Bridget and the Secret Passageway

Sometimes it pays to talk to your cat, rather than your dad. In Bridget and the Secret Passageway, a nine year old girl is stunned to discover that her cat can talk, and that there are secret passageways that crisscross through her neighborhood. In the adventure that follows, Bridget and her friends outwit an evil queen and her minions, and learn that much can be accomplished if you learn to “think like a cat”!

Bridget’s adventure starts when she asks her dad if their renovations can include a secret passageway attached to her room. He tells her that this is impossible; but then her cat informs Bridget that her dad is just a silly, and that there are many secret passageways.

Bridget, of course, is delighted: both to have a talking cat, and to know about the passageways! Gray (her cat) teaches her how to assemble a magic bag that will enable her to shrink, and enter the passageways – cat-sized, mouse-sized, and bug-sized – that lead from her house past her school, and into the bedrooms of her friends.

When she gets to school, she tells her best friends Rosie, Zoe, and Elena about her conversation with Gray. The friends don’t really believe Bridget, but making a magic bag sounds like fun, so they start looking for the ingredients – crystals, four leaf clovers, cat hair, ladybugs, and lucky pennies – that will let them explore the secret passageways.

Eventually, Bridget and her friends – and Connor and Jordan, two “annoying boys” who overhear the secret of the magic bags – gain access to the hidden realm beneath the streets and schoolyard. Their fun is interrupted, though, when they are confronted by Queen Ecce and her nasty henchmen, the Judges. Bridget and her friends discover that the evil Queen and her assistants have a treasure room full of stolen pens, and cameras, and bowling trophies. They also have sharp sticks, wet webs that ensnare their prey, and a dungeon replete with creepy crawly things in the corners.

Bridget and her friends need to find a way to reclaim their parents’ possessions, and thwart the Queen and the Judges – without ending up in the dank, repugnant dungeon. Things look bleak when the children and the cats (Gray and her brother Suzie) are trapped, and locked away in the dungeon. But the clever girls find a way to turn the tables, retrieve the stolen treasures, and capture Queen Ecce and her malevolent gnomes. In the end, Bridget is dozing happily, with the newfound knowledge of why it can be helpful to “think like a cat”.