The Case of the Clever Secret Code Read online

  “Yup, kid,” Bogey meowed. “It means doing something you don’t want to do, for the sake of your team. That’s us. We’re the team and we’ve got to solve this case. So the best thing we can do is put up a big fuss while she’s giving us a bath. It’s what a good cat detective would do.”

  I cringed and closed my eyes. Sure, I wanted to be a good cat detective and do my part to solve a case. And I wanted to be part of our team. I was happy to run surveillance, and hunt for clues and all kinds of things.

  But taking a bath was another thing altogether.

  I glanced at my brother and took a deep breath.

  He gave me a “paws up.” “You can do this, kid. I know you can.”

  I moaned and cuddled into my Mom. Of all the things I’ve had to do as a cat detective, this had to be the worst.

  Why, oh why, did it have to be a bath?

  Holy Catnip!

  CHAPTER 19

  Holy Mackerel!

  The next thing I knew, Bogey and I were in our huge, guest bathroom with the old, claw-foot tub. The floor tiles were in the shape of little, black-and-white octagons. The black tiles made an outline around everything, and the white tiles were in the middle. Funny, but I’d been in this bathroom a million times before. We usually did a quick run through this room when we did our surveillance rounds. I always thought it was kind of a nice bathroom. But all of a sudden it sort of seemed like a bad place to be.

  Our Mom kissed us both good-bye before she shut the door and went downstairs to help Gracie make icing for the cupcakes.

  Then Taffy didn’t waste any time. She unpacked her suitcase and turned on the taps to pour water into the tub. I backed into a corner and got as far away from that tub as I could possibly go.

  Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to take one for the team anymore.

  Bogey jumped into the suitcase and started to investigate.

  But he didn’t last long. Because she only needed a few inches of water in that tub to bath us. And it filled up pretty fast.

  “What are you doing in there?” she hollered to Bogey.

  Of course, she didn’t exactly wait for him to respond. Instead she grabbed him and put him smack dab in the middle of the tub. Right into the water. I heard him land with a giant splash!

  Just the thought of it made me howl! And I kept on howling and ran for the door. Then I reached up to the doorknob. I tried my very best to turn it, but it was too slippery.

  I could hear the Princess on the other side of the door. “Buckley, Buckley, are you okay? What’s the matter?”

  “Help! Help!” I yelled. “This lady is giving Bogey a bath. And I’m next.”

  The Princess stuck her little paw under the door. “Just relax, Buckley. It’ll be okay. I had to get lots of baths when I was a show cat. They’re not fun, but it’ll be over quick.”

  Well, the Princess sure was right about the “not fun” part! I wasn’t so sure about the “quick” part.

  By now I could smell the shampoo that Taffy was using on Bogey. And judging by the way she was working her arms back and forth, I could tell she was lathering him up good.

  That’s when my heart started to pound really hard and I searched frantically for some place to hide. The suitcase looked like the only place to go. So I dove straight in. It was nice and dark and safe inside there.

  Then I wondered what the Princess would think of me if she could see me. Here I was supposed to be a big, tough cat detective. But I sure wasn’t acting like one.

  So I took some deep breaths and tried to calm down. Then I glanced around the suitcase. I noticed a piece of paper tucked into a clear plastic pocket on the side. The paper was sort of torn and not in good shape. I couldn’t read it very well, but it looked like an article. Maybe something someone had printed off the Internet. I could make out a little bit of the title and the words, “. . . Missing Copies of the Declaration of Independence . . .”

  Well, that didn’t exactly make any sense to me. Especially since Gracie had already told me that the Declaration of Independence was in Washington, D.C. She even wanted to go see it someday.

  So how could there be any missing copies?

  I scooted over and took a closer look at that paper. That’s when I saw someone’s handwriting scrawled across the top. The words that were written there said, “Be sure to read this article, so you’ll understand.” It ended with the words, “Top Secret. Tell no one.”

  But nobody had signed their name to that note.

  Funny, but I was pretty sure I’d seen that handwriting before. I just couldn’t remember where.

