Kat unlocked her front door and knelt down to remove Harper’s coat. The puppy sniffed the air, bounced on her paws, and wiggled her whole body with joy
“Home! Happy happy, home! Come see! Come see!”
Harper charged to the back of the house towards Kat’s office, then trotted back again and looked up expectantly.
“Hang on puppy, I’ll give you a treat in a minute.” Kat firmly ignored the voice in her mind and the request to “come see”, choosing instead to pretend that all was normal and that Harper needed a cookie.
Once she had released herself from the confines of coat, hat, and scarf, Kat dropped her keys on the hallway cupboard and headed to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Harper bounced along, distracted by her biscuit. Kat’s phone chimed with a text.
E: Sugar Bees this aft?
K: Sure! 3?
Kat slipped her phone into her pocket and cradled the warm mug in her hands as she walked towards her office. She was looking forward to seeing Ellie and asking her advice about the strange voices in her head.
Kat and Ellie had been best friends since high school, bonding together through the usual adolescent angst of insecurity and defiance as they matured from children to young women. Both of them had shared an indifference to joining the “cool kids”.
They were often in trouble, though it was usually for a good cause. They had broken into the primary school once over March break because they had discovered that a child had forgotten to bring home the class guinea pig. Each classmate signed up for weekends and holidays, and Morton was beside himself with worry. His parents had called the school but had not reached anyone.
Ellie knew that the janitor often left the small window in the furnace room open a crack and so she and Kat had planned a rescue mission. They had lugged a ladder all the way to the school, and both young women had climbed up and into the window. It wasn’t a long way to the floor, though there were a few bruises on the way down.
The plan had initially gone well. Guinea pig cage securely in hand, Kat had left through the main school doors, which Ellie carefully locked behind her. Ellie was petite so she had been elected to climb back up and out. Before leaving, Kat had stacked books by the window and Ellie had used those to climb upwards. She was halfway out the window frame, trying to contort herself back onto the ladder when the police showed up with sirens blaring and a loudspeaker barking orders that neither could understand.
A lot of commotion, a few tears, and many excuses later, Kat and Ellie narrowly avoided being charged with breaking and entering, and also learned that the school was protected by a silent alarm.
Still smiling at the memory of her n’e’er-do-well days of youth, Kat stopped dead as she walked into her office: Her desk chair was upside down and resting in the easy chair’s spot. The easy chair was at her desk. A stack of books was piled beside a window. The cozy blanket and pillows she kept on her reading chair were scattered on the floor.
“See? Visitors!!!” Harper pranced beside Kat and then nosed the fallen cushions.
Kat grabbed Harper, whisking the dog away from the area as she pulled out her phone and dialed 911.
“What’s? Is ok. Frenz!”
“Harper, friends don’t break into your house and mess up your stuff!”
“No breaks. Bad Hoomans breaks. Good Frenz!”
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