§ § § -- January 21, 1995
Rollins' primarily feline brain still retained a few elementally human characteristics; so he had a unique perspective on the experience of existence as a cat. While he couldn't process thought in the manner of a human, he was well aware of everything that went on around him and was able to file it away in his memory for later. Moreover, he fully understood human speech, even if he couldn't exactly talk back. He suffered the inquisitive attentions of Tabitha's three cats, working meantime on Leslie's remarks about catnip. What on earth was that young woman trying to do to him, anyway? What kind of life could a cat have if it wasn't allowed catnip? It was clear that these three cats had access to the stuff, and one thing he had hoped to learn over the weekend was just what it was about it that made a cat go so batty. If Cleo, the elegant black-spotted silver cat now regarding him with suspicion, really did have some hidden somewhere, then he was just going to have to find it somehow. If he could make friends with Cleo, she might even share it with him.
Cleo, Rusty and Copper seemed to accept him easily enough, but Cleo turned out to be more standoffish than her two companions, which rankled him. She rebuffed his friendly overtures enough times that he grew discouraged and decided he'd just have to look for her stash on his own. But he'd have to bide his time. At the moment he just wanted to sleep. Once it got dark, he could start a proper search.
Tabitha had a date with Fernando that evening, and she made sure to leave plenty of dry cat food and fresh water before stepping out front to meet him when he pulled up in a secondhand jeep, purchased from Roarke and repainted bright green so as to be easily distinguishable as the doctor's vehicle. Rollie watched her cross her tiny plot of grass toward the jeep and slip into the passenger seat; his vision, excellent in the dimming light, had no trouble picking out the young couple as they kissed each other before Fernando put the jeep in gear and pulled away from the cottage. This night vision was something else all right, a wonderful benefit of being a cat. He should have no trouble finding Cleo's catnip; it was just a matter of locating the stuff.
When Tabitha returned home four hours later, he lay low till she had gone to sleep for the night; then he peered in the direction of the kitchen, where Rusty and Cleo were both indulging a craving for a midnight snack. He himself was pretty hungry, but the smell of the dry cat food was highly unappealing. Didn't the woman ever feed her cats any tuna, for heaven's sake? Right now tuna sounded absolutely heavenly, and he crouched atop the cat gym salivating at the very idea before realizing that it wasn't going to simply materialize in front of him. That morning's sushi was now only a pleasant memory, but the thought of it was even more tantalizing than that of tuna; so he decided he was better off concentrating on getting hold of that catnip.
He leaped gracefully off the top of the cat gym and prowled the cottage, bypassing Copper on her way toward the kitchen for a quick bite of her own, and hunted through the cottage till he discovered something that looked like a pet bed in the corner of Tabitha's bedroom. Cautiously he padded over and sniffed delicately at it; recognizing Cleo's scent, he stepped in and began to poke around with his paws, overturning a few cat toys that lay inside, sniffing carefully around the edges of the cushion, even prodding between the cushion and the low walls of the pet bed with one paw. He all but ripped the cushion cover with his claws before finally concluding that not only was Tabitha out of catnip, so was Cleo.
There was a sudden warning hiss from behind him and he realized he'd been caught red-handed (or was that red-pawed?). Very slowly he twisted his head and peered over his left front haunch, and sure enough, there was Cleo, crouched half under the bed, glaring at him and poised to leap. She hissed again, baring her teeth. In the bed, Tabitha stirred in her sleep and murmured something unintelligible.
Rollie decided, in his primitive feline way, that it would be prudent to beat a retreat, and gathered his back legs beneath him before leaping out of Cleo's bed. It wasn't soon enough for Cleo, who promptly leaped after him, landed neatly on top of him and made him let out a startled yowl.
Shocked awake, Tabitha bolted upright in bed and snapped on the lamp, staring wide-eyed at the two cats wrestling on the floor. "Cleo! Rollie! What's going on?" She jumped out of the bed and grabbed a small water pistol off a bookshelf, squirting both cats with it. Cleo broke away from Rollie and bounded out of the room; Rollie, indignant, shook himself hard and began to meow in protest at Tabitha. "Good grief, you're talkative," she commented. "I don't know what you were looking for, but Cleo's very territorial. I guess that'll teach you, huh?" She yawned and replaced the water pistol on the shelf. "Why don't you let me get some sleep if you have to prowl around like the others?"
