Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I screamed when I saw the face looking down at me.
As a rule, I’m not afraid of rats. But first, it was in my kitchen. Second, on top of my cabinets so he had the drop on me.
Of course the second I shrieked—it was a shriek, I cannot lie—Dobby came flying into the kitchen and began barking his head off. Chilly, on the other hand, leaped diagonally from the counter to the glassware cabinet and then flung himself backwards, twisting his body around mid-leap to land above me on the cabinet where the rat was.
I was afraid the rat would bite Chilly. I was equally afraid that Chilly would kill the rat and I’d be cleaning up rat gore. Thankfully, I heard the back door open.
“Stop.” Kola gave Dobby the order loud and deep, and I think because our Chihuahua thought he was Sam before he looked, he did.
The rat was squealing, and Chilly was making that awful noise cats do when they’re going to murder something.
“What is going on?” Kola asked, picking up Dobby, passing him to me, and then walking over to the counter and hopping up on it so much easier than I’d ever done, even when I was younger. I had been a “first put your hands flat down on the counter, pull up, knee on the counter” type person. Kola made the whole maneuver look fluid.
“Be careful, there’s a rat up there.”
“A rat? In our house?” He sounded very much like he didn’t believe me.
“Don’t let it leap at your face.”
Mr. Smarty-Pants scoffed and then quickly said, “Oh, it is a rat. A really cute black-and-white one.”
“Black and white?”
“Let go, great hunter,” Kola said lovingly to Chilly, who sat back and began to lick his paws as Kola took the, I will admit, pretty cute cow-spotted rat from on top of the cabinet and then jumped down. He was holding it and petting it, and it had its face tucked against his chest. “Do you need help?” Kola asked Chilly then, looking up at our cat.
Chilly was cleaning his face and was far too busy to be bothered by my son.
He turned to me then. “Do you want to hold the rat while I get your cat down?”
“I am not touching that rat, ever, that could never happen, but more importantly, he got up there, he can get himself down.”
Kola’s eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t put him up there?”
“I love that you think I would do that, but no.”
“That’s impressive that he did that himself, or can at his age.”
“I think, much like myself, he has bursts of energy and then needs to nap.”
He chuckled. “You’re not old.”
“Wait until you’re almost fifty and we’ll talk.”
“That’s years away. Knock it off.”
“Not gettin’ any younger,” I teased him.
His face suddenly scrunched up. “Dad will live a long time because he comes from a line of people that do, on both sides, but you…we don’t know anything about you.”
“Love,” I soothed him, “I’m not going to die on you.”
“I feel like we should find your people so we’ll know what issues you might face down the road so––”
“Please don’t worry,” I urged my son. “I was playing with you. And really, as you know, I take pretty good care of myself, and I eat better than all the rest of you.”
He thought about that a moment.
“Who eats more roughage? Who still plays racquetball with the homicidal maniac?”
“That’s a really mean thing to say about Uncle Dane.”
I grunted.
“I just worry is all.”
Smiling at him, I put my hand on his face, and he sighed like I had made him feel better, and I remembered something at the same time.
“What?” Kola asked me. “You look like you had an idea about something.”
“Hold on,” I said as I checked my phone and pulled up the Nextdoor App. “You see?” I turned my phone to my son. “I never forget anything.”
The rat’s name was Moo, because why wouldn’t it be? It belonged to Nate Rawley, who lived three doors down from us. He and his mother were staying for the summer, or maybe longer. I didn’t have the full details on that. When I called, Jayden, that was Nate’s mom, started crying and said they would be right down to get him.
Kola and I waited out front, and when Nate got close, he was six, my son got down on one knee. It was an adorable homecoming.
Apparently, Nate and Moo had been in the backyard when the neighbor’s dog on the other side, Waldo, got out of his yard, ran into theirs, and absconded with Moo.
“We thought he ate him,” Nate said to me and Kola as he showed us how his rat could sit on his shoulder.
“I’ll bet you I know what happened,” I told Jayden, and Nate showed Kola how Moo could count.