d5e426eccb138e04dab909926b2752c6

“When people are faced with a big fire like this, they sometimes douse themselves in water,” said Brutus. “Pity we don’t have a bucket of water at our disposal now.”

“No, but we do have something else,” said Harriet.

“What’s that?” I asked, intrigued what could possibly replace a convenient bucket of water.

And then she spat me in the face!

“Hey, what did you do that for?” I asked, horrified.

But instead of responding, she simply did it again!

“Cut it out, Harriet!” I cried. Getting burned to a crisp is bad enough without being spat on, I mean to say.

“But don’t you see, Max!” she cried. “We don’t have water but we have our saliva!”

“Brilliant!” said Brutus. “We simply lick ourselves until we’re well and truly soaked and by the time that fire eats through this chest, we’ll be ready to face the inferno!”

I didn’t want to rain on their parade—or even spit—but I still felt I needed to say something. “By the time that fire burns down this chest, it’s going to get so hot in here we’re going to expire from the sheer heat, not to mention smoke inhalation, and besides, a little bit of spittle isn’t going to protect us from those flames. Only a heat-resistant suit like firemen like to wear is going to accomplish that.”

“Oh, why always with all the negatives, Max!” said Harriet. “I’m trying to stay positive here, you know.”

“All right, all right,” I said, trying to think of something positive to add to the conversation.

“And then last week I accidentally peed in your water bowl, Max,” said Dooley now. “It was an accident, I swear!”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet with a sigh.

That orange glow that had been getting stronger, and that heat that had been intensifying, told us that the moment had finally come. Our do or die moment, if you will. We’d all been busy licking ourselves, just in case it made a difference, and I have to say my nice blorange coat of fur was pretty slick by now.

The flames were crackling, and Harriet said,“This is it. The moment of truth!”

“The truth is it just happened,” Dooley said. “I guess I was still sleepy from my nap. I saw the bowl, and the next moment I was taking a tinkle, even before I realized it wasn’t my litter box. And I meant to tell you, Max, I really did, but then I forgot. I’m so, so sorry!”

“This is it, folks!” said Harriet. “Get ready to run!”

The wood creaked and groaned, and I tensed all my muscles, ready to make a desperate run for it, when suddenly there was a loud swooshing sound, then voices could be heard, and the next moment the chest was opened and the face of Chase Kingsley appeared, followed by the face of Odelia, our very own human!

“Am I dreaming?” asked Dooley. “Or did I die and go to heaven?”

Chapter 3

“I don’t get it,” said Chase, as he looked around the attic at the devastation. “If they wanted to burn the house down wouldn’t they have set fire to other parts of the house?”

Odelia, who’d been hugging her cats, nodded. “I think this was a targeted attack.”

“An attack on what?”

She was reluctant to say it out loud in front of her fur babies, who’d already been through a great ordeal, but it was important that they, too, realized what was going on here. “I think the culprit wanted to set fire to… our cats,” she said finally.

Max looked up at this. He’d been inspecting their makeshift prison for the past five minutes, and nodded sagely at these words. “He specifically set fire to this wooden chest,” he said. “Or trunk, or whatever you call this thing.”

“It used to belong to my dad,” said Odelia. “And to his dad before him. Dad used it when he was in college. It contained all of his stuff and he kept it in his dorm all those years before shipping it back here.”

The only part of the attic that had burned was that particular chest belonging to her dad, and it stood to reason that the attacker must have used some kind of accelerant or maybe even simple lighter fluid to make sure the chest would burn well.

“But why would anyone target the cats?” asked Chase.

“He was snooping around over there,” said Max, pointing to an old dresser in the corner of the attic. “He was opening and closing the drawers, and seemed to be looking for something. And then when he caught us spying on him, he didn’t seem surprised. He said, ‘Cats! I should have known.’ As if he was expecting us.”

“And then he caught us and locked us up and set us on fire,” said Brutus, summing up the state of affairs to a T.

Odelia set Dooley down on the floor and walked over to the dresser Max had indicated. She opened the top drawer, and saw that it contained photo albums belonging to her mom and dad. She picked one up and leafed through it. The photos were all familiar: Mom and Dad in their younger years, trekking through Europe, and seeing the sights. A second album contained their wedding photos, and showed them happy and excited to finally tie the knot. Odelia smiled, and wondered why anyone would be interested in these particular photos. And why anyone would want to set her cats on fire.