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“Don’t you see this is the chance of a lifetime?” Harriet continued, ignoring Dooley. “If Odelia sells that stone to the highest bidder we’re set for life. None of the Pooles will ever have to work again, they could spend the rest of their lives on a yacht in the South of France and live the most amazing wonderful fabulous life!”

“I don’t think I’d like to live on a yacht,” said Dooley, striking the discordant note. “I was on a cruise ship and I almost got eaten by a big nasty bird. So I guess I haven’t found my sea paws yet.”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet with a sigh. “You’re almost as pedestrian as Max.”

“More pedestrian,” Brutus pointed out.

“I think I’ll have a word with Odelia now,” said Harriet as she eagerly glanced in the direction of the hedge. “It’s obvious she needs a little guidance from her favorite feline.”

So she and Brutus skedaddled, and Dooley and I were left staring after them.

“I didn’t know Harriet was Odelia’s favorite feline,” said Dooley.

“She isn’t,” I assured him. “It’s just that Harriet wants something from Odelia and she thinks flattery will get her there.”

“Do you really think Odelia will sell the Pink Lady and become a millionaire?”

“No, I don’t think so. She might even refuse a reward if one is offered. She’ll insist that seeing the happiness on the rightful owner’s face is enough reward for her.”

“Well, phew. I really don’t want to live on a yacht, Max.”

“Me, neither, Dooley.”

10

Now that the diamond was safe, and the powers that be were engaged in tracking down its rightful owner, it was time to tackle the problem that really should be at the forefront of our minds: how to save Buster’s human from self-destruction!

And so as we lay there, I rallied my mental faculties and directed them toward solving that seemingly unsolvable problem.

“So how do you convince someone who’s one hundred percent convinced of something that they’re heading down a dangerous path?” I asked, thinking out loud as I sometimes do.

“I think we have to tell Harriet that money doesn’t make you happy,” said Dooley, misinterpreting my question. “And the only way to do that is by making her rich for a day.”

“Rich for a day?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you ever seen that show where two families trade places? A rich family goes to live in the house of a poor family and the other way around. They swap lives for a while, to see how the other half lives. Brutus and Harriet could swap places with a pair of rich cats for a couple of weeks,and I’m sure they’ll see that even rich cats have their problems, the same way we do.”

“Mh,” I said, thinking this over. “You know, there’s something in that, Dooley.”

“I know. It’s a very popular show,” said my friend. “Gran and I watch it all the time. It’s very funny.”

I didn’t see how swapping lives would be funny, but then Gran has a very peculiar sense of humor.

“The only problem is: where do we find a pair of rich cats, and how do we make them want to swap places with Harriet and Brutus?”

“Actually I wasn’t thinking of Harriet and Brutus,” I said.

“You weren’t?”

“No, I was thinking about Buster.”

“Buster? I don’t think Buster wants to be rich.”

“No, but he doesn’t want to go and live in the gutter either. So we need to make sure Fido steps back from the brink before it’s too late. And what better way to do that than to confront him with the consequences of his actions? Only not at some distant point in the future, but right now.” Dooley was staring at me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Don’t mind me. I’m just spitballing.”

“I get that all the time,” he said, nodding. “Only I call it chucking up a hairball. Though it’s been a while since I had one.”

I smiled and then closed my eyes to give this matter a little more thought.

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“Odelia?”

“Mh?”

“What are you going to do with that diamond?”

Odelia glanced down at Harriet. She was a little preoccupied right now, what with holding a million-dollar gem in the palm of her hand, and a gem with a long history at that.“What do you mean?” she asked as she deftly opened her mom and dad’s safe and peered inside. It was one of those wall safes her parents had installed in the bedroom. Right now it only held a couple of Dad’s Superman comics, which he bought years ago when he had the idea he wanted to be a comics collector. But since, as hobbies go that had been a costly one, he’d soon switched to collecting garden gnomes instead.

“Well, are you going to sell the diamond or what?”

“I can’t sell a diamond that’s not mine, Harriet,” she said as she placed the envelope with the stone inside the safe, then closed the little door again, and gave the dial a couple of turns.

“But if you sell it, how much do you think you’ll get for it?” Harriet insisted.

She frowned as she took in the question.“I just told you the stone isn’t mine to sell. So what does it matter how much I would get for it?”

“I think you should sell it,” Brutus piped up.

She glanced down at the twosome, and saw that they were both eyeing her a little feverishly.