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I was ht miles"

"Almost nine," Sasha said "With all this new activity, there’s nowhere in toe couldto take too long to cover that round on foot," I protested

"Oh," she said, "we’ll only go a few blocks on foot, just until we’re able to steal a car"

Bobby sot, bro"

"Whose car?" I asked her

"Any car," she said brightly "I’m not concerned about style, just mobility"

"What if we don’t find a car with keys in it?"

"I’ll hot-wire it," she said

"You kno to hot-wire a car?"

"I was a Girl Scout"

"Daughter’s got herself a car-theft ojerrie

We locked the back door on the way out, leaving blinds drawn and sohts dialed low

I didn’t wear er made me feel close to ood-luck char a faint scent of salt air and deco seaweed

An overcast as dark as an iron skillet hid the hts, like a rancid yellow grease, were sht was deep and nearly ideal for our purposes

The silvered-cedar fence surrounding this property is as tall as I aaps between the vertical pales, so it’s as solid as a wall A gate opens onto the footpath

We avoided the gate and went to the east side of the backyard, where my property adjoins that of the Samardian family

The fence is extremely sturdy, because the vertical pales are fixed to three horizontal rails These rails also would serve us well as a ladder

Mungojerrie sprang up the fence as if he were lighter than air Standing with his hind paws on the uppermost rail, forepaws on the top of the pales, he surveyed the backyard next door

When the cat glanced down at us, Roosevelt whispered, "Looks like no one’s home"

One at a time, and with relative silence, we followed the cat over the fence From the Samardians’ property, we crossed another cedar fence, into the Landsbergs’ backyard Lights were on in their house, but we passed unseen and stepped over a low picket fence into the Perez fa steadily eastward, past house after house, with no probleolden retriever, who isn’t a barker but makes every effort to beat you into submission with his tail and then lick you to death

We scaled a high redwood fence into the yard behind the Stanwyk place, leaving the thankfully barkless Bobo slobbering, wagging his tail with an air-cutting whoosh-whoosh, and dancing on his hind paws in bladder-straining exciteer Stanwyk as a decent man who had lent his talents to the Wyvern research for the noblest of reasons, in the naress and the advancement of medicine, much as my mother had done His only sin was the same one Moence, out of misplaced trust in the power of science to resolve all problely become one of the architects of dooht Noasn’t so sure of his good intentions As Leland Delacroix’s tape had revealed, Stanas involved in both ure than he had seeed from shrub to tree across the Stanwyks’ elaborately landscaped do out aWe reached the next fence before we realized that Mungojerrie wasn’t with us

Panicked, we doubled back, searching a his naht face, and we found hiray shape on the black lawn

We squatted around our diminutive team leader, and Roosevelt switched his brain to the Weird Channel to find out what the cat was thinking

"He wants to go inside," Roosevelt whispered

"Why?" I asked

Roosevelthere"

"What?" Sasha asked

"Death lives here," Roosevelt interpreted

"He keeps the yard nice," Bobby said

"Doogie’s waiting," Sasha reojerrie says people in the house need help"

"How can he tell?" I asked, i it with Sasha and Bobby in a whispered chorus: "Cats know things"

I was tempted to snatch up the cat, tuck him under my arm, and run away fros and claws, of course, andcooperation in the search ahead of us He ht be disinclined to cooperate if I treated hioods, even if I had no intention of drop-kicking him to Wyvern

Forced to take a closer look at the Victorian house, I realized the place had a Twilight Zone quality On the upper floor, s revealed rooht of television screens, an un radiance Downstairs, the two roo rooe, draft-shaken fla to his feet and sprinted to the house He went boldly up the steps and disappeared into the shadows of the back porch

Maybe Mr Mungojerrie, phenomenal feline, has a well-honed sense of civic responsibility Maybe his netized that he cannot turn away fro motivation was the well-known curiosity of his species, which so frequently leads to their de in a se to think this sucks?"