But Rollie had had enough feline company for one night and decided he was safer in this room; so he hopped onto Tabitha's bed and went so far as to snuggle up right underneath her chin. She chuckled resignedly and allowed him to stay, to his delight; soon he had lulled her to sleep with his energetic purring. He himself fell asleep doing it.
§ § § -- January 22, 1995
The other cats seemed content with their dry food on Sunday morning, but Rollie wasn't having any of it and meowed at Tabitha from atop the counter where she was trying to prepare her own breakfast. It didn't take her long to grow annoyed with him. "Look, I have to eat too. Sorry, but I don't have any sushi in the house, and I'm not going over to the hotel just to pamper you. I think I'm going to have Leslie buy Fernando and me both the most expensive dinner they have over there, since you're turning out to be such a pest." She lifted Rollie off the counter and set him firmly on the floor. "There's breakfast. Eat."
He was so hungry by now that he was driven to go over and sample a nugget of the dry food; fortunately, Rusty had had his fill and Rollie was able to nip a bit out of his dish. The thing tasted even worse than he'd imagined, and he spat it out again, hissing at it for good measure. Cleo hissed back at him, and both cats flattened their ears at each other.
Tabitha said something short and sharp in her native Náhuatl. "What's the matter with you two? All right, Rollie, all right…wait just another minute." She sighed in exasperation and peered in the refrigerator till she finally unearthed a can of tuna. "I can't believe I have this—I hate tuna. Well, now it's yours." She opened the can and dumped the contents onto a saucer, from which she had barely turned away to throw out the empty can before Rollie leaped eagerly onto the counter and dug right in. It was the best thing he had ever tasted in his life, either human or feline, and he savored every bite.
Once he'd finished, his one-track mind zeroed in on the catnip issue again. By then the other cats had finished their own food and gone on to other pursuits, while Tabitha washed the breakfast dishes. She whisked the saucer out from under his nose and added it to the soapy water in the sink, pausing long enough to say, "Shoo, you spoiled thing, you. Wait till I tell Leslie how badly you've been behaving." Rollie meowed in protest at her: all he wanted was some catnip! But she only shook her head and continued washing dishes.
Rollie concluded that the only way he'd ever get any catnip was to get out of this house altogether. To that end, he began to watch for a chance to escape. It wasn't too long in coming. Tabitha stacked the wet dishes in a rack in the sink to drip dry and wiped her hands with a towel, then went out to the living room, where Rusty was sitting patiently beside the door. "Have to go out, do you?" Tabitha said indulgently. Rollie's ears perked up, and he leaped off the counter and streaked across the room with perfect timing. Just as Tabitha opened the door for Rusty, he himself reached it and slipped through right after the Norwegian Forest cat, zipping past him and straight out of the yard.
"Rollie, get back here!" Tabitha shouted, but Rollie kept right on going. He'd seen where the red station wagon had gone the previous morning and knew all he had to do was follow the Ring Road; sooner or later he'd get back to the main house.
‡ ‡ ‡
"Well, look, if you can't get over there today, then send one of your staff. …No, I wish I could, but there's too much to do around here. Yes, it really is that urgent, believe me. It's my understanding that Chef Miyamoto is planning it for this evening's banquet." Leslie sat at Roarke's desk, pen poised over a pad with a list of items that needed doing that morning, trying to talk someone at the restaurant into going to the pineapple plantation. So absorbed was she in this task that she didn't see the white cat slink into the room through the open shutters. "I'm not quite sure, actually. I think he needs about ten of them, but you'd better double-check with him."
