“NOT COMING? WHY?” TIMOTHY ASKED, THOUGH NOT PARTICULARLY INTERESTED.

“It seems like his cat went missing,” Officer Kirk mused.

“Well, so what? Cats go missing all the time, I’m sure,” Timothy said with a shrug.

“That’s true,” Oakley agreed, with the air of a professional, “though he seemed very protective of his cat.”

“He bragged about her for half an hour when he was getting his splinter extracted. It was the only thing he talked about besides horrible dramatic phrases which he called ‘poetry.’” the Doctor grumbled.

“Yes, that sounds like him,” Officer Kirk said thoughtfully. “He sounded very panicked. He rambled a lot. I didn’t even have time to speak. He said that all the windows and doors were locked, but his cat broke through the bathroom window.” Officer Kirk sighed, revealing a hint of disgust. “That is strange, I suppose, but not very important. I tried to tell him that, but it was no use. Apparently, to him, his cat is several times more important than a little girl. I expect this town to be plastered with even more missing posters by tomorrow. Let’s continue. I’ll get to him later.”

They all agreed.

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SURE ENOUGH, AT THAT VERY MOMENT, HUNDREDS OF POSTERS WERE BEING PRINTED.

The tailor, a stout, portly little man with a ridiculously large mustache and a pair of tiny spectacles, paced around the printing room twiddling his thumbs. The little printer struggled to spit out the large sheets of paper.

The dressmaker muttered to himself in a thick, foreign accent. He had been practicing this particular accent which he thought sounded French and romantic. If he had bothered to ask someone else's opinion, perhaps he would realize that it only sounded absurd.

He glanced at the printer again, which was making a strange whirring noise as it pushed the poster paper out on the slot. "Ah, la vache!" he exclaimed, a phrase he learned in French but wasn't quite sure of the meaning.

He muttered more loudly now as if hoping someone would eavesdrop upon his beautiful accent.

"I knew eet! I knew I should hev invested een another preenter! The preenting lady sed that thees preenter could take anytheeng! A liar! A cheat! I shell never buy anotheer thing there again!” the tailor fumed.

Then, in a much quieter voice, he dropped this tiring accented and continued to think out loud. “I really should go to a printing shop. They print much faster with their pretty printers. But I’ve heard their ink is cheap and it smudges! I can’t have that. I bought this expensive waterproof paper. I’m not going to have smudging on it! Besides, I don’t trust those printing people to do a good job. They’ll rip the paper and print lopsided. No, it’s better to buy a new fancy printer than go to one of those shops and print there.”

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Then, like most people, the tailor set off to prove to himself that he did need a new printer and that it was best to buy one now anyway. He convinced himself that he needed several new printers all for different uses.

However, it was strange that his cat had escaped. The dressmaker knew his cat was extremely lazy. Too lazy sometimes to even go through the trap door. There was once when his cat had slept inside the door, too tired and lazy to go all the way through. It would take remarkable strength, motivation, persistence, and pain tolerance (all of which the cat did not have) to break through a bathroom window and escape for whatever reason. The tailor knew this, of course, which had immediately sent him to panic.

He had realized his cat was gone an hour after the phone call. The tailor had been sleeping when his old flip phone began to ring. The cop invited him to the station, and even though the officer embarrassed the tailor by pointing out his ridiculous French accent, the tailor had decided not to anger the cop any further and go. However, as he had been making breakfast, he noticed that his cat had not arrived while the bacon was sizzling. His cat always had been attracted to bacon.

That was when the tailor began looking for his cat. He hadn’t seen her any time in the morning but had thought nothing of it because she was usually quite good at hiding in strange places. It was only after finding the broken window in the first-floor bathroom that the tailor began to panic. He waited on the toilet for fifteen minutes before determining that his cat would not be coming back soon.

And that was how the tailor was now waiting for hundreds of posters to print out of one measly printer.

The tailor sat back down on his chair with a heavy sigh. The poster he was printing was on his computer. It wasn’t a very good poster, with only a picture of the cat and phone number. His cat didn’t even have a name she responded to. She was originally named Natasha, simply because the tailor liked the name. But as he began going through his French phase, the cat began cycling through various French or French-sounding names, like Allura, Charlotte, and Francine. To make matters worse, the tailor often just referred to his cat as ‘sweetie’ or ‘honey butter’. Consequently, the cat no longer knew what her name was and didn’t react to any of her names.

The tailor closed the document, unwilling to look at it for any longer. He knew more missing posters were circulating the town. He had been called down to the police station because of this other missing girl. It offered him some comfort that her poster was just as bad as his.

At least I have a clear picture, he thought smugly. And good, waterproof paper.

However, he did regret not going to the station. He wanted to know what had happened. It always bugged him when he didn’t know what was going on.

What was her name again? Marine? The tailor opened his browser and searched her name. Perhaps that would give him a clue.

The first few results were the local public school’s websites and the mother’s Facebook page. Nothing out of the ordinary. The tailor clicked through those lazily. The school photos all looked blurry, and he found that the picture from the poster was from the school yearbook, which was a strange choice. The tailor also noticed that the mother had no Facebook activity whatsoever.

His mouse hovered over the fifth option, a website made with one of the popular website builders circulating the advertisements lately. The tailor clicked on it without much thought.

It was one of the strangest things he’d ever read.