The Case of the Bone-Stalking Monster Read Free

which means that he used your name as a code word to call me.”
    â€œHmmmmm, how interesting. I’ve never heard of Backwards Code before.”
    â€œOf course not. You’re only a cat and cats know nothing about Security Work and the many codes we use.”
    â€œIt sounds very complicated, Hankie.”
    â€œIt’s complicated beyond your wildest imagination, Kitty, but the bottom line is pretty simple.”
    â€œOh really?” He grinned up at me and continued rubbing on my legs, which drives me nuts. “What is the bottom line, Hankie? I can’t wait to hear.”
    â€œThe bottom line is that these are my scraps. You got that? MY SCRAPS. Good-bye.”
    â€œBut Hankie, if Alfred was using Backwards Code, then surely that means that the scraps are mine.” He fluttered his eyelids. “Backwards Code makes everything backwards, right?”
    I cut my eyes from side to side. This was a new sneaky trick and just for a moment it caught me unprepared. At last Data Control provided me with an answer.
    â€œPete, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. And stop rubbing on my legs.”
    â€œNo, it’s not stupid, Hankie. Backwards Code makes everything backwards, so if Alfred said, ‘Pete, come for scraps,’ what he really meant was, ‘Hankie, come for NO scraps.’”
    Obviously this was no ordinary dumb cat. He was a clever ordinary dumb cat, and I had to be careful. He was trying to lure me into a trap.
    Of course, there was no chance that he would succeed. I had vast experience in beating cats at their shabby little games. It was just a matter of framing up a tightly reasoned, highly logical answer to his ridiculous argument.
    But before I could get that done, Little Alfred pushed the bone—MY fresh juicy T-bone—in front of the cat’s nose. Pete’s eyes widened, and the rest was just what you would expect from a greedy cat.
    He dug his claws and sank his teeth into my bone, cut loose with a warning yowl, pinned back his ears, and began glaring ice picks at me.
    Well, you know me. Do unto others but don’t take trash off the cats. My patients were wearing thin.
    My patients were wearing thin clothes.
    My patients were growing thin.
    Whatever. I was getting angry.
    â€œExcuse me, Kitty, but you seem to have lost your mind, and you’re fixing to lose parts of your body if you don’t unhand my bone. Drop it, Pete. Reach for the sky.”
    His yowling increased in volume, and then he HISSED at me. He shouldn’t have done that. Nothing inflames a dog quite as much as hissing. It’s like throwing gasoline on a fire ant.
    My ears shot up. My lips rose in a deadly snarl. A growl began to rumble in my throat. And then . . .

Chapter Three: My Bones Vanish

    O ut of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Little Alfred. He was wearing a huge grin and his eyes were sparkling like . . . I don’t know what. Diamonds, I suppose.
    But the point is that he looked very happy about something, and all at once the pieces of the puzzle began falling into place.
    The little snipe was bored and had drawn me and Kitty down into a show . . . into a showdown, I should say. In other words, he wanted us to fight over the bone. In other words, Pete and I were being used.
    This threw an entirely different light on the whole situation. I turned back to the cat.
    â€œPete, I’ve just figgered this deal out. Alfred is trying to promote a fight between us. That was his purpose in using Backwards Code, to foment jealousy and envy and greed between us. Just look at yourself, Pete. He’s succeeded.”
    He stopped yowling and listened.
    I continued. “He’s appealing to our lowest in­stincts, Pete, and has brought us to the brink of open warfare. I don’t know about you, but I kind of resent being used by a bratty little kid.
    â€œI mean, we’re adult dogs and cats, yet we’re being tooled around by this