Free Runny03 - Loose Lips by Rita Mae Brown

her cat as she leaned around Lillian’s shoulder.
    Upon hearing her mother’s voice, Yoyo paused from her frolic for a moment, then resumed her pleasures.
    Cora started to laugh.
    “Mother, you’re no help,” Juts whispered.
    The more Julia scowled, the harder Cora laughed. Chester started laughing too, as did others around them.
    Meanwhile, Buster tore down the center aisle, skidding to a stop at the Hunsenmeir pew, mouth drooling as he held his booty.
    No wonder you come to church
, the cat and dog seemed to say.
This is fun!
    Finished with his many invocations, Pastor Neely turned from the altar, face radiant with the message “He is risen,” only to find two little furry faces peering right up at him, one smeared with pollen and the other fiercely holding a chocolate bunny.
    Not content with her depredations, Yoyo leapt into the middle of the huge altar floral arrangement. Both tumbled onto the floor.
    Juts rose, face beet-red, slid past her howling mother and husband, and stalked toward her pets.
    Try as she might to maintain her dignity—after all, it was the highest holy day of the year—the sight of Yoyo, crazed with excitement, and Buster, jaws clamped on his prize, proved too much for Juts. She giggled.
    Pastor Neely sternly glared down at her.
    This made her laugh even more. Juts reached for Buster’s collar. He didn’t resist.
    “Come on,” she whispered.
    He obediently followed.
    “He’s got my bunny!” Paula Falkenroth shouted.
    “Good God.” Walter covered his eyes.
    Margot, his wife, whispered, “Paula, I told you not to bring candy to church.”
    “I forgot,” Paula lied.
    “Little girl, don’t you forget that you’re in a house of worship,” her father warned.
    “Well—” She twisted away as Buster walked past her, Juts’s hand still firmly on the collar.
    “I’ll buy you another bunny, Paula,” Juts promised.
    The Cadwalders stared at Juts as if to say, “Why do these things always happen to you?”
    She smiled weakly and continued on, then turned and called as low as she could, “Yoyo, come on, kittycat.”
    Not only did Yoyo ignore the kind entreaty of her mother, she experienced one of those fits of ecstasy known primarily to members of the feline family and certain Catholics. She raced through the plants on the floor. She soared over flower arrangements wherever she found them. Some she cleared, some she didn’t. Galvanized into action by Pastor Neely’s uncompromising stare, the acolyte chased Yoyo, which heightened her celebration of her own powers. She put the brakes on as the lanky boy lurched past her, then she wheeled and gracefully arched onto the altar, where two identical, magnificent arrangements reposed on either side of the large, chaste gold cross. Tempting as those arrangements were, her pursuer was gaining on her. She ducked behind the cross. As he reached for her, she saucily and defiantly reached right back to bat at him. Being a good sport, she kept her claws sheathed.
    Then she dropped behind the altar and stealthily crawled to the side as the acolyte got down on his hands and knees, providing the congregation with the sight of his rump, not perhaps the typical object of worship.
    Beads of perspiration appeared on Pastor Neely’s forehead. Chester knew he should try and catch his cat, but he was convulsed with laughter and so weak from it he could barely move.
    Celeste, Ramelle, and Fannie Jump sat in the third pew to the right of the aisle, pews being assigned according to when one’s family participated in founding the church or joined it. Tears of laughter rolled from their eyes.
    Yoyo, not one to shun the spotlight, realized she had the congregation in the palm of her paw. She zoomed out from the consecrated area, vaulted onto the back of a pew, ran along it as hands grabbed for her, then casually jumped off, only to catapult herself onto the exquisite maroon velvet curtains. She climbed the curtains into the balcony, where she discovered the