Animal | House

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 arrived at 9 PM with a spare key, a flashlight, and a deep sense of dread. He unlocked the door. The house was silent. Dust motes danced in the beam. He walked to the kitchen. No animals. No cake. Just a clean counter and a faint whiff of lemon polish.

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. Animal House

From the kitchen upstairs, the toaster lever popped up on its own. Nobody had touched it.

She peered through the window. What she saw was a crow holding a slice of cake, a pug wearing a lampshade like a Elizabethan collar, and a tabby trying to flush a squirrel down the toilet. In the center of the room, on a low table, lay a document

Not a human kingdom. An Animal House.

He should have been angry. He should have evicted them. Instead, Harold Finch, who had lived alone for eleven years, who had no one to talk to but the mail slot, sat down on the basement sofa. It had been amended in careful, claw-typed letters

Signed, The Residents (Barnaby, Gus, Poe, Pixel, Margot, Chestnut)