Chapter 9. Curious and Furious

SAWDUST

Sawdust smelled the smoke, heard the commotion, and sensed that these things had upset Whitney. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, her face in her hands. Sawdust hated to see her feeling so defeated, and was angry at whoever had caused this. He rubbed himself across her back and down her thigh, mewing to let her know he was concerned about her.

She removed her hands from her face and picked him up, gently laying him in her lap. She ran a hand across his back over and over. Though he couldn't hear her thoughts, of course, he could sense her mind working. Her body remained rigid. He rolled over onto his back, looking up at her, hoping to distract her from her worries. Though she scratched his chest and murmured to him, she remained stiff with tension. Eventually, she placed him on the floor and stood. He'd done what he could to console her, and she was heading to her toolbox now. He decided to explore the place. He'd never been here before, and there might be some interesting things to discover.

He wandered the downstairs, stopping twice to dig his claws into the carpet. It wasn't particularly lush or satisfying, worn too thin to be much fun. He chased a small spider around the bathtub before it escaped into the drain. He trotted upstairs and checked out the bedrooms. Not much to see here. Once he'd been through the entire place, he settled on a second-floor windowsill to watch the firefighters work on the building next door, his cat curiosity causing him to wonder. What happened over there?