Private Eye Cats: Book One: the Case of the Neighborhood Burglars

By S. N. Bronstein

Scooter and Nugget cannot be content like most other house cats eating, sleeping, and annoying their humans. These two sisters, who just happen to speak English as well as cat talk, decide to sneak outside on a regular basis to explore their neighborhood.

When they overhear their human housemates Tony and Misty discussing a recent burglary in the area, Scooter and Nugget decide to become amateur detectives and solve the case.

Getting outside is easy once Tony and Misty go off to work. Dealing with the challenges of outdoor cats who are unfriendly and downright mean, dogs who would love to prove to them who rules the streets, and a group of gang cats who want them off their turf is not so easy.

One challenge after another seems to prevent the cats from solving the crime. How do they track the criminals down? How do they figure out where the thieves will strike next? What do they do if and when they finally do catch them? Nugget, younger and less experienced than Scooter, does not have a clue how to answer these questions. Scooter, older and wiser, has a plan.

Follow along as the plan is put into action. With the help of Tyrone Williams, a teacher at the local middle school who discovers by accident the secret that the cats can speak English, the plot unfolds.

These private eye cats will reveal to you just how successful two four legged felines can be when they become determined to put a plan into action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468545562

S. N. Bronstein

S. N. Bronstein is the author of the Fairlington Lavender Detective Series, a collection of crime stories based on the adventures of a Miami Beach private investigator. In addition to The Case of the Yellow Flower Tattoo, his published works in the series include The Case of the Miami Philanthropist, The Case of the Miami Blackmailer, and The Case of the Miami Vigilante. He is also the author of two children’s books, Private Eye Cats: Book One: The Case of the Neighborhood Burglars and Private Eye Cats: Book Two: The Case of the Kidnapped Dog. The author presently resides in Florida with his wife, Dawn, and cat, Nugget, and devotes his time to fiction writing.

Book preview

Chapter One

I’m not so sure about you guys, but I can tell you that my humans who I live with don’t have a clue about it. I’m a cat, officially a female Domestic Shorthair Tabby with black and white fur, and I’m two years old in human years. My name is Nugget. I live with my humans, Tony and Misty, and my sister, Scooter. Scooter is a cat also. She’s a female Maine Shorthair and she is much older and wiser than I. She’s about fifteen years old in human years.

I’m not saying that my humans don’t have a clue that Scooter and I are cats, of course they know that. They brought us home to live with them in Miami Beach from the shelter, so they know for sure that we walk on all fours.

What I mean is they don’t have a clue that we talk. Oh yeah, we talk in cat speak all the time when they’re around. Meow this, meow that, hiss this and hiss that when we get upset, and we make all of the other weird noises that cats make for any one of a million reasons.

But we also speak English, only cat to cat, when Tony and Misty go off to work or wherever humans go day and night after they get dressed, go out the door, and disappear. We communicate this way also when Tony and Misty are asleep, and when they are away from us in other rooms of our house.

I said I don’t know about you guys because maybe, if you have cats in your house, you’ve already figured it all out. But probably not.

Scooter and I have looked into this. We know, from talking to other cats in the neighborhood who have had the fortune to have met felines who once lived in other countries around the world, that this takes place everywhere on earth.

We’ve been told that cats in China are totally verbal in Chinese. We learned that it’s the same for cats who live in Brazil, Russia, Israel, and all of the other hundred and fifty or so nations on earth. If you live there, if you’re a fairly intelligent cat, you speak the language.

How do we do this? Well, how did you learn to speak and learn to read the words on this page? You listened to the adult humans as you were developing from babyhood until now and you repeated the sounds, words, and sentences until you spoke like they did. After a while you caught on and figured out what that all meant. You learned what to say when you wanted something.

Your mom and your teachers taught you how to read and write words on a page. It had to be done in a special way by humans who knew the tricks. You didn’t just figure reading and writing out like you did with talking.

Another bit of truth here. Scooter and I can’t read. No cat can. We have no schools to attend where humans with special skills teach cats how to read. We certainly can’t write. Not only did no one ever teach us, but take a look at our paws, please. On our front paws we have five claws, and on our back paws we have four claws but no thumbs. To hold a pen you need a thumb. I guess we could grab the pen in our fist and hold it like a spoon stirring pudding, but how clear would the writing look on the page after this attempt?

We can’t use a keyboard on a computer because we can’t read the letters. So, you guys are probably asking yourselves right about now, how in the world was this book written? Well, that’s a whole other story, and it has to do with a human friend who Scooter and I trusted enough to share our secret life with. He agreed to listen to our story, write it all down, and put it into a book for us. That’s about it. That’s how all of this was made possible.

Scooter was brought home to live with Tony and Misty about fifteen years ago when she was a baby and they all lived in a small apartment in a little town just north of Miami Beach. It’s called Bay Harbor, and I hear from Scooter that it was a pretty nice place to live.

From there, Scooter moved to a house with our humans in another part of town, and then they all moved in here to our Miami Beach house. Tony complains all the time about how much money the house cost and how expensive it is to keep up. But then Tony complains all the time about everything. Misty never complains. Mostly that’s because Tony, for a human, is smart enough to figure out that he should just give Misty what she wants. Pretty smart for not being a cat.

I was brought home to the Miami Beach house to live with my three family members about two years ago just after I was born. There I got to know Tony and Misty, and they treated me like a human baby. Every little thing I wanted or complained about they took care of right away thanks to my cat meows, sad looks sent their way, and other well known cat games we run on humans. Training them was easy.

I listened to them talk all the time, and after about one year, I had English down pretty well. They knew nothing of this.

Scooter was good about helping me with my English. We cats know by our nature that we can speak, so I understood what she was trying to do. She understood from her own experience that it would take me a while, and I was glad she was so patient with me. It wasn’t too long before Scooter and I were able to communicate all day long. I guess you can say that like all cats, we are bilingual. We speak English and cat language.

To keep Tony and Misty in line we do the cat thing and meow, purr, rub up against them, and knock things off of the table that are supposed to be left alone. We try to eat their food when they sit down to eat, a great trick to annoy humans with, but we usually get tossed into the master bedroom during meals.

We play the games that most humans fall for such as waking them up on weekends at 6:00 in the morning by knocking something over, or crying over nothing so they come running to see if we are hurt or in some kind of trouble.

I love those tricks. Anyway, all of this makes them think that we are simple minded, cute, lovable, four legged creatures who are not all that smart but fun to be around. Boy, if they only knew we