Ghost Cat - Thelma's Dilemma (11 page)

“You just went!”
Riley yelled at her sister.

“No I didn’t, I
tried, but it didn’t work!” Suzanne argued.

Jim looked into the
rearview mirror and said “Can you hold it for a few, Suzanne?” They
were driving through a major city and the traffic was heavy.

“I’ll try,
daddy.”

“Try real hard.”
Riley told her.

They finally cleared
the city traffic and Jim was able to pull up to a gas station and
this time Sarah took Suzanne in while Jim topped off the gas tank.
When they got back into the van, Mrs. Johnson said “Oh look, there
is an Applebee’s, are we going to stop for dinner anytime
soon?”

“Are you hungry,
Mrs. Johnson?” Jim asked, wondering how she could be so soon after
their fast food restaurant stop.

“Yes, I only had
coffee at that other place, I don’t eat that kind of food.”

Sarah and the
girls were not hungry. In the end, Jim and Mrs. Johnson
went inside and had dinner, while
Sarah and the girls played with Cooper and let him run around. It
was almost dark and had gotten much colder.

“Mom, how long
before we get there?” Riley asked.

“
I don’t
really know, Riley, we have made so many stops already. I wish your
father would have waited un
til
the early morning to leave, but we didn’t, so we just have to make
the best of it.”

Jim had finished his
dinner and was patiently waiting for Mrs. Johnson to finish hers.
Unfortunately, she had decided to pick that moment to decide she
wanted to talk. In fact, Jim was very uncomfortable. He was trying
to be polite, but she was diving him insane with her endless
chatter.

“Do you want to get
a coffee to go, Mrs. Johnson? I wonder how Sarah and the girls are
doing out there with Cooper.” Jim said, trying to prompt Mrs.
Johnson to finish her dinner.

“Oh no, I don’t do
well with drinking in the car, sitting presses on my bladder you
know. How do you think Snowball and Gertie are holding up? Think
they miss us?” Mrs. Johnson asked.

Ophelia and
Thelma
were, in fact, as
frustrated as Jim was at that moment, maybe even more so. “Why on
earth would they stop so often?” Thelma said. “I know I slept
through most of the trip to Riverview, but it certainly did not
seem to take this long.”

“Adela stopped quite
a bit when we moved there. I didn’t mind it so much though because
she had me in the front of the car and fed me well. It was warm in
there too, not freezing like it is in here.” Ophelia said.

They heard
Suzanne and Riley arguing as they were outside of the van. Thelma
whispered to Ophelia that they needed to be quite. It certainly
wouldn’t do for anyone to find them at this point.

It seemed like
forever, but finally the vehicle started moving again. “Are you
hungry, Thelma? I am starving! Did you bring any food?”

“
Like we had
so much time to pack, Ophelia? I brought the ring, my paws were
busy getting in here! We barely made it as it was.”

“I know, I know. So,
what is the plan for when we finally get there?”

“Bathroom, coffee,
food, in that order too. Beyond that we have a lot of planning to
do. We could ring the doorbell as ourselves and ask to be included
when they spread Gertie’s ashes, I suppose, but there is not enough
room in the van for us. It is not close at all to Gertie’s house to
the place we need to be.” Thelma said.

“
What if they
ask us how we knew they were planning to do that, on that exact
day, especially when this trip was so spur of the
moment?”

“
Not only
that, they would ask where we were for the memorial and why haven’t
we been around all this time. Even if we escaped that conversation
and we all squeezed into the van to go to the right place, what are
we supposed to say or do then? Tell them that’s O.K., we will just
walk home?”

“
They would
also no doubt ask how we got there, where are we staying, etc. When
they do spread the ashes, we have to be in cat form in order to get
away. As I see it, our dilemma is twofold. How we get to the spot
and how we get away from everyone once we are there.” Thelma
said.

“Another thing too,
Donald and I grew up together, basically, but we certainly do not
look like we did, if you know what I mean.” Ophelia said.

