Chapter 1, Part 1

That summer had been bad for me. It was the year after my acting career took off. I thought it was everything I wanted. The fame, the fans, the chance to choose my meals. When I was a kitten dreaming of show business I thought it would be cool to be recognized by other kittens on the street.

Know what though? It isn’t. Specially if you’re trying to have a nice, quiet trip out for some popcorn chicken and a flick with a special lady.

That spring, Mayday met one papa-rat-zi too many. He jumped out and snapped a photo while she was talking with a young fan. The little one ran out into traffic and, well, Mayday was so mad about what happened she ate the rat, tail, camera and all.

You prolly know that. It was in all the papers. Who could blame her, really, if they had gotten the facts, but those rats, they ruined her career. She left for home. I followed soon after but things weren’t the same between us. We made up eventually, sure, otherwise we wouldn’t be married now, but it took a few years.

So when I watch an old movie and I wonder “Whatever happened to that guy?” I know now some colony of papa-rat-zi drove them out of the business.

Back in Furryboots Town, South Dakota, I avoided the press like the mange and tried my paw at writing but the words wouldn’t come. Luna settled back into her laboratory in the corner of the basement as if she’d never left. Mayday adopted a kitten some family discarded in the mall parking lot. Or so I heard. My primate returned from a visit and said he looked like a cinnamon donut.

He didn’t smell like cinnamon on her hands, so I hissed at her and sulked in my room.

I spent most of June and July watching Tom and Jerry and consoling myself on hairball treats, the kind with the jelly centers.

Mmmm. Chicken jelly. Isn’t that the best?

I also napped a lot. I gained a whole pound.

Sometimes I went outside. Within a few weeks the birds stopped being frightened of me. Jay swooped right down and stole all the food out of our outdoor bowl. Joker the crow was so sure I wouldn’t chase him he did a little dance on the sidewalk.

“Haw! Haw! Haw! HAAwwwww!” he sang. If you could call it singing. I hear other crows like it but I don’t get it. The guy has a three note vocal range.

“Whatever,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes and returning to the privacy of my living room. I put in The Cat from Outer Space and made catty comments to Luna about Jake never moving his lips during any of his dialogue. How did he get an action role? He shoulda been a ventriloquist. Then I’d be impressed.

I heard some mumbling outside, making its way around the corner of the house. Luna heard it, too, mentioned something about leaving a Bunsen burner on and disappeared to the basement.

Bosco came to the screen door.

“Dude!” he whispered.

I ignored him.

“Dude! Loki!”

I still ignored him. Bosco was a working class cat from a farm on the edge of town. That means his primates put him out in the summer and expected him to feed himself. The only reason he might come to the door is because he saw my primate leave the car with a Buffalo Joe’s bag earlier in the day and that meant only one thing.

“Dude! Loki! Dude!Dude! DUDE!”

“What?!”

“Hey, Loki, lemmee hold a chicken wing!”

“No, Bosco, go ‘way!”

“Dude, just let me hold it!”

“You never just hold a chicken wing. As soon as I give it to you, you’ll run off.”

“Loki, Dude, don’t make me beg Bandit to open the trash.”

“You’re still hanging with the raccoons?”

“Guy’s gotta eat, Loki, and all I do for them is read, anyhow. None of the fancy stuff, I promise.”

Truth is, I felt a little sorry for Bosco. He wasn’t cut out for hunting. He had a grey stripe tortoise shell and cap but the rest of him was snow white. Even when he was dirty he was so obvious he was only useful as a distraction for the snake and hawk that took over rodent maintenance on his farm. He’d be lucky to get a grasshopper a week.

Also, he had that verbal tick. The only time he wasn’t talking to himself was when his mouth was full.

“Please, Loki?”

I had an idea.

“If I give you one today, can you promise me something?”

Bosco pressed up against the screen.

“Yeah, OK, waddo you want?”

“Keep Bandit away from our trash cans. My primates get in an awful temper when they have to pick that mess off the lawn.”

“You got it, Loki, no problem. I’ll tell him your primates are on a diet and it’s all tofu and that fake sugar stuff.”

“That’ll work?” I asked, with my head buried in the bag in the fridge.

“You betcha, Loki! Winter’s coming and Bandit’s looking for the fatty stuff!”

I pulled the door open a crack. Bosco was so excited he tried to push himself in before he composed himself.

“If you pull it off I’ll see what I can get you next week.”

“Sweet, Loki, no problem. You’ll see. I’ll be back,” I pushed the chicken through the crack. “Hey, I’m going to Pine Street. You want I should say something to Mayday?”

He had to bring that up. A thousand things I wanted to say flashed through my head. But none of them were right. At the time, I didn’t think anything I said could be right. And it made me angry.

“Why would I have anything to say to her?” I snapped, and slammed the door. Bosco looked surprised, but he had a mouthful of chicken to deal with and sprinted to enjoy it unseen under the bush by the fence before Joker might spy it and try to take it, as he had been known to do.

