Read Online Who's Kitten Who? by Cynthia Baxter - Free Book Online Page B

kitchen to get Mr. Coffee going. Once that was done, I got serious about cleaning as much orange paint off my dogs as I could without putting them through the gentle cycle of a washing machine.
    I also scrounged around in the freezer and found some chocolate chip cookies the size of saucers. I couldn’t remember how they’d gotten there, but they were going to have to fill in for the freshly baked brownies. I considered microwaving them but decided that Dorothy wasn’t likely to eat them anyway since she was so concerned with keeping her girlish figure. As for Henry, before long he’d be too drugged to notice.
    “Here you are, Henry,” I said as I came out of the kitchen a few minutes later, bearing a tray. “And, Dottie, this mug is yours—”
    She stiffened. “Only my husband calls me Dottie,” she said crisply. “Everyone else calls me Dorothy.”
    “Sorry,” I said. Nick, where
are
you? I thought mournfully.
    Just then Max picked up his beloved pink poodle in his jaws and tottered over to Mitzi, who was still curled up in her owner’s lap. He glanced up at her hopefully, as if he was asking,
Wanna play?
    I heard a low growl, which quickly escalated into a sharp, high-pitched bark.
    “Aarf!” Mitzi complained. “Aarf! Aarf!”
    “Get that horrid animal out of here!” Dorothy shrieked. “It’s clearly upsetting poor Mitzi!”
    “I can see that,” I returned, nearly tripping over poor confused Lou as I leaped across the room to retrieve Max.
    But my feisty little terrier had ideas of his own. He wasn’t about to let some interloper call the shots, something that clearly violated terrier code. Instead, he started barking too, making it clear he was ready to go
mano a mano
—or paw to paw—with the cranky white lapdog.
    His challenge only escalated Mitzi’s fury. “Aarf! Aarf, aarf!” her deafening bark continued.
    The more she barked, the tighter Dorothy held on to her. “Go away!” she cried, waving her hand at my sweet little doggy as if he were a cockroach. “Get away from here, you vile beast!”
    Nick!
a voice inside my head shrieked, sounding as desperate as Stanley Kowalski wailing for his wife, Stella, in
A Streetcar Named Desire
.
    I tried to soothe Max, meanwhile carrying him to the bedroom—which at this point was starting to get crowded. “You’re better off in here, hiding under the bed,” I muttered. “In fact, save a place for me.”
    As I shut the door firmly, I tried to compose a calm, logical way of explaining to Nick that this arrangement simply was not going to work. Maybe I was so miserable that he actually heard my thoughts, because just then I heard a car door slam right outside.
    “It’s Nick!” I cried breathlessly, charging toward the front door. Never in my entire life had I been so happy to see him.
    “Mom? Dad?” he cried as he stepped inside.
    “Here’s our boy!” Dorothy announced gleefully. She seemed to be having a religious experience. Her face lit up with joy and she ran toward him with open arms. “Oh, Nicky, it’s so wonderful to see you!” She was so glad, in fact, that she actually released Mitzi, dumping her unceremoniously in poor Henry’s lap.
    “It’s great to see you too, Mom.” He gave her a big hug, then went over to his father, who was looking very relaxed and was in fact listing to one side, Mitzi and all. The Benadryl was clearly starting to kick in. “Dad, good to see you too.” Nick leaned over and gave him a hug. Henry just looked at him with glazed eyes and blinked.
    “Well,” Nick said, glancing at what looked to the unenlightened eye like a pleasant afternoon tea party, “I see you’ve had a chance to make yourselves at home.” Glancing at me and frowning, he said, “Don’t you think you should shower and change? And what’s with the feathers? And the toilet paper?”
    “The dogs,” I replied.
    “Speaking of the dogs, why is Lou so…so
orange
?”
    “I was just as surprised as you are to find that Jessica