Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Phoebe. Dana wasn’t going to like this, but I couldn’t help what was happening. Sorry, Dana.

“How about that movie? Maybe Friday?” I said as we walked. I think I was blushing. “Am I being too pushy?”

This Friday? Yes! I heard Phoebe thinking. No, wait. Maybe I shouldn’t seem too eager to go out with Daniel. He might get the wrong idea.

“Um, can I let you know?” Phoebe said. “I might have to babysit at home.”

“Sure,” I said, not wanting Phoebe to feel the least bit uncomfortable. “No worries.”

We stopped in the front of my house, and Phoebe suddenly pointed over my shoulder.

“Awww! How cute,” she said, and smiled sweetly. Yep, I definitely had a crush on her. “What’s your cat’s name?” she asked.

I turned and saw a large tabby standing on the sill of my open kitchen window. My jaw and stomach dropped simultaneously.

Not only didn’t I have a cat-security nut that I am-I had made triple sure to lock all the windows.

“Crap,” I said.

“That’s a funny name for a cat,” Phoebe said, and rolled her eyes.

“Isn’t it?” I mumbled, hustling up my front porch steps. “I have to go, Phoebe. I’ll see you tomorrow. Gotta feed the cat.”

Or maybe get eaten by it.

Chapter 27

THE FRONT DOOR CREAKED OPEN by itself tres creepily when I touched the knob.

I stopped in the doorway and did a quick mental scan of the house to see if there was someone or something still inside. I didn’t sense anything-so I stepped all the way in.

First thing I noticed was the ripped-apart couch cushions in the living room. Crap! Next was the waterfall rushing down the stairs. Double crap! I could hear an open tap in the upstairs bathroom, probably the bathtub.

While I was assessing the water damage, I noticed burnt-rubber tire marks across the floor, as if someone had ridden a motorcycle through the house. I think someone had.

“There goes the security deposit,” I mumbled, nimbly stepping around my new indoor wading pool.

Next I noticed something smoldering in the fireplace. It was my book Water for Elephants. What kind of thoughtless creep would burn a book?

The kitchen had taken the worst of the attack. It looked like someone had removed everything from the fridge, item by item, and smashed the bottles and cartons against the wall. The alley cat that I’d seen in the shattered window was standing on the counter now, licking up spilt milk.

“Oh, there you are,” I said. “Crap.”

There was another cat on the floor, a cute calico that rubbed its cheek against my shin as it purred.

“What happened here?” I mumbled. Suddenly Tabby leaped off the counter and attached itself to my face.

I backpedaled, screaming as it hooked several claws into my lower lip and bit into my cheek. The smaller cat attacked too, wrapping itself around my leg like a python with claws, and sinking its teeth deep into my shin. I flicked off the kitten first, sending it through the air, then sliding across the counter and into a wall.

There was a hideous Velcro-like rip of skin as I detached the tabby from my face and hurled it away.

It hissed at me angrily, looking at me with strangely human eyes.

“Get out of LA or die!” it croaked in a demonic voice.

Before I could react, it hopped onto the counter and the two cats disappeared out the kitchen window. “We’ll be back… mouse-boy!” they said in chorus.

Chapter 28

WITHOUT YOUR FRIENDS, well, what are you?

Willy, Joe, Emma, and Dana were only too happy to help me clean up after the crazy cat attack. Dana seemed a little distant, like maybe she knew about Phoebe Cook. She didn’t say much, though, as she tended to the bloody patch of raw flesh on my face.

I looked at myself in the mirror. “Great. I look like I just stepped out of a B horror movie with a very bad makeup job.”

“Why should you care what you look like?” Dana said without smiling, not expecting an answer. That was my first sign that she wasn’t too pleased about Phoebe.

Afterward I treated everyone to pizza, but I made the mistake of letting Joe order.

“No, not one with everything,” I heard him tell the phone person at Domino’s. “One of everything. I’d like the entire menu. In fact, make it two entire menus.”

“Domino’s?” Emma said in shock. “If you want to kill yourself, fine, but I don’t do processed flour. Hello? This is California. There has to be a Whole Foods around here somewhere.”

She was already searching the Yellow Pages when the phone rang. I figured it was the pizza place, confirming Joe’s insane order.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hello, indeed,” a cultured voice said.

It was Seth. Don’t ask me how I knew for sure, I just did. Just like I knew he was the one who’d trashed my place with his crazy felines.

“Who’s this?” I said, playing dumb.

“Who’s this?” the voice repeated almost sorrowfully. “Now is that remotely proper etiquette? Wouldn’t ‘May I help you?’ be a tad more polite? Bad enough they send a boy for me, but a crude American one with no manners? Nonetheless, to answer your impolite question, I think you know who I am. Though I daresay, if you don’t follow my advice very, very soon, you’re going to wish you did not.”

“Um, sorry?” I said, still stunned. I’d never spoken to a gas before, let alone one that sounded like it had trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company. “I really think you have the wrong number.”

“Better the wrong number,” the confident British voice said, “than the wrong city, Daniel. By the way, I heard you had a little problem today-with kitty cats. Or should I say kitty litter?”

Panic rose at the mention of my name. And the cats.

Ergent Seth not only knew where I was, he knew who I was!

Chapter 29

“OH, YES,” Seth leisurely continued. “I know who you are, Dan. In fact, I’ve been patiently waiting for you ever since that unfortunate accident with that silly Arbilitorarian pretender in the sewers of Portland.

“Perhaps you are under the impression that there is some similar business to take care of between you and me. But there is not. Because of your youth, I am paying you this final courtesy. You can’t say I didn’t give you fair warning. First the dream. Then the visit from my feline friends. Now an actual phone call.

“Move on! Skip me and go on to the next on your List, if that is your foolish desire. To each his own, or, as my American friends so charmingly say, it’s a free country. But if you value your life, then