Rollie crept around the perimeter of the room, keeping an eye on Leslie, who was now absently twisting part of the spiral phone cord around one finger. "Oh no," she groaned into the phone. "How shorthanded are you?" Rollie came abreast of the desk, now right behind Leslie, and eyed the open top left drawer, nose as high as he could lift it, sniffing the air delicately. "Well, all right. I guess I'll have to go myself, then. Sorry to bother you…no, that's okay. Thanks anyway." She hung up and reached for another note pad nearby, ripping off the top sheet and scribbling a note to Roarke on it before taking a car key from the gold box and heading out the door.
Rollie eased out from behind the chair and stretched up on his hind legs, trying to see into the open drawer, but he wasn't quite tall enough. He sank back down, gathered himself and leaped atop the desk. Here, he glanced around the room once more before stepping down into the drawer and beginning to paw through the items inside it.
The foyer door opened and Rollie's head shot up; Leslie came back inside, head down, muttering to herself in annoyance about having forgotten something. The cat took a flying leap out of the drawer and zipped under the credenza in the corner, where he crouched as far into the shadows as he could. "Blast it," Leslie was scolding herself, "I'll never learn. I hope that bill of lading is in there…" Rollie peered out from under the credenza as she came around the desk and went through the same drawer he'd just exited at such speed. It took her a couple of minutes to extract the paper she needed; sighing, she checked her list and left again, this time at a run.
Rollie waited till he heard the sound of a car engine in the lane before cautiously emerging from beneath the credenza. He made certain the coast was good and clear before hopping onto the desk and then back into the drawer, where he spent a good five minutes digging under all sorts of receipts, old letters, rubber-banded envelopes, elegant letterhead, extra pens and other office supplies, and even a few forgotten coins from several different countries. Just as he was coming to the conclusion that he wouldn't find what he wanted in there, the phone rang and he instantly popped up to a rigid sitting position in the drawer. It took four rings before the answering machine kicked in.
"Hello, you've reached Mr. Roarke and Leslie," said Leslie's voice in professionally pleasant cadence. "At the moment we aren't able to take your call, but if you'll kindly leave a message, we'll return your call as soon as we can. Thank you!" Rollie meowed at the machine; it clicked, and Tabitha's voice took over, sounding frantic.
"Leslie, I'm so sorry…I don't know what to do. I hope you won't be angry with me, but Rollie got out. He just raced out the front door and disappeared up the road. It looked like he was headed in the direction of your end of the island, so maybe you'll be able to find him…but I feel terrible. If you need me to help look for him, I'll be happy to. Please call me back as soon as you get this message…I don't want your friend getting upset with you because I couldn't handle his crazy cat. I looked all over the place here, but he's just gone. I am so sorry!…" Tabitha hung up on a near sob; Rollie meowed again, a little repentant at sending the poor woman into a frenzy, but mainly relieved he'd gotten out. She couldn't be any kind of decent cat owner if she didn't keep her felines in catnip, he figured.
Abandoning the drawer, he hopped to the floor and headed for the stairs, trotting up and exploring at leisure. He spent about two hours sleeping beneath Leslie's bed before the young housemaid came up to clean the bedrooms; she brought a vacuum cleaner, which woke him up very rudely indeed and sent him tearing out of the room. No catnip up there either, but at least he'd gotten in a nice nap.
From the top of the stairs he peered down into the study, which was still empty; assured of remaining undiscovered, he returned to the first floor and peered through the open doorway of the time-travel room, which this weekend was idle and consequently bare of all trappings. Clearly there was no point looking in there either. He slipped into the foyer and strolled toward the kitchen at leisure.
Within three minutes the door opened and Roarke and Leslie entered at the same time. "…It's just been chaos all morning," Leslie was saying. "Somehow the pineapples Chef Miyamoto needed didn't show up at the hotel, and three waitstaff and the chief cook at the restaurant are out sick today. One of the jeeps broke down; Julie's completely out of those little bath soaps she leaves in her rooms, and she also said she's overbooked for the next four weeks and has no idea what to do about it. Not only her soaps but a fresh shipment of toiletries hasn't shown up. Two vacationers had heart attacks yesterday, and Mateo called here just after you left this morning and said that three out of the group of ten climbers who were scaling Mount Tutumoa this weekend fell off a ledge and they all have broken legs. In fact, one of them broke both legs. And to top it all off, Captain Edmonds' Dante's Inferno fantasy incinerated the interior of the Palm Bungalow. I still can't figure out how that happened." She blew out a breath and met her father's astonished gaze. "This has to have been the most disastrous weekend we've ever had, at least that I can remember."
