“Oh, nothing much,” he said. “Just saying hello, you know. Shoot the breeze. Talk to my friends. You are my friends, you know. Fifi is my friend. And Rufus is my friend. And of course Harriet, you’re my very good friend. Max says that friends don’t keep secrets from their other friends, and so I was wondering if we could talk about our secrets. Just four friends talking about their secrets, you know. Like good friends do. I’ll go first.” He took a deep breath.
“I know what your secret is, Dooley,” said Harriet before he could launch into his story. “I told you yesterday, remember?”
“You did?”
“Sure I did. And then Max told me that Brutus also has a secret, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. So are you finally ready to talk about that now?”
Dooley closed his mouth with a click. He didn’t know Brutus’s secret. What he did know was that the world is a commercial place. A big marketplace where trade is all that matters. You offer something and the other person offers something equally valuable of their own, and then you trade. And so if he wanted Harriet to divulge her secret, he’d have to come up with something equally valuable. Like Brutus’s big secret—which as far as he knew didn’t even exist!
His brain was buzzing with activity, his synapses firing on all cylinders. And then he had it. Bingo!“I know Brutus’s secret,” he revealed. “And even though Brutus has told me not to tell you, I will tell you. Because that’s what friends do.”
“Friends reveal other friends’ secrets, even though they told you not to tell?” asked Fifi, arching a critical whisker in Dooley’s direction.
This had him stumped for a moment, but then Harriet said,“Just tell me, Dooley.” She had put a purr in her voice, and was regarding him from beneath lowered lashes, which she was flashing at him for some reason. The combination was pretty heady, he had to admit, and he was starting to feel a little weak-kneed.
“Well…” He’d totally forgotten what he was going to say—his mind a blank!
“I wouldn’t tell her if I were you, Dooley,” said Rufus after clearing his throat. The big sheepdog seemed serious. “Secrets are meant to be guarded, not revealed.”
“Rufus, shut up,” said Harriet.
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, don’t.”
“Okay,” said Dooley, thinking hard, even though his brain had turned into a clump of molasses.
“Tell me, Dooley!” Harriet insisted. The eyes that had regarded him so seductively less than a minute ago were now shooting twin bolts of lightning and she couldn’t keep the irritation from her voice.
A thought suddenly occurred to Dooley. It seemed like a good thought, so he expressed it.“If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.” It was something he’d heard onGeneral Hospital, one of Gran’s favorite soaps, though on the soap it had sounded different. More along the lines of ‘If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.’ The context had been a little fuzzy, and before they got down to business, Gran had turned off the TV. So he never did find out what it was exactly that this doctor and this nurse wanted to show to each other in that doctor’s office. What meat they had on their sandwiches maybe. Or the type of sausage the doctor kept in his lunch box. Though it could have been a nice piece of cheese, of course.
Harriet blinked at him, even as Fifi and Rufus burst into raucous laughter.
“He’s got you now, hasn’t he, Harriet!” Rufus cried as tears rolled down his furry cheeks.
“Good thinking, Dooley,” said Fifi, clapping him on the shoulder.
But Harriet wasn’t laughing. She didn’t even crack a smile. Instead she regarded him with barely concealed contempt. “That’s what you get from associating with Max all these years,” she snapped. “A filthy mind!”
And with these words, she strode off on a huff, leaving Dooley feeling bewildered and not a little concerned. Not only would he have to return to Max empty-pawed, but he would also have to inform him that his mind was filthy.
“I don’t understand,” he said finally. “Max is one of the cleanest cats I know. I’m sure his mind is as clean as the rest of him.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing, Dooley,” said Rufus, speaking to him in fatherly tones. “Harriet might be upset now, but you know what she’s like. She’ll have completely forgotten about this in five minutes.”
“A volcanic temper I think they call it,” said Fifi.
“All I wanted to know was Harriet’s secret,” said Dooley. “Max wants to know, and Brutus wants to know, and Harriet isn’t saying, so they sent me.”
“Good thinking,” said Fifi admiringly. “But then Max does have a big brain.”
“Yeah, but it’s dirty,” said Dooley. “And I didn’t even know. I don’t think Max knows.” And then he thought of something else. “How do you even clean a brain? It’s inside your head, isn’t it? Do you open up a person’s head and take it out?”
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,” said Fifi vaguely, exchanging a look with Rufus. “And now if you’ll excuse us, Dooley, Rufus and I have work to do.”
“You guys wouldn’t know what Harriet’s secret is, would you?”