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“I have soul,” said Dooley, and broke into a boogie-woogie, shaking his hips and swishing his tail and generally dancing to a snatch of music only he could hear.

Harriet stared at him for a moment, then dismissed him with a flick of her paw.“You have to join me tonight for a meeting that will change your life, Max. I promise you that all the answers to all the questions you’ve ever asked yourself over the course of a lifetime will finally be revealed. You’ll leave Master Sharif’s presence a new cat.”

“I don’t want to be a new cat,” I announced, and thought that should fix her.

“Oh, Max,” she said with a smile. “That’s what you think now, but wait till you’ve heard Master Sharif address you personally. You’ll never be the same again.”

“What if I want to be the same again?”

“Well, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t. Shanille is also coming, and so is Kingman. In fact I’ve invited the entire cat choir. So if you don’t come you’ll be the odd one out, and you don’t want to be left behind while all of your friends are joining the movement, do you, Max?”

I hesitated. This was a pretty powerful argument.“Shanille and Kingman are going?”

“And so are you. And Dooley, of course,” she said, giving our boogie-woogieing friend a quick sideways glance, as if he was nothing but a mere afterthought.

“Where am I going?” asked Dooley, interested.

“Tavern Street 56 at eight o’clock on the dot. Be there or be square,” she said, and then swept out from under the rhododendron, displaying all the hallmarks of a busy cult recruiter about to spread her message of hope and eternal peace to other beneficiaries.

“See?!” cried Brutus. “This is exactly what I was trying to avoid! Now we’re all in for it. Master Sharif is going to recruit our friends, and if we refuse to sign up we’ll be left out!”

“Impossible,” I said. “Shanille, for one, is a staunch Catholic and will never allow herself to become a member of some sketchy cult. And Kingman is too down-to-earth and pragmatic to get involved in anything wishy-washy.” I gave Brutus a comforting pat on the back. “Don’t you worry about a thing, my friend. I have the situation well in paw. Tonight we’re going to expose Master Sharif for exactly what he is: a fraud and a shill. And we’re going to free Harriet from his spiritual clutches.”

For some reason Brutus didn’t seem entirely convinced. I, on the other hand, was absolutely sanguine about my scheme. No cult was going to recruit me. And definitely not a cult led by a man named Omar and a cat named Sharif. Or my name wasn’t Max.

Chapter 4

Odelia stepped out of the offices of theHampton Cove Gazette, her mind already thinking up ways and means of worming her way into this Soul Science leader’s good graces and extracting the kinds of confidences from him that can be turned into hard-hitting copy, when she almost bumped into her grandmother, hovering on the sidewalk.

“Oh, hey, Gran,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

What had prompted this inquiry into her grandmother’s well-being was the fact that the old lady with the pale blue eyes and the little white curls was staring at her intently, a slight smile playing about her lips.

Suddenly Gran held up her phone and directed it at her granddaughter.“Odelia Poole, reporter for theHampton Cove Gazette. What, in your opinion, is the meaning of life?”

Odelia stared at the phone, and saw from the green light that it was actually filming.

“Um…” she said, her usual eloquence suddenly abandoning her.

“The meaning of life,” Gran urged in her raspy voice. “What’s it all about, huh?”

“I…” She opened and closed her mouth like a fish on dry land for a few moments.

“Okay, maybe let’s start with an easier one. Tell me about happiness.”

“Happiness,” Odelia repeated, staring from her grandmother to the phone. She’d been on camera before, but not when being bombarded with these hardball questions.

“Yeah, what makes a person happy?” Gran prompted. “What makesyou happy?”

“I guess… a good meal,” she said. When Gran rolled her eyes, she knew this wasn’t the answer her grandmother was looking for. “My family makes me happy,” she tried again.

“Wrong answer. Next question. What kind of society do you wanna live in?”

“What kind of society would I like to live in,” said Odelia, stalling for time. “Um, I guess a nice society?”

Gran turned off her phone.“You’re not even trying!” she cried. “Anice society? What kind of a lame-ass answer is that? I expected more from you. Being a reporter and all.”

“You ambushed me! I wasn’t prepared!”

“That’s exactly the point. I want straight answers. Honest answers.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “What’s this all about? Why are you doing this?”

Gran pushed out her chest.“I’ve joined a cult, and this is part of the program.”

“A cult!” said Odelia. “Not Soul Science!”

Gran gave her a look of suspicion.“What do you know about Soul Science?”