Meggie shouted, "Mr. Cork, I'll give you three strips of bacon if you beat out old Lummley!"

Old Lummley was a champion. He knew his business, and needed only to see his mistress, Mrs. Foe, standing at the finish line, her arms crossed over her mighty bosom whistling the same tune over and over, to ran straight and fast. He'd gotten a touch of arthritis over the last year and the experts predicted it would soon slow him down.

Four-year-old Rory Sherbrooke loved Cleopatra, although she twitched her tail and ran away from him whenever he was close enough to try to grab her. Rory waved frantically as he sat atop his father's shoulders, yelled until his father believed he would surely go deaf.

Meggie patted Rory's leg, then saw Mr. Cork suddenly pull away from Cleopatra, who'd just landed short on one of her leaps. There was a moan and a cheer from the crowd who lined the racetrack.

Cheering intensified. Five cats remained, running as hard as they could, all in splendid shape, all wanting to win. Four of them were grouped together-Cleopatra, Blinker II, Old Lummley, and Mr. Cork. They were moving fast, faster still. Candace, just behind them, her head down, was looking neither right nor left, just running hard out to catch the pack.

Suddenly, from the back came Tiny Tom, leaping over racers in front of him. His leap was a bit like Cleopatra's but with an added corkscrew flair just before he landed. The crowd held its breath as the small cat leapt over Horace, barely skimming the proud flag flying off that fat tail. Then, in the next moment, Tiny Tom landed, by awful accident, on Blinker II's back, causing the racer to twist about, bite Tiny Tom's ear, sending them both howling and spitting off the track and into Mrs. Blanchard, eighty years old and deaf, and tangle in her long skirts as she hit at them with her parasol.