45ebf3c490593574dd454e5dfd5a5758

“Hi,” I said, happy that even in this strange part of the world we were already making friends and influencing birds. “So do you live on this ship?”

The birds shared a look again, and once more burst into laughter.“You’re really funny, Max,” said Jack.

“Yeah, a real joker,” said Frank. “Do we live on this ship? Sure we live on this ship, and every other ship that crosses these waters.”

“We don’t necessarily live anywhere, Max,” Jack explained when I just stared at him. “We just go where the food is, see?”

“Oh, I certainly do,” I said, much relieved to hit upon something we shared. “We also go where the food is, don’t we, Dooley?”

“Absolutely. And since the food is usually with our humans, that’s where we made our home.”

“Oh, so you guys have a home, huh?”

“Yeah, we do,” I said, “with just about the best human in the world.”

“Maybe you know her,” said Dooley. “Odelia Poole. She’s a famous reporter.”

“Nah. Never heard of her,” said Frank.

“She just got married to Chase, who’s a cop, and now they’re taking this cruise as a honeymoon, and they’re going to make lots of babies by the time they get back.”

“Oh, boy,” said Jack with a grin. “If you keep this up we’re gonna die laughing, Dooley.”

“Two comedians,” said his buddy. “If I’d known cats were so funny I’d have laid off them.”

“Laid off them?” I asked with a smile. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind. Here comes your human. Which means we’re off.”

“See you, cats,” said Jack.

“Yeah, see you,” I said, and gave them a wave as they spread their wings and took off.

“Nice birds, don’t you think, Max?” said Dooley.

“Yeah, very nice,” I agreed. I turned to welcome Odelia, but then saw that Frank was wrong: the people making their way in our direction weren’t Odelia and Chase but the influencers Chiquita and Oren. And they didn’t look very happy.

“I don’t believe this,” Chiquita was saying. “I thought you had more sense, Oren.”

“Oh, I’m the one who should have more sense? What about you?”

“Look, if I’d known that you were doing this for the money I’d never have agreed to give up my job and go on this trip with you.”

They were leaning on the railing and speaking in low tones, but there was definitely a causticity to their words.

“And if I’d known that you were such a boring do-gooder I’d have dumped your ass ages ago,” Oren snapped.

“I don’t understand, Oren. When we got into this we agreed that saving the planet is the only course of action worth pursuing, so what made you change your mind?”

“You never told me that all you wanted to do was save the planet!”

“I understand that we need money to keep this venture going, but more importantly we need to show the world how beautiful our planet is, and motivate people to do what they can to save it. We have no planet B, Oren—this is all we have.”

“And we can do all of that while making a nice living—in fact better than nice. We can make a great living, if only you’d sacrifice some of those lofty principles of yours.”

“Like what?”

“Like asking Lil Thug to give us an exclusive interview!”

“You really want to taint our noble cause by giving that idiot a platform?”

“For your information, Chiquita, that ‘idiot’ is only one of the most successful rappers in the world. If we can get an exclusive one-on-one with him, it would mean—”

“A lot of money. Yes, I know.”

Oren stared out across the ocean, his jaw working, his face a thundercloud. He turned to his partner.“Chiquita, we’re almost broke! This trip is costing us an arm and a leg!”

“I know, but excuse me for having principles, and excuse me for not being a sellout like you.”

“You take that back, Chiquita K?n?nen.”

“It’s the truth!”

“Oh, dear,” I said, as I gave Dooley a gentle nudge. “I think we better leave these two alone, Dooley.”

“Yes, they don’t seem to get along very well, do they?”

“No, they certainly don’t.”

And so we discreetly skedaddled. If there’s one thing that can mar the perfect honeymoon it’s the presence of a warring couple, and so we both decided not to tell Odelia about this little incident. They’d come here to enjoy a wonderful honeymoon, and we were going to make sure they got exactly what they wanted—smooth sailing.

4

“Why do humans travel by boat, Max?” asked Dooley.

We were seated under Odelia’s chair while our humans were enjoying a nice dinner. The ship’s departure had gone off without a hitch, and we were well underway for a wonderful journey along some of the Caribbean’s hotspots. Odelia had managed to find a friendly steward who’d provided us with some delicious cat food, and as far as I was concerned, things were all right with the world once more.