Читать книгу The Secret Laundry Monster Files - John R. Erickson - Страница 7

Chapter Two: Unauthorized Rats in the Laundry

By this time my head was clear of Post-Sleepal Vapors and my ears were alert to every tiny sound in the night.

Flap, flap, flap.

Those were not tiny sounds. They were loud, sharp reports that perfectly matched our profiles of flapping clothes. I turned to Drover. I could barely make out his profile in the starlit darkness.

Hold it. That wasn’t Drover’s profile. It was a fence post, which meant that I couldn’t make out his profile in the starlit darkness. At last we were making some progress.

“Drover, are you there?”

“No, I’m over here.”

I whirled around. “Okay, are you there?”

“No, I’m here.”

“Here, there, it’s all the same, as long as you’re where you are.”

“Well . . . I am where I am . . . I guess.”

“Great. Nice work. Okay, listen up. It appears that Sally May left her laundry on the clothesline overnight. At this point, we don’t know why, but I’m beginning to smell a rat.”

“They must have been pretty dirty.”

“What?”

“The clothes. She had rats in her clothes.”

“She did? Why wasn’t I informed? Drover, I can’t run this ranch without a constant, reliable stream of information. Do you realize what this tiny clue has done?”

“Not really.”

“It explains why she left her clothes on the line all night. She found rats in her laundry basket. Don’t you get it? She’s airing out her laundry. That explains everything.”

“Yeah, but there’s a cat.”

“Wrong, Drover. They were rats—unless you’re changing your report. You said they were rats. Make up your mind. Were they cats or rats?”

“I’m all confused, but I see a cat.”

I squinted into the darkness. It was very dark. I decided to try a trick question. “What color is the cat?”

“Let’s see. Dark.”

“Ah! I’ve exposed an inconsistency in your argu­ment. For you see, Drover, it’s impossible to see a dark cat on a dark night.”

“Yeah, but I see one. And listen. Now I can hear him . . . yowling.”

I probed the dark yard with my Earatory Scan­ners, until . . . “Holy smokes, Drover, it’s a police siren! Someone must have called the cops and they’re coming to back us up. Boy, we’ve blown this thing wide open.”

“I think it’s the cat . . . yowling.”

“Quit talking nonsense. I know a police siren when I . . . Wait a minute, hold everything. Unless I’m badly mistaken, the sound we’re hearing is actually the yowling of a cat!”

“That’s what I said.”

“You see, at certain stages and levels, a cat yowl is indesquishable from a police siren. That’s a cat you’re hearing, Drover.”

“Yeah, I know. I wonder who it could be.”

“Exactly. And now all we have to do is determine who it might be—and find out why he or she is lurking in the yard. Step aside, son, I’ll handle this.” I pushed Drover out of the way and marched straight . . . “Uh . . . where was this cat? I seem to be having a little trouble . . .”

“Over there. To your left. Follow the yowl.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. Of course I’ll follow the yowl.”

I followed the yowl, using a technique we call Yowl Folleration. You home in on the sound, don’t you see, and follow it to the source. At the end of every yowl is a yowling cat. To dogs with very sensitive ears, it’s as easy as following a piece of string.

I followed it, and sure enough, at the end of the string of sound, I discovered . . . a cat.

Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. I not only dis­covered an unauthorized cat lurking in the yard, but within seconds I had given the little sneak a positive identification. You’ll be shocked.

It was Pete the Barncat.

I marched up to him. “Okay, Pete, your little game’s over.”

“Well, well, it’s Hankie the Wonderdog. What took you so long?”

“We do thorough investigations, Kitty, and they take time. You can leave now. We know all about the rats in the laundry.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. Go back to bed and stop yowling. We’ve got this case under control.”

“But there aren’t any rats, Hankie.”

I stared into his weird yellow eyes. “Hey, Pete, I don’t know what kind of con game you’re trying to pull, but we were called out for Rat Control. And you know, Pete, if we had a decent cat on this outfit, we dogs wouldn’t have to mess with the small stuff. You ought to be ashamed.”

“Oh, really?” I could hear him purring, and all at once he began rubbing on my front legs.

“Don’t rub on me, you little pest. I hate that and you know it.”

“Well, Hankie, I have some information for you. It might help in your investigation. Do you want to hear it?”

“Information from a cat? Ha. No thanks, Pete. We never . . . What kind of information? I mean, I won’t use it, I’ll ignore it, but just for laughs, what are we talking about?”

