“I thought that being right was the only thing you liked about talking to other people,” I said. “You can’t correct people without disagreement.”

“Who’s in charge of milk-checking around here?” I asked. “Just say the word and I’ll get him fired.” 

I’d always doubted whether people existed when they weren’t with me, even before everyone disappeared. Now I knew that people folded into laptops and disappeared into The Cloud until Mom clicked on them again.

The Stuck House was supposed to be the only place where the universe had to obey her rules, but now she couldn’t even boss around a lousy banana.

Donuts are like cheese sticks for Mom. When it takes extra bravery to get home without killing any strangers, Mom rewards herself with a donut. “But they weren’t in the basket where they usually are, and the whole bakery case was locked.” I didn’t like where this story was going. You don’t get between Mom and pastries.

Mom leaned back and her arm shot out as if to shove the Furryner off a cliff. She might have done it, too, if he’d come any closer, but only by accident. They froze for a second, both staring at the stop hand at the end of Mom’s stiff arm.

“It’s not criminal, but it’s a violation of something-or-other,” Mom said in her law-gic voice. “I wouldn’t call it il-legal. More like extra-legal.” What a relief. If the Law found us, they would probably give me a medal for being so much more legal than everyone else. 

“Bikinis aren’t an essential life skill for women over 30,” Mom said like a warning. “Anyone who’s day-drinking alone has parts of their life that are out of control, but that lady isn’t ready to let herself go.

Dogs go potty in words, leaving public messages for any passing creature to enjoy, but Mom doesn’t like to pee where someone can see. Humans go potty like punctuation, as if its only meaning is a moment of privacy between important things. 

You weren’t supposed to stay real quiet and creep around like you didn’t want to raise suspicion. Mom was clueless when it came to wildlife.

I waited, but there was no rumbling and no tumbling. I waited some more, but still no Mom fell out of the Mom-return slot. I would have to step onto her landing strip if I wanted to look for her. I was just about to take a cautious step onto the runway when I heard a whoosh.

“He was also a bit of a bully. He used to say, ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.’” “That sounds like excellent advice to me. Except how can you bark softly or any other way with a big stick in your mouth?”

“Keep the windows closed!” I panted as the glass-and-steel canyons sucked the Wagon through a forest of billboards. “I told you, it doesn’t work that way.” Mom turned down the blowers anyway.

“The trick to doing something hard for the first time is knowing that it’s gonna be uncomfortable, and doing it anyway.”

“Mom! Mom! There’s a hot dog shop in Albuquerque, remember?” The hot dog shop was where Jesse went to meet men with face tattoos and trade business secrets. “It has outdoor seating and everything! Can we go there for dinner?”

“Sit, Oscar!” Mom yelled, only she didn’t really say sit. “Run! Run! Run!” She didn’t need to tell me twice. I shot down the trail as fast as I could go without losing the ker-plopping of Mom’s steps behind me.

Mom snapped her fingers like a flamenco dancer to get my attention. “Oscar! Oscar! C’mere. Up-up!” she begged like a paparazza, waving her paw over the rock like it was even more amazing than she originally thought.

“Phooey!” I grumbled, knocking the bowl so the kibble spilled all over the bed. That felt pretty good, but one of Mom’s two-handed face rubs would have felt even better.

With everyone trapped at home, the world would need a protector to keep an eye on things to herd everyone back together when it was safe to come out again. That hero would need a sidekick. A referee who knew how to twist silly rules until they made sense again and wield Murphy’s Law to make impossible things happen, like bringing rain to the desert. The fate of the world rested on its globe-trotting hero, Tintin Quarantino and his faithful referee-sidekick, the Weather Jinx.

“They’re outlawing friendship?” I whimpered. I would never be able to hide my friendliness for long enough to stay out of trouble. “They can’t really send you to the pound for charisma, can they?”