Hallie and Brad are moving to a house from an apartment. The move includes eight cats of various kinds, and though they are indoor cats they have to be acclimated to their new home. One of the cats escapes outside and is missing for three days. Even though they're occupied with moving in to their new house and even though they realize they'll have to give him up as lost, they nevertheless have to take the time to search for the cat. After three nights, they hear the cat mewing fearfully outside their window. They coax him inside. The first thing he does is use the kitty litter box. He's an indoor cat, after all, and hasn't been able to go to the bathroom for three days.
The opening scene introduces the fact that that Hallie and Brad, former apartment dwellers, have just moved in to a suburban house, along with their eight cats, who will now have more room to roam around. But the move is not going well. First of all, house needs some work, and that is going to make moving in a little hard. But second of all, they let one of their cats escape, and that really causes trouble. All of the scenes in the story take place in and around the house, although some action takes place in the streets of the neighborhood. Hallie, Brad, and the cats are the characters in this part and most other parts of the story.
The cat named Montgomery gets outside through an unrepaired window screen facing the backyard. Hallie and Brad chase him, but they can't find him. He is probably gone forever and will be unable to survive in the street since he's an indoor cat. He doesn't know how to feed himself, and none of his surroundings are familiar to him since he's in a brand-new location. He just won't know what to do.
After three days of dividing their time between searching and trying to get the house in order, Hallie and Brad are kind of tense. They've been fighting at the very time they should b
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