Catch As Cat Can

                Stafford was Mim's son, who rarely returned home as he loved his family more the farther away they were.

                Mrs. Murphy washed her face with her paw."We've got work to do."

                "I'm not going out in the rain," Pewter stoutly stated.

                "I didn't say we were."

                Tucker nuzzled her pal."What do you have in mind?"

                "We need to get to Aunt Tally's and snoop around. I should have thought of it during the tea party but I got caught up in the commotion."

                "Aunt Tally's is a long, long hike, Murphy. Talk Harry into driving us over there."

                "Sure, Pewter. She listens about as well as any human."

                Tucker thought about it."She's right, Murphy. The creeks are over their banks. We won't get across. We've got to convince Harry to drive us there somehow."

                The pretty tiger pondered this, then curled her tail around her."You're right."

                "Finally, someone's giving me credit around here," Pewter crowed, then for good measure reached up and hooked a piece of bread off the table before a human could stop her. Once the bread was on the floor she knew the humans wouldn't touch it even if they scolded her, which they didn't, as they were too busy deciding if Lottie Pearson really was a gold digger. BoomBoom said yes. Harry said maybe. Miranda wanted to think the best of her and Tracy opted not to have an opinion.

                "Don't let it go to your head. Listen, we'd better get over there tomorrow. If this rain would only stop."

                "What's on your mind?" Tucker respected the tiger's brain power, the quickness of her mind.

                "We need to examine the floor of the dining room, open the cupboards in the pantry, investigate the places where Tally keeps food. We might have to check the outbuildings. I don't know exactly but I can tell you this, if we find what I think we're going to find, either Sean O'Bannon is in on this or he's the next victim."

                33

                At twelve midnight on the dot the rain stopped. Mrs. Murphy had become accustomed to the incessant din on the rooftop. The silence awakened her. Curled up next to Harry, she lifted her head, then rose, stretching fore and aft.

                Tucker, asleep on the rug by the bed, snored lightly, her parted lips revealing her considerable canines as well as the small square teeth between them.

                Pewter, on the pillow next to Harry, was dead to the world. Her gray forehead rested next to Harry's pillow edge, her body formed a comma, her tail curled tight around her legs.

                No point waking up the Princess of Sleep. Next to eating, Pewter loved sleep.

                Murphy walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, careful to step on the old carpet runner. She liked feeling carpet beneath her paws. Then she bounced across the kitchen, out the animal door, and pushed open the screened porch door. The clouds, low and billowy, Prussian blue, flew across the sky, west to east. Puddles like black ice filled the small depressions in the driveway. Keeping that driveway in good working order gave Harry fits. She'd dutifully fill the holes only to have the stones eventually worm their way out to the side of the road. Every three years she would break down and hire Mr. Tapscott to bulldoze the long driveway, put down bluestone

                or crusher run, and then pack it as hard as possible. No wonder a large part of the state budget was siphoned off by road maintenance. If only Harry had the tiniest fraction of that budget, her road would be in tiptop shape.

                Murphy often thought of human cares. Not that she thought road maintenance a foolish care. After all, she was a farm cat; she understood the importance of roads, tractors, and re-seeding pastures. But much of what humans fussed over seemed silly to her. They worried about their looks, about money, about their social standing.

                Cats ignored social standing. To be a cat meant one was at the top of the animal chain. And since cats are not herd animals, each cat remained a complete individual. This didn't mean that Mrs. Murphy lacked kitty friends. It only meant that she didn't rely on them for a sense of herself. She simply was.

                She hopscotched across puddles, entering the barn. The three horses, sound asleep, didn't hear her. She jumped on the tack trunk. Gin Fizz slept like Tucker, on his side and snoring. Tomahawk and Poptart slept standing up. Murphy couldn't imagine sleeping standing up.

                She crept into the tack room. The mice were playing with a jacks ball, singing at the top of their lungs, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

                She pounced, narrowly missing the fattest mouse.

                "Eeck! Mad cat. Run for your life!" they screamed, scrambling for the hole in the wall. They all made it.

                Murphy put a glittering eye to the hole shaped like an upside-down U."Have the decency to clean up after yourselves. My human doesn't think your games are funny. And you've left grain bits all over the floor. You'll get me in trouble and if you get me in trouble I'll nail one of you if it's the last thing I do!"

                "Bully," a high-pitched voice replied.

                "We had a deal. You leave the tack room clean and I leave you alone."

                "You surprised us. We would have cleaned up."