“Hello?” I called out cautiously, my whole body shivering with fright. “Is anyone there?”
They’d just plunked my carrier down in an exam room and left me there, all by my lonesome, desperately afraid of whatever might happen next.
“Can someone let me out of here?” I rage-meowed again. “I need to pee!”
Seconds later, the smiling lady returned. “C’mon, Mr. Mossy.” The baby voice was not fun. And it was obvious she had absolutely zero idea I wasn’t really an honest-to-goodness cat.
She reached into the carrier and grabbed the scruff of my neck. “Hey,” I yelped. “That’s not necessary!” But she didn’t lift me, just scooted me out of the carrier and kept her hand on my scruff.
I tried to pull away, but she’d clearly done this maneuver countless times before.
“Aren’t you a handsome fella,” she crooned. “Don’t worry, you’ll barely feel this.”
Another woman walked in with a tray of something, but I was so focused on trying to get away from the first one that I didn’t see what it was.
“Those look different,” a female voice said. I was too preoccupied to tell which of them it was.
“They’re the special ones the government uses. Apparently this is some senator’s cat, and he wants his chip to be one of these.”
Now that got my attention. I was no senator’s cat. Of all the crazy ideas, this one took the cake. “Hey,” I protested. “I’m just a regular guy!”
Not that my words did anyone any good. I was still being held by my neck-skin, out of my element, scared witless, and completely humiliated.
They turned me away from whatever had been on that tray, and the next thing I knew, someone pinched me right between my shoulder blades.
“Hey!” I yelled. “What’s with the rough treatment? What’d I ever do to you, huh?”
“All done, sweetie.” The same woman who had been baby-talking me picked me up and cradled me in her arms. “Now that police officer can take you back to your mommy or daddy.”
My what? Good grief. She had this all wrong. “Listen, lady, I’ve got a ton of money.” I knew she couldn’t understand me, but hey, I had to try. “I can pay you a lot to help me disappear out the back door.”
Yeah, this could work. I’d find someone eventually who could turn me back. I knew people.
“It’s okay,” she said as she opened the carrier door with one had. “It’s all over. And you must have a cushy life at home if your parents are important enough to get you a police escort.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I muttered as I walked into the carrier. No point in fighting her. “Mr. Big Shot. Don’t forget to curtsy.”
“Bye bye!” she chirped as she turned the carrier and walked out of the room. I caught a glimpse of the officer’s uniform, then he was back to jostling me around.
I flopped over and took stock. I was reasonably certain I’d just been microchipped, and they’d used some fancy tech, too.
So they could track me. Great.
“You know what that means?” the officer said, once we were in the car and the cool air blew into my carrier again.
“Yeah?” I meowed.
“It means don’t bother running.” He turned on the car and backed out. “You’re chipped now, with a special tracker that’s had a powerful spell put on it, and we can pin you down to a few feet of your location, anywhere in the world.”
Super. As if being a cat and unable to speak wasn’t humiliating enough, now I had a microchip.
“When do I go to the other prison?” I asked. Of course, he heard meows, but maybe he’d get the picture that I had questions.
“I don’t know what you’re saying, but we’re headed back to jail.” Oh, good. He’d gotten the picture. “You get one phone call, and then tomorrow you go to your new home.”
“One phone call?” I asked. “And just how do you expect me to call anyone? I can’t speak!” I got a little angry there at the end, and my words came out growly even to my ears.
“Calm down, Grumpy Cat,” he said with an unkind chuckle. “We’re here.”
He parked and carried me back inside, setting me on a table. “I’m going to open the carrier. If you try to run, you’ll be caught. If you hide, I’ll have to find you and grab you. If you don’t want to be handled like a real cat, don’t act like one, okay?”
He lifted the carrier up to his face. “Got it?”
I blinked once and nodded slowly. I’d behave myself… For now.
He opened the carrier, and as I walked slowly out of it, he slapped a metal collar around my neck.
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “What is that?”
Oh. My words, they were… mine! “I can talk!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, just while you have the collar on. You can call whoever you want, then I take the collar off.”
I glared up at him. “Take your time,” I muttered.
The guy, who I was really looking at for the first time, couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. He looked like a goofy schoolkid. Great. With a shrug, he walked out.
I was in another plain room, sitting on a table. The only other things in the room were my carrier, and an old-fashioned land-line phone.
Thankfully, it had reasonably large buttons, ones I could navigate even with these sorry substitutes for my hands.
I pressed my paw to the speaker button and sighed in relief when a dial tone filled the air. At least I wouldn’t have to try to navigate the handset.
Carefully, I dialed my mother’s phone number. If I only got one phone call, she was the one. I had to make sure she understood it would be a while. My other friends all knew where I was, but I hadn’t spoken to Mom in a good month.
“Hello?” her sweet voice filled the air. Ah, my mother. Able to jump from sweet to sass in a quarter of a second.
“Hey, Ma,” I said.
“Moss! Oh, it’s so nice to hear from you.”
Great. “Yeah, Mom, you too. Listen, uh, I’m going to be going out of town for a while. I just wanted to call and let you know why I might not be calling.”
The line was quiet for a good five seconds. “Why, Moss? Where are you going?”
“Just down to Georgia to work a new job. But there’s limited phone access.”
“Where in Georgia could you possibly be that you won’t be able to call me?” Her voice dripped with disbelief, all hints of sweetness gone.
Darn it. I should’ve just lied to her. “I just won’t, okay, Ma?”
“Moss O’Malley, what have you done now?” And there was her steel.
I sighed. She’d probably hear it through the grapevine eventually, anyway. “I got popped on a job, and I’m going to spend some time in jail down in Georgia.”
“No,” she whispered. “Oh, Moss, how could you? And Georgia? That place is a nightmare.”
What in the world did she possibly know about it? “Ma, I know, but it’s not for long, and I’ll be fine.”
“Where did I go wrong?” she wailed.
And here we went. I should’ve called my brother and let him relay the message.
“Your father, rest his soul, is rolling in his grave right now.” She sobbed into the phone.
“Ma, you cremated him, remember?” She was so dramatic.
“It’s an expression!” Here came the yelling. “Where did I go wrong? Your brothers and sisters all settled down. You’re the only one of my children who hasn’t given me grandbabies yet, and Moss, you’re going to be thirty before you know it. What are you waiting for, son?”
“Ma!” I exclaimed. I wasn’t even twenty-five yet. I still had a minute before my thirties. “I’ll be home way before my thirtieth, I promise. You can plan me a party for the big day.”
“That’s not the point, Moss!” Officer Numbskull came back in and tapped his wrist, indicating I had to get off the line.
“Ma—” I tried to slow down her rant, but it was too late.
“You need to get your head on straight! If your father was alive—”
“Ma!”
“—Never stand for this. How could I have gone so far off track? I blame myself, but then my other children never—”
“Ma!”
“What?” she screeched.
“I gotta go. I’ll call you as soon as I can, okay?”
“I love you, Moss,” she whispered. “You be careful.”
“Yeah, Ma. Love you too.” I pressed the button to hang up the line and glared at the cop. “Not one word.”
He held up his hands. “You got it. I wouldn’t want to do anything to get your Ma yelling at me like that.”
No joke. That call had been a worse punishment than whatever was coming.
I hoped.