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“What about?” asked Odelia as she wiped away a tear. Don’t think she was heartbroken to see her cats’ nap plans interrupted by Gran’s megalomaniacal comic strip plans: she was simply peeling an onion, and it always has that effect on her tear ducts.

“Well, I thought about giving him the opportunity to publish our photo comic first. And he doesn’t even have to pay us a lot. Let’s say… five hundred bucks a piece? It’s a bargain, really, when you consider how much publicity it will give him to know that he gets the world premiere—not to mention bragging rights that he discovered us.”

“Sure, I’ll talk to him. I don’t know if he’ll go for it, though. Dan isn’t a big fan of comics in his paper.”

“And why not, may I ask? It’s an established and beloved tradition.”

Odelia shrugged.“Not sure. I guess he feels it’s not worth the money.”

“Not worth the money! For a measly five hundred bucks a piece he gets first dibs on Harriet the Cat. The opportunity of a lifetime! His name will appear on our Wikipedia page as the first paper to publish us. That should be worth something, I should think.”

“Like I said, he’s not into comics. But it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“Fine,” Gran grumbled, and stalked off, the rest of us in tow.

“So what do you want us to do?” I asked, hoping to get this over with as soon as possible, so I could return to that very important choice I had to make: which couch would I grace with my napping presence first? The big one, the smaller one or the cozy armchair. I like all three of them for different reasons, which I won’t go into here, as it would lead us too far astray.

“Um… which one are we doing now, script girl?” asked Gran.

Scarlett came tripping up on her high heels, consulting her phone.“We start with Max picking a fight with Brutus, competing over Harriet’s affections. Then in panel two Harriet is wavering between Brutus and Max, and finally in panel three she kicks Max out of the frame, and says, ‘I wish all choices were this easy.’”

I had been listening to this interaction with mounting concern.“Harriet does what to me?” I asked in a strangled voice.

“Well, at first we thought of having Brutus kick you,” Gran explained, “but we think it’s funnier when it’s Harriet who does the honors.”

Harriet, who’d been grooming herself, now declared, “I’m ready for my closeup, Gran.”

“Great,” said Gran. “Now, I was thinking of doing this particular scene on this garden table right here, with the backyard and those rose bushes as a backdrop.” She shook her head. “We really should invest in a proper studio. I’ve already told Chase to build us one but he’s not budging. Too busy with his ‘detective’ work,” she added, using air quotes.

“Ooh, I’d love a proper studio,” said Harriet. “We could name it Harriet Productions Unlimited.” She now came tripping up. “Okay, so where do you want me?”

“You just sit right there on that table and look pretty,” said Gran. “And you, Brutus, you sit right next to her, giving Max a nasty look.”

“On a scale of one to ten, how nasty?” asked the budding actor.

“Ten. You feel threatened by Max. He’s vying for Harriet’s affections and you don’t like it.”

“Threatened by Max?” said Brutus with a grin. “That’s impossible.”

“It’s called acting, sweet puss,” said Harriet. “You simply express the emotion.”

“How many of these have you shot already?” I asked, as I hopped up onto a chair Scarlett had conveniently placed next to the table for my benefit, then onto the table.

“Well this is number thirty-four, so we’ve done thirty-three so far.”

“Thirty-three!” said Dooley. “Wow, that’s a lot of photo comics!”

“You need to build up a portfolio,” said Harriet. “Is this where you want me, Gran?”

“Yeah, right there is fine,” said Gran, who was studying the scene intently.

“So where do you want me, Gran?” asked Dooley now.

Gran frowned at Dooley.“You’re not in this scene, Dooley, so I don’t want you anywhere.”

“Oh,” said Dooley, looking slightly disappointed. Then he added, “I thought it was Odie who always gets kicked? And it’s the spider who always gets squashed.”

Brutus’s eyes lit up at this. “Maybe we could make a slight change to the script, Gran. Instead of kicking Max off the table, he gets squashed.”

“Mh…” said Gran, thinking hard. “Dooley has a point. We shouldn’t go against type on this thing. It’s very important to respect reader expectations. So maybe we bring Dooley up here and have you kick him off the table, Harriet.”