  And then it hit me. It was the same handwriting I’d seen on Gracie’s essay. Right after Frank had written all over it.

  So it must have been Frank who wrote those words on this paper, too.

  Had I just found a clue?

  My heart started to pound all over again. Somehow I knew I needed to keep this paper. So Bogey and I could look at it later.

  I peeked out from the suitcase to make sure Taffy wasn’t watching me. Then I reached into the pocket and carefully grabbed that paper with my claws. I pulled it out a little way, until I could grab the edge with my teeth. Then I worked at getting it the rest of the way out. It was stuck just a little bit, so I had to tug for a few seconds. But I finally had that paper free from the pocket.

  And not a moment too soon.

  I jumped out of the suitcase with that paper in my teeth just as Taffy reached down for a towel. I quickly tiptoed to the door while she picked Bogey up out of the tub. Then I put the paper on the floor and pushed it underneath the door. All the way out to the other side.

  “Princess! Princess!” I meowed softly. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here, Buckley,” came her sweet voice.

  I leaned up against the door. “Could you please take this paper? And hide it in the sunroom?”

  “I’ve got it, Buckley!” she said. “I’ll hide it for you.”

  “Thanks,” I managed to get out just as Taffy grabbed me around the ribcage.

  The next thing I knew, I was practically flying through the air with her hanging onto nothing but my ribcage. She was carrying me directly into that tub, whether I liked it or not. I saw the water coming closer and closer. So I stretched out my arms and legs and all my claws. Then I searched frantically for something to grab onto. But in a split second I realized there was nothing there but open water and a big bathtub. Not a single thing I could latch onto and save myself. So now I put my arms and legs down, ready for landing.

  Taffy put me into that water a whole lot faster than I wanted to go. I landed with a big sploosh! Water and suds went flying, and I let out the biggest yowl of my life. Then I started to scramble around in the bath water. The leftover shampoo from Bogey’s bath quickly bubbled up into a huge froth. Almost as tall as I was!

  But Taffy didn’t seem to care. Instead she started scooping water onto me to get my fur wet. She did it so fast that I barely even noticed when she poured shampoo onto my back. She lathered me up just before I managed to make a run for it!

  And I ran for all I was worth. I headed straight for the angled back of that tub. The only problem was, I was so wet and slippery that I couldn’t climb up the porcelain.

  Taffy grabbed me again and tugged me back into the middle of the tub. And I immediately wiggled my way out of her grasp and took off again. This time I tried to jump up the side of the tub. But it was too tall and wet and slippery.

  She tugged me back and started to rinse me off.

  “Hold still, will you?” she commanded me.

  Well, I wasn’t exactly crazy about the way she was talking to me. But I finally figured I might as well just get it over with. After all, she was almost done. So I let her finish rinsing me off. Then she wrapped a towel around me and yanked me out of the tub.

  She put me right beside Bogey on the floor.

  “Not exactly gentle, is she, kid?” he murmured.

  I shook my whole body and water we
nt flying everywhere. “You can say that again!” I meowed.

  Now he grinned. “I thought I’d return the favor, kid. So I left a nice imprint of my claws in her left arm.”

  I kind of laughed. And I wanted to tell Bogey about my clue right then, but I didn’t get a chance. Because Taffy pulled some tubes from her suitcase and started squeezing some gunk out. She put something flowery-smelling all over me and something else all over Bogey.

  She studied us for a moment. “The secret to a good ‘on camera’ look is to exaggerate what you already look like. It’ll be you, only amped up.”

  Well, I had no idea what she meant by that. But out came combs and brushes and blow dryers. Soon my fur was getting blown all over the place and I couldn’t see a thing. I could only feel her doing all kinds of combing and brushing. She combed sections of my hair up and down, until I could feel big tangles in my fur. Funny, but our Mom always combed the tangles out of my fur. Not purposely put them in.

  Next I tried to watch while she did something else to Bogey. But I couldn’t tell what it was for sure. That’s because my fur was completely poofed out in front of my face. And all I could see was a big bunch of black fuzz.

