put her foot down.“Your explosions are wrecking my business! When I switched on the blender the other morning, the coffee machine spewed sugar all over the shop. And then a customer complained that there was sugar in his kikuyu blend. Sugar! Can you imagine how much money I’ll lose if word gets out about this?”
An angry hiss escaped from Sticks’s mouth. “I’m ruining your business? My dear Maggie, may I tell you that you are the biggest disaster that could ever happen to any business!” He poked a gloved finger at the blonde.
She poked right back. “And to think I saved your life, you miserable baby-faced idiot. I should’ve left you to die!”
“ ‘Baby-faced’? This face belongs …” For a second Sticks’s face went through a series of hideous contortions, and then he said in an indignant, rock star voice. “That’s right! She saved my life!”
Maggie and Mr Jones both gasped, and Pete closed his eyes. He’d been waiting for this to happen.
Another contortion, and the cat’s voice said, “Who said that?” The wax head turned a full three sixty degree circle, as the cat apparently looked for the speaker.
“I said: She saved my life!”
Mr Jones sat down on an upturned crate, wiping his brow. “I feel dizzy …”
Maggie grabbed Pete’s arm, her eyes wide as doughnuts. “It’s happening! Body-snatching aliens. I saw it all on television.”
Sticks held his hand out to Maggie. “Thanks for …”
Pete yanked Maggie back. “Don’t touch her! She’ll turn you into a butterfly or something!”
“What?” asked Sticks, faltering.
“She turns everything she loves into butterflies!”
Sticks’s face was suddenly disfigured by the Snowman’s rage. He growled like a cornered alley cat. “This is treason! Mutiny!”
Maggie exhaled slowly and started to walk backwards to the door. “Okay, I’m freaked out. I’m getting out of here. Right … now.”
When the door slammed behind her, the doorbell whistled. “Boy, what a woman. She makes my brass tingle all over!”
Sticks froze, and the Snowman roared from behind a shelf, “Shut up!”
“Okay,” said the doorbell. “Keep your fur on.” The door locked and the sign swung round so that it read CLOSED FOR LUNCH from the outside.
Mr Jones got up, wringing his hat. “I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down. I really do feel poorly right now.” He fumbled with the door, and Pete unlocked it for him. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow about the electricity, Mr Styx …” With that, he shuffled out the door.
“I hope you choke if you take another bite of that good lady’s tuna!” said Squeak from the top of a shelf.
The cat walked up to the broomstick man. His fur bristled so much he looked twice his normal size, and his ears lay flat on his neck. He growled. “How dare you come alive without my permission? I made you!”
Sticks just stood there like a wax doll. Not even blinking.
The Snowman started pacing. “How did this happen? What in the name of cat litter happened to my beautiful automaton?”
Pete said, “I … I think Maggie kissed him.” Squeak disappeared into a decorated mummy skull.
The cat went ballistic. He growled and hissed and spat, and shredded the only live fern in the shop to bits. “I knew it!” he howled at last. “No amount of tuna in the world is worth this!” He walked to the automaton again. “Say something!”
Sticks stood as if he’d never been alive in his life.
The Snowman turned to Pete, exasperated. “If he’s so alive, why isn’t he moving?”
Good question. Pete thought for a while. Sticks hadn’t shown any signs of life again after the episode in the nightclub. Until now. “Maybe … I suppose … Maybe he’s not used to being alive. He’s been, well, sort of, very much un-alive most of his life, and he doesn’t really know how to act alive.” He shook the automaton by the shoulder. “Sticks? You okay?”
Sticks didn’t even breathe.
Squeak emerged from the depths of his hiding place. “Hey! Sticks! Wake up!”
Nothing.
The cat circled the automaton. “Maybe he’s depressed. Or catatonic. He’ll need shock therapy.”
“Okay,” said Squeak, and screamed, “Fire!”
It worked. Sticks grabbed his head in both hands. “My head! My head’ll melt!” He ran straight into the door (which the doorbell had locked again), bumped his head and fell flat on his back. Out for the count.
“You stupid mouse-brained meatball, I meant electroconvulsive therapy. The man’s obviously depressed. He cannot take pills – he has no throat. So he needs e-lec-tro-con-vul-sive therapy.”
“But it worked, didn’t it?” the little mouse said smugly from the safety of his perch, and added for good measure, “Cat-brained hairball!”
Pete rushed to the broomstick man’s side and tried to revive him, but to no avail.
The cat sat down, exhausted. “I’ll need to consult the neurosorcical literature. This is highly irregular.”
The next moment a dustbin smashed through the door, breaking the lock and causing the doorbell to totally lose his cool. It skidded to a halt against the counter, and the garbage man jumped out. Short, made mostly out of garbage, clothed in garbage, with a wilted carrot for a nose and cool drink straws for hair. He waved a fire extinguisher. “Where’s the fire?”
“False alarm,” said Pete. “It was shock therapy.”
Garbage threw the fire extinguisher into the bin with a clang. He flipped a cellphone from its holster on his hip. “Father Christmas? Rubber Chicken here. False alarm, bro! Next time make sure, okay?” Then he sat down on a crate. “What’s for lunch?”
“Dry cat food,” said the Snowman. “Any news about the investigation?”
The garbage man got up and wandered behind the counter to open the bar fridge. “Percy believes he knows what they’re after.” He slammed the fridge shut in disgust. “Dry cat food. Yuck!”
The cat glanced at Squeak. “For lack of something fresher. What are they after?”
Pete almost said, “The manuscript,” but then he thought of Miss Green zapping Rose, and the skateboard that could telepenetrate and grant wishes. Without really knowing why, he kept his mouth shut.
“Some piece of paper …” Garbage walked over to Sticks and prodded him with the toe of his sardine-tin shoe. “You’re zapping your customers now, Snowman?”
“Maggie’s
