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I
F
there was a chill in the early morning air, we didn't notice or mind. All that mattered as we moved single file along the edge of Highway 101 was the importance of our mission. It isn't every day, after all, that six dogs, three cats, and a weasel have the opportunity not only to save one of their own from the Big Sleep, but to bring loved ones together again.

Not that there weren't distractions, mind you.

Dippy Donuts. Bugsy Burgers. Ye Olde Clam-on-a-Roll. Tex-Mex Multiplex. Little
Pizza Paradise. It wasn't easy passing one fine dining establishment after another without stopping for breakfast. It's true the restaurants were all closed, but the dumpsters were open. Chester, however, insisted that we keep going, pointing out that we had only a short time before the sun came up. When that happened, we would have to be much more careful about being seen. And being caught.

I knew he was right. But leaving the House of Pies dumpster untouched just about did me in.

“I'll make it up to you, Harold,” Hamlet said sympathetically as he limped along beside me. “If we can just find Archie, I'll see to it that he sends you a pie every week for a year. He's rich, you know.”

“I didn't know,” I said. Not that I was planning on holding Hamlet to his promise, but I will admit just the thought of it helped me get through the next couple of miles.

Luckily for us, Felony and Miss Demeanor knew Centerville like the pads of their filching
little paws. As we marched along to the accompaniment of The Weasel's hymn humming, the two cat burglars proudly pointed out their favorite scenes of the crime. They were practically overcome with nostalgia when they realized that the address we were seeking was on the same street as the location of their very first criminal act.

“It was a pastrami sandwich,” Felony recalled, her eyes misting over. “Belonged to a guy paintin' a house. Remember, Miss D.?”

“How could I forget?” said the fat, fuzzy one. The way she gazed off into the distance, I expected violins to start playing. “We was practically kittens. A coupla amateurs. But even then we knew we was destined for great things.”

“The way we work is Miss D.'s the good cat, I'm the bad cat,” Felony informed us. “She goes in, see, wraps herself around the unsuspecting victim's legs, and purrs up a storm. It don't take long. They pick her up, she nuzzles ‘em, and I go in fer the kill.”

Miss Demeanor picked up the story. “That's what we did with that painter. He never even knew his pastrami was missin'till he put me down and laid his mitts on a coupla pieces o'rye with mustard and no meat.”

They chuckled. “Someday we oughta write a book, Miss D.,” said Felony. “What a life we've had.”

“You could call it
A Tale of Two Kitties,”
Howie suggested.

“That's not bad,” said Miss Demeanor. “Let's see, it could start like this: The best of crimes, the worst of crimes . . .'”

Howie yipped enthusiastically while the rest of us shook our heads and Bob and Linda sighed.

Suddenly, Felony cried out, “Hey, that's the street!”

Chester, who had committed both addresses to memory, said, “Treetop Lane. That's it, all right.”

It wasn't quite dawn yet, but as we moved slowly down Treetop Lane, the streetlight was
enough to make Hamlet realize he'd been there before. He stopped short when we came to the small brick house at the end. There was a name—Cantelloni—on the mailbox.

“Archie isn't here,” he said, shaking his head.

“How do you know?” Chester asked.

“Because this is Cousin Flo's. This is where I was staying until . . . that man came along.”

We looked at the darkened house as Hamlet continued. “Life was pretty good here for a while. Flo Fenster was a nice lady who never stinted on the dog food. She didn't even get angry when I chewed up one of her favorite slippers. She just said, ‘Dogs will be dogs,' and bought herself another pair.

“But one day she met Jed Cantelloni in the produce section of the superette. I was watching through the store window as he approached her with a pineapple in his hand. I saw the look in his eyes when she showed him how to tell if it was ripe. They did the rest of their shopping together and came out of the store all smiles because
they'd found out they used the same brand of dish detergent. But he stopped smiling when he saw me. ‘Don't you find such a big dog a lot of bother?' he asked her. And she didn't say, ‘Oh, no, of course not.' She said, ‘He's my cousin's dog.' She never even noticed she'd forgotten to buy my food.

“It was a whirlwind romance. They got married two weeks later and went to Mexico for their honeymoon. On the way to the airport, they dropped me off at Chateau Bow-Wow. And that's the last I saw of either of them.”

Just then, a light went on in one of the downstairs rooms. We all ran to hide behind a bush. Being the tallest, Hamlet and I were the only ones who could see inside. Craning my neck, I made out a man with thinning hair and a thickening middle scratching his head and yawning. From the way his lips were moving, it seemed that he was whistling.

“That's him,” Hamlet said.

There was a high-pitched yipping.

“And who's that?” I asked.

Hamlet's eyes grew wide. “I don't know,” he said.

The front door opened. Out stepped Jed Cantelloni, a jacket thrown over his pajamas. He was holding a frisky puppy at the end of a leash. “Ready for our morning walk, Cupcake?” the man who didn't like dogs said cheerfully. “Let's go then, pal.”

“I can't believe it,” Hamlet said as they started down the sidewalk. Cupcake turned briefly and sniffed in our direction, but fortunately, her master tugged at her leash and they disappeared around a corner.

“What an awful person,” said Linda, as we watched them go. “How could he do that to you, Hamlet?” She shuddered. “This would never happen in Upper Centerville.”

“Don't be too sure,” said Bob. “We still don't know what's become of Tom and Tracy.”

Bob and Linda gave each other a soulful look.

“How's about we go in and snitch Cupcake's
favorite toys?” Felony asked. “Maybe spill her water.”

