The backyard at night was a different world.
Gone were the familiar smells of lawn mower and regret. Here, the air tasted of possibility and distant barbecue. The moon hung low and judgmental, like a cat eyeing a glass of water it was definitely going to knock over later.
And there, at the curb, stood the Bin of Eternal Headaches.
It was massive. It was green. It had a lid that had seen things, terrible things, things involving expired sour cream and the remains of someone's attempt at homemade kombucha. From within it rose the Mountain of Forgotten Snack Wrappers, a shimmering peak of silver and cellophane that rustled with the sound of a thousand chip bags whispering secrets to the wind.
"Behold," Mr. Cheesits whispered, his voice trembling with barely suppressed glee. "The mountain awaits."
Pixie was already moving, her calico body a streak of orange and black and white determination. She hit the side of the bin with a boing sound that echoed through the neighborhood, found purchase on a protruding handle, and began to climb.
Socket followed more slowly, her obesity making her resemble a furry boulder with determination. "Pixie," she panted, hauling herself up a Doritos bag like it was Everest base camp. "Pixie, have you considered that this might be a trap?"
"Everything is a trap," Pixie called back, her claws finding purchase on a stubbornly sticky candy wrapper. "Life is a trap. The window is a trap. The empty food bowl is the cruelest trap of all. But the crust, Socket! The crust calls to me! I can hear it singing!"
She wasn't wrong. From the peak of the mountain, there did indeed come a sound, a low, humming vibration that might have been fermentation gases escaping, or might have been the pizza crust achieving nirvana.
They climbed through layers of human excess. Here was a field of empty granola bar wrappers, their health claims still visible like ancient hieroglyphics. There, a valley of crumpled aluminum foil that reflected the moonlight in patterns that made Socket's eyes go funny. And everywhere, the smell—the smell of things that had been forgotten, of snacks that had reached their final form, of yogurt that had achieved sentience and was plotting.
Mr. Cheesits scampered ahead, his tiny body perfect for navigating the crevices between discarded takeout containers. "Almost there!" he called back, his voice dripping with sincerity he absolutely did not feel. "Just a little further! The crust is just past that suspiciously wobbly pile of expired lunch meat!"
Pixie, her catnip high finally beginning to fade into a state of confused determination, paused. "Cheesits," she said, her voice suddenly sharp. "Why are you helping us?"
The mouse froze. For a moment, the bread-tie cape stopped flowing. "Because... because I have seen the error of my ways?"
"You left butter footprints," Socket rumbled from below, her bulk wedged between a broken egg carton and a bag of something that had once been salad. "You have never seen the error of your ways. You once spent a week living in the toaster just to make the humans question their sanity."
Mr. Cheesits turned, and in the moonlight, his tiny face held an expression of pure, unadulterated vengeance.
"You chased me," he whispered. "Three days ago. You chased me for forty minutes. You knocked over a lamp. You destroyed a houseplant. You tried to climb inside the television because you thought I had escaped into the nature documentary. You called me... you called me 'the crinkly one.'"
Pixie had the decency to look embarrassed, which for a cat meant she blinked slowly and looked away. "I was... I was not myself. The nip. The nip spoke to me. It said you were made of cheese and betrayal."
"I AM MADE OF SPITE AND DETERMINATION!" Mr. Cheesits shrieked. "And now, Pixie the Calico, Socket the Round, you shall face the consequences! For at the peak of this mountain lies not enlightenment, but the PET DOOR OF IMPOSSIBLE ABYSS!"
He gestured dramatically with one tiny paw, and there, wedged between a pizza box and what appeared to be the remains of someone's dignity, was a pet door.
But not just any pet door.
This was a pet door that led to nowhere and everywhere. Through its flap, one could see not the inside of the bin, but a swirling vortex of pink and orange, a dimension of pure psychological terror that whispered promises of never-ending liver pâté and threats of eternal vet appointments. It was the kind of abyss that didn't actually capture anyone, physics was still physics, after all, but it captured the mind. It made you believe, deep in your cat soul, that one step through that flap would send you tumbling forever through a sea of pâté, unable to escape, unable to do anything but lick and lick and lick until you were nothing but a tongue with regrets.
"You see it," Mr. Cheesits cackled. "The Abyss! One step through, and you shall be lost in the Pâté Madness! You shall believe you are falling forever! You shall experience existential dread so profound that you will question whether you ever truly caught that red dot, or if the red dot caught you!"
Pixie stared at the pet door. The swirling colors seemed to whisper her name, or possibly the word "tuna," which was basically the same thing.
"Socket," she said quietly. "I think I can see my uncle in there. He's waving. He's holding a salmon."
"That's not your uncle," Socket wheezed, finally hauling herself to the peak beside her friend. "That's the Abyss showing you what you want to see. My Abyss is showing me an endless buffet where I never get full and gravity doesn't exist."
Mr. Cheesits danced on his hind legs. "Yes! Yes! Gaze into the Pâté Madness! Let it consume your sanity! Revenge is mine! For the lamp! For the houseplant! For the forty minutes of cardiovascular exercise you forced upon me!"
But before Pixie could step forward, before she could surrender to the liver-scented void, a sound split the night.
