CHAPTER ONE I was having the most awful dream Asleep awake asleep awake I've taken a lot of flak in my life over how much sleeping I do the sixteen naps in a typical twenty four hour cycle the naps before and after meals the naps because it's ten a.m. or three p.m. or even two sixteen p.m. on alternating Tuesdays Well you get the idea To this I say aren't we all always doing one or the other waking or sleeping Unless of course we are no longer alive And so since I was most definitely asleep and that is perfectly okay I was as previously stated having the most awful dream In this dream a dog had shown up on my doorstep Well actually he showed up on my lawn while I was napping outside He was a Great Dane sent to me by our mutual friend and he said his name was Sherlock Bones He had this wild story about being something called a consulting detective Which was a job very similar to being a private detective or
so he said He further claimed that public detectives the human ones came to him all the time for help with their more difficult cases which chiefly involved murder Ever since humans discovered twenty or so years ago that animals could speak they always seem to be asking us for our advice on one thing or another although they never give us any credit Then in the dream before I knew what was happening there actually was a murder case that needed solving the human police actually did draft the dog to help and I in turn was dragged along with them Then a whole bunch of other things happened all so rapidly within the confines of a day that I was barely even able to sneak in one nap let alone the typical sixteen Once the murder was solved actually we ended up solving two murders before we were done and did so in a manner so confusing I barely understood what had occurred the dog behaved as though he were going to move into my home permanently Permanently Can you even imagine what the neighbors would think of that A dog and a cat living together Why it wasn't all that many years ago that the city was still divided into four distinct districts the Human Quarter the Dog Quarter the Cat Quarter and the Everything Else Quarter Then the Great Melting
occurred Now there's even a rabbit living next door But I say to you again A dog and a cat living together Unheard of But in this awful dream the dog did move into the home that had previously housed only a cat me Dr. Jane Catson and my trusty housekeeper cook Mr. Javier a Castilian turtle Did I mention that in his spare moments while solving the case the dog invented a jetpack for the turtle so he could move more quickly from place to place It looked preposterous a jetpack on a turtle and I did worry about Mr. Javier's poor little brain as he was always going too fast and crashing into things Perhaps at some point the dog could create crash helmet for him Still it did have its advantages Formerly it could take Mr. Javier days to do a simple grocery run at his old creeping pace But after the jetpack arrived he could be there and back again lickety split It really was the most awful dream There was just one problem When I stretched and opened my eyes as I awoke I was immediately confronted by the dog from the dream He was sitting beside me on his haunches waiting somewhat impatiently for me to arise As I glanced up at him this Great Dane who insisted on wearing his deerstalker hat so often I had to frequently remind him to remove the ridiculous thing I was forced to admit yet again
My awful dream had actually happened Which meant that I really had somehow helped the dog to solve a murder and he had somehow wormed his way into my life with the intent to stay Well rats
