Monty smoothed the sleeves of his shirt. “Safety first,” he admonished. “The race organizers wanted the Mayor to appear on a bike to help promote the event.” He wrapped his hands around the helmet’s bowl-shaped top and crammed it down onto his head. “California law requires government employees to wear protective headgear when riding a bicycle during the performance of their duties.”
Monty drummed his fingers across the round curve of plastic covering his noggin. “They’ve loaned me a nifty set of wheels for the trip. It’s got all the latest bells and whistles.”
Ah,
I thought with a wry grin. That perhaps provided the real reason Monty had been asked to step in for these cycling-related appearances. There was no way the Mayor’s famous swept-back hairstyle could be maintained inside the cramped confines of a bike helmet—an issue about which Monty no longer had any concern.
It had taken several months’ convincing, but Monty had finally given up trying to emulate the Mayor’s hairdo. He’d developed an allergy to the hair gel needed to straighten, pin back, and cement his naturally curly hair into position. After an unpleasant episode with a head full of red rash and welts, he’d had no choice but to abandon the gel. You could still see a pinkish tinge on Monty’s scalp when he stood in the direct sunlight.
Monty stroked the cutout divots and holes in the top of the helmet. “It’s ventilated,” he said, swinging his head rapidly back and forth like a wet dog. “Yep, I can feel the breeze.”
“Okay, okay.” I relented, holding my hands up to stop the demonstration before Monty fell off the chair. “It looks like you’ve got the equipment angle covered.”
Monty leaned back in his seat. “Other staffers were interested in this gig, but I was easily the best choice—for the first leg of the race anyway,” he said with an air of superiority. “What with my background in historical preservation and all.”
I stared at him, puzzled, as he fumbled with the chinstrap to his helmet. Try as I might, I couldn’t see the historical angle to a cycling event that was only a few years old.
“The tour begins this year in Nevada City,” Monty replied to my confused look. “It was a mining boomtown in the 1850s. Most of the downtown buildings are designated historical landmarks. They’ve tried to preserve as much as possible from the Gold Rush–era.”
He pointed at the floor, down to the showroom below. “I believe you have some familiarity with that time period,” he added with a smirk.
I glanced back at the little stuffed animal sitting on the table. It had rolled over onto its side, but its outstretched paw still clutched the tiny paper flag. The beady buttons of the creature’s eyes looked up at me bewitchingly.
For some reason, Oscar had hidden this Nevada City bear behind a raft of tulip-printed wallpaper. It wasn’t the cash I’d been looking for, but I was growing more and more convinced I had found a clue to one of Oscar’s valuable hidden treasures.
The possibility was too tempting. I had to investigate.
I couldn’t believe I was actually considering accompanying Monty on this expedition, but if I were going to follow the trail Oscar had left behind, it seemed like the logical next step.
I sucked in my breath and hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake as I asked, “When did you say you were leaving?”
Chapter 8
THE DUFFEL BAG
THAT AFTERNOON, RUPERT
huddled on top of the bed, glaring down at the black canvas duffel bag lying open on the floor. A frayed airline tag from the bag’s last trip dangled from the handles, and its canvas fabric still bore a suspicious foreign scent. It had been several months since the bag’s last outing, but Rupert remembered it vividly. This bag, Rupert knew from painful experience, could not be trusted.
An hour earlier, he had watched with intense loathing as his person lifted the bag off the closet’s top shelf and loaded a small pile of clothes into its zippered compartment. A collection of toiletries had started to accumulate on the bathroom shelf by the sink. He knew exactly what was coming next.
A venomous hatred filled Rupert’s fluff-covered chest as he glowered at the duffel. That
bag
was about to run off with
his
person.
Rupert sniffled sulkily. After all these years together, he thought they had an understanding, he and his person. It was quite simple, really.
He
allowed her to call him Rupert if
she
agreed to stay home and take care of him.
He was a cat, after all, and he had needs.
