Conversations with Critters
Walk with the animals. Talk with the animals. And the highly anticipated release of Chapter 14 of The Case of The Misplaced Priority Envelope!
Today, Critters, we are pleased to feature the highly anticipated release of Chapter 14 from The Case of The Misplaced Priority Envelope! All of the mystery and all of the adventure is brought to you by the J Kitten, Sleuth & Purveyor of Bright Shiny Objects Detective Agency. Previously, we left off with our Critter Detectives deep deep inside of a cave with a crucial clue in their paws. Then, we encountered an incredible critter on the very threshold, the very verge of a new discovery.
Please, stay tuned for an introductory commentary from our Core Community Cats, Jasper Kitten and Chris, as they join us in excellent bright shiny objects critter conversation. Take it away!
Jasper: Hello and welcome welcome to Chapter 14, Friends!
Chris: Ditto, it’s great to have you here with us on this mysterious path unwinding!
Jasper: Critters, we are crossing over the threshold into an action packed narrative discovery. It. Is. That. Important. Full. Stop.
Chris: Well said, Jasper. What. Happens. Next. Is. Of. Paramount. Importance. The. End.
Jasper: Thank you, Chris. Thank you very much. So, let’s read all about it!
The Case of The Misplaced Priority Envelope
Book 1 from the J Kitten, Sleuth & Purveyor of Bright Shiny Objects Detective Agency
By Jasper Kitten, Chris and Star in Heaven Furever and Ever
Dedicated in luvluvluving memory of Star
Chapter 14
Here Kitty Kitty
Bartleby extended his wing and pointed the Quill Pen toward the brightly lit hallway. He ushered Jasper Kitten, Chris and Star inside and they stepped over the threshold from the cave.
With a yellow webbed toebean, Bartleby stepped on a lever embedded in the floor and the sliding granite and steel door closed behind them.
The Rhinoceros Auklet walked a few paces ahead of them, congenial and welcoming.
”Please, right this way, my friends” he said, leading them down the hallway. Rows of carts, stacked with steamer trunks, lined the walls.
The Critters gave a near imperceptible but slight nod to each other, having achieved their goal of gaining access to the bunker. They felt their hackles go up and their whiskers twitched as they walked deeper inside. A fluorescent light buzzed and flickered down the hallway.
Chris flexed his retractable claws, toebean by toebean. He leaned close to Jasper Kitten and mewed in a whisper.
”There’s something off about this Rhino Auklet.”
Chris caught Star’s attention, too, and he saw the light flash in her eyes.
”He’s highly mobile with those wings,” mewed Jasper Kitten.
“Gosh, maybe his wings aren’t clipped, afterall, and he really can fly,” said Star under her breath.
Chris held up a toebean to his mouth and they fell silent as they padded after Bartleby.
The J Kitten, Sleuth & Purveyor of Bright Shiny Objects Detective Agency, having taken the great investigative risk of entering the bunker, made a distinct mental note of Bartleby’s posture and locomotion, the ease at which he folded and unfolded his wings and the dexterity in which he pointed with the Quill Pen.
Bartleby turned a corner and they headed down another hallway, toward an open and empty conference room. They passed by a door that closed and shut tight, but not before they caught a glimpse of another Rhinoceros Auklet, bent over a work table, his clipped wing moving across an open book and the sound of a Quill Pen, scratching along the pages.
”May I offer you a refreshing beverage?” gestured Bartleby to the Critter Detectives upon entering the conference room. “Perhaps you are thirsty after your journey to Maintop Island?”
”Thank you, Bartleby,” replied Jasper Kitten. “My colleague, Chris, has quite the culinary skill set of which we are most grateful. We are fully hydrated at this time.”
”Of course,” said the Rhinoceros Auklet. He turned away from a mini bar after setting down a pitcher of water and extended a wing toward the center of the room. “Please, make yourselves comfortable and have a seat at the table.”
They climbed into the bureaucratic business chairs at the long conference table while Bartleby, with a yellow webbed toebean, stepped on another lever embedded in the floor. A screen rose up and covered the wall across from them. Static and a broken image flashed and blinked and then took form.
The Critters sat still in the bureaucratic business chairs, their restraint running at odds against their natural instincts to spring into action. A Hooman face manifested before them. A laugh rose up, projected at full volume into the room.
