Marzipan had very large ears. Ears like two small radar dishes. Ears that could hear a moth land on a lampshade, a grape roll off the kitchen counter, a human thinking about opening a tin. Nothing in the house escaped them. So when Marzipan heard it — a faint, steady drip, drip, drip from behind the bathroom door — she stopped in the middle of the hallway. One paw raised. Ears rotating slowly toward the sound, like two tiny satellites locking on. Something was not right.
She padded closer, nose working. There was a smell she had never smelled before. Cucumber. Warm steam. And something floral — the fancy soap that lived on the high shelf and was never, ever used. Marzipan's whiskers twitched once, very precisely. She pressed one careful paw against the bathroom door. It swung open. A great cloud of warm steam rolled out and wrapped around her like a damp cardigan. Marzipan stepped inside, blinking through the fog. The mirror was completely white. Not a single whisker reflected. She filed this away. Clue number one.
On the floor: a damp towel, crumpled in a heap. Clue number two. Marzipan sniffed it. Still warm. Recent. She stepped around it and looked at the towel shelf. The good white hand towels — the ones guests were allowed to touch — were gone. Every single one. Clue number three. Then she saw it. A single cucumber slice, sitting in the middle of the tile floor, as if it had been dropped in a hurry. Drip, drip, drip went the tap. Marzipan looked at the cucumber. The cucumber did not explain itself.
She followed the damp paw prints — small, four-toed, very familiar — back out into the hallway, around the corner, and all the way back to the bathroom. The trail went in a circle. Marzipan sat with this information for exactly one moment. Then she looked up at the bathtub.
There they were. Biscuit, Clove, and Fig. Each one draped in a good white hand towel like a very small, very fluffy robe. Each one with two rounds of cucumber placed with great care over their closed eyes. The bath was warm. There were bubbles. Somewhere, someone had found the fancy soap. Biscuit's tail flicked once, lazily. Clove let out a slow breath. Fig did not move at all, which meant Fig was either deeply relaxed or had fallen asleep sitting up. Probably both.
Marzipan looked at them for a long moment. Her ears rotated back. Her tail moved once, side to side, very slowly. Then she saw it. On the edge of the tub, balanced very carefully, set apart from all the others — one cucumber slice. Just one. Left exactly where a fourth cat might find it, if a fourth cat happened to come looking. Oh. Marzipan considered this. She stepped up onto the edge of the tub. She picked up the cucumber slice, very delicately, and placed it over her eyes. Mystery: solved. By the time the house went quiet and the last light clicked off, all four cats were draped in white hand towels, eyes closed, whiskers perfectly, completely still.
