An hour later, Mr. Snuggles arrived.
"Hey, Sophocles," he said, his coppery eyes glinting in the half-light.
"Oh, thank goodness you"re here," Sophocles said.
Mr. Snuggles made his way around the room, sniffing the corners and taking the place in.
"Man, you"re lucky. I love this place, Sopho. The ambience is fantastic. It"s like stepping back in time. I mean, look at this," he said, hopping onto the counter and sniffing at a clear plastic jar of candies. "You guys even have squirrel nuts. Seriously, Sopho, where do you even order squirrel nuts? I didn"t even know they still made them. Places like this are an endangered species."
Sophocles joined Mr. Snuggles on the counter and swished his tail under Mr. Snuggles" nose.
"If you"d stop rambling on, you"d find out that this is exactly why I called you."
"What do you mean?" Mr. Snuggles asked.
Sophocles hopped from the counter to the desk behind it, and dragged a heavy binder out from between two bookends shaped like the front and rear of a Spanish galleon. With a bit of effort, he flipped open the cover, then pawed through the pages until he reached a section near the end.
"Look," he insisted.
Mr. Snuggles hopped over as well and glanced at the page. Columns of numbers filled it from top to bottom, with a startling number of them written in red ink.
"Wow, this is amazing," said Mr. Snuggles.
"Isn"t it?" sighed Sophocles. "Shocking, I know."
"Yeah," said Mr. Snuggles. "I don"t think anyone has done their books by hand in the past twenty years. I mean, sheesh, Sophocles. Haven"t you guys ever heard of Quick-Books?"
Sophocles snapped a paw down on the page.
"Not that, you imbecile, these balances. We"re hemorrhaging money. In the past five years alone we"ve lost almost 60% of our regular customer base. For a while, I thought that perhaps another newsstand had opened nearby, but now I know what has happened."
Mr. Snuggles quirked his head, a half-smile on his face.
"Oh, really? And what did you discover?"
Sophocles jumped to the floor and marched over to the magazines. With a flick of his paw, he knocked a copy of Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine from the rack.
"This," he said, pointing to the cover. "This is the problem."
Mr. Snuggles jumped off the desk and sauntered over. He checked out the magazine cover, which displayed an array of high-end cell phones.
"What?" Mr. Snuggles replied in mock surprise. "Phones?"
"I know! It sounds unbelievable. I hardly believed it myself at first, but did you know," Sophocles lowered his voice in a conspiratorial fashion, "that you can read newspapers on these?"
At first, Mr. Snuggles made a shocked expression, but then his eye twitched and he fell over onto the floor laughing. Sophocles stared at him, aghast.
"Wha... what"s so funny?" he stammered.
"Sophocles," Mr. Snuggles said, "you"ve been able to do that for years.
And take pictures, and read books, and listen to music, and send letters..."
"Letters?" gasped Sophocles.
This only sent Mr. Snuggles into further fits of laughter.
"Stop that! Stop that at once! This is my life you"re laughing at. My store is going to close!"
Mr. Snuggles stifled his next laugh, took a long breath, and wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of one paw. Rolling back onto his feet, he gave Sophocles a look of compa.s.sion.
"I"m sorry, Sophocles. It"s just that I keep telling you to read the technology sections of those papers you love so much."
"Fah," Sophocles hissed. "That"s not news. It"s corporate gossip. It has no business in a proper paper."
"You can"t hide from it forever, Sophocles. This is the future. This is why all your customers are drifting away. They don"t need newspapers anymore."
"What? Of course people need newspapers. Without the news we simply wander in shadow, ignorant of the world around us. Without the news we wallow, confused, with no understanding of our place in the world. Without the news..."
"I didn"t say people don"t need news. I said people don"t need newspapers."
Sophocles stared, bewildered. Mr. Snuggles sighed.
"Look, Sophocles. Remember when I told you about the internet?"
Sophocles nodded and said, "Isn"t that the thing humans use to share mating images?"
"Well, yeah, partly. Okay, mostly, but it"s more than that. It"s become an interconnected version of our own world. People meet. They talk. They post their own news. Even the newspapers see this. They all offer their news online. With a few clicks, anyone, anywhere, can read news from everywhere else in the world."
"But... but what about the papers we have here? I mean we offer papers from the far corners of the earth. We already keep people connected to the events of the world!"
