The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33 by Nic Saint (chrome ebook reader txt) 📗

goats and sheep and the like. Even lower you have your chickens and your birds, which serve only one purpose and that is to be eaten by us. And at the bottom you’ll find such slithery creatures as worms and… snails.” He laughed a deprecating laugh. “Now you’re not seriously going to lower yourselves by getting chummy with the scum of the earth, are you? Seriously!”

“But aren’t we all creatures of God, Kingman?” asked Dooley. “The fishes in the sea, and the crickets in the field, and the birds in the trees? We’re all part of this same beautiful world, aren’t we?”

“Oh, Dooley, Dooley, Dooley,” said Kingman, shaking his head at so much naiveté. “You really have a lot to learn about the way the world works. Look, let me give you this one piece of advice: don’t talk to this snail again, and if anyone asks you, simply tell them it’s just a load of filthy gossip. No truth to the rumor whatsoever. You never saw this snail, you never talked to this snail, you never laid eyes on the foul creature!”

“But we did lay eyes on Mr. Ed,” said Dooley. “And we did talk to him. And he hired us to find out what happened to his human’s boyfriend Bob.”

Kingman gave Dooley an appalled look, and swallowed. “A snail, being kept as a pet by a human. But that’s an abomination!”

“Still,” I said, satisfied to see Kingman’s belief system being jerked around like this. “Evelina Pytel has a snail for a pet.”

“And Mr. Ed is a very clever snail, too,” said Dooley. “He immediately saw that Max and I are the perfect cats to solve this case. Isn’t that right, Max?”

“Yeah, he hired us—I mean, no money exchanged paws, obviously, but it’s clear that he heard great things about us and wanted to retain our services.”

“He’s going to spread the word,” Dooley pointed out. “So when we manage to pull this off I’m sure other pets—whether vertebrate or invertebrate—will soon come crawling out of the woodwork, or from under a flat stone, to ask us to do what we do best: play detective.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” said Kingman, closing his eyes and looking absolutely horrified. “This is too much for me. My best friends. Getting involved with a snail.” And with these words, he slunk back inside the General Store and out of sight, a broken cat.

We watched him leave, and Dooley turned to me with a questioning look on his face. “I didn’t know Kingman was a snail hater, Max,” he said.

“It’s news to me, too, Dooley.”

“I just hope he’ll still want to talk to us.”

“I’m sure that once he gets over his initial shock, he’ll be fine,” I assured my friend.

The whole thing brought home to me the fact that some species are clearly better positioned than others, as far as reputations are concerned. And as Dooley and I walked on, he said, “Do you think Kingman hates spiders, too? Spiders are very useful creatures, Max. And they don’t deserve the bad reputation they have.”

“I know, Dooley. Spiders are great. And so are snails. No matter what Kingman says.”

“And birds aren’t there just to be eaten by cats, are they, Max?”

“Of course not. Birds have every reason to inhabit this world. Just like the rest of us.”

We’d arrived at the barbershop and traipsed inside. Buster, Fido Siniawski’s Main Coon, can usually be relied upon to supply those precious few nuggets of gossip straight from the horse’s mouth—though in this case those horses are in fact Fido’s customers, who like to gossip to their heart’s content while Fido works on perfecting their hairdo.

Buster wasn’t anywhere to be found, though, and so we walked through to the private part of the barbershop, where Fido lives, and where Buster likes to pretend he is in charge. Cats often suffer from that delusion, though not as much as dogs, of course.

We passed through the living room, where a TV stood blaring in a corner, even though there was no one around, then took a peek in the kitchen, where a second TV stood spreading its festival of noise and colorful images, and finally, after Dooley took a sniff from Buster’s kibble bowl and resisted the powerful urge to take a sampling, we passed through the backdoor and into the backyard.

“Buster?” I called out when I couldn’t see a sign of our friend. “Buster, are you here?”

Fido’s backyard is just a small strip of city garden, but the man who likes to work wonders with people’s hirsute appendages has done his best to make it a gorgeous plot of floral delight. A riot of color greeted us, and there was even a pergola, also bedecked with an abundance of flowers. A wrought-iron bench had been placed next to a gurgling, burbling little fountain, and it was as if we’d suddenly gone from the hustle and bustle of midtown to an oasis of peace and quiet. I mean, we could still hear cars hooting and tooting in the distance, but the greenery and the colorful splendor made me feel right at home. There was even a tiny red-chested bird tweeting away to its heart’s content, not a care in the world. He probably was aware that both Dooley and I have signed a strict no-bird-eating policy, and so has Buster, who appreciates all creatures under the sun.

“Here, you guys,” suddenly Buster’s voice sounded, and when we both trotted over, we found our friend lounging in the sun, next to a birdbath, where more birds were enjoying a feathery good time, dipping their little beaks into the crystal-clear water.

“Nice to see that at least one cat doesn’t think birds’ only purpose is to serve as food for cats,” said Dooley, a touch of rancor in his tone that I’d never heard there before.

Buster gave my friend a wide-eyed look of shock. “What did you just say, Dooley?”

“Kingman just propounded his world view,” I explained. “He seems to feel that there’s an order to the