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Harriet smiled a fine smile.“Just leave that to me,” she said, as an idea was already starting to form in her resourceful mind.

CHAPTER 4

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The snail incident was soon forgotten, especially when it transpired that once again Grace had gotten it into her nut to freely distribute our food supply across the kitchen floor. Only this time it wasn’t kibble but the contents of a pouch of wet food, and so when Odelia found her daughter sitting on the floor of the kitchen, hands and face liberally smeared with premium cat food, and also her clothes and part of the floor and even the walls, she heaved an exasperated groan, and picked up her daughter to remove the remnants of our lunch from the girl’s person.

“Now what are we supposed to eat?” I grumbled as I sat beside my empty bowl.

“The fact that Grace likes our food is a good sign,” said Dooley. “Babies have an innate sense of taste and smell. They instinctively know what’s good for them.”

“I think you’ll find that’s actually cats, Dooley, not babies. A baby will put anything in its mouth, whether it’s good for them or not. Which is why most parents confine their infants to a playpen when they’re old enough to crawl, so they can’t go around putting all kinds of stuff intotheir mouths, including our lunch!”

Honestly I was waiting for the day that Grace would become a regular upstanding human, just like the rest of them, and stopped messing around and making a nuisance of herself. But as Odelia had explained, this would take a number of years. Humans, as we all know, are very slow, and take many years to turn into adults. And then of course there are those humans who never fully grow up, and remain infants all of their lives. If Gran is to be believed, this includes all the males of the species, though I’m not sure if she was speaking in jest or not.

Chase came wandering into the kitchen, took one look at our empty bowls and our pleading pitiful expressions, and emitted a low chuckle.“Always hungry, aren’t you, fellas?” And then he shook his head and walked out again.

“He seems to believe it was us who emptied our bowls,” Dooley lamented.

“Yeah, dads will always defend their young,” I said. “So even though Grace is the culprit here, as far as her dad is concerned, she’s as innocent as a newborn baby.”

And since no more food was forthcoming, we decided to skedaddle. If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s admitting defeat when it’s staring us right in the face.

And so we left the kitchen through the pet flap and ventured out into the backyard once more. Where we almost bumped into Harriet and Brutus, who had selected that moment to venture into the house.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “Grace smeared all of our food across herself and the kitchen floor, and Chase seems to think we ate it all, so it’s another day of dieting.”

“I’m not interested in food, thank you very much,” said Harriet, as if the mere thought of tucking into a full plate of food disgusted her. “In actual fact we’re here to argue Fifi and Rufus’s case.”

“What case?” I asked, not following our friend’s reasoning.

“Well, Rufus wants to compete in the upcoming dog show, and so does Fifi, only they both need to secure permission slips from their humans. So now we want Odelia or Marge or Gran to talk to Ted and Marcie and Kurt about it.”

“Good luck with that,” I said. “Kurt Mayfield will never allow Fifi to enter any competition. He’s dead set against that kind of malarkey, as he calls it.”

“I know, which is why I was thinking that Odelia could take Fifi. I mean, who’s to know Fifi isn’t hers? The jury won’t know, and it would make Fifi so happy.”

It certainly was a good idea, and I saw no flaws in her reasoning. Except one.

“What if Kurt finds out? He’ll be furious. And you know how Odelia hates upsetting her neighbor.”

“There’s no way Kurt will find out. Unless Fifi wins, of course, and her name and picture are printed in the paper. But we all know she doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Doesn’t stand a chance of what?” asked a familiar voice in our rear. When we slowly turned, we saw that we’d been joined by the lady of the hour: Fifi herself.

“Oh, nothing,” said Harriet quickly.

“For your information, when I enter a competition, I intend to win,” said Fifi, proving that she’d heard the entire conversation. And from the way she sat there frowning at us, it was obvious she didn’t like the implication of Harriet’s words.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Fifi,” said Harriet quickly. “What I meant was—”

“Oh, I know perfectly well what you meant, Harriet,” said Fifi coldly. “And even though I appreciate you trying to help me, I’ll tell you right now that I don’t need any help.” She eyed us one by one, fixing us with a frosty look. “From any of you!”

And with these words, the otherwise mild-mannered Yorkie turned on her heel and strode off, back to the hole in the fence that she’d dug there herself, to provide easy coming and going.

Harriet eyed me uncertainly.“Do you think I should go after her and apologize?”