Page 90 of Cherish

She snaps at me in response, her teeth coming together so hard that they make a clicking noise. And then she complains to me and about me in a series of squeals and snarls. I have no idea what she’s saying, but it sounds an awful lot like she holds me single-handedly responsible for the fact that there’s a naked statue of Hudson in the town square.

“I didn’t do it!” I tell her, careful to keep my hand—and all my other body parts—away from her mouth this time. And every other part of her as well.

“Smokey, it’s okay,” Hudson tells her, pulling her off his shoulder and cradling her in his hands.

She stands up as tall as she can and looks him in the eye, her little hands on either side of his face as she studies him for long seconds. I don’t know what she sees there—maybe his embarrassment about the statue, maybe something else—but she lets out a long, high-pitched wail.

And then scampers out of his hands and down his body to the ground.

“Wait! Smokey! Where are you going?” Hudson starts to fade after her, but I grab his arm to hold him in place.

“Give her a second,” I tell him. “She’s not leaving the square, so you can keep an eye on her and catch up to her if you need to. But she’s obviously got something going on.”

“That’s an understatement,” Macy says as we all watch Smokey race across the square to the patch of purple grass that Hudson and I had more than one picnic on during our time here.

It turns out a couple is in our favorite spot near the wishing well right now, lavender quilt spread across the bright violet grass and picnic basket open.

Smokey heads straight toward them, zipping over the grass and stopping right in the middle of their blanket. Once there, she starts to tell them something, because her little arms are flapping and her head is bobbing and her squeaks are filling the air as she moves closer and closer to the people.

They start backing up, not sure what to do with what looks to them like a pissed-off, out-of-control umbra. But the more they retreat, the more Smokey advances on them. And while she is small and adorable, she also looks ferocious as hell right now, and I get why the people are scrambling away from her.

“Maybe you should—” I start, but Hudson has already reached the same conclusion I have and is fading across the square to get Smokey.

He’s one second too late, though, because she sees him coming and bobs and weaves in an attempt to evade him. The couple uses the distraction to put some real distance between them and Smokey, which apparently was what the umbra was waiting for all along.

Because the second they leave the blanket, she lets out a triumphant screech. Then she snatches it up, basket and food launching into the air, and speeds back across the square.

“What is she doing?” Macy asks as we all watch, transfixed by the tiny umbra with the giant attitude.

“Terrorizing the locals?” Flint answers dryly.

“Obviously,” Macy agrees. “But she’s got some kind of plan—”

She breaks off as Smokey’s plan becomes clear when she makes a beeline toward the statue of Hudson.

“Wait a minute,” Heather says, mouth open in surprise. “Is she going to—”

“Yes,” I tell her with a laugh. “That’s exactly what she’s going to do.”

Hudson almost catches her at the base of the statue, but she darts between its legs with a squeal. Then, under everyone in the square’s fascinated eyes, she scurries up the statue’s right leg all the way to its hip.

She gives another loud and disapproving squeal as she comes face-to-face with the body part that’s caused so much commotion. Then she races around it over and over again until she somehow manages to tie the quilt around Statue Hudson’s hips, sarong-style.

“Is it me,” Jaxon asks, “or is my brother now wearing the skimpiest towel in history?”

“Maybe not in history,” Heather tells him. “But it’s pretty skimpy.”

“It covers everything important, though,” Flint chimes in.

Jaxon breathes a sigh of relief that I have no doubt Hudson is echoing all the way across the square. “Thank God.”

I watch as Smokey shimmies back down the leg of the statue to where Hudson is waiting. But instead of leaping into his open arms, she rushes around the base of the statue several times, wiggling and jumping and waving her hands in the air.

Macy sounds as amused as she does worried when she asks, “What’s she doing now?”

“A victory dance?” Heather suggests.

I realize she’s right. Little Baby Smokey is doing her very elaborate, very complicated version of a touchdown dance. In fact, if there were a football anywhere around right now, I’m pretty sure she’d be spiking it.

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