Thanksgiving Adventure Continued

[Continued from Tuesday, Nov. 30…]

Just then the telephone rang. Marlene answered it.

“Maria Betina?”

“No. I’m her mother.”

“Oh, you sound just like her. Well, anyway, this is Shirley, from the apartment down below, 3-A. There’s water leaking into my bedroom from what would be the southwest corner of Maria Betina’s bedroom. Are those cats up to something again?”

“Oh, my, I don’t think so. They’re not even here right now. I doubt if we can get a plumber today. I’ll get her father to take a look at it.”

Just then Walt and Maria Betina showed up, Walt carrying a gunny sack he’d gotten from the truck. It contained three cats that had decided they didn’t like one another very much. Marlene told them about the call from Shirley down below.

“Oh, it’s just those leaky old pipes,” said Maria Betina.

Walt put the sack in a corner of the living room and trudged back down to the truck to get his tools. He trudged back up, pulled the bed away from the wall, found a radiator. It was leaking because a pressure valve was missing. He looked around for it, found it in a back corner of the closet, with several cat toys. It was covered with scratch marks. He put it back in place, tightened it until it whined, pushed the bed back into place, picked up his wrench and went looking for the cats.

That was when Wilberforce, the largest of the three cats, stuck his head into the garbage disposal while trying to retrieve some turkey parts he thought should not be disposed. Rudolpho yelled and tried to pull him out. But he didn’t come. He was stuck. Maria Betina and Marlene tried to get him out while Rudolpho worked around them. They tried everything to get him out—butter, Crisco, canola oil. Nothing worked.

“I need that sink,” said Rudolpho. “We may need to include roast cat on the menu.”

Maria Betina began to cry. Walt eyed Wilberforce’s bottom, eyed the sink, eyed the wrench, shook his head, and took the disposal out of the sink.

While Walt and Maria Betina took Wilberforce, kitchen sink and all, to the emergency veterinarian’s, Marlene helped Rudolpho cook. For a large professional chef and a woman used to having a kitchen to herself, in a room the size of a miniature golf green, they got along amazingly well.

“I was so looking forward to not having to cook this year,” said Marlene, “but here I am, back in the kitchen again.”

“You and me both,” laughed Rudolpho. “But hey, we’ll get to eat better today than anybody! However, we’ll never get to eat if we can’t get more oven space. Take the stuffing and squash to Shirley down under. She said we could use her ovens. She’s going to her nephew’s. Maria Betina has a key for her apartment, hanging there by the door, in case she’s already left.”

Marlene dutifully stacked the necessary pans and shouldered the door closed so the remaining cats couldn’t get out and went to Shirley’s down under. She kicked on the door as a knock since her hands were full. Nobody answered. “She must have gone to her nephew’s already,” Marlene thought. She went into the kitchen and put the pans into the oven and turned it on. Nothing. She looked into the oven. The pilot light was out. The manual lighter was at the back where she couldn’t reach. She went back up and told Rudolpho.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, grabbing a roll of paper towels and a box of matches.

“Oh, my,” said Marlene. “I hope you don’t burn the place up.”

“Me, too,” said Rudolpho. “But we’ll not know until tomorrow, because we’re past the word count again.”