The Secret Laundry Monster Files. John R. Erickson

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      By this time my head was clear of Post-Sleepal Vapors and my ears were alert to every tiny sound in the night.

      Flap, flap, flap.

      Those were not tiny sounds. They were loud, sharp reports that perfectly matched our profiles of flapping clothes. I turned to Drover. I could barely make out his profile in the starlit darkness.

      Hold it. That wasn’t Drover’s profile. It was a fence post, which meant that I couldn’t make out his profile in the starlit darkness. At last we were making some progress.

      “Drover, are you there?”

      “No, I’m over here.”

      I whirled around. “Okay, are you there?”

      “No, I’m here.”

      “Here, there, it’s all the same, as long as you’re where you are.”

      “Well . . . I am where I am . . . I guess.”

      “Great. Nice work. Okay, listen up. It appears that Sally May left her laundry on the clothesline overnight. At this point, we don’t know why, but I’m beginning to smell a rat.”

      “They must have been pretty dirty.”

      “What?”

      “The clothes. She had rats in her clothes.”

      “She did? Why wasn’t I informed? Drover, I can’t run this ranch without a constant, reliable stream of information. Do you realize what this tiny clue has done?”

      “Not really.”

      “It explains why she left her clothes on the line all night. She found rats in her laundry basket. Don’t you get it? She’s airing out her laundry. That explains everything.”

      “Yeah, but there’s a cat.”

      “Wrong, Drover. They were rats—unless you’re changing your report. You said they were rats. Make up your mind. Were they cats or rats?”

      “I’m all confused, but I see a cat.”

      I squinted into the darkness. It was very dark. I decided to try a trick question. “What color is the cat?”

      “Let’s see. Dark.”

      “Ah! I’ve exposed an inconsistency in your argu­ment. For you see, Drover, it’s impossible to see a dark cat on a dark night.”

      “Yeah, but I see one. And listen. Now I can hear him . . . yowling.”

      I probed the dark yard with my Earatory Scan­ners, until . . . “Holy smokes, Drover, it’s a police siren! Someone must have called the cops and they’re coming to back us up. Boy, we’ve blown this thing wide open.”

      “I think it’s the cat . . . yowling.”

      “Quit talking nonsense. I know a police siren when I . . . Wait a minute, hold everything. Unless I’m badly mistaken, the sound we’re hearing is actually the yowling of a cat!”

      “That’s what I said.”

      “You see, at certain stages and levels, a cat yowl is indesquishable from a police siren. That’s a cat you’re hearing, Drover.”

      “Yeah, I know. I wonder who it could be.”

      “Exactly. And now all we have to do is determine who it might be—and find out why he or she is lurking in the yard. Step aside, son, I’ll handle this.” I pushed Drover out of the way and marched straight . . . “Uh . . . where was this cat? I seem to be having a little trouble . . .”

      “Over there. To your left. Follow the yowl.”

      “Don’t tell me what to do. Of course I’ll follow the yowl.”

      I followed the yowl, using a technique we call Yowl Folleration. You home in on the sound, don’t you see, and follow it to the source. At the end of every yowl is a yowling cat. To dogs with very sensitive ears, it’s as easy as following a piece of string.

      I followed it, and sure enough, at the end of the string of sound, I discovered . . . a cat.

      Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. I not only dis­covered an unauthorized cat lurking in the yard, but within seconds I had given the little sneak a positive identification. You’ll be shocked.

      It was Pete the Barncat.

      I marched up to him. “Okay, Pete, your little game’s over.”

      “Well, well, it’s Hankie the Wonderdog. What took you so long?”

      “We do thorough investigations, Kitty, and they take time. You can leave now. We know all about the rats in the laundry.”

      “Oh, really?”

      “Yes. Go back to bed and stop yowling. We’ve got this case under control.”

      “But there aren’t any rats, Hankie.”

      I stared into his weird yellow eyes. “Hey, Pete, I don’t know what kind of con game you’re trying to pull, but СКАЧАТЬ