Everything was happening quickly now, too quickly for me though. I was surrounded by happy people that I did not know and, admittedly, it was rather scary. A gray cat came running and jumped up into my arms purring loudly. I smiled at her, knowing who she was, since the girls had told me a lot about Muffin. “You must be my precious Muffin,” I said slowly, trying to sound happy.

Meow,meow!=Yep, me your precious Muffin, you my precious human! “The girls told me you could talk, I thought they were fooling me,” I said, “but you really can talk.” Her ears went straight up! Everyone got very quiet suddenly. No one had been told about me before now. Perhaps they should have been. Saranna came over to me and said she was my doctor and needed to give me an injection of medicine to help me. I did not mind her doing that, if there is something that will help then I want it.

I kept holding, and hugging, Muffin. “Please stay with me little one, all the way home,” I said, “wherever that is.” Meow,meow.=Yep, me stay with you, all the time. You not worry, medicine help you to come back to somewhere again. Then I noticed the other cats by my feet. “Who are your friends?” I asked Muffin. Meow,meow.=This best friend Storm, these are kittens Snow and Tiia, they learning to be PI cats now too.

Then everyone came over to me and introduced themselves one by one. Then one of them came to me. “Thank you very much Steve,” she said, “I really love the name you gave me, which is…” I cut her off. “Aasta”, I said. “That is right!” she exclaimed excitedly, “you remembered!” “I guess so,” I said smiling. Then the last of the girls came over to introduce herself. “Hi Crystal,” I said to her.

She jumped excitedly and gave me a big hug. “You knew my name too!” she exclaimed. “It just came to me,” I said, “I am not sure why. You and Sky are almost twins.” Then suddenly I began shaking uncontrollably and Crystal called for Saranna to come help. Rock grabbed me and laid me down on the ground so I would not fall. “He must be having a reaction to his medicine,” she said, “but why? He never has had a reaction before according to his health file.”

“It never has happened,” said Kristina, “it has always calmed him down and then brought him back to reality. But this has never happened. Could it be all the stress from the last 6 weeks?” “Perhaps it is,” she said, “and now when he finally relaxed, his body just collapsed.” And I sure did. I was soon unconscious and everyone was soon on the jets and we were on our way home. The largest jet has a well equipped medical room, really 2 rooms. That is where Sky and Sigurbjorn were kept.

I was there briefly while Saranna did some tests, then I was transferred to one of the bedrooms. Muffin came in to stay with me, and so did Storm and the kittens, all purring nicely for me. Sigurbjorn was doing okay, but Sky was not. She had started bleeding internally and Saranna was having trouble getting it to stop. Marlene had come along too, so she could help out.

Saranna also called ahead to Li Jing and told her about my reaction. Li Jing was quite worried about that. She had gone over Chung’s notes about my ‘nowhere’ condition and there was nothing about bad reactions mentioned. Perhaps because I had gone so long overdue for my medicine, but she was not sure. Could it be that Carnival will win even though he lost? That would be terrible indeed. Carnival had ended up swimming with the fish at the bottom of the nearby river.

But, Tiny Tim did get away, with his money, a small price to pay for getting us back, said Mandar. Still, we may meet him again in the future. Or the team might anyway. Rock has taken over as the team leader, which is the way we had things set up. He will remain in that position unless I am well enough to resume as the team leader at some point. I awoke in a hospital room with Sky and MC in beds on either side of me. Neither one were doing well apparently.

I improved as the days went by, but not my memory. Then there I was, kneeling on the ground with Muffin, Storm, the kittens and with Crystal and Kristina beside me. We were looking at 2 graves in a small cemetery…

To Be Continued as “The Ringing Resort Case”.

©2023 Steve McLeod.