thump!

The car jerked off the road and into the ditch at the shoulder.

Paisley let out a panicked yelp.

Octo-Cat hissed.

And I held on for dear life.

Then the airbags deployed, waking up my senses and grounding me in our terrible new reality. We’d crashed!

Nan sobbed beside me.“My poor, poor baby. What have I done to you?” Once again she was talking to her car.

It would be up to me to take stock and make sure nobody was hurt.

“Paisley?” I called, knowing instantly that she was most at risk given her less than five-pound frame.

“That was scary,” she whimpered from behind me. “I fell on the floor, but it only hurt a little.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, then took another deep breath before asking,“Octo-Cat? Are you okay?”

“I am not happy about this turn of events, Angela,” he growled. It wasn’t his usual peeved-off growl, but rather something low, deep, and incredibly intimidating. Oh no. What now?

When I turned around, my neck twinged in pain, but I was able to see that he was still sitting on the seat with his claws sunk deep into the leather upholstery.

Bits of cushion popped through where his claws had snagged the seating. I picked up a blanket from the floor and tossed it over the seat so Nan wouldn’t notice. She was already worked up enough without seeing this particular display.

“I am outraged!” my cat informed me from beneath the blanket before popping his head out a moment later. He left his body covered as he lectured me for this latest indignity. “When I requested we make a pit stop, it was so that we could see the largest aquarium in the state. Not for whatever this was.”

“The largest… in the state? Where are we?” I wondered aloud. I knew we were somewhere between our home in Maine and Grizabella’s in Colorado, but where?

“Michi-bun,” Paisley provided. “At least that’s what Nan said when we passed a big sign a while ago. Welcome to Michi-bun.”

Michigan. That put us a little less than halfway into our journey, which also meant that despite our best attempts, we were making terrible time.

I shot daggers at my cat, realizing that for all the anger he had toward me right now, I had far more reason to be upset with him.“All this screaming and fuss was about an aquarium which wouldn’t even be open at this time of night. Seriously? You have an aquarium back home!”

“It’s not the largest one in the state, though. I want to see this one.”

“Not a chance.” I whipped back to face front. Ouch, my poor neck. “You’ll be lucky if we even still get to see Grizabella at this point.”

“Nooooooooooo!” he screamed, launching himself into my lap, claws still extended. “You can’t do that to me.”

“Ouch. Bad kitty!” I spat as I grabbed him off my lap and returned him to the back seat. My neck twisted in pain.

“Nan,” I nudged, noticing her still hunched over the deployed airbag, stroking the car’s dashboard. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but my poor girl is a wreck.”

“It’ll be okay. This is what insurance is for,” I offered with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “We need to focus on getting some help. Should I look up a tow place on my phone?”

“No,” she said with another sniff and a sob. “I have a friend in the area. She’ll come and get us.”

“Okay, but you should probably call now. We don’t know how much damage has been done to the car or how long it will take to get it road-ready again.”

She shook her head and a fresh rivulet of tears ran down both cheeks.“I’m so sorry about this, dear. I should have asked you to take over, but I didn’t think I was that tired.”

“It’s okay. Really. Accidents happen,” I said, although I couldn’t ever remember when one had happened to me. “We’re all fine. That’s what counts.”

Nan unbuckled her seatbelt and got out to observe the damage.

I followed suit, my feet sinking into the spring mud with a squelching sound.

“I don’t know what happened,” she muttered, staring at the immobilized vehicle with a dumbfounded expression. “I wasn’t even that tired. I—”

What had happened couldn’t be changed. Now it was up to me to keep Nan from descending into a vicious spiral of guilt.