“
The age
appearance thing, yes, I see what you mean. He has aged, but we
take much longer to show our ages, thank Goodness. So, that pretty
much leaves out us just showing up and asking to be with them when
they do the ashes thing. I do wish that we could take your mom’s
ashes back to Enchanted, but I suppose she will get as close as
possible. That is a shame though.”

“How to get there is
easy, can’t we just stay up here?” Ophelia said.

“Look behind you,
Ophelia that is a suitcase, your owner’s suitcase to be more exact.
She will want to have that the moment they stop for the night,
which they will and which should be soon.”

“
Why don’t we
just stay here and let them discover us? Then they would take us
into their warm hotel rooms and more importantly, feed us. Wouldn’t
that be better than to continue being knocked around every time Jim
changes lanes or makes a turn?
It is not like they would turn around and take us back at this
point, so, wouldn’t that work?”

“
As tempting
as that sounds, we can’t do that, Ophelia. We are not going to
return to Riverview with them, we will be getting off and staying
off the van once we reach the phantom exit. It would be one thing
if Jim and Sarah were alone, I know they would eventually give up
looking for us, but do you really think that Suzanne, Riley or Mrs.
Johnson
would just say oh they
are gone? Oh well.”

“They are going to
find out we are gone when they get home anyway.”

“
True, but
they won’t know where to look for us. If they know we are up here,
they will no doubt organize an all-out search for us when we
disappear. I can’t imagine having to comfort Suzanne all the way
back home if she knew we were missing. I can’t do that to the
little sweetheart.”

“
Y
ou know, Ophelia, I
didn’t ask to be put in that situation, but I have grown rather
fond of the Gaunter family and especially fond of Cooper. Even
though he could not fully communicate with me, we bonded and became
allies.” Thelma said. “He would bark to alert me when someone came
back home. That allowed me to change more often.

“
I never
developed a strong bond with Mrs. Johnson, but it wasn’t her fault
that I was in the car when she left for Michigan. She is a good
woman and has always treated me fairly. I can’t say that I will
miss anything about my time in Michigan though. At least you were
able to have some time as yourself once in a while. I wasn’t
kidding when I said that Adela never left the house. She would for
groceries maybe once a month, other than that she would just cook
in bulk and freeze for later. She was a good cook though, I’ll give
her that.” Ophelia said.

“Tell me about the
red ring, Ophelia, what is its powers and how could it be that me
and Luna have never heard of it before?” Thelma asked.

“My mom, Gertie,
never told me much about anything to do with our powers. I found
out quite by accident that I even had any. I used to watch cartoons
on the television and see where when a character would get very
angry, smoke would come out of their ears.”

“Oh, I know, Suzanne
watches a lot of cartoons.” Thelma said.

“Well, one day I
became so angry with my mother, that there was this thick cloud of
blue smoke that just appeared.”

“But not from your
ears.”

“
No, not from
my ears,” Ophelia laughed. “Never can tell where exactly it
originates from, but it is just there. It frightened me and I
forgot all about being angry with my mom. I just ran up to her and
hugged her, wanting her to protect me. I am guessing I was only
about four years old at that point.”

“
My mist used
to be much thicker and darker blue, much like yours. Now it is a
much lighter shade and less of it. I guess we have our own way of
aging.
What did aunt Gertie
say about it? How did she explain it to you?”

“That is just it,
she never did. She just said Oh, it has started and then warned me
not to show my anger in front of other people.”

“But did you?”

“Oh heck yeah, every
chance I got, to that Donald kid. Freaked him out too!” Ophelia
laughed.

“
So you and
Don
ald did not get along? Not
even as kids?”

“
Not really. I
guess we resented each other. I resented him for just being there
and I guess he resented me for the same reason. Mom and I would
argue all the time and he always took her side.”

“When did you learn
about Enchanted?”

