“Yes, indeed.” Mr. Snuggly, his errand complete and his duty discharged, began to clean his fur. He paused long enough to say, “You must do something about it. She has left the cooking thing on, which she will not do if she is not remaining in the house.” Mr. Snuggly was proud to have remembered that detail.

“Thank you, Brother,” the Rev said, and it was his turn to consider options.

After asking one or two more questions, the Rev went next door to see the chaos in Fiji’s normally orderly home (though the old man disliked rain almost as much as the cat, whom he carried tucked under one thin arm). Somehow the broken things on the floor made him much more anxious.

The thud of feet on the rock sidewalk leading up to the porch announced new arrivals. Bobo hurried into the room, closely followed by Manfred. Manfred had taken a moment to pull on a hooded plastic poncho, but Bobo had come as he was. His shirt was soaked with rain, and his hair clung damply to his scalp.

“I saw a truck hauling ass away from here. What happened?” he asked, every line of his body tense. “Where is Fiji?”

“She’s been taken,” said the Rev.

“Little Timmy fell down the well,” said a tiny voice, and the two men looked around wildly to find the source.

“Who said that?” Bobo asked.

“Don’t even ask,” the Rev said, with a kind of tired exasperation. “Let us pray for our sister, for she has been taken, and we must recover her.”

“What are the cops doing?” Manfred demanded.

“I haven’t called them. This is something we have to do. The man who took Fiji has had enough time to switch vehicles or possibly to reach his destination.”

“Have we heard from Fiji at all?” Bobo asked.

“She’s handcuffed and gagged,” the Rev said.

Bobo made a shocked and angry noise, as if someone had poked him with a hot needle.

“We need to go across the street to the pawnshop, Bobo,” the Rev said. Manfred wondered why. “We’ll take the cat with us.” The cat in question raised his head and looked at the Rev with his eyes slitted in indignation. “Manfred, if you would put the cat under your rain poncho, it would protect him on our way across the street.”

Manfred felt almost as unhappy as Mr. Snuggly, but he lifted the poncho, scooped up the cat, and pulled the yellow plastic down over him.

The second they were inside the pawnshop, Manfred set Mr. Snuggly on the floor. The cat stretched and began inspecting all the chairs he could choose to sit in. Naturally, he selected the one Bobo favored, and in a second he was curled into a ball in the middle of the chair, purring loudly.