Read How to Moon a Cat for Free Online

trying to get close enough to perform her own analysis.
    The dusty vase was a grimy replica of one that had once been displayed on the cashier counter in the downstairs showroom. The victim, I suspected, of an inadvertent Rupert tail swish, the previous vase had shattered when it fell from the counter and hit the hardwood flooring below. I’d searched all over San Francisco for a replacement, including the flower shop in the financial district where it had been purchased, but I’d been unable to find anything that came close to the same shape and color—until now.
    I straightened back to full height and pulled the mask and goggles up and over my glasses, perching them on top of my forehead. Still wearing the elbow-length rubber gloves, I lifted the vase from the table and held it up to the kitchen’s central light fixture to inspect it more closely.
    From the opposite side of the room, Rupert began a slow creeping approach toward the kitchen table. With each cautious step, his gaze swung between the vase in my hands and the enlarged hole in the wall behind me.
    Isabella, meanwhile, balanced herself on her back feet so that she could reach up toward my chest with her front ones. I shifted the vase into my left hand, attempting to fend off Isabella’s stabbing paws with the right. As the vase rotated, something inside it rolled against the glass.
    “ Mrr-ow , ” Isabella called out shrilly to ensure I hadn’t missed this important development.
    “Yes, thank you,” I replied uneasily as I resumed my examination of the vase’s dusty, translucent surface.
    I aimed the top end of the container toward my face and squinted down into its narrow cylindrical opening. A hairy brown lump lay on the bottom of the vase.
    “You don’t want to see this, Issy,” I tried to convince her. “I think some poor creature died in this thing.”
    Perturbed at my unwillingness to share my discovery, Isabella returned to the seat of her chair, but her eyes remained glued on the dark lumpy shadow inside the vase. I turned the vase on its side and gently began nursing the stiff object over the humps and valleys of the internal curvature.
    I caught a whiff of a strange smell and assumed the worst. Wrinkling my nose, I swung the vase away from my face. A pointed edge connected to the furry mass scraped against the interior surface of the glass. I winced, imagining a gruesomely exposed bone.
    The sound only heightened Isabella’s curiosity. She chirped up at me encouragingly.
    “You know, that might be reassuring,” I replied sourly, “if you weren’t a mouse-eating cat.”
    Isabella’s voice warbled in confusion at my squeamishness. Her brother, however, appeared to share my apprehension. Rupert now sat on the floor near my feet, the furry orange tip of his tail tapping against the leg of Isabella’s chair as he continued to stare nervously at the hole in the wall.
    With a reluctant sigh, I gently jiggled the vase, trying to coax the corpse out the top of the container, to no avail. The motionless lump appeared to be stuck midway through the vase’s long slender neck.
    “ Mrao ,” Isabella urged as I turned the vase upside-down and secured my grip on its rounded base. Desperately hoping I wasn’t about to drop a dead mouse onto my kitchen table, I gave the vase a firm vigorous shake.
    “Eeew,” I cried, closing my eyes as a furry brown figure tumbled out the opening.
    Isabella popped up onto her haunches and leaned over the table, sniffing loudly as she issued a string of chattering observations. I placed a restraining hand on her slim shoulders and anxiously peered over the top of her head to the brown heap lying motionless at the center of the table.
    “Not a mouse,” I breathed out with relief as Isabella huffed a disappointed sigh.
    It was, instead, a small stuffed animal. The toy looked as if it had been well loved by a child and perhaps washed several times; its synthetic brown fur was mottled and worn down in places. A