My eyes fluttered. I felt cold and wet. I was on my side—-but where? Where was I?
Struggling to my feet, I coughed and sputtered. The sound of running water came to my ears. I looked around. So much water streamed from the fur on my left side, it looked like a waterfall. The water streamed down, splashing into a small pond. Made of white plastic, the pond wasn’t very deep. It only came about two inches over my paws.
It was Rotten Willy’s water bowl.
My wet whiskers sprang up on one side. Disgusted, I looked in the other direction.
Willy stood there. He frowned, making his big, ugly, black face look worried. His soft brown eyes opened wide when he saw me glaring in his direction.
“Are you alive? Are you okay?”
“Sure I’m alive,” I sneered at him. “But I’m not okay. I’m wet! I wish you’d quit dropping me in your water dish.”
He ducked, kind of scrunching both his head and neck down between his massive shoulder blades. A sheepish smile curled his ugly, floppy lips.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to wake you up . . . Chuck.”
“Don’t start with me again, Willy,” I hissed. “You know how much I hate that nickname.”
“I was just teasing, okay? Just playing with you, all right?”
When I didn’t answer, he nudged the water bowl with his nose. “Your special person is Katie, right? And she had a boyfriend who didn’t like you because Katie named you Chuck, after another boyfriend she had, right?”
I still didn’t answer.
“So, you threw up in his convertible and he started calling you Upchuck. I think it’s cute. It’s nothing for you to get all fuzzed up—” Suddenly he stopped. Snickering to himself, he turned away.
One pounce carried me from the bowl. Water slopped and sprayed in all directions. I stood there, dripping, then shook as hard as I could. It helped some, but all my fur was still plastered against my side.
“I hate it,” I hissed. “And I hate being wet, too!” I licked my side to squeeze some of the water out. “Cat’s can’t stand being wet. I’ve told you that.”
Willy shrugged his ears.
“Well, it worked. I mean, it saved your life, didn’t it?”
I ignored him and kept licking.
“Well, didn’t it?”
I stopped to glare at him.
“All right,” I said with a sigh. “Last time—when Rocky knocked me off the fence—I guess it saved me. But that was only ’cause Rocky and the two poodles who moved in where Tom used to live kept me stuck in the trees for three days. I was dying of thirst. This time . . .” I started licking again. “This time I wasn’t thirsty. I was just a little dazed. All it did was get me wet!”
“Well, it was your own fault.” He plopped down on his stub tail.
“My fault?”
“Yeah.” He cocked his head to the side. “If you hadn’t bit me on the ear—”
“The only reason I bit you,” I interrupted, “was because you were laughing your tail off at me, and you called me Upchuck. It made me mad.”
“Well, the only reason I was laughing my tail off was ’cause . . .” Suddenly he stopped. I could see a little twinkle in his eye. He turned his enormous, square head away so I couldn’t see him laughing.
“Ah, shut up!” I hissed.