Ruby had a long-standing reputation in the neighbourhood: fluffy, fierce, and frighteningly good at finding out who took your tuna. She wasn’t just a housecat… oh no she was the pet detective. The Sherlock Holmes of fluff. The Poirot of paws. The feline fury in a fur coat from aisle 5 of PetSmart.
Her mornings were simple. Stretch. Knock the flowerpot off the windowsill. Meow with theatrical hunger until her human, Martha (a part-time florist and full-time disappointment), gave her breakfast. And then, casework.
But this morning, something was off.
As she strolled down Magnolia Avenue with the swagger of a creature that licked her own butt in public and felt no shame, the air buzzed with whispers. Nervous tail twitches. Wide, dilated eyes.
“Ruby,” hissed Garfield, not that one, but an overweight ginger tabby who never moved unless provoked or pizza was involved. “It’s gone. All of it.”
She narrowed her amber eyes. “Clarify. Gone like a hairball in the wind or gone like your dignity after last week’s squirrel incident?”
Garfield flicked his tail with offense. “Gone. Catnip. Every leaf, every stash, every window box.”
Ruby froze mid-whisker-groom. “You mean… the nip?”
Garfield nodded. “It’s a dry neighbourhood now.”
Ruby gasped. “This is an emergency. This is DEFCON FLUFF.”
* * * * *
She hit the pavement hard.
First, she interrogated Sniffers, the half-blind beagle who ran the neighbourhood gossip network. He operated out of the cul-de-sac under a suspiciously large hydrangea bush.
“Talk,” Ruby demanded, pawing at the ground like a threat.
Sniffers rolled onto his back and peed a little. “I heard… I heard there’s a club. A club of nippers. Felines only. Secret. Fancy. Underground. Literal underground. Like, sewer-level.”
Ruby’s eyes gleamed.
“I need an in,” she muttered.
“You didn’t hear it from me,” Sniffers whimpered.
“I didn’t hear anything from you. Because frankly, you smell like expired bacon.”
* * * * *
Getting into the secret catnip club required a few things: contacts, confidence, and being absolutely okay with licking strangers if needed. Ruby had all three and a secret weapon: Mitzi, the most dramatic Persian in the neighbourhood. Mitzi once fake-fainted at a garden party because someone called her “chonky.”
“She’s not even chonky, Ruby,” Mitzi sniffed. “She’s gravitationally luxurious.”
“You’re still the only one with a bell collar made of Swarovski crystals.”
Mitzi fluffed her tail. “Jealousy is a disease, darling. Get well soon.”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “I need to get into the nip club. I need drama. You’re drama.”
Mitzi gasped like she’d just watched a pigeon steal her credit card. “You want me to go undercover?”
“You were born undercover. You live for attention.”
Mitzi purred slowly. “True.”
* * * * *
Operation Fuzzy Entry was a go.
Mitzi strolled down the alley behind Donatello’s Pizza (the humans’ favourite), batting her lashes at the garbage bins. A set of mismatched eyes peered out from a cracked drain grate.
“Password,” the eyes growled.
Mitzi flicked her tail like a queen unsheathing a dagger. “Meow Meow Sparkle Boom.”
The grate swung open.
Beneath the city lived a different world. Cats of all shapes and levels of madness rolled in piles of catnip. Laser pointers were passed like joints. A tabby DJ spun beats on two scratched-up vinyls, and one very anxious Siamese was trying to climb a wall with a traffic cone on its head.
Ruby slipped in behind Mitzi, wearing a pair of fake whiskers and a beret.
“This is it,” she whispered. “The mothernip.”
But something was off. The air didn’t just smell of catnip. It smelled… sinister.
Out from the shadows stepped Cuddles.
Cuddles, who once mauled a decorative owl at Petco just for looking smug. Cuddles, whose real name was Bartholomew El Tigre III, but who preferred to be called “Your Majesty” while sitting in other people’s laundry baskets.
“Well, well, Ruby,” he drawled. “Still pretending to solve crimes when you could be living the nip life?”
Ruby narrowed her eyes. “You always had a thing for chaos, Cuddles. But this? Stealing every ounce of catnip from the neighbourhood? Even for you, that’s unhinged.”
Cuddles purred. “The world needed order. Nip should be centralized. Controlled. Taxed. You think I want cats rolling in street nip without permits? It’s bad branding.”
“Branding?” Ruby snorted. “You’re not a drug lord. You eat cardboard boxes.”
“That was one time,” he snapped.
Mitzi, hiding behind a velvet scratching post, hissed, “He’s mad with power. And lint.”
“I won’t let you get away with this,” Ruby growled.
“Oh Ruby,” Cuddles grinned, “You’re in my territory now.”
Suddenly, twenty cats surrounded them, some high out of their minds, others just vibing aggressively. A hairless Sphinx in a monocle whispered, “Release the Roomba.”
A rumble shook the floor.
“Run,” Mitzi whispered. “RUN!”
* * * * *
What followed was a furious chase. Ruby ducked under flying toys, leapt over a passed-out Maine Coon, and slid across spilled kibble while dodging a rogue Roomba with googly eyes taped on it.
“WHO ARMED THE ROOMBA?” she screamed.
“It’s Cuddles’ new security system!” Mitzi wailed, dodging a rotating brush.
The two cats burst out of the sewer just as the sun rose over Magnolia Avenue. Ruby turned and, with the strength of a thousand angry squirrels, slammed the grate shut.
Behind them, chaos meowed.
* * * * *
Later, after the council of neighbourhood pets gathered, Ruby stood on the picnic table beside Martha’s busted garden gnome.
“I hereby declare Cuddles’ catnip cartel disbanded!” she yowled. “The stash has been redistributed. The DJ is now running a music therapy group for anxious tabbies. And Mitzi has launched her own ethically-sourced catnip Etsy store.”
Applause or enthusiastic tail thwacks, echoed around the block.
“And let this be a warning to anyone who tries this again,” Ruby added, eyes gleaming. “I will find you. And I will sneeze in your food bowl.”
Mitzi leaned over. “What about Cuddles?”
Ruby smirked. “Sentenced to six weeks of forced cuddling with toddlers at the vet clinic.”
Mitzi purred. “That’s… monstrous.”
Ruby grinned, licking her paw coolly. “Justice is a dish best served in a warm sunbeam.”
The End.
Ruby Forensics 