Prologue

Boo hadn’t realized his balls were missing until after his 5 AM snack.

He had always been a cat of routine, unlike Dusty, his brother, who was generally satisfied with his sleeping and playing arrangements as long as it was where Boo wasn’t. That’s not to say they didn’t get along, they were just naturally different and complementary purrsonalities, much like me and my sister.

But I digress. This isn’t a story about me. Well, not entirely. You will find out how I got into the detective business, but it’s all because of the night Boo awoke at one of his usual times, thinking he was going to have a bit of kibble and a short workout, only to find a horrendous mess by the cat flap and several of his toys not where he left them.

Now, we all have our favorites, don’t we? Dusty likes the laser mouse. Luna, my sister, likes catnip bags. I like the little furry critters with the rattles in them. Heck, I’ll even play with my food! But Boo, he likes sparkle balls. The fuzzy ones. And at 5:08 AM, August 4^th, they were nowhere to be found.

If you knew Boo as good as me, you’d understand why this crisis turned his world upside-down. As I said, Boo is a cat of routine. Since he was a kitten he had his sleeping, eating and playing routines on a strict schedule. For awhile he’d even announced to his primates when he had used the litter box until Dusty put an end to it.

Not long ago, Boo had been forced to change his routine drastically. Suddenly there was Bailey to deal with. Neither Boo or Dusty knew what to think of Bailey at first. The puppy simply came in and took over. Boo immediately began complaining to Dusty, who spent the next few weeks almost exclusively at the top of the cat tower.

“Every time I try to play that dog comes in here and takes over!” Boo moaned.

“Hmph!” Dusty replied noncommittally, turning the page in the Joe Grey book, “Now you know what it’s like. Maybe you should think of that next time you frighten away my laser mouse.”

“How am I going to get in my mousecatball practice with Bailey in the house?”

“Why don’t you just look at her like a new toy?”

Well, that changed everything. Boo started incorporating Bailey into his workout. It wasn’t long before the puppy was trying to box with its tiny Corgi legs and playing mousecatball with Boo and his sparkle balls. Finally Dusty had some peace and quiet.

Not the morning of August 4^th.

Boo turned from the snack dish, washed his face briefly, and entered the living room to find—nothing. Both of his sparkle balls were missing.

He was startled only momentarily. Then he sighed. It was not uncommon to lose toys under the refrigerator and forget about them when the primates filled the bowl up or shook the treat can.

But not that day.

Boo flattened himself out and peered under the fridge. There was a washer under there and a marble. And two dead crickets in some dust bunnies. And a bouncy rubber ball he had never really cared for that he and Dusty had hidden under there on purpose so they’d never be spooked by it again.

But no sparkle balls.

Boo’s heart sank. He turned upside down and shoved his head under the fridge just to make sure.

Then he made the most awful racket trying to open all the cupboards, from what I understand. Bailey didn’t even leave her basket. She just blinked, barely able to open her eyes and barked, “Wassamatta, Boo?”

It wasn’t long before the noise awoke one of the primates. She switched on the light. There were muddy footprints all over the house and mud all over Bailey. She clutched her robe around her and squinted into the kitchen as if it would make the mess go away.

Dusty stretched in the doorway to the bedroom and yawned.

“Oh Bailey!” the primate sighed, disappointed, “Bad dog!”

“Wad I doo?” Bailey asked. She was too young to know most humans can’t understand us unless they are under six years old. Something happens to them when they start school and other humans tell them we can’t talk. It’s sad, really. Humans are weird. The only reason I got away with it when I was in show business is by telling people it was computer graphics. Somehow it makes them feel like they’re ruling the planet, I think.

This primate, as it happens, needed to go to work soon, so she left a note apologizing for the mess for her sister still out on the night shift and stepped into the shower.

It was about that time Dusty phoned Luna and told he what happened. And it was only a few seconds after Luna hung up and explained the situation that I decided Boo was being overly sensitive and I wasn’t going to waste my time visiting and consoling him for losing a few toys.

That was before Luna told me Dusty found the squirrel footprints in the kitchen. Can you imagine? Squirrel footprints! And there would only be a half hour between Miss Linda leaving for work and Miss Judy coming home when we would be able to take a look.

Hallo!

I suppose anyone reading this knows by now that Loki publications are being taken over by Singing Moon Press. This will give me more time to work on projects since I won't have to deal with all the website codes and business and promotional aspects that sometimes sucked 20 hours or more out of my week. Whoohoo!

Anyhoo, Loki is narrating a novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's a mystery in the "Feline Detective" subgenre. The first line (the hook) may give some grownups a start but I don't think any kids will notice. We are, after all, talking about cat toys, as the title says.

You can subscribe to watch our progress by email or RSS reader here.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheCatToyCrisis

BCNU!
Pet and Loki