First off, there was the matter of his water dish. He preferred to drink his fluids out of a glass from the kitchen cabinet. No plastic pet bowls. No aluminum bins. Those were unacceptable; they left a strange aftertaste. He shook his head, as if remembering the unpleasant flavor.
Now, once the appropriate glass had been selected, it should be filled with water from the special filtered container in the refrigerator. After being poured, the water must be allowed to warm to room temperature before it was suitable for drinking. Then, as soon as the first cat food floaties began to accumulate in the glass, the whole thing must be dumped out, thoroughly cleaned, and refilled.
In Rupert’s opinion, these were all perfectly reasonable requests, but not ones, in his experience, that were honored by your typical breeze-in, breeze-out cat sitter.
He stomped his feet stubbornly. Who was going to maintain the proper conditions of his water supply if the bag took off with his person?
Who?
Then, he thought worriedly, there was the issue of tummy rubs. After a big meal, Rupert looked to his person to provide a warm lap for him to curl up in while she gently massaged the round pouch of his stomach. This procedure, he was convinced, was absolutely critical to proper feline digestion. He shuddered to think what might happen if he were deprived of this essential service. Who was going to rub his tummy while that duffel bag and his person were off gallivanting around Nevada City? he demanded in perturbed silence.
Who?
Rupert ticked off a growing list of concerns regarding his pending abandonment. What if he got a kink in his back that needed massaging? What if his blankets got stale and needed fluffing in the dryer? What if the fog rolled in and he wanted the heater turned on? There was no end to the numerous calamities he might face.
That was the whole point, Rupert thought as his mind raced in growing panic. He might
need
something. What could be more important than staying here and taking care of Rupert?
Suddenly, Rupert sat bolt upright, his heart nearly stopping from a last alarming realization. The worst possible scenario had flashed before his eyes.
What if he got
lonely
?
The fluffy orange tip of his tail whapped against the surface of the bed in frustration. He puffed out another selfpitying sniffle. Honestly—that woman! What was she thinking?
Rupert stiffened his shoulders with resolve. He knew what he had to do. If his person thought she could leave him here all alone in the Green Vase with his bossy sister and that weird-looking mouse—well, she had another thing coming. Wherever that black duffel bag was going, he was going, too.
He crept to the edge of the bed. Carefully, he studied the zippered opening and sized up the distance. His claws dug into the comforter as he wiggled his back end and prepared for his leap. With a last defiant “
mreow
,” he sprang into the air.
A moment later, he disappeared inside the bag.
ISABELLA CURLED UP
on a rug at the far side of the bedroom, skeptically observing her brother’s mental machinations. She sighed dismissively as he leapt off the bed into the mouth of the duffel bag. No offense to her brother, but he was an amateur when it came to communicating with their person.
Isabella’s brow furrowed as she thought of the toy bear they’d found earlier that day. She sensed that this was a significant revelation, a clue to one of Oscar’s deeply guarded secrets.
Her white face pinched as she considered her person’s pending departure. In most instances, she preferred the comforts of home to a car trip. She hated being locked up in her carrier, unable to control the direction of the vehicle. But this was more than the typical excursion her person was about to embark on, and she would no doubt need Isabella’s expert feline guidance.
Isabella twitched her whiskers as she came to the inevitable conclusion. She would have to convince her person to take the cats along with her to Nevada City.
As Isabella stared at the rustling duffel bag, pondering how best to instruct her person on this topic, she heard the familiar knocking engine of a pickup rumbling into Jackson Square.
Isabella trotted across the bedroom to the window overlooking the street. She propped her front feet on the edge of the sill and poked her head through the slats in the blinds. Down below, the pickup’s rusted frame puttered to a stop in front of Monty’s art studio. The driver’s side door swung open with a loud creak, and a wrinkled old man in frayed overalls limped out of the cab.
Harold Wombler glanced up at Isabella’s window as he rubbed a sore spot in the crook of his neck. Seeing her tiny white face in the blinds, he nodded an acknowledgment, his version of a friendly gesture.
