Webster (17 page)

“Mother was a Chocolate Point,” Benjamin said, and—to the Bad Hat's shock—the cat was completely overcome, and began to weep without giving any further details. He was discreet about it, but seemed to be inconsolable, even when Kerry patted him on the head with her paw.

Wow. Maybe that was the thing they all had in common in the rescue group, no matter how different they were—they all had unhappy pasts, and upsetting memories.

By this point, enough animals in the room were crying, so that the Bad Hat was pretty sure that they might need to watch
E.T.
again tonight, to get the misery out of their systems. He glanced at Florence, whose little crossed eyes were staring off into the distance, so she must have been revisiting old, difficult memories, too.

“Well, I'll tell you what,” Jack said, breaking the relative silence. “My mother was
scrappy
. She had something to say about everything, and wow, she made sure that no one messed with us!” He paused. “I think some nice rich people adopted her, and she lives in Boston in a big mansion, with servants to feed and bathe her, and give her as many treats as she wants, whenever she wants.”

The Bad Hat glanced at Florence, who was now
looking at Jack so compassionately, that he suspected that the real story of Jack's family didn't have such a happy ending.

“I bet she wears ribbons every day,” the Bad Hat said, trying to keep the mood in the room light, “and two on Sundays.”

Jack laughed. “Of course she does, and looks just as pretty as can be. Imagine how terrible
you
would look in a ribbon? They would have to tape it to your silly shiny head.”

The Bad Hat was pretty proud of how sleek his fur was, although he wasn't about to admit it. And, of course, he wasn't what you'd call a Ribbon Guy.

Benjamin had been busy washing his face, pretending that he had not cried at all, but now, he cleared his throat. “Enough with the nostalgia already. Let's watch
It's a Wonderful Life
.”

There was general agreement about this, and the Bad Hat settled back to enjoy the show. And—just like always—they laughed, and they cried, and they were on the edge of their seats. In fact, they liked it so much that they watched it twice. Jimmy Stewart, the star, was maybe even more cool than Alan Ladd in
Shane
. The
Bad Hat would have to find out if Jimmy Stewart had ever been in a cowboy movie, because that would be really fun to see.

As dawn approached, he was surprised to feel a sense of
dread
about having to leave. Maybe he, um, wanted to
stay
here? And let his colleagues be his
friends
, once and for all, and—

“Bad Hat, I need to talk to you,” Florence said quietly.

Good. He would pretend he wanted to go off into the big, scary world, but then let her talk him into changing his mind, and that would preserve his dignity.

“Come on,” she said, and walked him to the door.

So, maybe she was going to make a last-minute effort to get him to stay? Unless she
wanted
him to leave? Maybe that was it. He followed her, feeling his tail droop a little.

“Um, look. I kind of, maybe—” he started. “I mean, I'm not sure if—”

“You have an important job today, Bad Hat,” she said.

What? He cocked his head. Did she want him to do
chores
, or something?

“You need to find their mother,” Florence said, looking very serious. “Owners who would simply discard
kittens that way won't be taking good care of their mother, either. I'm very concerned that she's in danger, so you need to bring her here, where we can take care of her.”

Oh. Okay. Looked like he wasn't going to be staying, after all. “I think you're probably right,” he said, “but how am I going to do that? When I asked the kittens where they lived, all they could tell me was that there was a house, with some grass, and that there might be a tree.” Dirt, also.

Which was sort of
beyond
vague.

“You'll find her,” Florence said. “I have great faith in you.”

The Bad Hat blinked, caught off guard by that. “You do?”

Florence nodded. “Yes, I most certainly do. I wasn't really sure about you, at first, but you have become a wonderful friend, and a credit to all of us. I'm so very fond of you.”

Hearing that, the Bad Hat actually felt tears in his eyes. “Really?” he said. “No one has ever been fond of me before.”

Florence reached a shaky paw out, and touched his front leg for a moment. “Oh, I think your mother was
extremely
fond of you. You are a very good dog, in spite of your best efforts.”

He hoped so. He hoped so very much. He had to blink some more, fighting the tears, all sorts of unexpected emotions welling up in his heart.

“There's a lot of ground to cover, so I've put together a team, to work with you,” she said. “All of the dogs volunteered, but I assigned the ones who will be the most helpful.” Florence paused. “And Jack's coming, too.”

A team. He had never been part of a
team
before.

“You can do it,” she said. “I'll see you back here soon.”

The Bad Hat nodded without another word, and trotted outside. It took him three tries to make it over the tall fence. When he finally landed on the other side, Jack, MacNulty, Matilda, Duke, Lancelot, and Rachel were all waiting for him.

“How did you guys make it out here so quickly?” he asked, as he picked himself up. Especially Jack. How on earth could he scramble over such a high fence?

The other dogs exchanged glances, and snickered.

“We're magic, dude,” Lancelot drawled. “Pure magic.”

The other dogs all nodded, and laughed again.

Clearly, the Bad Had was missing something here. “Seriously. How did you get out here so fast?”

Jack laughed some more. “You are such a bozo. We have a
tun
—”

“Shhh!” MacNulty said.

“—
nel
,” Jack finished more softly.

The Bad Hat was still lost. Tun? Nel? What were a “tun” and—wait, he meant a
tunnel
. A tunnel! Well, okay, that would explain everything. “Where is it?” he asked.

Jack started to say something, but MacNulty promptly head-butted him to the ground.

“I don't think we should be wasting time,” Rachel said mildly. “The mother cat needs our help.”

Right. They needed to focus. “Okay, fine. I know this is a team,” the Bad Hat said, “but Florence put me in charge. So, that makes me the captain.”

“Then, I'm a colonel,” Jack said. “You can call me Colonel Jack.”

