Pip had found the best spot in Cloverbell Alley: a sunny windowsill above the brick houses, warm as fresh bread. He sat there with one crooked ear tipped toward the street and his striped tail curled beside a row of flower pots. The pots belonged to different neighbors, but they all leaned together in the same long line, their leaves a little limp and dusty at the edges.
Pip peered down at them. The day was mild and cloudy, so they should not have looked thirsty already. Yet one pot had dry soil showing like brown crumbs, and then another, and then another. Pip gave a tiny sniff. “That is new,” he murmured, because Pip always liked new things first.
Below him, Cloverbell Alley bent past the bakery windows and the sleepy clock shop. A bicycle clinked by. Somewhere a cat yawned in a doorway. Then Nora came into view under the windowsill, her mustard cardigan bright against the gray bricks, and she stopped short with her tote bag of folded market cloths hugged to her side.
She looked up at the pots, then toward the alley lane where a stack of planks and crates blocked the way to the only working pump. Pip followed her gaze. The pump was there, but the blocked lane made it impossible to reach quickly.
Pip flicked his tail once. The flowers needed water soon, but if someone hurried in the wrong way, there could be a spill, a slip, or a bigger mess than thirsty pots. Pip could stay and watch, or go find help, or try to think of a way to get water across the blocked lane without wasting any.
What happens next?
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