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Vesta rolled her eyes, and raised her voice to drown out the annoying reporter.“Though if you want we could go with Clooney, of course. He’s still a solid performer, though he’s getting a bit long in the tooth now. Or how about Brad? Going strong, right?”

But the doctor didn’t pay attention. Instead, he got up and said, “I gotta go.”

“You mean to pick up Chris Pratt’s sample? Can’t you have it FedExed?”

But instead of responding, Doc Clam was hurrying out the room, and moments later she heard the front door slam, and when she glanced through the window, saw his car backing out of the driveway and then race off with tires screaming.

She blinked.“So how about Alec Baldwin? He’s local.”

Chapter 23

Odelia had finally left, and so had the other pet parents, and we’d all been allocated to different nurses’ stations for our physicals.

Harriet, Brutus, Dooley and I had been placed outside nurses’ station number five, along with half a dozen other pets, all of them cats. I saw from the lines at other stations that the Peppard Pet Food people had grouped us according to species: dogs together, rabbits together, hamsters, turtles…

Fortunately for us we knew all the cats lining up with us. They were all members of cat choir, obviously, and we had known them for years. Tigger was there, the plumber’s cat, and so was Buster, the barber’s cat, and Misty, the electrician’s cat, and Missy, the landscaper’s tabby, and Shadow, whose owner Franklin Beaver runs the hardware store. In fact I saw a lot of familiar faces in other lines, too. So maybe Harriet was right. This was a great opportunity to strengthen those eternal bonds of friendship.

“I’m so excited, you guys!” said Tigger. “Pet food for life! How great is that?”

“I’m not so sure about this physical, though,” said Buster. “As a rule I don’t like physicals. Each time Fido takes me to Vena, I puke. Literally puke all over the backseat. It’s horrible. Though probably more horrible for Fido, as he has to clean it all up.”

“Nobody likes Vena,” said Brutus.

“Yeah, Vena is the worst,” Missy agreed.

“Though you have to admit she knows her stuff,” I said. “Last time I was there she fixed my teeth. I’m not one to sing her praises, as all veterinarians are evil, obviously.”

“Obviously,” my fellow felines echoed.

“But she did me a good turn there.”

“I just hope they give me a clean bill of health,” said Misty. “What if I don’t get approved? What if I flunk the physical and they send me home empty-pawed!”

“They won’t send you home,” said Harriet. “This is just a formality.”

“Yeah, they just want to establish a baseline of health and fitness,” said Shadow, “so they can determine whether their pet food diet has made a difference after three days.”

“Three days is not enough,” said Brutus. “They should keep us here for three weeks, minimum. Then they’ll be able to tell if their Miracle Cure makes a difference or not.”

“But I don’t want to stay here for three weeks,” said Dooley.

“No, me neither,” I admitted.

“Three weeks is too long,” Misty agreed.

But then the line moved, and suddenly it was my turn!

I was grabbed by a very pleasantly plump young nurse who put me on a scale, then checked my teeth, listened to my heart and lungs, checked my paws, and proceeded to prod and poke me in places I really didn’t like to be prodded and poked, except maybe by Odelia, and even then only on a good day. Still, I allowed her to do all this, as a big poster on the wall said, ‘Miracle Cure: give your beloved pet the gift of life!’

Well, I don’t know about you, but I enjoy life, and I would never say no to having more of it.

Finally the physical was over, and I was handed off to a matronly woman who grabbed me by the neck and unceremoniously carried me off, then stuck me… in a cage!

The door locked and I found myself staring at the iron bars of a real cage, just like the one at Vena’s!

This wasn’t part of the deal. I’d anticipated spending quality time in a playroom, enjoy a nice mani-pedi and watching others climb one of those climbing racks while I shot the breeze with my friends while gobbling up my body weight in Miracle Cure.

As I glanced around, I saw that I was in a room full of similar cages, over half of them occupied by equally-stunned-looking pets, who certainly hadn’t signed up for this.

“Yelp,” I said, hunkering down and tucking my tail around my buttocks in dismay. “Odelia, help!”

But of course Odelia was long gone.

Suddenly a big hatch opened in the cage’s ceiling and something dropped down. It was kibble. The hatch closed again with a metallic sound, and as I stared at the small ration, I realized this was the famous Miracle Cure kibble. I licked one up and distributed it around my mouth, then grimaced and spat it out again. Yuck! It tasted like cardboard soaked in vinegar!

A noise alerted me of a presence nearby, and when I glanced over, I saw that a camera was carefully filming my every move.