“At last,” came the voice, thin and nasal. “Jasper Kitten, Chris and Star. May I have the pleasure of welcoming you to my bunker.”
“Clearly,” said Jasper Kitten in a measured and even mew, “you would prefer to utilize the latest in audiovisual technology rather than meeting in person. Perp. Nefarious Perp.”
”Well, let’s just say that working remotely helps minimize my allergies to housecats.”
“Why, you coward, I’m going to tear you apart, Perp! I’m going to go head to head and toebean to toebean with you!” Chris hopped off the bureaucratic business chair and charged at the screen. When he was done, a large slash tore through the laughing projection of the Hooman face.
”Chris, that was not very nice of you. Here, Kitty Kitty,” and more laughter.
”Gosh, you really are a coward, Mr. Nefarious Perp,” barked Star. “Furthermore, you are not a very nice person.”
”Gosh, Star, what with your can do Chihuahua attitude and being super duper senior, good luck with that,” laughed the Nefarious Perp.
“Furthermore,” said Jasper Kitten, swatting the air with a white gloved paw, “we will not sit still for this. If my instincts tell me correctly, you are running some kind of felonious bureaucratic critter operation here in this bunker on Maintop Island. And. I. Will. Find. Out. Exactly. What. It. Is.”
“Thank you for your deep detective analysis on that, Jasper Kitten. Please, make yourselves comfortable as my guests in the bunker. Bartleby will finish giving you the Grand Tour. Yeah, emphasis on finish,” he laughed. “The end.”
The image on the screen fizzled and went blank, and the laugh, the laugh of the Nefarious Perp, echoed through the room and then went silent.
A beep sounded from the Quill Pen and Bartleby gave a slight jump of his yellow webbed feet.
“Pardon me, please, Critters. I must attend to a rather urgent matter, but will return shortly.” He exited the conference room with a flourish of the Quill Pen.
When he was out of sight, the Critters hurried to the door only to find it locked.
”Gosh, this locked door to the conference room comes as no surprise to me,” surmised Star. “The Nefarious Perp and his Rhino Auklet are not very nice.”
”Correct, Star,” replied Jasper Kitten. “However, we will not, as we have stated, take any of this sitting down.”
”Why, you got that right, Jasper Kitten,” said Chris who extended a claw toward the door. “I’ve got this.”
Chris proceeded to manually pick the lock, but when he retracted his claw, it jammed and he cried out in pain as his nail broke.
Jasper Kitten and Star rushed to his aid, but he waved them away.
“I’m A-o’kay,” he confirmed, grimacing as a streak of red stained his long white leg. “Let’s get out of here!”
They ran into the hallway and turned in the opposite direction from where Bartleby had waddled off, but they could find no way out.
”Look!” called out Star. “There’s an air vent at the top of the wall!”
Chris braced himself and Jasper Kitten climbed onto his back. He reached a white gloved paw down to Star and she reached back with her cinnamon brown paw. She stood up on Jasper Kitten’s back and removed the air vent grate, then hoisted herself into the duct.
She reached back down for Jasper Kitten and pulled him up. From a sitting position, Chris then leapt up, both front legs extended, and Jasper Kitten grabbed him, the forward momentum carrying Chris into the duct, although he winced in pain from his injured toebean.
Star replaced the grate over the air vent and they burrowed inside. Jasper Kitten made the investigative decision to keep his headlamp switched off, giving them the best chance of remaining incognito.
Further down the duct, they came upon another grate and heard voices, coming from below.
“That was a rookie mistake! Listen to me, Rodney,” they heard a thin, nasal and berating voice say. “You little Nefarious Rhino Auklet Doppleganger. I told you to move all of those steamer trunks in from the cave. But no. You happened to leave one in there and that alley cat of a detective and his mongrel friends showed up just in time to find it!”
”I’m sorry, Nefarious Perp,” they heard the snivel of a reply.
”Sorry doesn’t cut it, Rhino. Those nosey domesticated varmints would never have been brought into the bunker if you had done the one thing I had asked you to do. But no. You moved too slow and now we’ve got to take care of them for good cuz we haven’t been able to scare them off. Period.”
”Please, Nefarious Perp. Please. I can explain.”
