The Big Cat Nap

line looked to be long.
    “Dammit,” Harry cussed, then read her gas gauge.
    Half a tank. She’d be fine, even if the wait dragged on. She saw Rick Shaw and Coop up ahead, in a heated discussion with a state trooper. He had his hands on his hips, then walked to his cruiser, got in, and called.
    Seeing Harry’s Volvo, Coop walked down to her.
    “Hey, what’s going on?” asked Harry.
    “Milk truck overturned.”
    “So.”
    “Federal law: The butterfat in milk is oil. We have to treat this as an environmental hazard. I’ve just been read the EPA guidelines. Rick and I are trying to convince Johnny Jump Up”—Coop called all state troopers this—“to allow us to create a single lane, since the spill has flowed over the far right lane and into the runoff. But, hey, milk is a danger.”
    “I don’t believe this.”
    “Believe it.” Coop dealt with the endless costly mandates that spewed forth from D.C. every single day.
    Coop turned as Rick called for her, slapping the side of the station wagon as she did so.
    “Mom is boiling hot,”
Mrs. Murphy warned.
    The traffic, directed into a single lane, began moving. As Harry passed the overturned milk truck, Coop winked at her.
    Once finally home, she hurried to her little office in the tack room and turned on her MacBook Pro computer, bought for her by her husband, as she didn’t want to spend the money. He said they needed it for his work. But he really hoped she’d learn to use it. Fair carried his own high-powered laptop. He’d go through one a year, but it was invaluable for veterinary medicine.
    Harry, peering into the seventeen-inch screen, called out to her friends, “The EPA, after direction by the White House, proposed in 2009 to exempt spilled milk from being treated the same as oil and fuel spills. That was years ago.” She slapped the desk in frustration. She’d made up her mind to snoop at ReNu tomorrow and wanted to avoid a slowdown in case the milk had soaked into the road on the one lane. It really was absurd.
    Simon, the possum, leaned over the side of the hayloft.
“Is she one step ahead of a running fit?”
    Tucker, upset because Harry was upset, sat looking upward, the center aisle cool underneath her butt.
“She’s pretty hot.”
    Mrs. Murphy, on a tack trunk, added,
“She has her breast checkup Wednesday. She’s more irritable than usual.”
    “Mom isn’t very irritable.”
Tucker quickly defended Harry.
    Pewter, next to Mrs. Murphy, smiled sweetly.
“True, but you are.”
    “I am not.”
Tucker growled.
    “The truth hurts.”
Pewter puffed out her chest.
    Tucker, now on her hind legs, lunged after Pewter, who easily eluded the corgi.
    A frightened Simon scurried to his nest filled with treasures, in the back of the hayloft.
    Pewter climbed up the side of the ladder, Tucker snapping at her heels.
    Harry thumped out of the office. “That’s enough. Do you all hear me? Enough!” Then she turned again, glaring at Tucker. “Tucker.”
    Dropping her ears, Tucker plopped down but continued to bare her teeth at the gloating cat overhead.
    Tired of tormenting the dog, Pewter found Simon in his den, a big hollowed-out space in a hay bale. Harry knew the location of his den and never disturbed it.
    Mrs. Murphy, having heard enough of Tucker’s complaint of disrespect, no matter how well founded, climbed up the ladder to join Simon and Pewter.
    “Look at this.”
Simon, dexterous, picked up a shiny pen with metallic lime-green dots on the surface.
    “Very pretty.”
Pewter complimented his taste.
    “And how about this? It’s kind of snaky.”
Simon held up a narrow-gauge rubber hose, which had been reinforced with fiber put into the various layers.
“It wiggles.”
    “Smells like oil,”
Mrs. Murphy, nose keen, noted.
“Not burning oil, gear kind of oil.”
    As it came off the big John Deere tractor, it indeed smelled of gear oil.
    The mention of oil provoked Pewter to recount to Simon the saga of the spilled milk.
    Dear little Simon believed every word of Pewter’s embellished story, and Mrs. Murphy had the wisdom not to contradict her.

S he’s mental.” Pewter fastidiously stepped over a grease spot that had permanently soaked into the concrete floors at ReNu.
    Asking permission from no one, Harry had driven to town to examine the garage. She’d bribed her way past the front desk.
    Mrs. Murphy, also avoiding the grease, replied,
“She’s never going to change. We’re accused of being curious, but she’s worse