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“I picked you because I love you, and that hasn’t changed in all these years. In fact I might love you even more now than I did when we first met.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I do, too,” he murmured, and then they kissed again.

Vesta, who’d come into the living room to watch some television, grunted, “Oh, get a room,” and walked out again.

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“I think this is it, Jer,” said Johnny.

“I think you’re right, Johnny,” said Jerry.

They’d just managed to cut a nice hole in the steel plate, and were now waiting for the smoke to clear and the metal to cool off. Johnny had slid up the goggles he used when handling the blowtorch, and waited with bated breath for the result of his efforts.

Finally Jerry decided the coast was clear, and stuck his hand in. When he pulled it out again, it wasn’t filled with gold or coins or even jewels. Instead, he was grasping a big brown paper envelope, and stared at it, an expression of annoyance on his ferrety face.

He then stuck his hand back in and searched around.

Nothing.

“It’s empty!” he cried, aghast.

“What’s in the envelope?” asked Johnny.

“Who cares! It can’t be gold or cash!”

“Could be bearer bonds or checks.”

With a growl, Jerry tore open the envelope. It contained a sheaf of papers. Scanning the first page, he frowned.“It’s a contract. A contract! Who keeps contracts in their safe! Of all the stupid…”

And he was about to tear the contract into little pieces when Johnny took them from his hands. He studied them carefully.“Hey, Jer, this must be the Mayor’s safe. It says here Dirk Dunham. Isn’t that the name of the new mayor?”

“Who cares? It’s just a stupid document! Let’s do the next one. Come on!”

Johnny nodded and did as he was told, but as he thought about the contract, an idea started to creep into his mind. It wasn’t a fully formed idea, but the seed of an idea. It would take a little time before it grew into an actual notion, but as he lowered the safety goggles over his eyes and lit up the blowtorch, it was gestating away in that big head of his.

He had a feeling it was a good idea—a super idea—but couldn’t quite grasp it yet.

Chapter 30

Odelia had parked her pickup down the road from the Farnsworth house. I’d told her how to get to the chicken shed, and she’d listened carefully.

She now pulled a black mask over her face, two holes where her eyes were, and Dooley and I stared at her.

“What’s with the mask?” I asked.

“Duh. So people won’t recognize me, of course.”

“Oh,” I said. “Of course.”

“You look like a crook,” Dooley laughed.

“You look like a bank robber,” Brutus grinned.

“You look like a monster,” Harriet giggled.

“I look like a person who doesn’t want to get caught trespassing,” said Odelia, and got out, then opened the back door for us so we could do the same. “Now listen to me very carefully. If by some unfortunate circumstance I should get caught, you run like the wind, you hear me? You don’t let these people catch you.”

“But you’re not going to get caught, are you, Odelia?” said Dooley, a note of worry in his voice. “I mean, you’re wearing the mask, so you can’t get caught, right?”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet. “That mask isn’t going to prevent her from getting caught.”

“Oh,” said Dooley, processing this nugget of information. “So maybe you shouldn’t wear it?”

“Let’s get going,” said Odelia, who was done wasting time explaining the hows and whys of this most important chicken mission. She’d brought her camera, so she could snap pictures of the chickens, and even shoot a video.

So we all set paw for the chicken shed, and followed Odelia’s instructions, which were to keep quiet until we got to our destination. But of course those instructions had fallen on deaf ears with Harriet.

“I still don’t understand why you told Fifi she could use my litter box,” she said now.

“Because she asked us to,” said Dooley, “and she looked so sad.”

“That’s still no reason to let her take a huge dump in my litter box. Now Marge had to go and change all of my litter again.”

“But why?” I asked. “She just changed it this morning.”

“I’m not going on a litter box that has been used by a dog!” said Harriet indignantly.

“It was just the one little doo-doo,” said Dooley.

“Oh, no, it wasn’t. You should have seen that doo-doo. It was a gigantic pile of doo-doo. I didn’t even know a tiny dog like Fifi could produce a doo-doo that big.”

“She’d been keeping it in,” I said, “so she probably saved up.”

“Well, she was happy,” said Dooley. “And isn’t that what life is all about, doing little favors here and there, carrying old ladies’ groceries and making dogs happy?”

“Besides, you made that dog a lot of promises, Harriet,” I pointed out. “You said litter would make her skin glow, and her fur nice and shiny like yours.”

“That’s sales talk!” said Harriet. “Everybody knows sales talk is a bunch of baloney.”

“Fifi doesn’t know. She believed everything you told her.”

“She was really looking forward to all that muscularity,” said Dooley.

“I probably shouldn’t have told her that,” Brutus grunted. “I guess I got carried away.”