  Finally, she yelled, “I’m done. Got that job over with. Hope I don’t have to bath another cat for a long time.”

  Boy, that went for both of us. I sure hoped she didn’t ever bath another cat! For the cat’s sake!

  I pushed some fur from my eyes. Now at least I had a little tunnel to look out of. I could barely see Taffy packing up her stuff.

  She glanced at her watch. “I’m late! I’ve got to get back to the library. Don’t forget, filming starts tomorrow!”

  With that, she grabbed her suitcase and headed out of the room. She made a beeline for the stairs and Bogey and I followed her. I still couldn’t see much except for things that were right in front of me.

  But I did see our Mom and Gracie at the top of the stairs. They took one look at us and they both squealed and then gasped at the same time.

  “What on earth . . .?” our Mom started to say.

  Gracie’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates. “Oh Buckley and Bogey . . . what did she do to you?”

  Taffy sort of sneered and walked down the stairs.

  Our Mom turned and followed her down. “I don’t understand . . . I thought you were just going to give them a bath. I don’t even recognize them.”

  Now Taffy sounded nasty. “That’s because you’re not in the movie industry. Films are art, and artistic expression comes in many forms. We wanted to make the smaller cat smaller, and the larger cat larger. It’s an exaggeration of their normal selves. It’s an illusion.”

  Our Mom let out a laugh. “You can say that again.”

  Then she let Taffy out the door and shut it behind her.

  Gracie kept on moving toward us. “Oh my goodness, boys. Have you seen what you look like?”

  Well, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t. That’s because I could barely see anything. But I could hear Bogey sneezing, and I’m pretty sure he was blinking his eyes a bunch. I guess all those hair products were giving him allergies.

  Just then I heard, rather than saw, our Dad come into the hallway. He must have come home from work already.

  He and our Mom walked up the stairs to join us.

  Our Mom just kept shaking her head. One minute she would kind of laugh, and the next minute she would sigh.

  “What the . . .” I heard our Dad start to say when he saw us. “What happened to Buckley? Did he stick his paw in a light socket or something? And what about Bogey? Why is he so slicked down like that? He looks like he’s got varnish on him.”

  “Steele Bronson’s hairdresser styled them,” Gracie said with a tone in her voice that I didn’t hear very often.

  I think it was anger.

  She leaned down toward us and spoke very softly. “Let me show you boys what you look like. Come with me.”

  And so we did. She led us to the full-length mirror in her room, and we both stood right smack dab in front of it. At first, I wasn’t even sure who the two creatures looking back at us were. For that matter, I wasn’t even sure they were cats.

  I could sort of make out Bogey’s form. But he was so sleeked back with some shiny, greasy stuff that he reminded me of a ferret. Or maybe a weasel. With his fur completely slicked down like that, he looked very, very thin. I could make out every bone in his body.

  As for me, well, I was the exact opposite. I was huge and round and fluffy. Every piece of fur on my body stuck out. I looked about four times my normal size! I kind of looked like a big, fuzzy, black tumbleweed! Or maybe a creature from outer space. I was so round that I almost wondered if I could roll away. And I could barely see my eyes, which were practically hidden in all that fur.

  Our Mom joined us. “I can’t believe this . . .”

  Gracie shook her head. “Me, either. But one thing’s for sure — I’m not having our cats going around looking this ridiculous.”

  “You’re right,” our Mom said. “This is ridiculous.”

  Gracie stood up straight and tall. “I’m going to wash all this gunk out of their fur. These boys are handsome enough without any special effects. They can look like themselves in the movie. And that will be just fine.”

  Our Mom smiled. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Me, either, I thought.

  I glanced at my brother who didn’t even look like my brother.

  “They’ve got my vote, kid,” he meowed. “It would be pretty tough to run surveillance in this get up.”

  Somewhere from under all that fur, I nodded. “They’ve got my vote, too. I feel like a walking fluffball.”

