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“See? Well, I’m leaving. I’ve got a photo shoot tomorrow,” the white cat said, turning to leave. Then she hesitated. “Oh. You might be interested in knowing. Those raccoons have taken over the storage area. They’re going through everyone’s stuff. Anyway, cheers!” She disappeared.

Walt looked up at Oscar.“Well, that’s not good.”

Oscar sighed.“It’s not our problem. I’m sorry, but we need to stay out of it.”

“But…” Butterbean started, but Oscar held up one wing.

“Butterbean. This is a large number of raccoons, whatever we call them. We’re just a group of seven pets.”

Butterbean sat up.“Excuse me, but we’re an International Crime Syndicate and Investigator Gang,” she said indignantly.

“And spies,” Marco said sleepily from the top of the water bottle. “Don’t forget spies.”

“Well. True. But as spies, we need to know when to fade into the background. This is one of those times. Let someone else clean up the mess for once.” Oscar puffed his feathers out. “Besides, I’m sure this will all blow over soon. Trust me. You’ll see.”

He tucked his head under his wing.

He didn’t realize how wrong he was.

— 9 —

“WOW, I HAD THE WEIRDEST dream last night,” Madison said to Mrs. Food at breakfast the next morning. Five sets of eyes slowly turned to look at her. “I was in the living room, right? And there was a ghost cat and a tiny little sailor, who I think was a mouse or something? Maybe a squirrel? And all the pets were there, and they were just staring at me. Kind of like…” Madison trailed off as she looked into the living room. “… that.”

Butterbean was listening so intently that she had forgotten to chew and had kibble dribbling out of her mouth. Walt had paused midlick with one paw extended. Marco and Polo had their faces pressed up to the side of their cage (with unintentionally hilarious results). Oscar was frozen with one foot hovering over his food dish.

When they noticed Madison noticing them, they immediately unfroze and pretended to be engrossed in their activities. (Marco and Polo didn’t really have any activity to pretend to do, so they just inspected the side of their cage thoughtfully.)

“Huh.” Madison frowned. Then she turned back to Mrs. Food. “But then I was in the kitchen and—”

There was a knock at the front door.

“Did they say anything? The animals?” Mrs. Food took a piece of toast as Madison jumped up from the table.

“I don’t think so. But it was so real! And oh! There was an octopus!” Madison opened the front door. Bob the maintenance man was standing in the doorway holding a clipboard.

“Oh, hi,” Madison said. “Mrs. Fudeker? It’s Bob.” Madison smiled quickly at Bob and then stepped back so he could come inside.

Butterbean stopped eating again, dribbling more kibble. Too many interesting things were happening. There was no way she could concentrate on food.

Bob pretty much ran things at the Strathmore Building. He had a history with Butterbean and Walt. He’d always been more than a little suspicious of their activities, but he’d never found any concrete evidence to hold against them. (Butterbean had concrete reasons for being suspicious of Bob, but she kept them to herself.)

“Sorry to bother you all so early,” Bob said, clearing his throat. “So. It looks like we’ve had an incident down in the storage room. A lady on the sixth floor has made a complaint.”

“Probably Mrs. Hates Dogs on Six,” Butterbean whispered darkly. “She complains about EVERYTHING.”

Bob consulted his clipboard.“She says the valuables in her storage unit have been ransacked, and some things are missing. We’re planning to set up additional cameras, but in the meantime, you might want to check and see if you’re missing any items.”

“Wow, that’s terrible!” Madison said.

“Yes, terrible.” Mrs. Food looked concerned. “We’ll go down today and take a look. Make sure everything’s there.”

“Good, good.” Bob made a check mark on his clipboard. “Hopefully it’s just some kind of mistake.”

“A mistaken ransacking?” Madison wrinkled her nose. “Does that ever happen?”

Bob shrugged.“No, but who knows. Just between us, this lady? She complains a lot.”

“I knew it!” Butterbean barked. “Mrs. Hates Dogs on Six! It has to be!”

“Butterbean! Shh!” Mrs. Food frowned at Butterbean. “Thanks for telling us. We’ll let you know if we spot any problems.”

“Gotcha. Thanks. I’ll let myself out.” Bob turned and left, shooting Butterbean a sharp look as he closed the door. Butterbean ignored it.

“Madison, would you mind going down after school and taking a look? Just see if anything looks out of place,” Mrs. Food said, sitting back down and examining her cold toast before finally rejecting it.

“Sure,” Madison said, grabbing her book bag. “But like Bob said, hopefully it’s nothing. See you later!” She swung the backpack over her shoulders and hurried out.

“Well, it’s not nothing,” Oscar said, watching as Mrs. Food put the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and headed down the hallway to her office. “It’s those raccoons.”