The lamp shattered. The crash was loud enough to wake a real neighbor: Mrs. Gable from next door, a woman whose hobbies included knitting and filing noise complaints.
It started with a stray tabby, Barnaby, who found a broken latch on the basement window. He was followed by a one-eyed pug named Gus, who simply refused to leave the welcome mat. Then came the crow, a scruffy philosopher named Poe, who could work the kitchen faucet handle with his beak.
In the center of the room, on a low table, lay a document. Harold picked it up. It was a lease addendum, typed on an old Remington—the same model Harold himself used to write the original lease. It had been amended in careful, claw-typed letters.
Harold smiled. "Alright," he said. "But I get the bedroom with the working radiator."
Then he heard it: a tiny click from the basement.