I wake up slowly with Muffin rubbing her head against my cheek.  I look around, still not fully awake.  I’m obviously in that room and lying on a small bed with Muffin curled up beside me purring.  I see the girls on lying on another bed, looks like they are sleeping.  I whisper to Muffin, what happened?  She whispers meows to me.  You fell asleep and I couldn’t wake you up.  The girls put you on the bed and tried to get into your backpack, so I had to get tough with them.  Then they drank their water and went to sleep.  How long have they been sleeping?  Meow, meow.=Just a few minutes.  I was so scared when I couldn’t wake you up.  I can imagine, but I’m okay now.  I give her a big hug and cuddled her for awhile.

Then we sit up, I look over at the girls, definitely sleeping which is good, they should be out for quite a while yet.  I had put a sedative in their water before so they should sleep for at least an hour.  I look at my leg, which is where I felt the pain.  Sure enough, Sophia had drugged me so she could search my backpack.  Meow.=Both of them tried.  Hmm, both of them, that’s interesting.  Meow, meow.=She tried searching your pockets too, so I had to scratch her.  Good girl Muffin, you did the right thing.  I made a slight change to Muffin’s slingshot and whispered something to her.  Then I tell her to search Sophia’s bag and told her what to look for.  Off she went.  I figured she could do that better than I could without waking Sophia.

I start looking around.  It’s amazing no one has found this maze of passageways and rooms before now.  The furniture in this room is much nicer than the other 2 rooms.  This must have been the main hiding room, perhaps for the princess?  If so, then maybe…  At least I can search in peace right now.  Muffin comes back with the items I asked her to look for.  Anything else in there that is odd Muffin?  Meow.=Don’t think so. Okay, then you can help me look for things.  Meow.=Good.  And off she goes.  In a few minutes Muffin is back and wants me to come over and look at something.  Hmm, a hole in the wall under the small bed.  Muffin reaches in with her long leg and pulls something out.  A small leather pouch, with…a diamond pendant.  Good going Muffin, I whisper.

That gives me an idea, so I start searching all the walls and sure enough I spot another one of those colored rocks above the bed.  I push it and the rock under it slides into the wall, revealing a nice little hiding spot.  I lift Muffin up and she pulls out another leather pouch.  Wow, look at that Muffin.  We keep looking around.  Muffin jumps up on the back of a big chair, meow, she says quietly.  I come over and there’s another colored stone.  I push and the same thing happens.  I hold Muffin so she can reach inside and she pulls out a larger leather pouch.  This is really amazing, and something that wasn’t on the list.  Muffin says there’s more inside.

I hold her up again but she can’t quite get at it.  I try to reach inside, I can feel something but can’t reach it either.  Muffin tries again and manages to hook her claw on it and pull it out.  Wow, look at that Muffin!  Definitely proves this room was for the princess.  Now, we need to hide these things.  Well Muffin, we did good, providing we can get out of this place.  Muffin and I decide to get a quick nap while the girls are still sleeping.  We ended up sleeping nearly 2 hours, then we got up and started looking around again.  Muffin comes over, Meow!=Air is not good!

To be continued.

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.