“And we could claw this bum's Barca-Lounger while we're at it,” Miss Demeanor snarled.

“I appreciate the offer,” Hamlet said, “but it isn't the dog's fault, and Cousin Flo, well, she'd be really upset to see any of her furniture ruined, so—”

“But she let this guy get rid of you,” said Felony. “Don't you want to get even?”

Hamlet shook his head. “It's not her fault either. It's no one's fault. Why shouldn't they want a cute little puppy instead of an old coot like me?”

“That's enough of that kind of talk,” said The Weasel. “Come on, Hamlet, you stick with me. I'm going to cheer you up.”

And so, as The Weasel sang “The sun'll come out tomorrow,” we set off on the final lap of our journey, the one that would take us to our last hope—the second address in Hamlet's file.

It was daylight now. The streets were getting busy with cars and the sidewalks were filling with people. We were forced to take back roads and, when we could, cut through yards and parks and playgrounds to avoid being too conspicuous. My stomach was making more noise than The Weasel's singing, but we pushed onward, ever onward, knowing that we had little time before we'd be missed and our chance to save Hamlet would be lost forever.

I don't suppose any of us could have anticipated what would lie at our journey's end. Certainly, we never imagined Archie might be living in such a place as the huge stone house that confronted us in the sleepy little town of London.

“Wow,” I said to Hamlet when I saw it. “I know you said Archie was rich, but—”

Hamlet looked confused. “He's not this rich,” he said.

“Well, he sure owns a lot of cars,” said Howie. “And, look, he's got servants.” Several
people in uniform were walking across a yard that was big enough to be a public park.

“Are you
sure
this is the right place?” I asked Chester.

Chester looked up at the address on the gate in front of us: 1717 Burrito Boulevard.

“This is it,” he said. “I'm sure of it.”

We all looked back at the numbers. That's when we noticed the sign above them. We weren't sure what it meant at first, but Chester explained it to us. Hamlet shook his head sadly.

“What am I going to do now?” he asked.

I lifted my eyes once more and read the words:

SUNNYDALE NURSING HOME

W
E
crept through the gate of the Sunny-dale Nursing Home only to be met by another sign. This one was larger than the first and had lots of words written on it, but there were only three that mattered to us at the moment. Three little words near the bottom.

NO ANIMALS ALLOWED.

“Well, Pop,” said Howie, “there's your omen.”

“More obstacle than omen,” Chester muttered. Then, seeing the forlorn look in Hamlet's eyes, he added, “And an obstacle is
nothing more than a victory waiting to happen!

I recognized Chester's statement as one of the many he'd been quoting ever since finishing that recent best-seller,
Everything I Always Wanted to Be I Already Am.
I wondered if The Weasel had read it too; it seemed like his kind of book.

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Hamlet said, “but I don't see how—”

“All we need is a plan,” Chester said.

Howie ran to a nearby rock garden and pulled a fern out by its roots. “Here,” he said, presenting it proudly to Chester.

“That's
plan
, Howie, not
plant.”

“Oh.”

“Keep that up, and we'll be bounced out of here before you can say—”

“Open window.”

We all turned at the sound of Felony's voice.

“There's an open window over there by the parking lot,” she said. “We make our way
under the cars, see; then it's a dash and a leap and we're in.”

“Not a bad plan,” Chester said, squinting his eyes and nodding approval. “With a little help, it'll be better than not bad. It'll be good.”

Felony and Miss Demeanor scowled. I had the feeling they weren't used to having their plans improved upon.

But Chester wasn't used to having somebody else come up with the plan in the first place. “The problem is we don't know what's on the other side of that window,” he went on. “Now, the hedge underneath will make an excellent hiding place while one of us gets up on Hamlet's or Harold's back and checks out the interior. The only other problem is how we get to the window without being seen.”

“I told ya,” said Felony, gritting her teeth, “we skedaddle under the cars.”

“But some of us aren't going to fit,” Chester pointed out, with a nod toward Hamlet and me.

“I've got it!” said Howie. “We'll disguise ourselves. That's what they do in the movies. Okay. It's a nursing home, right? So let's make ourselves look like nurses. First we need those little white hats. Wait, I've got a better idea. We could pretend we're delivering pizza.”

“Excellent idea, Howie,” said Chester, rolling his eyes. “Maybe you could write it up and submit it in triplicate, hmm? Meanwhile, the rest of us will try to come up with an alternative.”

“Okay, Pop,” Howie said.

“Let me just give this some thought,” Chester said. “We need to be sure that no one sees Harold and Hamlet. Hmm.”

Hamlet cleared his throat. “If you'll pardon my saying so, Howie's idea may be useful.” Leading us to a large tree, he indicated a pile of cut-down branches. “In Shakespeare's play
Macbeth,”
he told us, “an army disguises itself with the branches of a tree. We could do the same thing. If anyone spots us, we could just stand still and we'd look like—”

“A bunch of branches with furry feet and tails,” said Miss Demeanor. “That's the stupidest idea I ever heard.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said Chester. “It might just work. After all, a bunch of branches is less likely to raise suspicions than a bunch of animals on the loose.”

We nodded our heads. All except Howie, that is, who was too busy trying to figure out what
triplicate
meant.

And so, with branches clenched firmly between our teeth, we set out across the parking lot, looking like a cross between an Arbor Day parade and a very strange family of deer with sprouted antlers. We got close enough to the window so that we could see some movement on the other side when suddenly a door opened and a man and a woman burst out. We froze.

Looking out across the parking lot, the man said, “Listen, Helen, it's all well and good that you want to humor him, but this is a waste of time.”