“
Oh, I always
knew about Enchanted. Mom told me all these wonderful stories and
that was actually part of where the resentment came in. Donald
could not go there and we could not go as long as he was living
with us.
Mom said that his
destiny was on this side. I know that I am named after my Aunt
Ophelia, yours and Luna’s mother. My mom showed me the ring when I
was very young and she told me that it was our way back to
Enchanted. The sun shines on the stone and the light from that
opens the passageway, I believe. She hid the ring from me when I
kept threatening to run away and find it. I guess I was a brat
then, still am sometimes. Sorry the way I treated you when we first
met by the way.”

“
Not a
problem, you shocked the hair off me when you asked me who the hell
was I.” Thelma laughed.

“
You shocked
me back when you answered.” Ophelia laughed as well. “So, I guess
all of this is meant to be.”

“
And as such,
it will all work out the way it is supposed to.” Thelma answered.
“But we still have some things to figure out, Thelma said,
shivering in the cold wind. That is a nice story about the ring,
but it might not be entirely true. It does not have to be a sunny
day in order for the rocks to break away and allow entry. It also
can open just a bit so you can crawl through, or, in many cases, an
entire road appears, like a full exit and vehicles drive right
through it. It was snowing really hard when I found myself on the
side of the expressway the day the Gaunter family took me.
“

“
I guess I
have a lot to learn about us. I want to hear more, but we are going
to be deaf by the time we get anywhere with all the noise this tarp
is making flapping around!”

After what seemed
like several hours, the vehicle turned and Thelma knew that they
had exited the expressway. It took her a few moments to get her
footing, but she managed to peak out of the tarp.

“Ophelia, we are
pulling up to a hotel. We have to figure something out really
quickly, no place to hide in here!”

“Can we jump into
the suitcase itself?”

“I wish you would
have come up with that little gem hundreds of miles ago, Ophelia.
Let’s see if it is locked!”

They were very
lucky that there was no lock on the suitcase. Between the two of
them they were able to use their teeth to unzip the flap
enough to crawl in, digging
themselves into the clothes.

“Ophelia!” Thelma
hissed. “Get out there and close this damn thing up again before
someone sees us.”

“All by myself?
How?”

Just then the
suitcase moved and they hid themselves further between the clothes.
Someone zipped it back up and they were lifted off of the roof and
were carried into the hotel. They could not see anything and only
heard muffled sounds. What seemed like an hour later they were
placed on the floor and they listened for any voices or sounds as
to where they were and how long it would be before someone opened
the case back up? It really wouldn’t do for there to be two dead
cats in it when someone did open it.

Several minutes
later the zipper on the suitcase was opened and they could hear
what sounded like Mrs. Johnson singing. Ophelia chanced a peek and
when they saw her walk into the bathroom and shut the door, both
cats jumped out and made a beeline for under the bed. Both hurting
their heads when they hit something solid.

“
Yowl!”
Ophelia said. Thelma hissed and then ran behind the drapes, with
Ophelia close behind.
Mrs.
Johnson came out of the bathroom and looked around. She then took
her pajamas out of the suitcase and laid them on the bed. There was
then a knock on the door and Mrs. Johnson answered it.

“
Ready to get
some dinner before we settle in to get a good
night
’s sleep, Mrs. Johnson?”
Sarah asked.

“
Oh yes, I am
quite hungry even though it is pretty late. I always like my main
meal to be close to my bed time. Otherwise my stomach rattles
around and it would never do sitting in a car for a prolonged
time.” Mrs. Johnson looked at the number on her door. “This is room
200, which one is your room?” She asked.

Thelma and
Ophelia did not hear Sarah’s answer because they shut the door and
were on their way to a late dinner. Both cats spun around and
Thelma was reaching for the phone even before she stopped spinning.
“Hello, this is room 200, could you please send up a large pot of
coffee with extra cream, quite a bit extra cream, a chicken dinner
and a shrimp dinner as well, if you have it. I am very tired and
would appreciate it if you could hurry so we can eat and get some
sleep. Put an extra tip on the bill for yourself dear, thank
you.”