Max and Tammy

By Tim Hammill and Max

Buried Treasure. Big dogs. A Gang of Cats. A kidnapping. And tangles with Maintenance Man. Maxitude in every tale.

Trouble has a way of finding Max, but when he teams up with young schoolgirl, Tammy, it's double trouble. Max and Tammy find adventures galore in The Park.

Across The Universe - A treasure hunt with a surprise.

Hold On To Your Dreams - A visit to a horse is just the beginning of the pals' adventures when Tammy falls and they spend a long, dark night together.

The Paradise Circus - A circus of performing cats, a Diva, and a gang of really bad cats.

The Passenger - Max is kidnapped.

The Pipeline - A storm turns a game into a rescue mission.

With A Little Help From My Friends - Max is mistaken for a thief.

Kathmandu - Max and Tammy explore a trailer and become crimebusters.

Get your Maxitude double with these humorous adventure tales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tim Hammill
• Release date: Mar 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386904724

Tim Hammill

Tim Hammill has been a storyteller all his life. A few years ago, he came across two characters that he has come to know and wants the world to know. Max the cat, a trailer park feline who causes alot of trouble. Then there's Rebecca Stone a twenty-something girl detective who has the gift of second sight. Which helps her find stuff. She also has the help of her Great Aunt Nancy, who is a ghost. Both live in Ocean Beach CA a strangely wonderful place. Where Mr. Hammill grew up. Tim has said that he doesn’t think of myself as a terribly interesting person, but he has stumbled thru some interesting times, and situations namely in the 60s. Not to mention many very interesting people.  

Book preview

DEDICATION

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For Cissy.

table of CONTENTS

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AUTHOR WELCOME

Hey!

Thanks for reading Tails from the Park.

The stories are arranged in cycles. Some are short. Some are as long as my whiskers. I’m purring.

Pretty good for a handsome cat, right?

I’ve been telling these stories to my human friend, Tim Hammill. Like the great cat friend he is, he’s taken the extra step to get them published just for you.

You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t like cats and stories. That’s definitely me. A cat who tells stories. I’m working on more...with Tim, of course.

Head bumps!

Max

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INTRODUCTION

Long ago Max came to Tim Hammill and said, Tell my stories.

That’s how it all began.

We’ve had fun telling the tales tails. We hope you enjoy all the Max adventures and end up with your fair share of Maxitude.

THE REAL MAXTOR

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OK, Tim wrote this in the third person just to preserve some humility on my part. We had an editorial discussion. I finally gave in...but just for this chapter.

Firstly, Max is super cute, a very attractive feline...

Max is an American Shorthair, but not a purebred...

He loves chocolate...⁠¹

He is a troublemaker big time, always getting into things that don’t really concern him...

He’s a white cat, with a gray cape and hood. The white runs up onto his shoulders forming a kind of two-tone effect like a nineteen forties’ paint job. He has a large round gray dot on his white tummy.

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*********** Chocolate is poisonous to cats. I made a big mistake with chocolate and suffer the consequences. Please do not feed chocolate to your cat!

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When he runs and is in a good mood, he bends his tail over almost in half.

Max is 12.5 inches tall at the shoulder. He weighs in at 15 – 18 lbs., and is pear shaped when sitting up due to his chubbiness.

At the time of writing Tails from the Park Max was seven years old. He came to live with his human parents when he was only eight months old. He was not a stray as much as he was lost to his cat family.

Snorks... Is a sort of nasal sound that makes him sound almost Pig-ish.... His Dad laughingly calls Max a ‘pig-in-a-cat-suit" because of Max’s snorking sounds.

Has a series of Meows and Mews, Murs, Meurs, Merr-rawed, M-aw-w-r-r-r’s and Maaah-raaah...However, these can mean anything. He rarely growls or hisses.

Max licks his lips when upset or anxious about something.

Max likes to think of himself as the king of swat.

Cat TV ... A place but also a refuge of sorts. It is the top of the couch in Mom and Dad’s house in front of the big window. Like all of America, there is always a couch in front of a window looking out to the neighborhood.

Chuff... Or chuffing / chuffs, this is a cat thing mostly male cats do. A sort of a sneeze goes along with it. It is used when Max needs to show disapproval of an adversary. It is very negative.

Russian Blues... Is not only a breed, as we well know, but here in the park the Blues are a horde of gangsters. They are Max’s sworn enemies.

ZZZZZ / ZZZs / ZZZed etc. definitely a Max thing, it simply means he is sleeping.

T-Rex smiles... When he holds his mouth open about halfway, exposing his teeth while breathing heavily.

Lusty Eyes... He slits his eyes and stares at you until he gets his way.

Laser Eyeballs... A term his mom coined describing Max staring at her (usually to get her to let him outside). This technique is also accompanied by Max sitting in front of her so she cannot ignore him.

Nods.... He has a distinct head nod, where he throws his head and chin up instead of down.

Max’s round trips.... Another Mom-ism. Max always turns three times around in a circle before he settles into a nap.

Duck position...when he lies down with his forelegs and paws tucked underneath his body. Making him look like a duck decoy.

