Dedicated to Roxie, happy birthday!

Race took a deep breath and got ready to attack the thing in the kitchen. Whirling around the door frame he shot, two guns flaring, one with fire and the other with bullets. He shot at all the baseboards, into the couches, everywhere he could think of. Slowly he lowered his guns and looked in.

Carnage.

He walked into the room, bent to look at something and groaned. The trap had been sprung. The bait was gone. The rat was no where to be seen.

Swearing creatively he marched out of the room, past the kitchen where the critter had first been found, and upstairs to his room. The kids and Benton had gone out that morning, said they were going to see Air Force One. Mrs. Evans had gone to visit a sick brother and he had the whole house to himself.

He had a whole day to catch that rat. Correction. At one point, he'd had a whole day to catch that rat. Now he had a few hours.

He sighed. Happy birthday. At least it wasn't too bad, he'd kept his birthday secret from the Quests for all these years, and he did have the house to himself. Even the cats had gone, choosing to go exploring. Yup, it was nice and quiet. Silent, as a matter of fact. You could even heard a . . . RAT!!

Twisting around and bringing his pistol up he shot at the baseboards, seeing the sick thing disappear under the loveseat. Running over he pulled the thing away from the wall, looking behind it. An ugly long tail disappeared around the corner.

Jumping down, he raced into the other room, cursing as he knocked over a lamp. The thing ran into the corner, looked around and saw it was trapped. Race grinned and raised his gun, was just about to fire when the phone rang. His arm jerked and he looked away, giving the rodent the chance it needed to escape.

He sighed and reached over to a table to pick up the phone. "What?!"

A cheerful voice laughed on the other end. "Well don't you sound pleasant!"

Race softened grudgingly. "Hey, Risk. What's up?" It had taken him a little while to get used to the thought that the partner he'd buried so long ago was actually alive, but he had and now she called every so often. He didn't have her number, security and all.

"Just wanted to call and say happy birthday!"

Race groaned. "You didn't tell anyone, did you?"

"Of course not. I thought singing happy birthday over the telephone would be enough torture." She cackled evilly, then proceeded to sing, off key and quite tunelessly, Happy Birthday.

"Thanks." Race said dryly, his ears burning from listening to something akin to nails across a chalkboard. He knew Risk had a very nice singing voice, he'd heard once when he'd surprised her in her office. She just never used it in public.

"No problem, anytime!" She said cheerfully, ignoring the sarcasm in his voice. "I have to go, some silly little thing like my bedroom is on fire or something. Later!"

He laughed and hung up the phone, then felt something scurry over his foot. He yelped with disgust as the rat ran out, then chased it down the hall. He would get rid of the thing.

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In two hours he had ruined the kitchen and living room, broken three lamps (Not including the library one), burned a whole in the rug, and embarrassed himself thoroughly when the gardener had come by. And he had half an hour to clean up the mess and catch that rat. He had it this time, he was sure of it. Trapped in a corner, with no way to get out. Perfect. He raised his gun, and stared in amazement as it misfired.

The rat escaped.

As he showed off his rather large swear word vocabulary, he tracked the thing into the kitchen, where it disappeared into the wall. Race gave one last word to burn ozone, then walked back into the living room to pick up. Things people had said to him floated through his mind, Jessie with "Let's get a humanitarian rat trap."

"Race, we'll just call an exterminator" had been Benton's.

"I'm not picking up squished rats if you lay out those traps, dad." Was Jonny.

Race sighed and swept the remains of the lamp into a dustpan. He had picked up two lamps and a book. He only had the rest of the house to go. And five minutes to do it in.

That was when he heard a noise. Drawing his gun he headed out, down the hall, up the stairs, into Jessie's room. There, once he saw the room was clear, he relaxed. Until the box full of magazines (Seventeen, Fit and Harley-Davidson) moved. Slowly he walked that way, peered in, and saw the rat stuck. Race smiled. What a great birthday. The house to himself (although he saw beginning to think it was awful quiet), a bucket of ice cream in his bedroom frigde, no one knowing it was his birthday, and a dead rat.

He aimed, sighted . . .and couldn't fire. The little thing looked so helpless. Race sighed. Well, at least he'd caught it. He'd take it out into a field somewhere and let it go.

He stuck his gun in the back of his pants, then picked the box up and walked downstairs. As he stepped closer to the door he turned, balancing carefully as he tried to work the door open with a few free fingers.

That was when Jonny and Jessie burst through the door, quickly followed by the cats, Mrs. Evans, Estella, Hadji and Benton. Not to mention Bandit and Risk. Race was thrown back, the box flying through the air to land on it's side while that rat scurried out.

"SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" They shouted gleefully.

Race held back the urge to strangle them as he sat on the floor, his butt sore.

"Risk. You said you didn't tell them," He growled.

Risk smiled. "I didn't. Jessie already knew. Now what are you doing on your butt? Get up, lazy! Help us with this giant cake!" Risk said, laughing.

Benton appeared to be in shock. "Race . . . what did you do to my house?!"

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Well, I tried to send Roxie a Happy birthday note, but my messages kept getting returned. So instead, I wrote a short story! Consider it a birthday present! Happy birthday, Dr. Roxie! I hope yours was better than Race's!

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Author's notes:

1) I have nothing against rats, in fact I own two of them and I think their tails are the best part! (I can hear the "eeew"s now!)

2) The cats (as I refered to them in this story) are my characters from Caterwaul, Kit Dana and Colin. They're not really cats, but it's a lot to explain here. Ask if you're curious.

3) Risk is someone I made up from the story "Shadowy Domain." Go read it! (Why yes, this *is* an unabashed plug!)

4) I'm making no money, don't sue.

5) There is no 5.

Shakti

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