”Oh. You can explain! No. Not only do we have the J Kitten, Sleuth & Purveyor of Bright Shiny Objects Detective Agency interfering with our operation, we’ve lost not one but two Servals on Maintop Island and again, not one but two Servals from the Big Rig and the Dogpatch docks! I’m surrounded by idiots!”
”I, I don’t know how the two Servals escaped from the bunker…,” and his voice trailed off as the Nefarious Perp continued to scream.
”Well, they got out somehow! For all I know, you left the door to their cell unlocked the same way you left the steamer trunk unlocked. And then that mother and daughter pair of Servals went to that crazy cat! That orange furball! Who knows how Jasper Kitten and his mongrel detectives even managed to find their way to this wild place, rugged and remote!”
“I guess that means they’re good detectives?”
“I guess! I guess! Furthermore, there is no doubt, the escaped Servals, Rose and Petal, spilled the beans on who’s been writing all of those Haikus to warn them off the case!”
”It could still be a mystery, Nefarious Perp. I mean, how could they have possibly known that Bartleby was writing the Haikus to warn off the Critter Detectives?”
”How! How! How on Earth do you think! Because. When we had them held captive, you let them in on our little secret. What kind of a sentry does that!”
”I only wanted to let them know who’s boss, Nefarious Perp. I informed them that no one would come looking for them here. We had ways of scaring off their only hope with the J Kitten, Sleuth…”
”Rodney, do not patronize me. You gave those Servals too much information. You know it. I know it. And now. Now you’ve given me no choice but to bring those mongrel detectives into the bunker and never let them go.”
“But maybe they don’t realize that you masterminded a double identity with the writing Rhinoceros Auklet, the one and only, Bartleby. You know what I mean, that I could take his place most convincingly and lead those detectives astray in any way that you want.”
“ Jasper Kitten is no fool, Rodney. You’re a fake. A phony. All I needed you to do when they showed up in the cave was to appear in all innocence at the opening of the cave itself. You were just out for a walk in the fresh air. I wanted you to act all nice nice like you were the real deal, the real scribe, our Bartleby the great writer of the Treatise on Animal Magnetism, the great poet of the Haikus. You could have sent them on their merry way. Nothin’ goin’ on in here. Boo! Goodbye! But no. You left those chrome plated bells out, right where they could be found. You couldn’t even have been bothered to keep the steamer trunk locked. End of story.”
”My apologies to you, Nefarious Perp. I did lock the J Kitten, Sleuth & Purveyor of Bright Shiny Objects Detective Agency in the conference room when you summoned me to come in here.”
“Well, thank you very much for thinking ahead on that,” sneered the Nefarious Perp.
“In my humble opinion, if I may…”
”Do I look like I care for you to elaborate!”
”Of course not, of course not. You see, the J Kitten, Sleuth & Purveyor of Bright Shiny Objects Detective Agency doesn’t scare easy, but perhaps it was too much reading to send them the Treatise on Animal Magnetism in the first place. Perhaps a simple Haiku would have sufficed,” suggested Rodney.
”You are one talkative seabird. How dare you question my judgment.”
”Please, forgive me, Nefarious Perp.”
“All I needed was for you to act like that invertebrate of a writer with a Quill Pen and get those Critters to scram.”
“But the Servals were already on the lam and they turned to Jasper Kitten and his detectives for help like you said. The detectives know too much already. No amount of Haikus, however poetically composed by Bartleby with his special talent, would have convinced them to stop their investigation.”
”Simply put, those mongrels are a distraction and they’re costing me time and money. No more. No less. Rodney, you have no talent and cannot even do the most basic math. Two plus two equals four. Four Servals. Two for exotic pets. Two for exotic rugs. Right out of my pocketbook.”
“Please,” he whined. “You can take them as an end of year tax write off. A capital loss.”
“Thank you Mr. Tax Accountant. You’re a sorry excuse for a seabird much less a jailbird. I’m of the mind to clip your wings just like Bartleby who always does my bidding.”
“You wouldn’t,” Rodney gasped.
“I’ve raised Bartleby from a hatchling after I swiped his egg from the nest. He’s critically imprinted on me. But you. Yeah, I could keep you around, but what good would that do me now. Beat it, bird. Go back to your pelagic lifestyle. Fly. I’ve got to get back to work and see what I can salvage around here. But first, I’ve got a special place on Maintop Island for those Critter Detectives to go. For good.”
