Chapter 2 Tummy Aches and Missed Calls
While the Cairo team, made up of the Professor, Anemo, and Remi-Bise, was doing everything they possibly could to tackle all the obstacles in their way, the furry team back in Ireland was trying their hardest to keep in touch with them, either by phone or via FaceTime.
Every single day, straight after school, Fleur would come over. She would fill the furries’ bowls with biscuits, and then they would call from Remi’s phone. Because, you see, Fleur was only seven years old, and her parents didn’t think she should have a mobile phone at her age.
On Thursday, 24th September, Fleur ran home after school, completely out of breath. First, she burst into her own house, dumped her schoolbag in the hallway, and then grabbed the key to Anemo’s house from the peg. She dashed out impatiently, shouting:
“I’m off to feed the cats!” to her mum or dad, or whoever was home and could hear her.
Inside the House of Winds, the furries were waiting for her, just as impatient as she was.
“Come on, Fleur! The carabine is over, and, and.."
“Mon cher Sirocco, qu'il est bête... It’s not carabine, it’s quarantine! Ah, these kids... Vite, Fleur, give us the biscuits and let’s call Cairo! Before the little one locks us in a quarantine with a carabine "
“Calm down, Mistral, we’re not starving. Let’s call first!” suggested Aeolus, our very own Agent 003.5.
They all piled into the living room, where Remi’s phone was waiting on the coffee table. Fleur quickly tapped in the passcode: 210626.
“Call Anemo!” said Aeolus.
“Call the Professor!” said Mistral.
“Shush, it’s ringing!” the little girl said. “We’re calling Anemo.”
But there was only a long, continuous ringing, followed by voicemail.
“Ma–maybe he forgot his phone in the flat. Call the Professor. My tummy aches from all this... what do you call it? All this stress,” Sirocco pondered out loud.
Fleur looked up the Professor’s name in the contacts, but before she could even press call, a ringtone startled them. They were getting a call! The screen showed it was from Archibald Peter Stone and, obviously, it wasn’t for them—it was for Remi...
“What do I do now?” the girl whispered, as if she was afraid Archibald might hear her from the other end of the line.
“What do you mean, what do you do? Don’t answer! We’ll wait a bit and try again...” Mistral snapped, completely forgetting his polite “Parisian upbringing”.
They kept trying to call, sometimes the Professor, sometimes Anemo, but nobody answered.
“You know, Sirocco, my tummy hurts too. Let’s cross our fingers for them. I don’t know what to say, after all that trouble with the quarantine... I just hope Miss Remi is okay and that she’s back to her human shape... but what if she isn’t?” The little girl placed the phone down on the thick grey carpet and turned to Aeolus with a trembling voice:
“Please, can you go on the internet and look up...”
“On it, boss! What am I looking for?”
“The rules for a cat returning to Ireland after spending two weeks in quarantine in Egypt.”
Aeolus immediately started typing with all his paws across the screen. After just a few seconds, he began to read in a small, but what he hoped sounded like a serious, voice:
“If the cat has a European Pet Passport issued in Ireland, and the rabies vaccine is up to date, the rules for returning from Egypt depend entirely on when the blood test (rabies titration test) was done:
1. THE QUICK SCENARIO (Blood test done in Ireland before leaving):
- If the rabies antibody blood test was done in the EU and stamped in the passport before the pet left for Egypt, the cat can return to Ireland IMMEDIATELY after finishing the 14 days of quarantine in Egypt.
- There is no waiting period. The Irish passport and the EU medical history are enough.
2. THE DELAYED SCENARIO (Blood test NOT done in Ireland):
- Because Egypt is a high-risk country for rabies (non-listed), a valid vaccine on its own is not enough to get back into the country.
- The owner will have to get a vet in Egypt to do the blood test.
- From the day the blood sample is taken, the cat is legally required by EU law to spend another 3 MONTHS in Egypt before being allowed to fly back to Ireland.
MUST-DO FORMALITIES BEFORE FLYING (for both scenarios):
- Health Check: An authorised vet in Egypt must check the cat 48 to 120 hours before the flight to sign papers proving the animal is clinically healthy and fit to travel (very important after that sneezing episode).