Isabella watched as Harold hobbled around to the truck’s back bed. His gnarled hands clamped down on the handle to the dented tailgate and dropped it into a horizontal position. With effort, he lifted a large object out of the bed and set it on the sidewalk.
Isabella’s face registered bewilderment as she tried to figure out what Harold was doing with this strange wheeled contraption.
With a rueful grimace at Isabella’s confused expression, Harold rolled the object to the street side of the truck to give her a better view. He pointed emphatically at a compartment positioned over the wheels. Then he turned to look up at her window to see if she’d understood his meaning.
Isabella’s ears flattened against the side of her head. She leaned away from the glass, her blue eyes glaring a sharp rebuff to his suggestion.
Harold shrugged his shoulders at her, crimping his lips into a frustrated expression. This was the best he had been able to come up with under the circumstances.
With a resigned sigh, Isabella stretched her right paw through the slats of the blinds and tapped it against the window ledge, indicating her reluctant agreement to his proposal.
She dropped back down to the floor of the bedroom. Her slender pipe of a tail swished back and forth as the orange tips of Rupert’s ears began to emerge from the opening in the duffel bag.
Her brother, she thought as she strolled across the room, was about to get a much-needed pounce.
Chapter 9
THE CAT-MOBILE
I WOKE THE
next morning to a jarring bang against the front door.
Rubbing my eyes, I glanced sleepily at the nightstand beside the bed and then down to the alarm clock lying on the floor in front of it. Someone—or, more likely, some cat—had knocked the clock off the stand in the middle of the night, disengaging its settings.
My eyes jumped to the two furry bodies sprawled across the covers and narrowed suspiciously. Rupert and Isabella had begun registering objections to today’s trip from the moment I pulled my duffel off the closet’s top shelf. It had been several months since I’d left them alone overnight, but neither cat had forgotten the significance of a packed bag.
A further barrage of pounding prevented me from interrogating the alarm clock saboteurs. Muttering under my breath, I hopped out of bed and struggled into my T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.
“Coming!” I hollered as I pulled a quick comb through my hair and scooped up the duffel bag. A pattering of feline feet trailed behind me as I hurried down the staircase to the second floor. All the while, the thumping against the downstairs door continued to increase in intensity.
“I should’ve had Harold install a doorbell,” I said as I skidded across the kitchen and thudded down the stairs to the showroom. Turning the corner at the bottom of the steps, I stopped and stared at my tall, skinny neighbor as he swung open the front door.
“Or better yet, a Monty monitor,” I added testily.
Before I had a chance to complain about yet another contraband key, Monty pushed a large bulky contraption through the entrance. His fingers were wrapped around the handle of what appeared to be a child’s stroller.
The device had three rubber wheels arranged in a tricyclestyle formation that supported a carriage constructed out of metal tubing and green nylon fabric. The passenger seating area was deep and wide enough to easily accommodate two toddler-sized children. The front and top portions of the carriage had been modified with a zippered net cover that kept the occupants secured inside while providing a window for them to see out.
“What do you think?” Monty asked smugly.
The wheels squealed against the wooden floor as he rolled the stroller back and forth in front of the cashier counter. He flicked a lever with his thumb, causing the wheels to screech to a sudden stop. “Nifty hand brake,” he said, his voice as slick as a used car salesman’s.
“What’s it—for?” I asked tentatively, although I suspected I already knew the answer.
“For the trip, of course,” Monty replied as he spun the stroller around in a tight circle to show me the opposite side.
A small plastic sign cut into the shape of a yellow triangle had been pinned to the carriage’s nylon fabric. The sign depicted a silhouette image of the heads and shoulders of two cats below a bold black-lettered message: CATS ON BOARD.
Monty’s face glowed with excitement as he pointed to the sign. “I call it the
Cat-mobile
.” He leaned over the top of the stroller and unzipped the net cover.
“Top-of-the-line model,” Monty boasted with a dramatic hand flourish. “Only the best for my feline friends.”