One evening, the Sneak came saying that we should take old Hyunt haunting with us. He’s the oldest and most experienced sneak in the whole block, he’s lived here the longest and yet he spends most of his days locked in his cellar.
I’m sure he’d love a little haunting trip. And we’d finally get to see what he can do. Maybe he’ll bite off Mr. Carlos’ thumb!
As soon as it got dark, we went to the cellar. It took Sneak forever to convince Hyunt to get his ass off the pile of rags he was sitting in, let alone get out of the basement.
“I haven’t been haunting in maybe ten years,” Hjunt confessed as we crept up the stairs to Mrs. Simon’s apartment.
“So now you’ve got to make up for it,” I told him.
“If I can still do it.”
“It’s like riding a bicycle, once you know how to do it, you never forget,” Sneak instructed him expertly.
Hjunt must have been a little shy, because his hair.$ still hadn’t grown in and he was walking around in a Christmas dog sweater. But it didn’t matter in the dark. And people don’t have eyes on their toes.
Mrs. Simon was asleep. She must have been tired, because there was a beautiful baked cake on the table. That must have been taken a lot of work. But we’re not here to eat. We headed straight for the bedroom. Me first, followed by Sneak, followed by… no one.
“Where’s Hjunt?” I asked when I turned around.
“No idea, he was behind me the whole time.”
We went back to the kitchen. The cake was gone. Hjunt was sitting on the floor with his Christmas sweater bursting at the seams on his stomach.
“I needed to get some strength. I haven’t had a treat like this in years,” Hjunt said, waddling into the bedroom behind us.
He began to growl, scratch and pant. I tickled Mrs. Simon’s feet with my tail, and old Hjunt began to chew.
“Hee hee hee,” Mrs. Simon laughed in her sleep.
Instead of biting, Old Hjunt licked Mrs. Simon’s foot.
“You have to bite. Use your teeth,” whispered Sneak.
Instead, Old Hjunt burped loudly, causing the vase to rattle, the fish in the fishbowl to jump, and Mrs. Simon to wake up, thinking a storm had come.
“We’re done here, let’s go somewhere else,” decided Sneak.
We reached Mr. Carlos’ place. He slept like a log, his feet peeking out from under the covers and his crocks carefully arranged by the bed. His cat Tilly was resting in the bed next to him.
The scary foreplay was mine this time. But you could hardly hear my growling and snorting over Mr. Carlo’s snoring..
“Crocs!” Hjunt growled, bristled and threw himself on the slippers.
Before we knew it, he’d ripped one to shreds and devoured the other one. Here we go again. Missing a shoe? Look for the sneak behind everything.
Meanwhile, the Sneak scratched Mr. Carlos’ toes and moved on to the pillow. I came from the other side and together we tickled Mr. Carlos’ nose with our tails. And that was a mistake.
“Achoo”, sneezed Mr. Carlos so loudly that we both jumped up, a piece of crocks stuck in Hjunt’s throat and Tilly jumped out of the bed, groaning. She saw us.
“We’d better run, the cat is after us,” shouted Sneak, but it was useless.
The cat had cornered me and Sneak next to the bed and was about to jump on us. I shivered in fear and was already waiting for the cat to bite me. But instead of a leap, the cat screeched and took off.
“Coward, fight like a man,” shouted old Hjunt, spitting out his hair.
He crept up behind the cat and bit her tail. The cat was frightened and tried to run away. But the fight was not over for Hjunt, who ran after the cat and chased it around the apartment. The cat jumped on the table, Hjunt followed. Several cups, a plate and a chair fell to the floor. The cat fled from the table to the cupboard, Hjunt ran after him, oblivious to the little car models on display, which fell one by one to the floor.
Who knows how it would have turned out if Mr. Carlos hadn’t been awakened by the noise. He lit up and started shouting curses addressed to Tilly. It was a clear signal to us that it was time to leave. We quickly slipped into the hallway and out of the apartment. Fortunately, Hjunt followed us.
“Behold, boys, I have a trophy,” boasted a panting Hjunt, showing us his cat collar. “I stole the coward’s collar. And now I’m going to wear it proudly.”
And so Hjunt put the cat collar around his neck and went back to the cellar. Me and Squeak went to our beds. Before bedtime we talked about how old Hjunt was really a class act. He had forgotten to haunt people a bit, but when it came to fighting with cats, he could not be matched.
Well, good night, kids. And never eat crocs. They gave old Hyunt a stomachache for a week.