- Advance Notice: The owner must email a notification to the vet service at the arrival airport in Ireland (e.g., petmove@agriculture.gov.ie for Dublin Airport) at least 24 hours before landing.
- Arrival Check (Compliance Check): Upon landing in Ireland, the cat must go through the vet control point to have its microchip scanned and documents checked before leaving the airport.”
Aeolus stopped reading abruptly. His whiskers twitched in a panic and he swallowed hard, staring at the numbers on the screen.
“Keep going, Aeolus! What does all that mean?” the little girl asked.
“Er, we don’t need to worry about that part. Remi the cat has all her paperwork and, with all my heart, I hope she won’t even need cat papers anymore... Maybe Remi is back in her own body and right now she’s with Anemo, visiting the pyramids or that bazaar... what’s it called?”
“Khan el-Khalili,” Mistral said with a long sigh, raising his left paw to tidily fix a rogue whisker. “But forget the bazaar, Aeolus! Tell us everything. You’re staring at that screen as if you’ve just seen a hoover turned on! What scared you so much?”
Aeolus looked away from the glowing screen and stared straight into Fleur’s big, worried eyes. He lay down on his tummy, letting his tail thump softly against the grey carpet in a steady, fast beat that showed just how nervous he was.
“Look here, at the bottom of the page, there’s something I didn’t read out loud,” Aeolus said, swallowing hard. “It says it right here, in black and white: ‘If the arriving animals do not meet absolutely all the EU health requirements during the check at Dublin Airport, the authorities may decide to send them straight back to the country of origin, or put them into mandatory official quarantine in Ireland at the owner's expense, for a period of up to... three months!’”
A shiver of panic ran through the living room. Sirocco huddled so close to Fleur that the little girl could feel his heart thumping like a windmill.
“Three months?!” Sirocco mewed, rolling his eyes. “But what if Remi is stuck in her cat body and they lock her in a cage at the airport? She’ll die of boredom .Fleur, do something! Tell us they did that blood test before they left Dublin!”
Fleur ran her hand through her messy hair, looking back and forth between the phone and the three furries, who were staring back at her with intense, hopeful eyes.
“I don’t know what paperwork they took with them,” the little girl admitted in a low voice. “If it was up to Anemo... well, you know what he's like. He’s so absent-minded with his novels that he’d probably forget his own passport, let alone the cat’s! If he had to organize the paperwork, he’d definitely leave the blood test until the very last minute and the plane would end up leaving without him.”
“Ah, quite right, l'écrivain with his head in the clouds,” Mistral snorted, agreeing. “Anemo would be completely capable of mixing up Remi’s papers with his manuscript about the pharaohs.”
“Yes, but don’t forget Professor Simoon went with them too!” Aeolus chimed in, raising his tail like a banner of hope. “And the Professor, his dad, is the most organized person on the planet! He leaves nothing to chance. He has charts, lists, ring binders, and he double-checks everything three times over. If the Professor had a hand in packing the bags, I guarantee you that Remi’s blood test is done, stamped, and tucked into the right section of that Irish passport.”
“I really hope you’re right, Aeolus,” Fleur said, stroking Sirocco’s back to calm him down. “The Professor is our saving grace. Mind you... why aren’t they answering the phone? That scares me even more than the paperwork. What if something happened to them in Cairo?”
Mistral stepped closer, looking at the screen where the missed call from Archibald Peter Stone still showed up as a red notification, like a warning sign.
“Mon Dieu, if Arbalest keeps insisting, it means things at the Dublin office are getting complicated. Remi-Bise has been missing from her ‘human shape’ for way too long, and our excuses aren’t going to work for much longer. If Stone finds out that the author who gave the world ‘Women Can’t Be Tamed’ is actually a white cat wandering around Egypt, we’re completely done for.”
“Don’t be such a drama queen, Mistral! Now my tummy hurts too... Come on, we’d better get the topknot girl to feed us... and I want a coffee bean, obviously.”
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