Wicked Appetite (Lizzy and Diesel 1)

He looked around my living room. “This is nice. You’ve made a real home here. I only was in this house once, and it was over twenty years ago. I remember it as being fussy, with stuff crammed everywhere. Seems like it’s a little more lopsided now, but that’s how it is with these old houses, I guess.”

Cat strolled into the room and gave my father the once-over.

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” my father said. “What’s his name?”

“Cat 7143. Cat, for short.”

My father squinted at Cat. “He’s only got half a tail. And there’s something weird with his eye.”

“It’s glass.”

My father went blank-faced for a moment. “Is that Ophelia’s cat?”

“I don’t know. He came from the shelter.”

“If it’s Ophelia’s, he must be the oldest cat on the planet. Ophelia was telling us she had a one-eyed cat when we visited her, but no one ever saw it. We always figured she was making it up. And in the years before she died, she’d tell your grandmother crazy things about the cat. How the cat could read her mind. And that he was actually a ninja.”

Oh great, I thought. Just what I need . . . another mind reader in the house. I looked over at Cat, and I swear he looked back at me and winked. Okay, so I guess he could have just blinked his one good eye, but it seemed like a wink.

“You know what we should do?” I said to my dad. “We should go out for dinner. I know this bar that makes unbelievable wings.”

“No way. I sent you to cooking school. I want to see what you can do.”

“I haven’t got a lot in the house,” I told him.

“Do you have beer?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m a happy man. You can make me a sandwich, and we don’t have to go out in the rain. And there’s a game on tonight. I see you have a television.”

“Right.”

And I might have a big, strange guy in my kitchen. I hadn’t heard the back door open or close.

“There’s something I should tell you,” I said. “I don’t exactly live here alone.”

“I know,” he said, moving past me toward the kitchen. “You have a one-eyed cat.”

“Yeah, but there’s more.”

“More?” He stepped into the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks. “Does your mother know about this?”

I sunk my teeth into my lower lip and followed behind him. “I can explain.”

“Your mother would have a heart attack if she knew you had a monkey in your kitchen.”

“That’s all? A monkey?” I peeked in and did a fast scan of the room. One monkey. No Diesel.

“That’s Carl,” I said to my father. “I’m taking care of him while the rescue organization finds him a real home.”

“What kind of monkey is he?” my father wanted to know. “His fur is all fluffy. He looks silly.”

Carl gave my father the finger, and my father’s eyebrows went all the way up to his hairline.

“He’s sensitive about his fur,” I said.

My father looked like he was working at squelching a grimace. “You’re sort of living in a loony bin.”