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Marco touched his tail carefully.“Can he do that?” he whispered. “The tail thing?” He was kind of attached to his tail.

Polo shook her head.“He’s bluffing,” she said. She just hoped she was right.

She took a deep breath and tried again.“We know Butterbean, your friend. She will—”

“So you’ve got Butterbean, have you?” Biscuit growled. “WELL, YOU WON’T GET PAST ME!” He let off another volley of barking, leaping on and off the bench and racing around the room.

A loud thumping sound came from the apartment next door.“QUIET!” a voice shouted.

Biscuit turned to the wall and let out a howl.

“That must be Teacher Man,” Polo said. “In 2B?”

“We should go. We’re making it worse,” Marco said, watching Biscuit race around the room. He’d never heard Teacher Man yell like that. “But we did what we said we’d do. We passed on the message. So it was kind of a successful mission?”

“I guess,” Polo said. They hadn’t been very successful at getting Biscuit to stop barking.

Marco backed away from the grate.“I don’t think we convinced him, though.”

Polo shook her head.“No. But did you see? He was looking out of that window. He’s barking at something specific.” The fur on her neck prickled. “Something outside.”

— 3 —

“SO THE FIRST THING WE need to do,” Oscar said, watching Mrs. Food carefully, “is to come up with a plan.”

Mrs. Food and Madison were in the dining room having breakfast. Oscar usually had his breakfast then too, but these were special circumstances. If the white cat was right, they didn’t have much time. His stomach would have to wait.

“Right,” Walt agreed. (She’d had her breakfast earlier.) “We need to figure out how Butterbean can make contact. Once we’ve done that, we can set up the meeting.”

Oscar cocked his head.“Butterbean, where do you usually run into Biscuit? Do you see him on your walk every day?”

“No,” Butterbean said, her mouth full of kibble. (Her stomach wasn’t worried about special circumstances.) “I mean, sometimes. But not always. It doesn’t matter, though.”

“I think it does, Butterbean,” Oscar said thoughtfully. “It will make planning harder.” Butterbean had never been the head of an International Crime Syndicate, so she obviously wasn’t aware of the detail involved.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that,” Butterbean said, drooling a little as she finished the kibble. “I have a plan already. It’s all set.”

Oscar blinked.

“You have a plan,” he said.

“Yup,” Butterbean said.

“It’s all set,” Oscar said.

“Yup,” Butterbean said, licking her food dish. “I worked it out with Marco and Polo. We’ve got it all figured out.”

“You worked it out. With Marco and Polo?” Oscar looked at the rats questioningly.

“We’re STEALTHY SPIES now, Oscar!” Polo said proudly. “We came up with a SUPER-SECRET PLAN.”

Marco nodded, doing some stretches. It was important to warm up before a super-secret spy mission.“We thought since it was our first mission—”

“Second mission,” Polo interrupted.

“Second mission,” Marco corrected himself. “We thought we should keep it simple. We could use extra help, though.”

“Are you in?” Polo asked, bobbing anxiously on the balls of her feet. “We need you, Oscar.”

“You too, Walt,” Marco said, doing air punches as he ran in place. “We need all the help we can get.”

“Trust us—it’s a solid plan,” Polo said. “It’s pretty much guaranteed to succeed.”

“Pretty much,” Marco agreed.

Walt shrugged.“We’re in,” she said. There was no point in arguing, not with those kind of odds. “Pretty much guaranteed success, Oscar,” she said with a raised eyebrow.

“So you’re, what, just hoping that you’ll run into Biscuit on your walk?” Oscar didn’t think that sounded like pretty much guaranteed success, especially given how easily Butterbean was distracted. It sounded like pretty much guaranteed failure.

“No,” Butterbean snorted. “Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, good, because—”

Butterbean sat up straighter.“I’m going to his apartment.”

Oscar stared at her.“You’re just… going to his apartment?” Well, it was a simple plan, he had to give them that much.

“Wait, what?” Walt tried to keep her expression neutral.

“Isn’t that perfect? We’ve got it all worked out,” Polo said.

“But you can’t fit in the vents,” Walt said slowly.

“We’re not using them,” Marco said. “Butterbean’s just taking a little detour on her walk. That’s all.”

Walt and Oscar exchanged a look. Oscar sighed.“Okay. Sure. What do we do?” He could already think of a million ways this could go wrong, but he wasn’t going to say anything. They weren’t supposed to be investigating things anyway. They were supposed to be retired.

“Okay, I’ll fill you in on the TOP SECRET PLANS,” Butterbean said, spraying a fine mist of kibble dust as she hurried over to Oscar’s cage. When she got there, she looked around carefully before leaning against the cage stand in her most casual way. She didn’t want to be too obvious.

“So this is the plan,” Butterbean whispered once she was sure no one was watching them. “When Mrs. Food and Madison finish breakfast, we’re going to—”