The Long Waytin is Almost Ovr, Hoorah!

Mom Says:

Spying, says John le Carré, is waiting. Agent Octavian stayed in the underground bunker with M and the Russian secret agents, playing American-style checkers (no vodka involved) and waiting for more information. Alek and Gatto joined them after M put in a good word for them, but the bunker was already full of humans and animals of the furrier sort, and everyone started getting on each other’s nerves.

Things got even worse when the “Admin” cat, Miss Doubleruble, insisted that the three unaffiliated agents fill out paperwork to put them in the group’s database retroactively. The trouble started first because she couldn’t find the forms, and second because Myshov (full of vodka from playing checkers with a Muscovite bear) teased Octavian and convinced him that “retroactively” meant that Octavian had to sing “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” as a part of the paperwork.

Which would have been fine, except that Agent Octavian actually knew the song. All of it. Now, red tape in a crowded underground bunker is one thing. Red tape and disco music is something else entirely. Things would have gone seriously amiss if M hadn’t intervened, sending Myshov to one communication station and Octavian to the other. And by chance—

…but is ther reellee chans? I meen, luk at me heer sayvin the werld fer autocrasee or somthin, maykin frendz whu doesn’t eevn speek Inglush! an I’m jus a littul ‘bandond kittee from Rocksberry, Massachoositz! Huh…

--By chance, I say, Myshov got the communiqué from Cairo and Octavian got the one from Paris. Now, anyone who knows anything about Chaos Theory—

…an that inclood me, cuz I nappt on that book by that Jaymz Gleek fellr, wift all the fansee, complkaytid piktchrz of buttrflyz…

--AHEM! knows that upon such tiny, seemingly coincidental, so-called “accidents of fate” lie the destinies of nations.

Not that we expect such self-involved superspies to agree. We expect them to agree rather with Will Shakespeare, who claimed that “the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves” and we presume that they would add that the credit goes the same way. Well, we’ll just have to see about that.

Lernin to Notis Importint Things

Mom Says:

The morning wore on. Ibrahim squatted next to the giant palm tree, watching the people pass into and out of the prison compound. Agent Octavian sat at attention, with his tail curled in front of his legs. Time passed slowly.

After a while, Octavian padded over to Ibrahim and said, “Kin yu keeps watch? I needz a nap!”

Ibrahim laughed his deep, rough laugh. “Sleep, petit hurairah, leetl kittee. We want you to be alert when they return.”

But Octavian was out like a light.

The sun rose further. Octavian’s dreams were cut through by an odd, drum-like noise and he woke and stretched out and yawned hugely. Ibrahim patted him on the head, saying, “Well rested already? I thought you would take the longer nap.”

Octavian threw himself back down on the pavement. “Whu cud sleep wift that funnee noiz up ther?”

Ibrahim looked up, squinting and shading his eyes with this hand. “How odd… That looks almost…”

A scramble of claws announced the presence of Perro, Sabaka, and Gatto trotting out of the prison, now without the packages that had been attached to their collars.The loud noise from far above their heads grew louder.

“Ibrahim, whut ar them things?” asked Octavian, as the others joined them under the palm tree.

“Well,” said Ibrahim, “I hate to say it, but I think—“

Musashi Sez:

This yer weeklee cliff-hangr. Peepls ben sayin ther not enugf suspens in this blog laytlee, so we ar tryin to improov. I thogted that we needed an akshul cliff fer this, but mom sez no, a meddaforikul cliff is jenrullee gud enogf.