Dolli Finds Apollyon

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Dolli sat on her favorite windowsill, watching sunlight paint gold squares across the carpet. She was a small orange tabby with white socks and a black nose shaped like a comma. Every afternoon at two o'clock, Apollyon—her best friend in the entire world—would appear in the garden below, rolling in the warm dirt. Today, Apollyon didn't come. Dolli waited. The sun moved. The shadows grew longer. Still no Apollyon. She pressed her pink nose against the cool glass. “That's strange,” she whispered to herself. “Very strange indeed.” She had to find him.

Dolli knew Apollyon better than anyone. He was a sleek gray cat with one white whisker that stuck out sideways like an exclamation point. His eyes were the color of pale green moss. He loved three things: warm dirt, the taste of tuna flakes, and talking to Dolli for hours while they sat under the apple tree. But today he wasn't under the apple tree. He wasn't in the garden. Dolli pulled open the cat door with her paw and stepped outside. The afternoon air smelled like cut grass and something else—something that made her whiskers tingle. She sat on the garden path and began to think like a detective. “Clues,” she said. “I need clues.”

The first clue was a small pile of dirt. Not ordinary dirt—this was fresh, bright red clay, the kind from the building site three gardens over. Dolli had never seen clay in Apollyon's favorite spot before. “Hmm. That's interesting,” she muttered, circling it slowly. The clay formed a pawprint. A big pawprint. Too big for Apollyon. Then she noticed something else: drag marks in the grass, as if something—or someone—had been pulled across the lawn toward the garden gate. Dolli's heart beat faster. “But if it wasn't him who left the clay... then who left those marks?” She needed to follow the trail.