  I wanted to give Bogey a paw bump, but I couldn’t see well enough to even try. Who knew what I’d bump into if I stuck my paw out now?

  “Okay, boys,” Gracie said. “Let’s get you in the bath and get this stuff washed out of you.”

  I turned my head up and tried to look at Gracie.

  Wait a minute. Did she just say we were going to get another bath?

  Two baths in one day? How much could two cats take?

  Holy Catnip!

  CHAPTER 20

  Holy Mackerel!

  I had to say, by the time Gracie was done with us, Bogey and I both looked pretty sharp. The bath Gracie gave us wasn’t even half as bad as our first bath. That’s because Gracie put a big pan full of water into the empty bathtub and then stood us in that pan. So we were really only standing in a little bit of water. Then she used pitchers full of water to rinse us. She told us she’d been reading up on how to bath a cat on the Internet. And let me tell you, it wasn’t so bad. I knew she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up. She sure was going to be a good one.

  Still, she had to shampoo and rinse us several times to get all that gunk out of our fur. When she finished bathing us, she wrapped us up in warm, fluffy towels. Straight from the dryer.

  To tell you the truth, my towel felt pretty nice and comfy.

  I gave Gracie a big kiss on the nose to thank her. I sure was glad I didn’t have to go around looking like a gigantic fuzzball anymore. It would have been pretty embarrassing if anyone other than my family had seen me like that. Especially Hector, the Siamese who lives down the street. Hector is known for being a big blabbermouth. And if he would’ve seen me all poofed out, well, he would have blabbed it to everyone!

  Right after we were dried and combed from our second bath, I took a long, long nap. I woke up just in time for a little late night supper. And in time to see our Mom and Dad and Gracie head for bed. Then I met Bogey in the office, all ready to run surveillance.

  But along the way, I noticed the Fourth of July decorations that Gracie had hung up for her party. I saw flags and streamers and balloons in red, white, and blue. It all looked so pretty. I really hoped her party went well, because I knew she’d worked so hard to set it up. And she was pretty excited about it.

  It also made me happy to see the Princess’ plan fall i
nto place. She’d come up with such a great idea, and she’d gone to a lot of work, too. Because it took a lot of time to pick out those magazine pages and set them out in Gracie’s room. She’d found just the right pages to give Gracie the exact hints she needed . . .

  And that’s when it hit me. I stopped dead in my tracks and did some serious thinking for a moment. The Princess had pulled pages from a magazine. Could it be . . .?

  All of a sudden, I had something I’d been hoping I’d have for a long, long time. Something all the great cat detectives have sometimes.

  I had a hunch. A real hunch.

  Just like Bogey.

  I didn’t even wait to finish thinking about it. Instead I ran for all I was worth to our Mom’s office. Bogey was busy on the computer, and I jumped right up to join him.

  I was breathing so hard I could barely get the words out. “Bogey, Bogey! You’ll never believe it!”

  Bogey shook his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure, kid. But me first. I’ve just been looking at the news and it isn’t pretty. There’s been a jailbreak. The Count and Countess Von De Meenasnitzel have escaped.”

  I gulped. “They have?”

  Bogey’s mouth was set in a firm line. “I’m afraid so, kid.”

  Suddenly I started to shake in my paws. “Do you think they’ll come here?”

  Bogey reached his lean arm into the vase on our Mom’s desk and pulled out the bag of cat treats he had stashed there. “That would be my guess, kid. They’ll probably try to snatch the Princess and get out of town in a hurry.”

  Bogey handed me a cat treat and took one for himself.

  I could barely eat my treat. “So I guess that means we’d better run extra surveillance rounds.”

  Bogey ate his treat in two bites. “Looks like it, kid. And it might be a good idea if we took the Princess with us tomorrow.”

  I raised my brows. “Took her with us? To the library?”

  Bogey nodded and handed us each another treat. “Yup, kid. To the library. So we can keep her close to us. Plus if the Count and Countess come looking for her, they’ll never think to look there.”