Chapter 22
We were home in bed, enjoying a well-deserved nap after a taxing day, when I detected the unmistakable sound of something burning. That typical sizzling sound. Moments later, the scent of smoke tickled my nostrils, and I was instantly wide awake.
“Fire!” I yelled as I sprang on top of Odelia’s tummy. “Fire! The house is on fire!”
Odelia, to her credit, was out of bed and heading down the stairs in a heartbeat, and so was Chase. Right behind them were Dooley and me, since we had both been asleep at the foot of the bed. Of Harriet and Brutus, there was no trace, as they were presumably asleep next door.
It was as I had suspected, and as my excellent sense of smell had told me, and also my sense of hearing: the back door was on fire!
“Not again,” said Odelia with a groan.
“Here,” said Chase, and handed her a bucket. He was holding a bucket already filled to the brim with water and was chucking it on the flames. Between him and Odelia, it didn’t take long before the flames were doused and the fire was out.
“Oh, Max!” said Dooley. “If you hadn’t smelled that, we would have been burned alive!”
“We would have noticed long before that happened that something was wrong,” I said. “Flames licking at our tushies, for instance.”
“This is the second time that someone has set fire to the back door,” Odelia told Chase. She looked really put out, and I could understand why. It isn’t a lot of fun when someone is trying to burn your house down.
“Do you still think Marge is involved?” I asked Dooley, since he was the one who had seen Marge with a box of matches that morning.
“I’m not sure,” he said now. “I mean, I can’t believe that Marge would try to burn our house down. Even if she is in love with the member of a German band.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” asked Odelia, who had picked up on our conversation.
“Well, maybe the Germans told her to do it?” said Dooley. “You know, maybe they have a song about fire, and when you watch the video clip often enough and listen to the song, you enter into a kind of hypnotic state and start putting stuff on fire?”
“It’s possible,” I agreed. “Though highly unlikely.”
At that moment, Grace came walking down the stairs, looking very sleepy. She was holding on to her teddy, something she had done since she was a baby. And even though she was hardly a baby anymore, for some reason she still slept with the same teddy.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Is it that bumblebee man again? I saw him from my window, and I wished I had come out to see him. He looked really fascinating.”
“No, it’s not the bumblebee man,” said Odelia.
“Someone set fire to the kitchen door,” said Chase. “For the second time today.”
“Max smelled the smoke,” said Dooley. “If he hadn’t woken us up, the house would have burned down, with all of us in it.”
“That would never have happened,” Odelia was quick to say. “We would have noticed eventually, but probably only after a large part of the house was already on fire.”
“If the house is on fire,” said Grace as she yawned, “we have to jump out the window. So we better put a trampoline outside. So when we jump, we don’t hurt ourselves.”
“This will not happen again,” Chase assured her. “Because we are going to take measures.”
“What measures, Dad?” she asked.
“Well…” He scratched his head. “You know. Measures.”
“Okay,” she said tolerantly. “Maybe you should simply put Max in the kitchen. Put a basket here where he can sleep. And then if someone tries to set fire to the door again, he will see who it is, and you can arrest them.”
“That sounds like a plan,” said Chase.
“Not a great plan,” I said. The thought of spending all of my time in the kitchen like some kind of glorified guard dog didn’t hold all that much appeal to me. I mean, who wants to sit in one spot for hours and hours on end, in the hope of catching an arsonist?
“Maybe it was the Germinator,” said Dooley. “Maybe he is also an arsonist. And so he sets fire to people’s places, and then he pretends to catch the people who did it. That way, he’s even more of a superhero than he already is.”
“You know, that’s not such a bad theory,” said Odelia, and translated Dooley’s words to her husband.
“It’s possible,” Chase admitted. “I would like to talk to this Germinator. Find out who he really is, and get to the bottom of all of these citizens’ arrests he’s been busy with.
Though, to be honest, your uncle has assigned a different officer to the case.
Bill Marvel has been tasked with the assignment to bring in the Germinator and talk to the guy. ”
“So what do we do about the door?” asked Odelia, who has always been the most practical one in the family. “We can’t go to bed with half a door.”
“And no pet flap,” I said sadly. The pet flap had already been damaged in the first fire, but now it was gone completely. A sad memory of the way it had once been.
“We don’t need a pet flap anymore, Max,” Dooley pointed out. “Since there’s just a big hole in the door now.”
This didn’t really make Odelia happy, for she groaned in distress. “Looks like we’ll have to get a new door. And a new pet flap.”
“I’ll take a look outside,” said Chase.
“Don’t bother,” said Odelia. “They’ll be long gone by now.”
“Maybe not,” said Chase. “These arsonists love to look at the havoc they have caused. They usually stick around so they can take pictures of the fire, or film the aftermath.”
He walked out through the sliding glass door, since he didn’t want to demolish the kitchen door even more than it already was—at least until his colleagues from the CSI department could have their way with it and determine who might have caused this minor disaster—and was gone, swallowed up by the night, as the expression goes.
“I don’t feel safe, Mom,” said Grace. “Do you think someone hates us enough to try and murder us in our beds?”
“You can’t think like that, honey,” said Odelia. “And you are safe. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, and neither will your dad.”
“Or Max and me,” said Dooley. “Isn’t that right, Max? We will protect everyone with our lives, right?”
“Right,” I said, even though I wasn’t crazy about the thought of me protecting anyone with my life. But then I guess I’m just a cat, not a superhero.
It didn’t take long for Chase to return from his mission, and he had to admit that he hadn’t found anyone lurking about.
“Time to call it in,” he told us. “And time for you to go back to bed, honey,” he told his daughter.
“Oh, but Dad, can’t I watch as the people in the white coats check the door?”
“I’m sure they won’t do that now, honey,” said Chase. “Even the people in the white coats have to sleep.”
But after he had called it in, he got the message that the CSI people would be over shortly, so they could examine the crime scene while it was still fresh.
“Quick service,” said Dooley. “I like it.”
And since these CSI people attract a lot of attention, it didn’t take long for people to crowd outside the house to try and find out what was going on.
Looked like we wouldn’t get a lot of sleep tonight.