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We all glanced in the direction of the good doctor, who stood manning his grill like a captain behind the wheel of his ship: wide-legged and with a look of keen awareness of the responsibility of his position plastered all across those kindly features.

Brutus and Harriet were actually not referring to the man’s dubious cooking skills, though, but to the red ball cap he was wearing. It was odd to see Tex with a cap, since he normally never wears one.

“I can explain,” said Dooley. “I told Gran that Tex should wear a hat to protect his hair from the sun, so that must be it.”

“I don’t think that’s the reason,” said Brutus, studying me closely. “Max, you know something, don’t you? Something you’re not telling us. Spill, buddy!”

I smiled and said,“I promised Tex I’d never tell a living soul, and my word is my bond.”

“But you have to tell us!” said Harriet.

“Yeah, Max, I risked my neck for you,” said Brutus.

“You risked your neck for Angel,” I corrected him.

“You can tell me, can’t you, Max?” asked Dooley. “I’m your best friend.”

I glanced over to Tex, then shrugged.“Okay, I guess I can tell you now. The worst is over, and soon he’ll be able to remove his cap again.”

“Okay, so what happened?” asked Harriet, assuming the position of eager listener.

“Well, you know how Tex has been fussy about his hair lately, and how he thinks—”

“He’s going bald,” Harriet said, nodding.

“So he tried different methods: first he tried Dick Bernstein’s method of rubbing mayonnaise on his scalp, but that didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Then he tried Scarlett’s uncle’s method of sipping and applying his own urine every day.”

“He did? Yuckety-yuck!”

Scarlett, who was telling the same story to Charlene now, but in hushed tones so Tex wouldn’t hear, seemed to derive a lot of fun from the tale, and so did Charlene, for she was giggling uncontrollably all the while.

“So the urine thing was a bust, too,” I said with a smile at the memory of Gran telling me the story after the fact. She’d even shown me the bottle. And then she’d implored me to give the poor guy a helping paw, for there really was a small measure of attrition, even if Marge didn’t want to see it. “And so I gave the man a break—a couple of tips from a cat whose fine fur has been the envy of this town’s cat population since time immemorial.”

My three friends glanced at my shiny blorange fur, and Harriet shrugged.“Gran should have come to me. My fur is much nicer than yours, Max. My fur isfine.”

“Okay, but she asked me,” I said, not wanting to get into an argument over which cat’s coat was the nicest—an argument I could never win!

“And so I asked Max to help out the poor schmuck,” Gran was now saying, relating the same story to Chase and Alec. Tex must have become aware that he was the subject of conversation, though, for he directed a suspicious look at his gathered family, who now all abruptly stopped gossiping, sat upa little straighter, and gave him innocent smiles. He waved at them with his tongs, they waved back, then immediately resumed their story.

“So I’d already told Gran that I thought the secret to the perfect coat of fur is our saliva,” I explained to my captious audience. “Since that’s what makes us stand out from our human counterparts.”

“I think you’re wrong, Max,” said Brutus. “I think the secret is in our unique diet.”

“No, it’s our genes,” said Harriet.

“No, I got it,” said Dooley. “It’s because we sleep so much, isn’t it? I saw a documentary that said cats sleep fifteen hours a day on average.”

“Why watch a documentary?” said Brutus with a grin. “Just look at Max. Though he probably sleeps eighteen hours a day.”

“Ha ha,” I said. “Very funny, Brutus.”

“Just kidding, buddy. It’s probably closer to twenty-four hours.”

“And because we sleep so much,” Dooley went on, undeterred, “we are always well-rested, and free of the kind of stress that makes humans so jumpy. Stress is a killer, you guys,” he lectured us, wagging his paw like a college professor. “It’s very bad for you.”

“Yes, professor Dooley,” said Harriet with an eyeroll. “Now let Max finish his story, will you? You have the floor, Max,” she added, giving me an encouraging nod.

“Thanks,” I said. “So like I said, the secret ingredient for a well-groomed, perfectly healthy coat of fur is our saliva. We groom ourselves all the time, which keeps our fur nice and shiny and in perfect health. So Gran duly relayed the message to Tex, who said: ‘How the hell can I lick myown head? It’s impossible!’ But like Gran herself at first, he’d missed the point: the secret is not in the licking itself, but in the secret ingredient contained in feline saliva. Which gave Gran an idea…”

“What idea?” asked Harriet.

“Well…” I hesitated. This was the tricky part of the story. “She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse—so I didn’t.”

“What offer!” Brutus demanded.

“Okay, so she promised to buy me some extra-special kibble she saw on some online pet shop, in exchange for…” I gulped slightly, then said quickly, “for licking Tex’s head.”