"So does the internet, Sophocles, only you don"t have to wait until the afternoon print run is complete, or days for those out-of-country editions you carry. You can find out right now, the moment the news happens."
Sophocles walked over to the rack of newspapers and ran a paw over a copy of the Detroit Free Press. "And they can get this on their computers, as well as their phones?"
"Yes, Sophocles. Almost everyone can."
Sophocles" head drooped; he sat down, and his tail swished slowly across the floor. When at last he raised his head and gazed at Mr. Snuggles, his eyes were damp.
"That"s it then," Sophocles said. "We"re no longer necessary."
Mr. Snuggles stepped over and sat next to Sophocles. For a long time they just sat there together, in silence. Finally, Sophocles stood and headed back over to the counter.
"Where are you going?" asked Mr. Snuggles.
Sophocles stopped, head lowered, and gave a long sigh.
"I"m going to run the numbers, see how much time we have."
Mr. Snuggles narrowed his eyes and raised his tail.
"Hold on," he said. "Don"t close those books out just yet, Sopho. I have an idea, but we"re going to need a computer."
The two cats scurried down the alley behind the shop. It had taken a bit of coaxing to get Sophocles out. From the day Herbert brought him home, Sophocles lived within the confines of the newsstand. His only forays into the outside world consisted of trips to the vet and a couple of accidental lockouts during his more adventurous youth. A close encounter with a taxi, however, convinced him of the folly of such explorations, and he soon settled into a safe and comfortable pattern of life within the shop.
Now, Sophocles found himself in the unpleasant position of making the block-long trek to Mr. Snuggles" apartment. It was all he could do to keep up with the younger, livelier cat, and he had to remind Mr. Snuggles repeatedly to slow down. Each time they pa.s.sed an opening onto the alley, Sophocles instinctively stopped. Engine noise, distant sirens, pungent unfamiliar odors, and the strange pink-orange light of the street lamps left him cowering in the shadows.
"Relax," Mr. Snuggles encouraged him. "I do this all the time. It"s perfectly safe."
In the end, the same thing always pushed him onward. His shop. His talk with Mr. Snuggles had finally driven home the reality. His shop would not survive much longer. Six months, a year at most. He"d managed to hide this truth from himself for a long time, but saying it out loud somehow made it real. This reality burned within Sophocles" mind-no other idea had burned this hot in a very long time.
If there was a way to save his shop, by his tail he would do it. And if it required him to travel a block, h.e.l.l, two blocks even, then he would make that sacrifice. Taking a long, deep breath and holding it, he dashed across the alley opening.
Soon they stood behind Mr. Snuggles" apartment building. Sophocles marveled at how simple the trip had been. Not nearly the horror he"d imagined. A breeze blew through the s.p.a.ce between the buildings, ruffling Sophocles" fur. He lifted his head and put his nose to it, taking in the crisp, outdoor air. His muscles twitched with an urge to run, just run and dance amid the trash in the alley. Maybe even hunt.
"You coming, old man?" Mr. Snuggles called.
Sophocles looked up and found Mr. Snuggles standing on the fire escape above him. An overflowing dumpster offered a simple path to the top. Simple, Sophocles soon discovered, for a younger cat. His vigor from moments before faded quickly as he struggled up the pile. A few jumps in the shop were one thing, but this was something else. His muscles burned, and he breathed heavily as he climbed, sometimes clambering with effort, to the top.
Finally, he arrived and found Mr. Snuggles smiling at him.
"What"s so funny?" he insisted.
"You, old man. I"ll be honest. I wasn"t sure if you had it in you. You"re pretty tough for an old cat."
Sophocles raised his nose and tail and then sniffed.
"You will find, my kitten, that age has not diminished my spirit. My muscles may not have the same strength as yours, but I a.s.sure you I more than make up for it in determination."
Mr. Snuggles smiled once more, then dashed up the fire escape. Sophocles followed, appreciating the relative ease of climbing the stairs. Moments later, they sat outside a window looking in on a darkened dining room.
"How do we get in?" Sophocles asked.
Mr. Snuggles responded by tapping lightly on the window, claws extended. From around the corner, a shapely young Blue Point Lynx appeared. Her body swayed as she walked, ringed tail teasing the air behind her and blue eyes shining. Sophocles started to feel light-headed and realized that he was holding his breath.
"My word," he gasped. "She"s beautiful."