“Well, Hankie”—he rubbed and purred and dusted my nose with his tail—“there aren’t any rats. You were misinformed.”

“Lies, Pete, lies. The Rat Report was turned in by Drover himself. Drover, step forward and tell Pete about the rats.”

Drover joined our circle. “Oh hi, Pete. Let’s see. Rats. They have long tails and . . . they sleep in laundry baskets and . . . they eat cheese.”

I whirled back to the cat. “There! You see? Unless you have some powerful new information, Kitty, we’re going to proceed on the basis of Drover’s Rat Report.”

“Well, Hankie, I do. You want to hear it?”

I stuck my nose in his face. “No, I don’t want to hear it. Do you know why? Because cats are not only dumb, but they’re sneaky as well. They tell lies, Pete, and you’re even worse than most.”

“Fine with me. But I’m warning you. That’s not a rat over there.”

My mind was racing. Was it possible that Pete knew something we didn’t know? Not likely, but I had to find out.

“Okay, Pete, I’ll bite. I’ll take the cheese. Start talking.”

He pointed toward the clothesline. “There’s a raccoon over there. He’s playing with the laundry on the clothesline.”

Drover and I exchanged grins. We couldn’t keep from laughing.

“Hey, Drover, did you hear that?”

“Hee hee. Yeah, that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

“Me too. We saw the rats with our own eyes, right? And this cat says it was a raccoon! Next time he tells the story, it’ll be a kangaroo.”

“Yeah, hee hee.” Our laughter faded into silence. Then Drover said, “You know, Hank, I don’t think we ever saw the rats.”

“What? I thought you . . .?” I didn’t want to discuss Security Division business in front of the cat, so I pulled Drover off to the side for a private consultation. “Look, pal, you’re the one who turned in the Rat Report.”

“No, I think it was you. I never saw any rats.”

“Then what . . .?” The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into . . . shambles. I gave the runt a withering glare. “Drover, once again your blundering has brought the Security Division to the brink of humiliation. If I hadn’t caught this when I did, the cat might have thought we were just a couple of dumb dogs out on a midnight lark.”

“Boy, that would have been wrong.”

“Exactly, but the weed of truth often grows from tiny seeds.” My mind was racing. “Okay, here’s the plan. We’ll deny all knowledge of the Phony Rat Report. We never heard of it and we know nothing about the rats.”

“Except they eat cheese.”

“Okay, we know that much, but nothing more. In the meantime, I’ll subject the cat to a heartless interrogation. If he knows anything, I’ll break him down and wring it out of him. You got it?”

“I guess so. But I think I’m still confused.”

“Just keep your trap shut and let me do the talking. Come on.”

We marched back to the cat and seated ourselves in front of him. He looked up at us and . . . he was grinning. That was pretty positive proof that he was holding something back. Well, I intended to drag it out of him.

“Okay, Pete, we’ve had a meeting of the board and we’ve decided to hear your side of the story.”

“Oh, thank you, Hankie. I’m so honored.”

“You should be. We’ve decided to make this a special case, so . . . out with it. Keep to the facts and make it brief. We’re very busy.”

“My goodness, yes, I know you are.” He blinked those weird cattish eyes. “There’s a raccoon in the yard. He’s playing with Sally May’s laundry and I think he even ripped a sheet. I thought you dogs might want to know.”

“Are you finished? Is that all?”

“That’s all, Hankie.”

I stood up. “Good. It’s another pack of lies and we don’t believe a word of it. You’re excused. You’re free to go chase your tail. Good-bye and good riddance.”

Kitty-Kitty gave us one last smirk and a wave of his paw, and then he went slinking back into the darkness where he belonged. When he had gone, Drover and I exchanged grins.

Drover giggled. “Boy, that was even dumber than what he said before. You sure nailed him.”

“We must be firm with the cats, Drover, even when it brings us enormous pleasure.”

“Yeah, it was fun.”

“It was fun, Drover, but the impointant poink is that we exposed him as a fraud, a cheat, and a liar. In the future we’ll know . . . What are you staring at?”

His eyes had moved away from me and seemed to be staring at . . . something. Something in the spoofy darkness of the yard. Spooky, I should say. The spooky yardness of the yard. The spooky . . . Skip it.

He took cover behind me. “Hank, I just saw something move, and I think it was a . . . raccoon.”