“MATILDA!” Charlie called. The twins and Buster raced around the hotel, peering under beds and looking inside drawers. The dogs woofed, Smudge and Cookie meowed, and the rabbit and guinea pigs scampered around in circles, but Carmen’s tabby cat was nowhere to be seen.

“What about the laundry basket?” Meg suggested, panting. “Matilda might have made a nest inside it.”

They ran down to the basement, but the laundry basket was empty. Buster’s tail drooped.

Charlie scratched his head. “Matilda can’t have disappeared into thin air,” he muttered. “She has to be somewhere in the hotel!”

“We should look for Elvis,” said Meg. “He keeps following her around, so he might be with her now. . . .”

Buster perked up his ears and tilted his head to one side. “Aooo!” he howled softly.

“I think he can hear something,” Charlie said. The twins listened carefully.

From somewhere above them came the faint sound of muffled, echoey singing. “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog!”

“Elvis!” Charlie cried. “But he sounds all closed in, like he’s inside something.”

The twins followed the sound into the kitchen.

“He’s inside the wall!” Meg said, looking around in confusion. “But where?”

Buster dashed toward the dumbwaiter. He stopped and sniffed.

Charlie put his ear to the closed hatch.

“Elvis is in the dumbwaiter shaft!” he declared. “He must have found an open hatch, hopped in, and gotten stuck.”

“Why would he want to go in there?” Meg asked. “It’s dark and —”

“— cozy, like a nest!” Charlie added excitedly. “Elvis really likes Matilda, right? Maybe she’s inside the dumbwaiter, too!”

He opened the hatch. Carefully peering in, he twisted his head to look up the shaft.

“It’s stopped at the second floor,” he reported.

They sped upstairs. The hatch was open, and there was Matilda, huddled inside the small metal elevator, right at the back. The twins breathed a sigh of relief.

Matilda’s fur rippled in surprise, and she gave a loud meow.

“You ain’t nothing but a hound dog!” Elvis squawked from above. He sounded much closer than before.

Meg gulped. “Elvis must be sitting right on top of the dumbwaiter!” she said. “What should we do? He’ll bother Matilda, and she needs peace and quiet!”

Saffron appeared at the top of the stairs, just back from the park.

“First things first, my dears,” she announced. “We need to help Matilda make a comfy nest. You’ll find an old blanket in the laundry room, some newspaper in the kitchen, and a shallow cardboard box in Matilda’s room.”

The twins hurried off to get everything. Saffron nodded approvingly as they lined the box with the blanket and newspaper and gently placed it inside the dumbwaiter.

“Meow!” Matilda clambered awkwardly inside the box and started to shred the newspaper with her claws.

“Why is she doing that?” Meg asked.

“She’s making a lining for her nest, so it’s exactly how she wants it,” Saffron explained.

When the newspaper was a heap of narrow strips, Matilda circled around and around in it. She settled for a moment, then shifted and began to purr.

“I’m surprised she’s purring!” Charlie whispered. “She doesn’t look very comfortable.”

“She’s calming herself,” Saffron murmured, placing a bowl of food and a saucer of water next to Matilda’s nest.

“You ain’t nothing but a hound dog!” Elvis screeched from above.

“Aooo-ooo!” Buster joined in.

Matilda got to her feet and arched her back. “Ssssss!” she hissed.

“What Matilda needs now is quiet,” Saffron said calmly to the twins.

“Shhhh!” Meg told Buster, and he stopped howling.

“That’s better, but we can’t shush Elvis,” Charlie said. “We have to get him out of there!”

But how could they get the little cockatiel out of the elevator shaft if he refused to fly?

“I’ll stay with Matilda,” Saffron told Charlie and Meg. “You go and rescue that silly birdie.” She sat cross-legged on the floor next to the dumbwaiter, humming softly to herself.

The twins could hear Elvis squawking as they hurried to the floor above, with Buster close behind. Charlie opened the hatch to the dumbwaiter. They peered down the gloomy shaft.

Elvis was hopping around on top of the elevator. His white feathers seemed to glow in the dim light.

“Aooo-ooo!” Buster rose up on his hind legs, trying to peer down the elevator shaft.

“I think you’d better stay out of the way until this is over,” Meg told him. “Come on.” The little puppy trotted after her as she led the way to her bedroom. She pointed to a big, floppy cushion on the floor. Buster curled up on it and gave a huge puppy yawn. “Good boy!” Meg patted his head. Then she closed the door and went back to the dumbwaiter hatch.

“Elvis!” Charlie called. The little cockatiel glanced up at him.

“Come on, buddy — fly!” Meg encouraged him, but Elvis just bobbed his head. “We could pull the dumbwaiter up,” she suggested.

“That would bother Matilda even more,” Charlie pointed out. “We have to get Elvis to fly out.”

“Hey, what about grapes?” Meg said excitedly after a minute. “He loves grapes! Let’s try it. . . .”