Catnip Gray Cat Detective: The Tabitha Gray Story

Chapter 1 SlimFast High

The day began like any other, with me yawning at the yellow sun. It was noon. I was halfway into a long stretch when someone bumped my cat door. Actually, it's a doggy door that I had converted for cats only.

"What's the difference?" you ask.

"The difference is the difference," I say. Plus the mural painted on the flap showing a Cantonese family enjoying a Pomeranian for supper sends a strong message to the pooches.

"Come in," I meowed in a gruff Slim-Fast soaked voiced. The night before had been long and adventurous with me jumping from tabletop to couch, on top of the china cabinet, to the end table whereupon I shook my tail and made a pair of fish-shaped Tiffany vases tremble. The pair presenting such a cool blue steely facade amongst the common bric-a-brac and Norman Rockwell plates, shook as my tail swept their elegant bodies. They were the kind of vases meant to be looked at and to prove their owners, the Grays, were about something. However, I know their brains were screaming for a Valium and a martini. I'm sure they recalled the days when they were a trio bopping to jazz music blasting from the hi-fi. Yes there once had been three of them. Memories are like shattered glass. Feet never forget the shards that done them in.

After all of that romping, I had hit this bar called the Kitchen Floor and quenched my thirst with a nightcap of Slim-Fast. Of course, it didn't stop with one saucer--never does. I go on mewling for more and slurping saucer after saucer of the stuff as I foolishly try to drown my memories. But memories can't be drowned. Reflected in the shiny steel door of the Kitchen Floor's refrigerator, I saw her. But like a mirage, she vanished. I remembered Electra was dead. The recollection cut like a knife across my tail and drove me to consume saucer after saucer of Slim-Fast until I could remember no more. I had no memory of getting home or anything until my cat door thumped and woke me up in the middle of the smiling yellow noonday sun.

"Come in," I meowed a second time.

She sauntered in dressed in black fur and white boots. I thought this was an odd way to be clothed in July, until I caught a glimpse of my twitching tail, and remembered fur was the clothing option for all cats, except those hairless, wrinkled species among us who look like nude senior citizens. My eye caught the ruby and diamond necklace dangling from her neck.

"Dame is loaded," I said to myself.

She sauntered around the room, sniffed at the scratched up divan, and turned her nose up. She sat and her thick tail swept the air like a hand dismissing an irritating child. Her tail brushed the floor and sent a Slim-Fast cap under the couch. If the clattering noise startled her, she didn't react. Her green eyes bore into me as I sat nibbling my paw. I had calmed down after jumping straight up, taking a defensive stance and landing nose to the floor and butt in the air. That Slim-Fast bottle cap had set my nerves on edge.

"Maybe you're not the cat for the job," she purred and looked out the window.

Just then the cuckoo clock on the fireplace mantle struck three times as it always does on the hour no matter the time of day or night. She took no notice of the blue cuckoo. I quashed my urge to pounce upon it as I did when no one was around.

"She already thinks I'm a fool," I said to myself.

"How can I help you Miss...um...?"

"You'll know me as Tabitha Davenport."

"But not the real you?"

"Tabitha Davenport is all you need to know."

"Rex Gray is the name. All my friends call me Catnip Gray." I held out my paw. She nodded her head.