Full Turkey.... Is just like a Duck position only with his forelegs extended out, and his rear legs swung out from his body.

Sphinx ... Is when he does his Turkey but his front forelegs are crossed at his wrists. Very regal looking indeed.

Max communicates to us via narration, he never talks directly to us or anyone as the stories are told.

Max is brave to a fault. And is often caught fighting with other cats. He has a real problem with the Russian Blues, a previously mentioned group that has invaded the park.

Max has lost a claw to fights and one to trying to get out of a pit in chapter Fuerza Bruta/Brute Force.

Max has an incredible sense of smell, allowing him to follow a human scent for miles and miles.

He is smart and can read!!! Kind of maybe, well...he thinks he can...plus, he can count... sort of.

Sadly, Max is fixed, but has a huge love for Baby, the female Calico cat. He also loves his human mom and dad.... Like all young boys he idolizes his dad.

Thinks of himself as helpful, but Max is fundamentally lazy and loves to catnap.

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Children love Max and many have tried to cat-nap him.

Max often lies about how high he can jump. As a rule he can get himself up to a four to five foot height. However, he has been heard bragging that he can make a six to eight foot leap.

Max has two human enemies in the park...the manager and the maintenance man (who has often chased him in his golf cart).

Loves Halloween night, when he likes to lay in wait to scare the trick-or-treaters.

Loves empty boxes.

His dad plays with Max using a string then runs down the hallway so Max can pursue him.

Max has numerous toys that his mom has bought for him. His most fave is what Max calls his Santa toy. It is a Christmas tree ornament that he absconded. At times Max has imaginary battles with this toy.... calling it The Devil Santa.

Max can see most colors with the exception of red, but this might be false.

Doesn’t mind being picked up and will lay like a baby in his mom or dad’s arms.

Max has a very good sense of humans who are decent. But teenagers have fooled him, therefore he is very wary of teens.

Has not killed anything since he came to live with his mom and dad.

Max does not swear, but he does have some most fave and colorful cuss words like dog poop which he rarely uses.

Max has a sunny and bright personality...And is eager to help and learn from the humans he comes in contact with.

Is not afraid of heights

Loves water and

Rain...

Loves to drink from a hose or faucet.... Will watch water running down a drain for hours.

Loves all trees...but is too lazy to climb tall ones.

Curiosity always gets him into trouble.

Zoned. The ability to look like he’s intently listening to you, when actually he is far away. It’s not unlike being hypnotized. Being in the zone is where cats go to be rid of their pesky humans.

SUPERTRAMP....

Everyone has to grow up sometime. In my case, I was thrust out into this mean old world way too young and on my own. My education was from the street. Nothing fancy here, just lots of bad days followed by cold and lonely miserable nights. I would struggle by myself, well there were a couple of humans that helped me out now and again, and this is how I met them. But mostly I was a loner.

Things were tough for a stray feline on the streets of San Diego; always being hungry never knowing where my next meal was coming from and never having the protection of a family. But I am cute (see picture), and that helped with the humans I met along the way.

I am what the Vet calls a Bi-color that is to say; I am a white cat with a deep gray cape and hood. I weigh in at around ten pounds well maybe fifteen. I stand 11.5 inches at the shoulder and have a powerful build. People call me an American Shorthair, though my Mom and Dad and close friends call me Max, or the Maxtor if we are being informal. In the trailer park where we all live, there is a gal who is the manager she calls me a trouble-maker and would like nothing better than to see me hauled off to the pound never to seen again.

But, I digress. Today my only problem was staying out of the clutches of my Dad. He wants to take me to this thing called a cat show. Sometimes, I think he's a little nuts and so does my Mom after all I wasn't born with a pedigree. I am just a good looking guy with a rough purr and what my Mom calls snorking. That's when I open my and breath in through my mouth; humans love it when I snork at them, and I use it to get what I want from people. Like this morning I circled around and around my Mom's legs letting my soft fur tickle her ankles.

She would step away and shake her finger at me saying  Oh you are a pest, and I know what you want. I stretched out fully so she could see my magnificent body and looked at her with my lustful yellow eyes. We were standing beside the kitchen door she bent over and asked in her Mom's soothing voice.

You want to go out, there big guy?  I stood up and placed my front paws on the glass door then I looked up at Mom and snorked. She smiled and opened the door just as Dad walked into the kitchen. I scooted out onto the deck and trotted to the rear steps. As I launched myself out into the back yard I heard Dad say loudly Cat show again, Mom told him he was nuts, (See I told you) and I have been dodging my Dad ever since.

Finally, I found a place to hide and settled down to outwait my Dad as he searched for me. He went from bush to bush. I could tell he was mad cause he was constantly talking to himself. The effort to hold my eyes open was just too great. My mind drifted. And this ongoing dream from my youth began. Faces filled my senses, and before I knew It, I was waking up, one eyeball at a time. But instead of here at home, I found myself under a strange house lying on dirt. Above me were large, very long pieces of wood. A sort of dirty cool atmosphere surrounded me. All at once I realized that I was extremely parched, I'd not had a drink of water all morning. 