“And I'm a brigadier general,” Matilda, the Spaniel mix, said.

“Since I'm a police dog, I must be a
chief
,” Duke said.

MacNulty decided that he was a major general, Lancelot proclaimed that he was a rear admiral, and Rachel dubbed herself a lieutenant general.

The Bad Hat had only seen a couple of war movies, so he had to think for a minute, to digest all of those ranks. “Wait, does that mean that I'm suddenly the lowest-ranking officer here?” he asked.

The other dogs nodded.

“If you do well,” Duke said kindly, “you can work your way up to major.”

What exciting news.

“What's the plan?” Jack asked, bouncing up and down with excitement. “It's so cool to be part of a rescue mission!”

Everyone looked at the Bad Hat.

Ah, so he had a lower rank, but was apparently still in charge. “The kittens didn't have much information,” he said. “They told me that there was grass, and a house, and some dirt, and maybe a tree. They didn't say anything about the lake, so the house probably isn't right on the water.”

The other dogs waited expectantly for more information.

“Sorry,” the Bad Hat said. “That's all I have.”

“So, I guess we probably need to check every single house in town,” MacNulty said. “Eventually, we'll find the right one.”

The Bad Hat nodded. It wasn't a
great
plan, but at least, it was a plan.

And he was absolutely
determined
that they were going to find the mother cat!

S
o, they started searching. The town might not have been huge, but it covered a pretty wide area. It occurred to the Bad Hat that the cruel owners of the mother cat might not even
live
in this town—they could have driven over from some other village.

Which he decided not to mention just yet, since it was a little demoralizing to think that they could end up walking all over the entire state of New Hampshire for
weeks
, and never find her.

He also didn't make any jokes about looking for a needle in a haystack, because almost every farm they passed actually
had
at least one haystack.

Did cats like hay? Probably not. But, if the mother cat
was scared, and hiding, she could be almost anywhere.

They could rule out any house with no trees in the yard—but so far, they hadn't come across a single house like that.

After searching for a couple of hours with no luck at all, the dogs decided to stop and rest. Rachel found a small wooded clearing, with cool green moss on the ground, and they all flopped down on their sides and panted.

“We're never going to find her,” Matilda said. “This is a waste of time.”

Probably, but they still had to try. And the stupid truck really
could
have been from anywhere, so they might have to—the Bad Hat lifted his head up from the moss.

“Wait a minute, hold the phone,” he said. “We don't have to find the house. We have to find the
truck
.”

“And you got a good look at the truck, right, dude?” Lancelot asked.

Well, he'd been diving into the bushes to get out of the way, so it had been more of a
glimpse
—but, that was close enough.

“What do you remember?” Matilda asked eagerly.

“Let's hypnotize him!” Jack said, and snatched a stick
from the ground. Then, he stood right front of the Bad Hat and swung his head back and forth. “Just follow the stick with your eyes, Bad Hat. You are getting very, very
sleepy
.”

He
was
kind of sleepy, but it had nothing to do with the silly stick. The Bad Hat yawned. “Give me a break, little man. I'm trying to think.”

“But, it's working,” Jack said. “You're nodding off.”

“I'm
tired
,” the Bad Hat said. “So, please don't make me
more
tired.”

Jack shrugged, plopped down on the moss, and began to chew the stick.

The Bad Hat closed his eyes, so he could concentrate. Then, he took a few deep breaths, hoping that the refreshing smell of pine trees would clear his mind.

“It was navy blue,” he said. “Not new, but not ancient, either. Just, you know, a regular truck. And there was a lot of dried mud and dust and all on the sides, and on the wheels, like they never bothered washing it.”

“Someone needs to take mental notes,” Rachel said. “Can anyone take notes?”

“I will,” MacNulty said. “I have a very good memory.” He winced. “But, remind me to erase
sheep
from it, okay?”

The Bad Hat closed his eyes more tightly, trying to bring up a clear image of the speeding truck in his mind. “There was a dent,” he said. “On the back right bumper. And—” Was there anything else? Anything at all? He thought as hard as he could, and remembered—flapping. What could have been
flapping
? He opened his eyes. “Rope! There was like, a light blue covering over the truck bed, and it was tied down with old yellow rope. That awful plastic kind, that hurts your teeth.”

All of the other dogs shuddered.

“But, it wasn't tied very well, so it was blowing around in the wind,” the Bad Hat said. He thought some more and shook his head. “That's it. I don't remember anything else.”

“Actually, that's really good,” Matilda said. “We can narrow things down a lot that way.”

Duke nodded. “Nice police work, Mad Cap. You'll make detective one of these days!”

That didn't sound very enticing, so the dog just shrugged.

They decided to start from the road where he had found the bag of kittens. Then, they could work their way out from there.

The Bad Hat figured that people who threw kittens away couldn't be very smart—and were obviously too lazy to try and do the right thing, and at least drop them off at an animal shelter or the police station or something. So, they were probably also not ambitious enough to drive
miles
out of their way to commit their rat-fink form of animal abuse.

His best guess was that the people had driven to the nearest deserted road, just far enough away from their house, so that if anyone found the kittens, they couldn't be traced back to them. It was a crime of opportunity—not, like, a crime of
intellect
.

They made their search as methodical and logical as possible. Up one street, down the next, checking each side street and all of the little dead-end roads that seemed to appear in the most unexpected wooded spots. They checked garages, too, in case the bad people had parked their truck inside. Then, once they had completely explored an area, they would move one street over and start the process all over again.

Every so often, the Bad Hat would see a truck parked in a driveway or something, and get excited, but it would turn out to be black, or dark green, or
too new, or too old, or some other disqualifying factor.

A couple of times, they even came across trucks with dented bumpers, and the Bad Hat would go over and study the vehicle carefully, but it was never the right one.