They heard the flapping of wings and a door slam, then footsteps pounded down the corridor and laughter followed in their trail.
Jasper Kitten, Chris and Star dared not move a whisker. They held each other’s gaze and then, in silence, moved even closer together.
”A confounding case of double identity if ever there was one,” mewed Jasper Kitten.
”I barely know what to make of it,” replied Star.
”Why, the Nefarious Perp thinks he’s so clever. But we can see right through him,” added Chris.
”Yes, this is a multi-faceted utilization that exploits the identity of the Rhinoceros Auklets. First, we have the so called Bartleby,” said Jasper Kitten.
”But his real name is Finnegan,” clarified Star.
”Correct. Clearly, he works behind the scenes, but also at cross purposes to the Nefarious Perp. He freed Rose and Petal. He sent us hidden clues in the Treatise on Animal Magnetism that helped lead us to the Farallones and reunite the Serval Family.”
”He’s a hero of a Rhinoceros Auklet,” said Chris.
”Yes, but we’ve learned even more,” mewed Jasper Kitten. “Finnegan was stolen from his nest before he hatched from his egg. I’d say that the Nefarious Perp has made a major mistake and has overestimated Finnegan’s real bond with him.”
”Are you saying…,” said Star.
”You mean…,” said Chris.
”Yes. Exactly. Finnegan is not critically imprinted on the Nefarious Perp.” Jasper Kitten swatted the air in the duct with a white gloved paw.
”But the Nefarious Perp thinks so. He thinks the seabird’s real name is, in fact, Bartleby. Furthermore, he thinks the Rhinoceros Auklet’s real loyalty is toward the Nefarious Perp himself,” added Chris.
“But Finnegan stands for freedom,” stated Star.
”Yes,” agreed Jasper Kitten. “Finnegan must long for his true family and his own freedom. He knows his real identity, but is being held captive.”
“So, what are we to make of the situation with the Rhino Auklet, Rodney the Doppelgänger?” asked Chris.
”Clearly, Rodney was being used as a mere prop. They tried to manipulate us into thinking he’s the scribe because we were already aware of a writer from our investigation,” replied Jasper Kitten. “If we had been unquestioning in our acceptance of him as the real deal, he could have lead us down the wrong path and away from the Nefarious Perp’s illicit enterprise.”
”In that case, we may not have gained access to the bunker and the Nefarious Perp would have gone on his merry way,” said Chris, rubbing his sore toebean.
”Correct, Chris, although with our determination, I’m still confident that we would have found a way into the bunker in our pursuit of the truth,” affirmed Jasper Kitten.
“Gosh, we knew something was off with that Rhino Auklet from the get go in the cave. The Nefarious Perp is trying to stay one step ahead of us, but is falling behind,” said Star.
”Why, I don’t expect him to catch up,” Chris hissed under his breath.
“Jasper Kitten and Chris, we’ve got to move on and find Finnegan,” said Star.
”C’mon, Critters, we’ve got a good idea as to where to find him,” urged Jasper Kitten. “Finnegan knows who he really is, but what else does he know?”
Jasper Kitten’s question hung in the air and the Critters moved further along, looking for a way out of the duct and the bunker and the veritable imprisonment on Maintop Island.
🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾
Poetry with Pets
The double double
Bureaucratic business scribe
The trouble trouble
By Jasper Kitten and Chris
Critters! Catch up on all of the mystery and adventure with Chapters 1-13 of The Case of The Misplaced Priority Envelope! Brought to you by the J Kitten, Sleuth & Purveyor of Bright Shiny Objects Detective Agency!
Chap. 1🐾Chap. 2🐾Chap. 3🐾Chap. 4🐾Chap. 5🐾Chap. 6🐾Chap. 7🐾Chap. 8🐾Chap. 9🐾Chap. 10🐾Chap. 11🐾Chap. 12🐾Chap. 13
Ooh, the plot thickens! We meet the nefarious perp and find out about a doppelgänger...what will happen next? Thanks for this mysterious mystery, Heidi and critters.
Two Rhino Auklets!
Turnabout will be fair play
Critters triumphant?