“We need two things to make your idea work,” said Stick Cat.
Edith, you could tell, liked the fact that Stick Cat referred to their rescue strategy as her idea. The fact that she didn’t know what that idea actually was didn’t seem to matter at all. She took ownership of it.
“Of course we do,” she said to Stick Cat. Then she asked, “What two things?”
“The hose and the bagel sign,” Stick Cat answered as he leaped up to the top step of the ladder again. He wanted to check on Hazel one more time before putting the plan into action.
Hazel didn’t look good.
She had sunk a little deeper into the thick, heavy batter. Her shoulders were now under the surface. Her fingers had slid off the pot’s rim a bit. Her eyes were squeezed shut, as if she was concentrating very hard—hanging on with whatever strength she had left.
Stick Cat descended the ladder in two jumps. “The hose and the bagel sign!” he repeated.
“I’ll get the sign,” Edith said.
Stick Cat nodded and raced toward the hose at the sink.
After he bounded up and into the sink, Stick Cat uncoiled and detangled the hose. He pushed it out over the edge of the sink—and onto the floor.
When he was done, he whipped his head around to check on Edith’s progress with the sign.
He both saw her and heard her simultaneously.
“Ya-hoo!” she screamed.
Edith was inside the bagel sign, lying belly-down in its hole. Her arms were stretched out to her sides like wings. She shifted her weight forward and back to swing higher and higher.
“Edith! What are you doing?!”
She had a thrilled smile on her face.
“I’m getting the sign . . .”
Snap!
Snap!
The two thin strings that suspended the bagel sign from the ceiling broke loose.
The sign—and Edith—fell to the table with a THUD!
Her eyes never left Stick Cat. She finished her sentence.
“. . . down.”
Stick Cat smiled at her.
“Only a cat of my particular proportion and substantial stature could accomplish such a difficult task,” Edith said calmly as she squirmed, squeezed, and squiggled her way out of the center of the sign. “It’s really lucky you have me here.”
“That’s the absolute truth,” replied Stick Cat. “Can you get the sign over here by the pot?”
As Edith did that, Stick Cat snatched the end of the hose on the floor and dragged it to the foot of the ladder. He clasped the hose nozzle in his mouth and climbed the rungs on the ladder, pulling steadily and never losing his grip. When he reached the top, Stick Cat hung the hose over the highest step. With it secure there, Stick Cat turned to see how Edith was doing.
She was, to Stick Cat’s surprise and pleasure, at the bottom of the ladder sitting on the circular bagel sign.
Edith looked up at him and asked, “Now what do we do to make my plan work?”
He took a quick look at Hazel before answering. She only held on with one hand now. Her other arm was out to her side, atop the thick, dense batter. Her eyes were open. They looked desperate and tired.
“I have to go now, kitty,” Hazel whispered.
Stick Cat leaped from the ladder’s top step and landed safely on all fours next to Edith and the sign. Edith had never seen Stick Cat jump from such a high place before.
“We have to push this up!” Stick Cat said.
Edith had never heard Stick Cat speak with such urgency.
She hopped off the sign, helped Stick Cat tilt it onto its side, and began to push it up the ladder. With one of them on each side, they could balance the bagel sign and roll it to the top. It bounced awkwardly over each step, but they maintained its balance and kept pushing.
Stick Cat eyed the pot’s rim when they were almost to the top. Hazel’s hand was no longer there. Stick Cat pushed harder.
“Don’t stop!” he grunted when they reached the top. “Push it in!”
The sign fell off the ladder, over the pot’s side, and landed in the bagel batter with a thick, heavy sp-lunk!
Edith and Stick Cat leaned over to look into the pot. The bagel sign floated atop the batter.
They could only see Hazel’s head now. Her body was completely below the surface.
She stared at them as they leaned over.
She glanced sideways at the bagel sign.
And for the second time that day, Stick Cat watched Hazel disappear.