Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen Read Online Free PDF

Dumpster was open like it always is to catch trash from the chute, I was just reaching in to lay the mouse on something, you know, soft and not too smelly—like that made any sense, I know, but that's what I was doing—when I noticed the tip of something sticking out from underneath a grocery sack of trash.
    It was orange. And furry.
    I just stood there holding the mouse by its tail, thinking, It
can't
be. But when I pushed aside the grocery sack, there it was.
    A big dead cat.
    Not only was it a big dead cat, it was a big dead cat that looked like it had been hurled off the Empire State Building. Its eyes were glazed open, and its fur looked gelled out in spots. Like it had been electrocuted.
    I thought about tracking down Officer Borsch but nipped that idea right in the bud. I sure didn't want to have to deal with nosy questions about why I was digging through the Highrise Dumpster.
    But I didn't want to just leave the cat. For one thing, I could see a collar and a tag—this was somebody's pet. But I didn't really want to touch it, either. Something about it was really… creepy.
    Finally I decided to zip over to the Pup Parlor and get Holly. So I lay the mouse in the Dumpster, ran across the Highrise lawn, jaywalked Broadway, and jingled through the Pup Parlor door. “Hey, Vera. Hi, Meg. Can I borrow Holly?”
    “Again?” Meg asked.
    Holly appeared from the back of the shop. “Hey, I thought you went home to change.”
    “Yeah, but, well…” I decided to cut to the chase. “I found another dead cat.”
    “You're kidding, right?”
    “No. And it looks a lot like Snowball did.” I spazzed up my arms, stuck out my tongue, and cranked open my eyes.
    “Where is it?”
    “In the Highrise Dumpster.”
    “Are you going to tell Officer Borsch?”
    “I… don't know.”
    Meg nodded. “That would open up a can of worms, wouldn't it?”
    “Exactly. But the cat's got tags, so I want to at least check it out.”
    “Okay,” Holly said. “Let me get some gloves and a plastic liner.”
    So Holly and I dashed back to the Senior Highrise, and when she saw the cat, she said, “Wow. It looks like the same thing killed both cats.”
    I snapped the gloves on. “I know. But why would someone put one here, and one over there?”
    “So maybe they're not connected.”
    “But what are the odds that there's a dead cat in
my
trash can and another in
yours?”
    “So what are you saying?”
    I hopped up and leaned into the Dumpster. “I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.”
    I had a little trouble reaching the cat, and since I didn't want to actually climb into the Dumpster, I wound up pulling the cat toward me by its tail. I felt a little bad about doing it, which was stupid—it was way beyond feeling a thing.
    But then all of a sudden Holly cried, “Look! There's a dead
mouse
, too!”
    I pushed off of the rim, saying, “I put him there. Dorito caught it—which is how I found the cat.”
    “Oh! For a second there I thought … well, I don't know what I thought!”
    I read the cat's tags. “His name's Mr. T.”
    “Phone number?”
    “Yup.” I scooped him into the bag and tied it closed. “Something about this is just too weird.” My spine was tingling, which, believe me, is never a good sign. It means I'm either in serious trouble, or about to putmyself there. But I couldn't ignore what I was thinking, so finally I just said it: “Holly, what if these aren't the only cats?”
    “Huh?”
    “What if there are
more
of them? What if there are cats in trash cans all up and down the block?”
    “But…why?”
    “What if the Psycho Kitty Queen's right? What if there's someone in town who
hates
cats? What if they're going around killing them?”
    “Sammy! Who in their right mind would do that?”
    I pulled a face at her. “We live in Santa Martina, remember? This town is full of wackos.”
    “Good point.”
    “So what if someone's killing cats and putting them around town in different people's trash