"Isn"t she, though? Her name is Evette," Mr. Snuggles replied, beaming.
"You never told me you lived with another cat."
"They only got her about six months ago. I"ll admit that things didn"t go well at first. They almost sent her away. Heck, they almost sent me away after I started marking rooms to keep her out of my s.p.a.ce. But one evening, after a really big blow out, all that tension melted into something a bit more, um, enjoyable, and we"ve gotten along great ever since."
Evette hopped effortlessly onto the dining room table, and from there she virtually floated to the window sill. Standing on her hind legs, smooth white underbelly pressed against the gla.s.s, she undid the window latch with her front paws.
"Gracious. She"s a vixen, isn"t she?" whispered Sophocles.
"Hey. Watch it, old man. That"s my girlfriend you"re talking about."
"Right, sorry. No offense meant, of course."
"Ah, none taken. And you"re right anyhow," Mr. Snuggles said, chuckling.
The latch undone, Mr. Snuggles and Evette worked together to open the window. It resisted a bit at first, but once they broke the seal, the weighted lines in the frame took over and the window slid easily open. They closed it behind them, and the three cats hopped over onto the table. Evette padded over to Mr. Snuggles and rubbed her body down his length.
"Hey, lover," she purred. "You didn"t tell me you were bringing company."
She gave Sophocles a sly, appraising look that made him feel nervous and excited all at the same time.
"He"s an old friend," Mr. Snuggles said, emphasizing the word old and smiling over his shoulder at Sophocles. "But he"s got a problem, and I"ve got an idea on how we can help. We"re going to need the computer, though. Is everyone asleep?"
"Dead to the world," Evette replied. "The place is ours."
"Excellent. Okay, Sophocles. Come with me."
"You boys have fun," Evette said, bounding off the table and heading for the far doorway. "I told Boots I"d call her tonight."
Mr. Snuggles hopped down and headed out the other exit, and Sophocles followed. The house was filled with so many new and unusual scents that Sophocles had to work to resist stopping to sniff at them. After so many years in the store, he"d nearly forgotten how rich and exciting the rest of the world could be.
In the living room, Mr. Snuggles hopped onto the coffee table. Sophocles did the same, and he found Mr. Snuggles opening a laptop computer. Sophocles had never seen one this close. With the computer open, Mr. Snuggles tapped the power b.u.t.ton and the screen glowed, illuminating the room.
"Okay. We need to get online."
Mr. Snuggles sat in front of the computer and began tapping away at the keys with one paw. At one point he placed his paw on a flat bit of plastic near the edge of the computer, swished his paw back and forth, and then clicked a nearby b.u.t.ton with the claw of one toe.
A few moments later, the screen filled with an electronic version of a newspaper. Again, Sophocles felt light-headed. He was having trouble breathing, and he instinctively popped his claws, trying to sink them into the smooth gla.s.s surface of the table for stability.
"I want to show you something," Mr. Snuggles said, unaware of Sophocles" condition.
A few more paw motions and the screen changed to show an old diner. Standing in front of it was a mob of people holding signs painted with slogans, like "Save Our History!" and "Keep Our City Alive!"
"I read this article," Sophocles said. "October 23rd, 2007. Activists Save Local Diner."
"Exactly. A bunch of those Save Our City people, the same ones who made the stink last year about the "h.o.m.ogenization of our cities." They went crazy when they found out the place was going to close and a fast food joint would take the spot. The place has c.r.a.ppy food and is about as clean as a sewer grate, but people saved it because it represents a part of our world that is fading away."
Sophocles began to understand, but he shook his head.
"This isn"t the same. No one is taking over the newsstand. We"re just running out of money. Protesters won"t help."
"We don"t need protesters. We just need to convince people that they"re about to lose something important to the city. How long has Ehgleman"s been open?"
"It was established in 1946. Mr. Ehgleman had just returned from the war and..."
"Right, right. I remember the story. And in that time, how often have you remodeled?"
"Well, Herbert purchased a new cash register when he took over the shop in "65. Oh, and we replaced that light fixture, the one that fell when the people living upstairs had that party in "95."
"That"s what I"m saying, Sophocles. That newsstand is like a freaking museum. It"s like someone froze it in time. These folks," Mr. Snuggles said, tapping on the picture of the protesters, "eat this stuff up. And if they find out that you might close, they"ll swarm the place."