Paul was broiling salmon steaks and steaming vegetables, watching Zeus from time to time. The cat was buried in the Stony River of 1907.
"One neat thing to research would be when the first car actually appeared in the town," mused Zeus.
"Ah, that might be interesting."
"I think this is really going to be a local hit. I'm guessing that you see that, too."
Paul nodded.
Zeus looked up. "Mind if I share this with Meows? He's brilliant -- I'm betting he'll have some great ideas."
"If you want to," replied Paul. "He is a sharp one."
Zeus started pawing at the keyboard. "Ehh, I have to email him and ask him if he'll mind helping out with this."
"You have an email address?" Paul asked incredulously.
Zeus looked at him. "Of course."
"What is it?"
The cat laughed. "TheCatsMeow at whatever our service is."
"Oh!" Paul smiled. "I like that."
"Yeah, I thought it was a little more original than yours."
"That it is."
“While I’m at it, I bet Saav can help you too. Can I ask her to read it, too?”
“Sure. Let them all read it. I can use all the help I can get,” said Paul.
"Remind me to download messenger when I get done. I have to add Pook and Saav, Meows, and Bart and Belle so we can chat at night."
"But you'll be together all day," Paul frowned. "Won't you all get sick of each other?"
"I know, but I've been recruited to help teach Belle, too, and we take turns so we don't get so burned out. We help each other by looking up sites and information," explained Zeus. “Also, all of them have their own schoolwork to do, and need time for that too. I have more free time than they do.”
“Schoolwork?”
“Yes. College classes online. Pook’s in computer graphics and web design, Saav’s doing the creative writing thing and journalism, Bart’s getting through high school courses through the adult GED program, and Meows is doing the business accounting thing because he likes math and Suzanna hates it. Little Belle is in a primary home-schooling course.”
"Oh." Paul checked the salmon steaks. "That’s fascinating! Online courses is a great idea for you guys. You can’t exactly march into a classroom somewhere and enroll.”
"I think it’s a wonderful thing to do on a computer: learn. They also are in an Internet cat group. The members in that group think they are humans posing as cats. That's pretty funny."
"They joined a cat group? On the Internet?" Paul shook his head.
"Yeppers. I'm going to see if they'll let me in too. I think it'd be fun to go in and mess with the humans like they are," said Zeus.
"You would," sighed Paul. "Don't be too hard on those poor people, okay?"
Zeus looked at him. "Who, me?"
"Yeah, you!"
"Hmpf. I'm not hard on anyone. Why would I start now?"
"You're rough on me!"
Zeus laughed. "Yeah, but you deserve it. That's different."
"What?!"
"And you're gullible. Is that smoke coming out of the oven there?" Zeus asked, looking alarmed.
Paul whirled around and yanked open the oven door, but there was no smoke. The salmon steaks were broiling nicely. "What smoke? Where?"
Zeus snickered. "Told you were gullible."
"I REALLY liked you a lot better before you could talk!" Paul fumed at him, slamming the oven door closed.
"When's dinner gonna be ready?" asked Zeus.
"In about ten minutes. Why?"
"I gotta go to the box. Be right back."
"Try the toilet just once, willya?" Paul asked.
"No." Zeus jumped off the table and headed for the cat door to the garage. "Cats don't do toilets."
After dinner, Paul and Zeus sat back at the table, stuffed.
"That wasn't bad," said Paul.
Zeus belched. "Nope, not bad at all. So. What are we doing tonight?"
"I'm watching TV," said Paul. "You can do whatever you want."
"Not another cop show!"
"Yes, I like cop shows," Paul said firmly.
"But I hate them!"
"Like I said, there's four --"
"I KNOW there's four TVs in this house and I can pick one! Did you ever think that I like your company and would rather be with you than off by myself, holed up somewhere all alone?" Zeus told him.
Paul stared at him. "I didn't know that."
"Well, now you do. Can't we meet in the middle?"
Paul shrugged. "I'm listening."
"Three nights a week, you can watch your cop shows if you'll plug my computer up in there with you so I have something to look at besides that crap on the TV. Two nights a week, I choose what we do together. We split the weekends. Fair enough?"
"Okay, that's fair. I think I'd rather have you around me than holed up off by yourself too," agreed Paul.
"See, that's not so hard, is it?"
"Not really. But who goes first?"
"Coin toss," suggested Zeus.
"I call heads," said Paul, digging a quarter out of his pocket. He tossed it, caught it, and slapped it on the table. He took his hand away. Tails.
"I win," Zeus grinned.
"Oh boy. You're not going to make me chase mice with you or anything like that, are you?"
"You're too slow for that. You'd just hurt yourself or get in the way," retorted Zeus.
"Thanks a lot!"
"You asked for it. Actually," said Zeus, nosing the bag of new books on the table, "I was hoping to check out one of these tonight."
"Okay. That sounds good."
"And I want to listen to some of your classical music collection in the background. Especially the Wagner."
"I didn't know you liked music," said Paul.
"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
Paul shook his head. "It's just...a cat with definite tastes is hard to get used to."
"Well, it's part of getting to know each other. I already know what you like to do, because I've been observing that for months. You just don't know me as a sentient feline."
"I didn't know there WERE sentient felines til the other day!"
Zeus sighed. "Ah, yes. That human arrogance again. I suppose you also think that you are the only intelligent beings in the universe, too."
"I don't know if we are or not. I never thought about it," Paul replied.
