A couple of stray cats passed by. I heard one say something. “Hey, Erin, I want one of those for Christmas.” She said, pointing to my car. “Yeah, right,” said Erin, the other one. “Dream on, Cameron. Hey, that rhymes! Dream on, Cameron! Dream on, Cameron! Dream on Cameron!” “Cut it out!” Said Cameron. They were two Abysinnian cats with short orangish fur and green eyes, but their markings were different. Cameron had white legs, kinda like mine, but mostly she was orange. She had a white diamond-shaped star on her forehead. She was a few inches taller that her sister, and with us short little kitties, that’s a significant difference. Erin’s markings were more like mine, except they were creamish colored. She had cream patches around her eyes, on the tip of her tail, under her chin, and on her belly. Her legs were all completely orange. “Er-rin, I’m so tired. Can’t we stop?” “I’m your little sister, Cam. I should be the one whining about being tired. No, we can’t stop.” “You are my little sister...but you are my older sister, too. My paws hurt.” They seemed like nice enough cats. Maybe I could give them a ride. I stopped and opened the door. “Hey, want a ride?” I asked. “That would be great,” said Erin. “I can’t listen to another second of this whining.” They came over and got in. ---- “I’m hungryyyyy...” Cameron whined. “Hungry?” Asked Erin, “you’re a garbage disposal. When are you ever not hungry?” “I’m not hungry when I don’t whine.” Cameron replied. “Yes, but you whine every minute of the day! Does that mean you’re hungry every minute of the day?” “No, I don’t always whine about being hungry. Sometimes I whine about my feet, or being tired, or...you know, stuff like that.” “So you should have said, ‘I’m not hungry when I don’t whine about being hungry.’ Not ‘I’m not hungry when I don’t whine.’ Be specific!” I couldn’t help but snicker at their conversation. They knew exactly what each other meant, they just liked to bother each other. ---- I decided to change the subject. “I wonder what time it is.” “You know,” said Erin, “I can write a little bit of human English, just a tiny bit, though, and I wonder why ‘I wonder’ statements are in the form of a question. They’re not questions, they’re statements. I wonder. You are doing something. You’re wondering. I wonder why. Does it look better with a question thingy or the other thingy? The other thingy. The dot thingy. The dot thingy by far.” “Really? I’m fluent in human English! But I still don’t know what time it is.” “I’d say...one o’ clock, judging by the position of the sun.” Said Erin. ---- “Judging by the position of the moon, I’d say it was about 6:45.” Said Erin. “Well, since it’s pretty early, we should be able to make some progress.” I said. “Aww! I wanted to do karaoke or something!” Said Cameron. “Cameron, if we procrastinate even the tiniest bit, we’ll never get anywhere.” I said. “Aww! Can’t we have just a little fun? One song? One itty bitty song?” I sighed. “First of all, I don’t feel like singing right now. Second of all, if those humans see me driving, writing, and singing karaoke...well, that would be scary. I don’t even want to think about what could happen.” “Oh, alright. Can I sing in the car?” Asked Cameron. “Fine. Just don’t distract me.” Those turned out to be famous last words. ---- My eye twitched. “Now what is that?” Sang Cameron, “It’s somethin’ made “By the Princess Pat.” I was trying to tune it out when... “IT’S RED AND GOLD!” She yelled. “And purple too.” I had to do something...about...this...song! “ENOUGH OF THE PRINCESS PAT!” I yelled. I didn’t want to yell, but I was getting a migraine from all of her singing. “Okay, then.” Said Cameron, and she started whispering to Erin. Erin giggled and nodded. “Bill Crogan’s Goat!” Sang Cameron. She was so off-key. “Was feeling fine. “Ate three red shirts! “Right off the line! “Bill took a stick! “Gave him a whack! “And tied him to! “A railroad--” “Stop singing!” I said. “I am getting a headache from all of these weird camp songs. They’re okay in small amounts...but for hours and hours...my head...” Erin and Cameron laughed. “A rick-a-bamboo. “A rick-a-bamboo?! “Now what is that? “It’s somethin’ made “By the Princess--” “I will kick you out if you sing one more word of that song tonight.” I said, calmly. “You have been singing for like an hour and a half. I am tired and I can’t take one more line of itsy-bitsy-little froggy songs. Soon you’ll be singing about frozen French fries!” “No, we’ve sang with frozen French fries, but not about them. But thanks for the idea! We can compose a song about frozen French fries!” “Not if you want to stay in my car, you can’t. It’s about 8:00--” “8:15.” Said Erin “It’s about 8:15, and I’m tired.” I yawned. “Let’s go to sleep.” “Yay!” Said Erin. “Sleepover! Sleepover! Sleepover!” I wondered if I would make it through the night. ---- “Amber!” Erin was in my face the next morning. “Wake up! It’s 10:00!” “Yeah!” Said Cameron, “wake up and smell the frozen French fries!” “Who put quarters in you two?” I made it through the night, alright, but not peacefully. It was bad enough that I’d been waken up by bad dreams about the creepy shadow thing. Erin and Cameron stayed up playing 500 Rummy with invisible cards. I yawned and woke up. “Alright. Let’s go. How is it that you can stay up for twenty four hours and still have all the energy you have?” “We took a little nap yesterday. A long little nap.” Said Cameron. I drove off. I looked at a nearby road sign. We were on...Caitlyn boulevard. I looked for Caitlyn blvd. on the map. Awfully close to home. I must have traveled for longer than I thought. Only about 26 miles, if the key was accurate. Caitlyn. Was it just a random name or did someone named Caitlyn do something