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the possible mice incursion at the co-op store. Owen listened intently, and when I finished talking, he licked his whiskers. I was pretty sure he knew exactly what was expected of him.
    Maggie was waiting at the store, and Owen looked adoringly at her when she thanked him for coming to her rescue. She unlocked the door and we went inside. I saw her hesitate and look around.
    I set Owen down. “Go for it,” I whispered.
    He immediately began to nose around. Beside me Maggie sucked in a breath as Owen began to sniff around the shelving unit that still held some of the woven placemats. Then he suddenly headed purposefully for the back door, meowing loudly a couple of times.
    â€œI think we’re supposed to go after him,” she said.
    â€œDo you want to wait here?” I asked. “I can go.”
    She shook her head. “No, but if Owen catches anything, I
will
be in the back of your truck—or standing on the roof of the cab.”
    â€œGot it,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulders and giving her what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze.
    Owen was sitting in front of the back door that led to the alley. He gave another insistent meow when we joined him.
    Maggie opened the door. “Where are we going?” she asked as though she expected him to answer.
    Owen led us down the narrow alley to a green metal Dumpster pushed up against the wall of the building, a pile of wooden pallets stacked beside it. He stopped, looked up at me and made a low murping sound.
    I peered around the side of the metal bin. “Mags,” I said softly. In the cramped space between the garbage container and the pallets, a mama cat had made a home for three tiny kittens from a couple of scarves and some placemats.
    â€œI think we’ve found your ‘cat burglar,’” I said.
    Maggie crouched down and began to talk quietly to the mother cat. I pulled out my phone to call Roma, who was a vet and would know what to do about moving the mother and her babies. I glanced down at Owen, who looked up at me with a decidedly self-satisfied expression on his furry face, and I had the niggling feeling that somehow he’d figured this whole thing out long before we had.

No More Pussyfooting Around
    A Second Chance Cat Story
    Sofie Ryan
    â€œGood things are coming your way, Sarah,” Tom Harris said as we watched my cat, Elvis, make his way across Tom’s yard and into mine.
    â€œAren’t black cats supposed to be
bad
luck?” I asked.
    I smiled at Tom because I’m not really superstitious, although I’d certainly heard about a variety of superstitions and omens from my grandmothers’ friends over the years: everything from spitting on a new bat before using it for the first time—which struck me as being really unsanitary—to standing at a crossroads and reciting a little rhyme to get rid of a sty (trust me, that one doesn’t work).
    â€œWhere I come from, a black cat arriving at your house brings prosperity with it.” Tom smiled back at me, and his soft Scottish burr seemed just a little more pronounced. He’d been in Maine for more than fifty years, but he’d never completely lost his accent.
    I squinted at Elvis, heading purposefully from Tom’s property, skirting the trees and the rock wall at the back. My 1860s Victorian was only a few blocks from North Harbor’s waterfront. The neighborhood, with its big trees and old houses, had felt like home from the first time I’d turned onto the street. The house had been turned into three apartments about thirty years ago, and it had been let go over time, but my dad had agreed with my assessment that it had good bones and after a lot of work it had turned into the home I’d hoped it would be.
    Beside me, Rose Jackson nudged me with her elbow. “I don’t think that’s prosperity that Elvis has in his mouth,” she said. “It looks more like a field mouse or a vole to