Cages (13 page)

“And when my twenty hours are up, I want to keep on coming. I’d like to be a volunteer, every week.”

Lynnette put her arms around Kit and hugged her.

Marcia and Mrs. Homer arrived a few minutes later.

“The dog I told you about isn’t here anymore,” Kit said.

“She got adopted already?” Marcia said. “Oh, rats, I was afraid of that.”

“Then we’ll just look at the other dogs,” Mrs. Homer said. “We’re here now and we’re all set to take a dog home. Maybe there’s one we’ll like even better.”

Kit thought fast. “The others aren’t free,” she said.

“That doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Homer said.

“I’ll show you where the kennels are,” Kit said.

She watched while Marcia and her mother went from cage to cage. Marcia covered her ears and complained about the
barking but Mrs. Homer seemed to feel sorry for the dogs. She stopped several times and let different ones sniff her fingers. When she came to a chubby tan dog, she clapped her hands, clearly delighted. Then she poked Marcia and pointed at the dog.

Kit knew the dog. It was Pansy, part cocker and part poodle. Kit had socialized Pansy on her last visit.

Kit got a leash, opened Pansy’s cage, and led her out to the exercise yard. Marcia and Mrs. Homer followed, talking excitedly about how much Pansy looked like Friskie, the dog they used to have.

As she listened to them, Kit knew they were going to take Pansy home with them. “I’ll let you get acquainted by yourselves,” she said, as she handed the leash to Marcia. “If you decide you want her, just go in the office and they’ll help you make the arrangements.”

“I can’t believe our good luck,” Mrs. Homer said. “We came to look at a different dog and here’s one that’s exactly what we want.”

“Even if Lady hadn’t been adopted already, we’d want Pansy,” Marcia said. “I can’t wait to take her home and teach her to fetch.”

“Tomorrow I’ll take her to the groomers,” Mrs. Homer said. “We’ll get her hair trimmed and have her bathed.”

“And put ribbons behind her ears,” Marcia added.

“We’ll need to buy a new doggie bed. Let’s look for a flowered one this time.”

“And toys!” Marcia said.

Mrs. Homer laughed. “Oh, yes. A ball and a chewbone so she doesn’t ruin the furniture and maybe one of those soft
squeaky toys for her to carry around. Remember how Friskie always liked those squeaky toys?”

It was like the night in Pierre’s all over again. Kit watched and listened, overwhelmed with envy. Why couldn’t Dorothy be more like Mrs. Homer?

As Kit walked back past the kennel, she heard harmonica music. Looking in, she saw Mr. Morrison sitting on his stool, playing a lively tune. When he saw her, he stopped playing and walked toward her.

“I heard your favorite pup got put down yesterday,” he said. “I’m sorry, girl. I am, indeed.”

“If only Wayne wasn’t so selfish and my mother wasn’t such a wimp,” Kit said, “Lady would still be alive. She’d be at my house right now, waiting for me to come home and play with her.”

“Don’t waste your life on if-onlys,” he said.

She scowled at him. She hoped he wasn’t going to give her some kind of a sermon.

“The animals have no control over their lives,” he said. “They can’t reach through the wire and open their own cages. But we humans can.”

“I could have set Lady free, if my mother had let me. But, no. She did what Wayne wanted. She always does what Wayne wants. Always!”

“Perhaps your mother is trapped, too.”

“You just said people don’t have to stay caged and you’re right. My mother doesn’t have to let Wayne control her. She has a choice.”

“So do you, girl.” He played a few haunting notes on his harmonica. Kit waited, not sure what he meant. “Don’t let
resentment and bitterness rob you of happiness,” he said. “Unlike Lady, you can set yourself free.”

Before Kit could respond, he turned away from her and went back in the kennel, playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as he walked.

What does he know? Kit thought. He’s just a foolish old man who plays music for dogs. How can he possibly know what would make me happy?

All the way home on the bus, Kit struggled to hold back her tears. She had come so close to finding a home for Lady. Kit leaned her forehead on the cool window and closed her eyes.

“Put to sleep.” “Euthanized.” “Put down.” No matter what phrase was used to try to make the ugly reality prettier, it still came down to the same thing.

Lady was dead.

K
IT couldn’t stop crying. She lay face down on her bed, choked with tears. She knew her eyes would be puffy and her nose would be red the next day. She knew that crying wouldn’t do any good, yet she couldn’t stop.

Lady’s death unleashed all of Kit’s pent-up feelings about anything bad that had ever happened. She cried because her stepfather drank too much and because she was sure Marcia would win the Ninth Grade Scholarship and because there were too many unwanted animals in the world. Most of all, she cried because everything she did seemed to go wrong.

After awhile, Dorothy stood tentatively in the doorway of Kit’s room and asked Kit if she would like something to drink. Kit shook her head.

“Why don’t you get up now?” Dorothy said. “You’ll feel better if you splash cold water on your face.”

Kit knew her mother was right but she shook her head again. She didn’t want to feel better. Not yet.

She heard Wayne ask, “Is she still carrying on?”

“We should have taken the dog,” Dorothy said. “I didn’t know Lady would be . . . that this would happen. We should have let Kit bring her home.”

“We can’t take in every flea-bitten stray in the whole kennel.”

“No. But she didn’t ask to bring them all home; she only asked for one.”

It was the first time Kit had ever heard Dorothy take her side against Wayne. Too bad she didn’t do it sooner, when it would have done Lady some good.

“Well, it’s too late now,” Wayne said. He lowered his voice but Kit could still hear anyway. “It was only a dog, Dorothy. Some stray mutt. The way she’s acting, you’d think it was one of us who died.”