It was the sound of jingling.
Not just any jingling. This was the jingling of a collar that knew it was important. This was the jingling of tags that had been engraved with a sense of destiny.
"HALT, FOUL BEASTS!" bellowed a voice like a tuba being played by someone who had never met humility.
And from around the side of the bin, he appeared.
Bartholomew J. Waddlesworth III was a dog. This much was evident from his general shape, four legs, tail, the usual. But Bartholomew J. Waddlesworth III did not believe he was a dog.
He believed he was a cat.
He was also, it must be said, extremely fat. Not just dog-fat. Not just "the vet says we should watch his portions" fat. This was "gravity makes different rules for him" fat. He waddled with the determination of a creature who had never once questioned his right to exist in any space he chose, no matter how small.
He wore a collar with a bell that he had insisted upon, because all proper cats wore bells. He had spent years trying to purr, resulting in a sound like a broken washing machine attempting to express affection. And he had, on more than one occasion, attempted to climb curtains, resulting in several incidents that the humans referred to as "structural damage" and Bartholomew referred to as "expressing my true nature."
"WHO DARES APPROACH THE BIN OF ETERNAL HEADACHES WITHOUT THE PROPER RESPECT?" Bartholomew bellowed, his jowls flapping with the force of his declaration. "WHO STANDS BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN OF SNACK WRAPPERS LIKE COMMON DOGS?"
"We're cats," Pixie pointed out, her tail puffing with indignation. "Actual cats. You're the..."
"I AM A CAT!" Bartholomew roared, the force of his denial creating a small wind that rustled the wrappers. "I AM THE MOST CAT OF CATS! I HAVE NAPPED IN SUNBEAMS! I HAVE JUDGED HUMANS FROM DOORWAYS! I HAVE STARED AT WALLS AS IF THEY CONTAINED SECRETS! I AM FELINE!"
"You barked at a squirrel yesterday," Socket observed, her voice dry as the inside of a kibble bag.
"IT WAS A VERY JUDGMENTAL BARK! LIKE A CAT WOULD DO!"
Mr. Cheesits, seeing his moment of revenge slipping away, scurried forward. "Great and mighty... cat," he said, his voice dripping with insincerity. "These two were about to enter the Abyss! They were going to steal your destiny!"
Bartholomew's ears, which he insisted were just very dog-shaped cat ears, perked up. "My destiny?"
"Yes!" Mr. Cheesits lied, his bread-tie cape billowing. "For tonight is the night! The prophecy! When Catpurrrfect descends from the heavens to grant wishes to sleeping and good kitties! And these two, they would steal your wish! Your wish to ride the real catnip cloud in the sky!"
Bartholomew gasped, a sound like a vacuum cleaner losing its will to live. "The cloud? The real cloud? Not the fake ones made of dust and sunlight that I chase in the living room?"
"The very same!" Mr. Cheesits confirmed. "And these interlopers would take it from you! They would ride your cloud! They would purr your purrs!"
Pixie and Socket exchanged a look. It was the kind of look that cats had been exchanging since Thistledown's fall, the look of two creatures who spoke a language of meows but understood each other perfectly through the universal dialect of "this is getting weird."
"We don't want your cloud," Socket said reasonably. "We want the enlightened pizza crust. Which, now that I say it out loud, sounds like a bad life choice, but here we are."
"LIAR!" Bartholomew howled. "You want to be cats! You want to ride clouds! You want to have your wishes granted by the mighty Catpurrrfect! Well, I shall stop you! I shall defend my birthright! I AM A CAT, AND THIS IS MY DESTINY!"
And with that, the very fat, very confused dog began to charge.
It was not a fast charge. It was, in fact, the slowest charge in the history of aggressive movements. Bartholomew J. Waddlesworth III moved like a glacier with a grudge, his momentum building gradually but inevitably, like a force of nature that had decided to take a personal interest in the situation.
"Scatter!" Pixie yowled, her calico instincts kicking in.
But the Mountain of Forgotten Snack Wrappers was not designed for rapid evacuation. As Pixie turned to flee, her paw caught on a stubbornly adhesive caramel wrapper. She stumbled. She fell. She tumbled directly toward the Pet Door of Impossible Abyss.
"PIXIE!" Socket bellowed, her round body somehow finding reserves of speed she didn't know she had.
She launched herself—there is no other word for it—she launched, her obese tabby form becoming a furry missile of friendship and panic. She hit Pixie sideways, knocking her away from the swirling vortex of liver pâté madness, and the two of them rolled together down the mountain of wrappers, a ball of fur and crinkling plastic that gathered momentum and discarded snack packaging as it went.
Mr. Cheesits watched them go, his tiny face falling. "No," he whispered. "No, you were supposed to go in the door. The Abyss was supposed to drive you mad with existential dread. This isn't...this isn't how revenge works!"
Bartholomew, unable to stop his charge, found himself also tumbling, his fat body creating a wake of destruction through the garbage that could be seen from space. "I AM STILL A CAT!" he bellowed as he rolled. "THIS IS A CAT THING I AM DOING! CATS TUMBLE!"
They hit the curb in a heap of fur, wrappers, and wounded dignity.
And that was when the sky opened.