to deserve their own boulevard? Oh well. I didn’t really care. It was just something to think about. I was just happy that I was only 26 miles from home. I thought about how I kept taking my eyes off of the road to look at the map. That was dangerous. “Erin,” I said, “come sit up here. You are the navigator, and you have to tell me where to go. I don’t want to take my eyes off the road. Just follow the red line. Tell me when to turn left, right, etc.” “Why don’t I get to be the navigator?” Cameron whined. I sighed. “Because you don’t.” “Straight for now.” Said Erin. “I’m hungry!” Said Cameron. “Me too!” Said Erin. “How hungry?” I asked, “unless it’s an emergency, unless you’re about to pass out from starvation, I don’t want to hear it.” “We’re about to pass out from starvation!” Said Cameron. “No you’re not. You ate last night, and so did I, and do I look like I’m about to pass out from anything? No.” “Can I sing the Princess Pat?” Cameron asked. ---- “NO!” Erin and I said together. “But it’s my favorite song!” Cameron whined. “I don’t care if it’s your favorite song. If I hear it one more time, I just might go crazy. And we don’t want that to happen, do we?” I said. “I wanna sing it!” “Too bad. Gosh, I’m so mean.” “I wanna sing it!” “If you sing it one more time, I just might take it away.” “That doesn’t make any sense!” “Sometimes you don’t make much sense either.” “I do so! I make a lot of sense! I just want to sing my favorite song! Why is that nonsense?” “First of all, it being your favorite song is nonsense. It’s a camp song, for crying out loud.” “Why are you being so mean?” “Because it’s there.” “That doesn’t make any sense either.” “Fight fire with fire. Match nonsense with nonsense. Now please. Enough with the song. And I’m not being mean. If we got in an accident because you were distracting me with the song, you would think I was mean for not telling you to stop.” “It’s a free country, and I can sing if I wanna!” “It’s a free country, and I can tell you to stop if I wanna. Now, you can just not sing, and we can drop this subject, or we can keep arguing. It’s your choice. Personally, I never get tired of thinking up snappy comebacks.” “Fine. I won’t sing.” “There,” I said, “see how easy that was?” “No. It was hard.” “It was not hard. You were just being stubborn. All that arguing, over a silly little song.” “It is not silly!” ---- “Ow!” Yelled Cameron. “What is it?” I asked, and ran over to where she was. “My paw. I hurt my paw.” She had cut it on a piece of broken glass. “Put it in a patch of snow.” Said Erin. “Hey, look over there, isn’t that some kind of fabric?” I saw some kind of towel or something. “My foot is cold!” Said Cameron. “Of course it’s cold. It’s in a patch of snow. But don’t take it out. Leave it in the snow.” I said. I got the towel and brought it back over to where Cameron was. Erin and I tore it into a long strip, and I cleaned it in the snow. “Can I take my paw out yet?” Cameron asked. “No.” Said Erin. I brought over the towel strip. “Lift up your paw.” I said. She lifted her paw. “Now put it on the towel.” I wrapped the towel around her paw and tied it. Meanwhile, Erin filled up the “tank”. I wonder why there was a towel in the middle of the road. ---- “Cocoa’s done!” Said Cameron. She had finished stirring the mix in. We all went over to the red blanket and started drinking our hot cocoa. Yes, cats can have chocolate. Soon, Cameron started complaining about little lumps in her cocoa or something like that. “Eeew! This cocoa has a pudding layer on it, and it left bumps in the cocoa! Yuck!” Then she shifted her eyes to Erin’s hot cocoa. She stuck a toe into it. “Talk about yuck!” Erin said. “Don’t stick your fingers into my food!” Cameron stuck her finger into it again. “You touch my cocoa again and you’re dead.” Cameron stuck her whole foot into Erin’s cocoa this time. “Okay, that’s it!” Erin got a long stick from the wood pile. Cameron did the same. They started fencing with the sticks. “I’ll teach you to touch my cocoa, fuzzy!” Said Erin. “You can have mine, the one with the lumpies in it!” Said Cameron. “Just call me Erin, Master of the Hot Chocolate!” “I’ll get you, evil Erin! I am Cameron, Master of the Doughnut People!” I couldn’t help but laugh at their conversation. Cameron pretended to knock Erin down with her stick. “You win.” Erin fell to the floor and stuck her tounge out. “Hey,” I said, “Triumphant Master of the Doughnut People, your hot cocoa’s getting cold.” Cameron skipped over and drank Erin’s hot cocoa. Well, it was luke-warm cocoa now. ---- “I think that will be my permanent title,” Said Cameron, “Master of the Doughnut People. It’s funny and intimidating! People will come up to me and say ‘hi, what’s your name?’ and I’ll say ‘I am Cameron, Master of the Doughnut People. Bow down to me and devour the broccoli! That will be my attack command. Imagine, ‘wait...wait...DEVOUR THE BROCCOLI!’” ---- “Let’s go.” I said. Erin and I walked out. Cameron got up, but about two yards from the door, she stopped and looked back. “Hey, Master of the Doughnut People, time never stops unless it’s an energizer battery.” I said. Cameron giggled. “That doesn’t make any sense. I’ll miss this place.” We walked out. I checked to see if the car was hurt. Just a few holes in the plastic wrap. Nothing major. --- “Cam, Erin, What do we do? We’re a little blocked by this highway here.” “I remember,” said Erin, “my last owner played these games where you had to make a little deer cross ice flows. We could do that with the cars...” “Are you crazy?!” I yelled, “that’s a video game! This is real!” “Do you know any other ways to cross?” “Well, no. I see it up ahead, and there’s no bridge.” “So...” I gulped. “Okay. But wait...what about our car?”