Kit clenched her teeth together and burrowed her face into her pillow to keep from saying something she shouldn’t say. She heard Dorothy shushing Wayne as they left. “You don’t mean that, Wayne.”

Yes, he does, Kit thought. He means every word of it.

Half an hour later, there was a quick tap on her door. Tracy came in and stood beside Kit’s bed. She held a bouquet of daffodils.

“I brought these for you,” Tracy said. “I’m sorry about Lady.”

“How did you find out?”

“Your mother called me and asked if I could come over for awhile. She said she thought you might like someone to talk to.” She handed the flowers to Kit and sat beside her. “It’s odd,” she said. “This morning I was angry because Marcia was going to get the dog you wanted; now I’m angry because she
didn’t
get Lady.”

“Marcia took one of the other dogs,” Kit said.

“Did you have to pay the fee?”

“No.”

“Good. At least you still have your forty-five dollars. It would have bugged me if you had paid the fee for Marcia. Now you can do something fun with that money.”

Kit didn’t say so but she knew she wasn’t going to do anything fun with her baby-sitting money for a long time. Every dime of it was going to Wayne until she had repaid the three hundred dollars.

“You know what your mother said, when she let me in just now? She looked at the daffodils and said she wished she’d thought of that. And Wayne agreed.”

“Wayne said he wished he had bought me flowers? That’ll be the day.”

“I think Wayne wants to be friendly,” Tracy said, “only he doesn’t know how. I always feel as if he would like to talk to me but he isn’t sure what to say.”

“He said Lady was only a stray mongrel and he doesn’t understand why I’m crying.”

“That’s what I mean. He’s like somebody from another planet who has never seen people before. He really doesn’t understand.”

“Well, I don’t understand him, either, so we’re even.” Kit
went in the bathroom and splashed cool water on her face, soothing her aching eyes. She looked in the mirror and quickly looked away. Her face was red and blotchy. She looked like she was fresh from another planet herself.

“I started my original research,” Tracy said. “I talked to three people about their brothers and sisters. One girl told me that her brother used to collect spiders in a jar and turn them loose in her bedroom. I’ll never complain again about being an only child.”

Kit knew that Tracy was trying to cheer her up by changing the subject, but thinking about the speech she had to give on teenage shoplifting only made Kit feel worse. There was no way she was going to interview any store security people—just thinking about it made her stomach do cartwheels. Maybe she should try to talk to Tracy’s cousin, Glorie. She didn’t know any other teenaged shoplifters. Except herself.

The next afternoon during American History, two buzzers rang, alerting the class to a message on the intercom. The teacher waited.

“Please send Kit Hathaway to the office. Kit Hathaway to the office, please.”

Everyone looked at Kit.

“Go ahead, Kit,” the teacher said.

Kit got up and walked to the door. Why would she get called to the office?

When she got there, the school secretary said, “The principal wants to talk to you.”

Puzzled, Kit turned toward Mrs. Dobson’s office.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Mrs. Dobson said. “Your mother is in the hospital?”

“What happened? Was she in an accident?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any details. Someone from Overview Hospital called me and asked me to give you the message. I called back, to verify that it wasn’t a prank call. Your mother was admitted about an hour ago. She’s in the emergency room.” Mrs. Dobson opened a desk drawer and removed her purse. “I’ll drive you there, if you like,” she said.

“Yes. Thanks.”

“You’d better get your coat and anything else you’ll need. I’ll wait here for you.”

Kit hurried to her locker to get her things. She scribbled a quick note and stuck it through the slot in Tracy’s locker.
Dorothy’s in hospital. I’ll call you later. K
.

When Mrs. Dobson and Kit got to the emergency room waiting area, Wayne was pacing the floor. She hurried over to him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Wayne said. “She called me at work. Said she was in terrible pain. By the time I got home, she was in bad shape. Pale and shaky and sweating. She couldn’t even talk, to tell me what was wrong. We came straight to the hospital.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Mrs. Dobson asked, before she left.

“No,” Wayne said. “Thank you for bringing Kit.”

Wayne looked pale and shaky himself. “All I could think of in the car was that she’s having a heart attack. That’s how she looked to me, like she was having a heart attack.” He
gripped Kit’s arm. “But how could that be?” he said. “How could Dorothy have a heart attack?”

Kit knew what he meant. Dorothy ran six miles almost every day, she was thin, she had never smoked. How could she have a heart attack when she did everything possible to prevent one?

Still, what if it
was
a heart attack? What if Dorothy died?

All of the times she had criticized Dorothy flashed through Kit’s mind and she was overwhelmed with guilt. What a rotten daughter I’ve been, she thought. Maybe Dorothy isn’t the perfect parent, but I could have worse. In her own way, she tries and what have I ever done for her?

As if he was thinking exactly the same thing, Wayne said, “If Dorothy makes it through this, let’s try to get along better. It drives her nuts when we fight.” Wayne’s neck got red, as if it strained him to talk this way. “I’m not blaming you,” he said. “I know I haven’t been much of a father. I just don’t know how to act or what to say.”

“I haven’t been the world’s greatest daughter, either,” Kit admitted.

“The trouble is,” Wayne said, “Dorothy’s the one who gets hurt. I get mad at you and you get mad at me but it’s Dorothy who suffers. She’s spent the last five years trying to make us like each other.”

Kit knew he was right. She also knew that some doctors said stress can cause heart trouble. Was that what had happened to Dorothy? Was she so strung out because of Wayne and Kit that it had affected her health?