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“Okay, yes,” Marco said, taking a deep breath and wiggling his butt backward. He made it a little farther, up to the bottom of his rib cage. “Um. Polo? No good,” he said, his voice a thin squeak. “And now I think I’m stuck.”

“Oh, sheesh,” Polo grumbled, grabbing Marco by the paws and dragging him out as he held his breath. “I’ll go first, then. But I’m not going butt first.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_20]

Polo smoothed her side fur, flattened herself on the floor, and started to crawl under the door. When she hit hip level, she stopped too.

“Problem?” Marco said, looking at Polo’s struggling hind legs and tail. They didn’t seem to be moving forward anymore.

“Um,” Polo said. “Problem.”

“Is it your waistline?”

“Um. I think it might be.” Polo stopped struggling. “Pull me back out?”

“Sure.” Marco grabbed hold of Polo’s tail and started tugging. “Hey, Walt? Come here!”

“What’s the problem?” Walt came over, eyes still scanning the hallway. Polo was definitely right, this place gave her the creeps.

Marco leaned on Polo’s butt and tried to look casual. “What was that you were saying about backup plans?”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_3]

9

[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]

[Êàðòèíêà: img_21]

“SO WE HAVE A NEW plan,” Walt said as she stalked into the room, taking Butterbean and Oscar by surprise. Oscar snapped his beak shut. It was a little irritating, to be honest, all this changing of his plans.

“What was wrong with the old plan?” Butterbean said, watching as Polo and Marco slid off Walt’s back.

Walt shrugged.“The gap under the door is too narrow. It’s not rat-sized. We’d need mice. Or maybe snakes. Anyway, that’s not important. We’ve got a better idea.”

“Okay,” Butterbean agreed. She didn’t even need to know what the better idea was, as long as it didn’t involve snakes. She’d never met one, but she’d heard things about them. Word on the street was that they flicked their tongues.

Oscar looked thoughtful.“Hmm. Yes. I should have measured the gap.” He turned to the rats and bowed his head slightly. “I’m sorry, Marco, Polo. That was a lapse on my part. It was thoughtless of me.” Oscar hated to admit it, but the gap size hadn’t even crossed his mind, not even once. He’d just assumed thatrats were squishy enough that they would have no problem. He didn’t actually know that much about rats, now that he thought about it.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Marco said, touching his waist. “We should probably go a little easier on the sunflower seeds.”

“It was the gap, not you,” Walt said dismissively. “You’re fine. Now for the new plan—I’m thinking vents.”

“What vents?” Butterbean asked.

“Up there,” Walt said, nodding up at the air vents near the ceiling. “If I’m right, those vents connect all the apartments in the building. Most of them are up high like those, but I thought we could just use this one.” Walt walked over to the sofa and pointed behind it. A small vent was in the baseboard underneath the window.

“A behind-the-sofa vent?” Butterbean said, shocked. How could she have never noticed that before? Her ball had gone back there a thousand times at least. “Who would’ve expected that?”

“Exactly. Plus, this one’s a little special.” Walt reached out and swatted at the vent cover. It fell forward with a thump. “I’ve been working on the screws on this baby for months. Never know when you’ll need a good hiding place, you know?”

Oscar whistled in appreciation.“Nice job.” He peered into the vent. “And floor level is much easier for me, with my bad back. So this goes…”

“To the side, and then up. It connects to the ceiling vents. It’s our ticket to the whole building.”

Oscar stood up.“And you didn’t share this earlier because…?”

“A cat likes to have some secrets, Oscar,” Walt sniffed. “I didn’t know it would be necessary.” She reached into the vent and pulled out a small catnip mouse. “I’ll just take this back for now.”

“Well, we can definitely fit in there, right, Polo?” Marco said, marching up to the vent and crawling inside. “Oh yeah, this should be a piece of cake. We can climb like nobody’s business.”

Polo nodded in agreement.“This looks a lot better. So we go how many floors up?”

“Five,” Walt said. “Butterbean, can you explain the building layout?”

“Okay, this is how it is,” Butterbean said, hunkering down on her haunches. “Most floors have four apartments, right? Well, we’re a D apartment, but there are only two on that top floor, and the Coin Man is in B. So I think that means that he’s above us.”

Walt nodded.“That makes sense. So you’ll just have to go straight up. If you’re not sure, just look out of the vent grates into the apartments—that should help you get your bearings.”

“Got it.” Polo smacked her hands together. “Who’s in the apartments on eight? Just in case we get confused about what floor we’re on?”

“Based on the smells, I’d say Apartment A is the Patchouli Family, Apartment B is Biscuit, Apartment C is the weird pretzely apartment, and Apartment D is Axe Body Spray.” Butterbean thumped her tail. “Got it?”

“Wait a minute. I thought Biscuit was on the second floor?” Walt frowned.