The next day dawned clear and bright. I’d gone to bed hoping that my subconscious would come up with a trapping idea, but I woke with nothing in my head but a fuzzy dream of John Pinnock in a rowboat with Pug, Sylvia, Graydon, and Kristen. It was a crowded boat and I surfaced into wakefulness hoping that no one fell in.

So much for my subconscious mind doing anything useful. Still, it was a glorious spring day, so I jumped out of bed singing a happy tune and Eddie jumped with me, singing his own song. Post-shower, I toweled off my way-too-curly hair, listening to the refrain to which he kept returning.

“Mrr. Mrr. Mrr.” Pause. “Mrr. Mrr. Mrr.” Pause. “Mrr. Mrr. Mrr.”

“Has a good beat,” I said, “though I’m not sure I can dance to it.” I tried a few steps that might have resembled a grapevine twist but probably didn’t. “Yeah, not so much. How about a tango?”

Eddie gave me a dirty look and stalked off.

“Don’t go far,” I called after him. “It’s a bookmobile day.”

He thumped down the stairs without saying a thing, which probably meant he was annoyed with me. Luckily for both of us, he’d recovered from his sour mood by the time we needed to leave, and even luckier for me, he stayed quiet on the drive up to the library.

“How’s Mr. Ed this morning?” Hunter put the carrier on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat and strapped it down, as I was going to drive in the morning and he was taking the afternoon. Thursday was normally a Julia day, but she and her husband were headed to Chicago for a long weekend of theatergoing. I’d asked her to bring me back a small present and she’d put on such a thoughtful look that I was a bit concerned.

“Mr. Ed was vocal earlier,” I said, “but he’s quieted down.”

Hunter leaned down to look into the carrier. “Anything wrong?”

“Mrr.”

“Now you’ve done it,” I said.

Hunter laughed and buckled his seat belt. “Poked the Eddie bear, didn’t I? Sorry about that. What’s today’s question? Do we have one yet?”

Julia and Hunter and I had recently started a habit of choosing a discussion topic for each trip. This had come about because I’d been trying hard to get Julia to share insider New York theater stories, which she wasn’t always inclined to do. She’d successfully diverted me by announcing that the question of the day was going to be “If animals could talk, which one would be funniest?” and voilà! we had a new tradition.