"Oh, there have been worse," Roarke mused, "but this one certainly ranks in the top ten. However, it appears that everything is well enough in hand, except perhaps for Julie's problems. I thought she knew better than to overbook her rooms." He picked up a stack of mail that lay on the desk and began to thumb through the envelopes. "Please check the telephone messages, if you would, and then we'll take a break for lunch."
"A well-deserved break, if you ask me," Leslie remarked and pushed the playback button on the machine. She and Roarke found themselves staring at each other as they listened to Tabitha's harried message.
When it ended, Leslie slammed her notepad onto the desk. "Damn that stupid cat anyway! Who does he think he is?"
"Leslie," Roarke chided sternly, "don't forget, he's our guest."
Before she could reply, there was a loud crash from the kitchen, the musical tinkling of shattered glass and a collection of screams. Once more father and daughter shared a look, this one startled and alarmed, before they both ran down the hallway to the kitchen.
Mariki and her three assistants were huddled near the refrigerator, still screaming; one was sobbing hysterically. The floor was covered in broken glass and crockery, spilled soup and vegetables, a silver tray, and scattered silverware. And in the middle of the floor, J. Anderson Rollins was rolling gleefully around in a pile of catnip.
"You've got to be kidding!" Leslie burst out.
Roarke took a deep breath and thundered, "Silence!" The screaming and crying stopped; Leslie jumped, badly startled. Even Rollins froze where he lay, and everyone stared at Roarke. "Thank you," said Roarke, clearing his throat and carefully buttoning his suit jacket. "Now, if someone would please attend to this mess…and Leslie, would you assist Mr. Rollins up from the floor, please?"
"I wish I had a picture of this," Leslie said, picking her way through the shards of crystal and porcelain to lend Rollins a hand. Roarke gave the ceiling an exasperated glance and turned to Mariki.
"Exactly what happened in here?" he asked.
"We were getting ready to serve your lunch, Mr. Roarke," Mariki explained a little breathlessly, "and then a white cat came in here. We didn't pay much attention to it, except for Mapuana—you know how much she loves cats. She'd just bought some catnip for her own cat, and she thought she'd give some to this one. And that cat was going simply insane, Mr. Roarke. It practically dived into the package before she had it half open. Then the next thing we knew, the minute that cat touched the catnip, there was the most peculiar noise we ever heard and a lot of oily brown smoke, and when it was gone, there was that old man, lying on his back on the floor and throwing catnip into the air." She clapped a hand over her heart. "Never in my life have I had such a shock, and the girls were terrified!"
"Indeed," Roarke murmured. "I apologize for that…"
Mariki stared at him. "What, sir? But we ruined your lunch! I dropped the tray and now I'll have to start all over again…and oh dear, all these broken dishes and glasses!"
"Never mind, Mariki," Roarke said, sounding decidedly weary. "Leslie and I will just have lunch at the restaurant." He trained an annoyed eye on Rollins, who with Leslie's assistance had regained his feet and was covered with catnip and some of the soup that Mariki had dropped. "Welcome back to humanity, Mr. Rollins," he said dryly.
In the course of getting up, Rollins had discovered he wasn't a cat anymore and now favored Roarke with a jaundiced glare. "You could've told me, Roarke."
"Told you what?" Leslie interjected, energetically scrubbing catnip off her hands at the sink.
"That I wasn't supposed to have any catnip!" Rollins roared, incensed. "All your damn dire warnings, Roarke, and you managed to leave that one out! I'll bet my favorite ski chalet you did that on purpose!"
"I did no such thing," Roarke said, keeping tight control over his voice, which as a result came out sounding a bit strained. "You were so determined to have your fantasy, Mr. Rollins, that you didn't give me a chance to relay that particular news."
