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rage when she saw Sticky on her flower box. Her long white fur shot straight up, then she swiped and hissed and scratched and (in short) went ballistic.
    Until, that is, she caught a whiff of the tuna.
    “Atta crazy
gata
,” Sticky said, coaxing Topaz along. He had the plastic spoon under the window and was jiggling it to get the ferocious feline’s attention. “It’s yummy to the tummy—come on….”
    Topaz’s fur slowly descended.
    Her nose twitched over the fish.
    Her whiskers quivered.
    And then, forgetting all about the maddeningfat-tailed lizard outside, she quickly devoured the potion-laced fish that was inside.
    Sticky watched.
    And waited.
    But the potion seemed to have absolutely no effect.
    “Ay-ay-ay,” Sticky grumbled. “It’s a dud.” He frowned. “Or maybe it just doesn’t work on ugly cats.”
    Topaz, too, seemed disappointed. After all, the tuna was gone.
    Now, a stable cat might have mewed for more.
    A stable cat might have remembered who’d brought the tasty treat.
    A stable cat might have repaid the gift giver by showing him a little kindness. (Or, at least, aloof indifference.)
    But Topaz was not a stable cat.
    She was an angry cat.
    One whose appetite for meaty morsels had justbeen whetted and was now focused on the mouthwatering morsel taunting her from just outside her glass prison.
    One who, at that moment, clawed through the opening with an angry hiss and, to her surprise, felt the window edge upward.
    Now, for all the times Topaz had reached for Sticky, the window had never (believe me, ever) budged. Feeling it move now gave the frustrated feline hope, and after a short disbelieving moment she pushed farther.
    To her delight, the window, once again, edged upward.
    She really put her shoulder into it now, and the window edged upward some more!
    Flashing through Sticky’s mind was one simple thought:
    “Uh-oh!”
    And before he had even zippy-toed over to the Sanchezes’ flower box, Topaz had strong-armedthe window up and was charging after him.
    “Ay caramba!”
Sticky cried as he scurried under the Sanchezes’ window.
    Ay caramba
, indeed!
    The potion, you see, had not changed Topaz’s appearance (or disposition) in any way, but it had, in fact, given the cat an unfamiliar strength.
    Now, I’m sure you’ve heard of incidents in which a mother somehow lifts a car to save the life of her child. Well, let me assure you that these stories are not tall tales or urban legends or (to put it less delicately) lies.
    They are actual, factual (and impartially documented) events.
    (Incredible, perhaps, but still, actual and factual.)
    You see, scientists speculate that within the body (be it human, cat, or lizard), there are inhibitors that prevent you from exerting yourself to your full physiological potential. (In other words,there’s always “superhuman” strength inside your body, but gates at the power source block it.) A crisis (such as a child pinned by a boulder or a car or a runaway Ferris wheel) triggers the gates to open, providing the body with an unfamiliar (and seemingly superhuman) strength.
    So! Although the Moongaze potion was slightly sparkly and surprisingly stretchy, it was not some magic concoction or hocus-pocus potion.
    Please.
    It was a complex cocktail of rare and exotic ingredients (collected by gypsies in a remote region of eastern Romania), and it simply opened the body’s natural power gates, supplying a seemingly superhuman strength.
    Unfortunately for Sticky, Topaz immediately realized that she was now more tiger than cat.
    More fierceness than fur.
    More power than purr.
    And she was, as they say, lovin’ it.
    “Reeeeeerrrrrr!” she roared as she ripped open the Sanchezes’ window and pounced inside the apartment. “REEEEEERRRRRR!”
    “Holy guaca-tacarole!” Sticky cried, turbo-toeing out of the kitchen.
    And so the chase began.

    Topaz tore through the apartment like a wild-whiskered twister. Out of one room, into another, under furniture, over