I started to get up, first stretching out my front legs; then the stretch traveled on its own and moved past my legs up to my shoulders then down my back. Sometimes I arch my back but this morning I just let the stretch sweep down to my tailbone. I sat up and yawned, which often follows a good stretch.

Outside were a lot of loud noises. This house I had taken refuge under was vacant, and no one was going to pay any attention to me sleeping underneath it. I popped out from the crawl space to investigate the loud sound. A couple of guys were working on the roof of the house. A remodel is what I heard them call it.

These two fellas would sometimes give me little bits of some odd looking meat. Yuck. But I wolfed them down anyway; I was so hungry! 

On this day, the sun was beating down and the guys were in the process of packing up all their tools to leave. Any chance of getting something to drink was looking slim. Before I could totally wake up, they rolled down the steep driveway and drove away. The bright sunlight hurt my eyes as I poked my nose out of the crawl space. 

I had picked this spot because there was shelter under the house. The first night I had to fight for it. A couple of small skunks had taken up residence in one corner of the space. I got into a fight with one. We had a boxing match, but before he could cut loose with his secret weapon, I scooted into a far corner to safety. In the morning, they were gone and never did come back. 

It was the neighborhood tomcats that kept me hopping. Every night after the neighborhood had settled down and gone all quiet, they would show up. Both were old and mangy. I'd never seen cats so beaten up. With the exception of the occasional small gopher popping in, and leaving in a rush with me in hot pursuit, the space was all mine. 

I begged from the guys working on the roof, but I never got much. To make matters worse, I had dropped weight and went to sleep hungry. During the day, I could get a little bit of water from out of the sprinklers next door, but it was always dirty and had bits of grass floating in it. The trick was to get to the sprinklers quickly before it drained into the ground. As mid-summer approached, the water was drying up in seconds, leaving a small muddy puddle behind and then just mud. Besides, the lady that watered didn't do it every day. 

Today she was leisurely watering with a garden hose; I slipped out of the shadows of the house and stepped onto the driveway. The sun beat down on the concrete and waves of heat danced about. I tried my best to keep my fur standing up to vent myself, but the only thing I could do for relief was to hang out my tongue. I crept into the bushes and squeezed between two small bushes. The water made this incredible sound. To hear it better I stuck my head out from under some low-hanging branches. 

She stood there, not more than eight feet away. Instinct told me to hold my position and be safe. She didn't look threatening. She was tall and seemed to tower over everything. All the while she turned slowly, letting the water fall where it may. Mustering my courage, I made a break from the flage and sprinted to the water. She had not seen me and continued to flip the hose from one spot to another. She moved it so fast that I couldn't get a taste of it. I decided on the more direct action I ran straight at her and then head-butted her. She stopped and looked down. Then she lowered the water hose, so I could get to it. With one paw on her hand and the other on the ground, I stuck out my tongue to lap up my first-ever cold water out of a garden hose. It was clean: It filled my mouth as I worked my tongue, gathering it up in my cat's fashion. She let me drink my fill. Then she petted my head bone. I leaned over to her, rubbing up against her leg... I felt good for the first time in a long time. 

She let me have all of the water I wanted to drink until I thought I'd burst. Sitting down, I looked up at her. She smiled, picked me up and held me up to her shoulder as we walked across the yard, to the driveway, and into her backyard. It was an incredible yard, a veritable jungle of plants...lots of other stuff too. It looked like a lot of yards I'd traveled through but never stopped in for any length of time. I was perched on her shoulder as she tenderly petted me down my back. I snuggled in her neck while taking note of everything I saw.

Beyond the porch an open door beckoned. Wide-eyed, I gazed at everything in the rooms, the couches and chairs, bookshelves and that thing called TV (the first I'd ever seen). Then down a long hallway.

I was incredibly excited when we finally came to a room with a large bed in it. At the far side, through a window, you could actually look out and see the front yard where I'd been minutes before. In the dim light, I saw a man sleeping. The sheets covered him at mid-length. An overhead fan twirled at an easy pace.

Holding me close to her chest, she touched him on his exposed leg. He came around, blinking his eyes at us, just like I do. I meowed softly, not wishing to appear rude, and held out a paw I tried to look presentable but also felt a little vulnerable. 

The words she spoke changed my life forever...Hey, Dad Her tone was easy with an edge of excitement. We're new parents, she said.

My life changed abruptly. From this day onward I was never alone and never hungry. But there was a price I had to pay to wit my freedom mainly. Slowly I have been working with my parents in the ways of cats and those things we all hold dear. It's still a bit confusing for them, but I am sure that they'll figure it out.

Besides, no one can resist me for long, and the snorks help too.

See ya....

Across the Universe

A Max and Tammy Mystery

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Hey Max

It started on a fine day; not a cloud was in the sky nor was there a wind to travel them here. I lay stretched out on the deck, taking in the suns rays, thinking myself lucky to be a feline. When she appeared from across the street, a big smile on her Tammy’s face, her long blonde hair flowed behind her.

In her young girl’s voice that was filled with enthusiasm she called. Hey Max, it’s been a long, time and I’ve missed you little buddy. She had grown up a lot since the last time I saw her. A