Leslie snorted so loudly that they all turned to look at her. "You got sinus troubles, missy?" Rollins demanded.
Leslie glared at him. "Don't give me that malarkey! When I took you down to Tabitha's house, I told her you couldn't have any catnip, and I know you understood me—you had no trouble making out what Father and I were saying yesterday morning right after you took that potion. That effectively served as your warning right there, Mr. Rollins. Moreover, I said it twice. You weren't allowed to have catnip!"
"How was I supposed to know that?" Rollins barked at her. "You never told your friend why I couldn't have it!"
"And what do you think would have happened if I had?" Leslie fired right back. "She doesn't even know the potion exists, and I certainly wasn't going to tell her. Besides, that would've compromised your fantasy, and you'd be complaining even more."
"Leslie, that will do," Roarke broke in sharply, and she subsided with an exasperated huff. "As for you, Mr. Rollins, I have only these final words for you: Curiosity killed the cat."
"Oh, Father," Leslie moaned, shaking her head and covering her face with her hands.
Rollins stared at Roarke and then, incredibly, began to laugh, filling the room with his braying guffaws and scaring Mariki's staff anew. "Yeah, Roarke," he chortled, "you're right about that, in a way. And you, young missy…tell me, is that how you got out of being a cat when you took the potion?"
"Yes," said Leslie warily. "Why?"
"Well, I have better appreciation for what you probably went through. Seems to me the experience didn't agree with you, now, did it?"
"No," said Leslie, "primarily because I'm allergic to catnip—under which circumstance I'm sure you'll understand when I ask you if you'd mind cleaning up your own clothes." She handed Rollins a large wad of paper towels.
The old man hollered with mirth again and accepted them, brushing catnip off himself and sponging off soup. "What rotten luck, eh, Roarke? Well, tell you what, missy…in view of what happened, I'm giving you five grand for your trouble on my behalf. After all, you didn't exactly volunteer for it. And y'know, Roarke, this whole thing really was a lot of fun." He glanced around the kitchen. "Lemme know what this mess cost and I'll reimburse you, seeing as I scared purgatory out of the kitchen help here."
"That's not necessary, Mr. Rollins," said Roarke, composure back in place.
"Sure it is, and don't argue with me. It's the prerogative of an old goat like me to have his way." He chortled to himself, still mopping himself up, and then paused, looking up at Roarke with inspiration on his face. "Old goat…that's it! That's it! To hell with this being-a-cat stuff. I'm gonna come back as a goat!" He beamed at Roarke. "How much'll it cost for you to whip up a goat potion?"
"Far more than you have, Mr. Rollins," Roarke informed him gravely. "I suggest you, uh, quit while you're ahead of the game."
Rollins shrugged. "Yeah, maybe you're right. I hear goats have a really weird diet anyway. Well, there's always the rottweiler…"
"Why don't we take you back to your bungalow so you can freshen up," Roarke said hastily. "Leslie, perhaps you had better call Tabitha and set her mind at ease."
"Oh yeah…you're right," Leslie exclaimed. "Poor thing, she's probably insane by now." She scurried back to the study, giving the mess on the floor a wide berth, and grabbed the phone on Roarke's desk, hastily dialing Tabitha's number. "Hi, Tabitha, it's Leslie."
"Oh my God," cried Tabitha. "You're still talking to me?"
"It's not your fault," Leslie hurriedly assured her. "You did your best. But the cat came back." An old song she remembered from her early childhood suddenly began to float through her head. "He just couldn't stay away," she added whimsically.
"Oh…what a relief," Tabitha exclaimed. "I hope he's all right. Listen, since I let him get away, don't worry about the dinner."
Leslie laughed. "No, I'll still treat you, silly. After what Rollie put you through, you deserve it. Just name the time and place." She and Tabitha worked out a time to meet for dinner, and as she hung up she noticed Roarke and Rollins in the foyer, watching.
"Rollie, huh? You just keep your eye out for a rottweiler," Rollins warned her before Roarke urged him out the door, shooting Leslie a look that said he was utterly at his wits' end. Laughing, Leslie headed back to the kitchen to help Mariki clean up.