Edith asked Stick Cat, “What took you so long?”
He’d been inside Edith’s apartment a couple of minutes. Stick Cat’s heart was just now slowing its pace. He started to breathe normally too.
He answered, “I was just, umm, enjoying the view.”
“Oh, good idea,” Edith said. “I hung my head over the edge twice. It made me so dizzy! Did you do that?”
“I felt dizzy, yes.”
“It’s fun, isn’t it?”
“That’s one word for it,” Stick Cat answered quietly.
Edith was distracted by something out the window. She rose up on her back paws and placed her front paws on the windowsill.
“Hey, look!” she exclaimed. “It’s Hazel.”
Stick Cat hurried over to the window and stretched to see out as well. He was confident Hazel had made it out of the pot. She had nearly floated to the top before they swung across the alley. Still, Stick Cat wanted to make sure.
“Why’s she so wet?” asked Edith.
Stick Cat turned to see if Edith was joking.
She wasn’t.
“She was in the bagel pot, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Edith said. “She went for a swim. I forgot.”
“She fell into the pot, Edith,” Stick Cat said. “That’s why we had to rescue her.”
“I know we had to rescue her,” Edith said. “But I still think she could have been swimming. Look at that inner tube lying by the pot. People always take inner tubes when they go swimming.”
Stick Cat stared at Edith with great intensity.
She still wasn’t kidding.
“That’s the bagel sign, Edith,” he said.
“Hmm,” she said. “People will use anything for inner tubes, I guess.”
Stick Cat decided to look at Hazel instead of Edith. He thought it would be less confusing.
Hazel stood at the window on the twenty-second floor of the building across the alley. Her clothes hung heavily on her—soaked with bagel batter and water. Her gray hair was matted against her head. She looked tired and uncomfortable.
And she also looked relieved—happy even. For a moment—a brief second only—she seemed to stare at Edith and him. She was too far away for Stick Cat to tell for sure.
“What’s she doing now?” asked Edith.
Hazel pointed at the corner of their building and shifted her finger in little jerks toward Edith’s apartment. Then she made the same kind of movement from the roof down to Edith’s apartment.
“I have no idea,” answered Stick Cat after a moment of observation. “It looks like she’s counting or something.”
Edith didn’t respond.
There was a good reason for that.
She was asleep right there on the floor beneath the window. Stick Cat had not even seen her drop down.
He hopped up to the window, closed it, and then came back down to the floor.
He looked at Edith.
She looked perfectly at peace. Seeing her so comfortable and still made Stick Cat feel suddenly sleepy too.
It had been a long, scary, invigorating day. He thought about going home through their hole to his apartment, but tiredness swept over him like a warm breeze.
Stick Cat settled down next to Edith.
He fell quickly—and deeply—asleep.
