Page 32 of Fish and Chip

Nonsense! I say, then immediately burp. We’re public servants! We’re heroes! We’re—oh my word, I can’t move.

I look down. My belly is the size of a basketball. Actually, it might be bigger than a basketball. It’s giving beach-ball energy. I look like I swallowed a pumpkin whole. Good thing it’s Halloween. Wait a minute! Hoomans love to carve pumpkins! GAH!

Nobody is carving you, Chip, Fish groans from the ground.

You don’t know that! I’ve seen what they do with the little knives!

Fish doesn’t look much better than I feel. Neither does Patches, or Whiskerface, or any of the other cats. We’re all sprawled across the cobblestones, too full to move, looking like a collection of overstuffed bowling balls with tails.

This was the best idea we’ve ever had, I groan.

Or the worst, Fish counters. I can’t feel my paws.

That’s just the food coma talking, I assure her. In a minute, we’ll get up and⁠—

“There you two are!” Josie’s voice cuts through my food-induced haze. I try to stand up, but my legs won’t work. I’m too round. Too full. Too successful at that whole civic duty thing.

Josie appears above me, and her eyes go wide. “Oh my goodness, Chip! What did you eat?”

Everything, I mewl with pride. We cleaned up the entire street! And saved you from a fate worse than death, a health code violation. You’re welcome!

She scoops me up. Or tries to. I’m significantly heavier than usual. She grunts with effort, hoisting my basketball belly into her arms.

“Good grief, you feel like you gained fifteen pounds!”

It’s all muscle, I lie.

She arches a brow at me, and a little too late I remember the woman has full access to my internal monologue. Including the part where I ate possible trash.

The caramel apple was a calculated risk, I offer.

Her brow climbs higher.

Dexter appears and reaches for Fish, who’s making pathetic mewing sounds because she also can’t move. He picks her up with both hands, and I swear I see him wince.

“What have you two been eating?” he asks, looking at Fish’s distended belly.

Fish doesn’t answer. She’s too busy groaning. The Queen has left the building.

Then Dexter reaches for me to help Josie, and when he lifts my orange fluffiness, I hear something in his back pop.

“Geez,” he yelps, nearly dropping me. “What is this cat made of? Lead?”

Love and dedication, I say with a sharp meow. Also corn dogs.

Josie’s trying not to laugh. “I think they gobbled up every last morsel of food on Huckleberry Lane.”

“All of it?” Dexter asks, still holding me at arm’s length like I’m a bomb that might go off. To be fair, I might.

“Every last crumb.” Josie nods and grunts under my magnificence.

“Where do they put it?” he asks, his muscles straining as he tries to hold me steady.

I burp in response. It’s long and profound and smells like a carnival.

“I’m going to need a heating pad,” Dexter mutters. “And possibly a chiropractor.”

Your sacrifice is noted, I think as the food coma starts to kick in. But mostly I’m thinking about leftover churros.