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to our own hearts thumping wildly in our chests.
    â€œLet me out!” called the voice from beneath the ground.
    â€œOh, Bob,” I heard Linda say, “why couldn’t they have gone to a Club Med and taken us with them?”
    â€œI don’t know about anybody else,” said Chester, “but I think it’s time we did a little digging. Harold.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re a good digger. I’ve seen you.”
    â€œWhy is it you only compliment me when you want something?” I asked.
    Chester turned, a surprised look on his face. “That isn’t true. Just the other day, I told you I liked your eyes.”
    â€œYes, but when I got up to look in the mirror, you took my spot on the rug.”
    â€œWould you two get on with it?” the voice in the ground snapped. “You sound like an old married couple.”
    Chester and I looked at each other. This was getting weirder by the minute. I asked Howie to help me and we began to dig.
    It didn’t take long before we’d found something suspicious.
    Bones. Small, white, dry bones.
    The others gasped as Howie and I laid them out in a line on the ground. Then Howie noticed something else, a pinkish something studded with shining stones that glittered in the moonlight.
    Howie extracted it carefully with his teeth and dropped it at Chester’s feet.
    â€œWhat do you make of it?” I asked.
    â€œIt’s a collar,” Chester said. The crowd bandied the word about in amazed whispers as Chester struggled to read the dirt-smudged gold letters embossed on the side.
    â€œR-O-S-E-B-U-D,” he read. “Rosebud”.
    â€œBut what does it mean?” I asked.
    Chester began to pant, a sign that he was either very excited or dehydrated. The fact that he didn’t ask for a glass of water led me to believe it was the former.
    â€œThis is incredible!” he exclaimed. “Harold, we’re having a real paranormal experience here.”
    â€œAre you sure it’s not mass hysteria?”
    Chester gave me a cool look, which was no mean trick considering he was still panting. “Cats don’t participate in mass hysteria, Harold. If we’re going to be hysterical, we do it on our own. We’re individuals, not groupies like you canines. No, this is the real thing. Talking bones! And Rosebud! Rosebud, Harold!”
    â€œBut what does it mean?” I asked again.
    â€œIt was my name,” said the voice.
    Howie was a couple of feet away from me, but I could feel him trembling as he whimpered, “I want to go home, Uncle Harold. I don’t want to stay in a place where bones and collars talk.”
    â€œI am not a talking collar,” said the voice. “I am the spirit of Rosebud. These are my bones. In life I was a Yorkshire terrier.”
    â€œGood heavens!” Hamlet exclaimed.
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked.
    He turned his anguished face to me. “Alas, poor Yorkie,” he said. “I knew her, Harold.”
    â€œYou did?”
    â€œShe was being boarded here when I first came. She was supposed to stay seven days, but on the morning of the fourth day she was gone. We all assumed her owners had come for her during the night. But apparently . . .”
    Chester nodded his head slowly. “Apparently, she met with foul play,” he said.
    â€œFoul play?” The Weasel repeated. “Surely you don’t mean—”
    â€œMurder,” said Chester. I gulped. Chester had said the same thing the last time we stayed at Chateau Bow-Wow and had been so far off base he may as well have been in a different ballpark. But this time, the evidence was right before our eyes.
    â€œMurrr-der,” Rosebud echoed eerily. “Murrr-der.”
    Chester inched his way toward the talking bones. “But why?” he asked. “Why were you murdered?”
    It took a moment before the voice spoke again. “Because . . . I stumbled upon . . . the