Masks (4 page)

I
t’s not easy to track a black cat in the dying light. The cat scrambles in and out of the trees’ shadows. Once it stops to look back over its shoulder at me, but each time it decides to keep going. Finally I lose track of it altogether.

Disappointed, I head back toward my house. In the distance, I hear my mother call to Jasmine and Harshil, telling them to come in. If she’s home from the hospital, it must be after six o’clock.

Where will the cat sleep tonight? Will it be able to catch any supper, wearing such a strong skunk odor?

I walk into the kitchen. My mother has begun cooking chicken. “There you are,” she greets me, turning from the stove. “It’s dark. I was starting to get worried.”

“Sorry,” I apologize. “I saw a stray cat in the yard and I was trying to catch it.”

She laughs lightly. “Oh, you and your cats. I should have known. Are you all right? Your father told me what happened with Mittens.”

“I’m OK, I suppose,” I reply. “I’m worried though.”

She nods and turns back to her cooking. “Dr. Mac will take good care of her,” she says.

I wish I could feel reassured.

“I hear you’ve accepted an internship at AVM Labs,” she mentions. “I’m very pleased, but surprised. Have you considered the amount of time it will take? You might have to cut down on your volunteering at Dr. Mac’s Place. We don’t want your grades to suffer.”

I hesitate. Then I decide to tell her what’s on my mind. “The truth is, Mom, I’m wondering if I’m meant to work closely with animals. I should have been more careful with Mittens. If I’d remembered not to leave her alone with the yarn, she wouldn’t have swallowed it.”

“It’s not your fault, honey. Cats get into all sorts of things they’re not supposed to,” she says. “Besides, you love helping animals. Working at the lab is a way to help them, too.”

The phone rings twice, and then Jasmine bursts into the kitchen waving the cordless. “It’s Maggie, for you, Sunita!” She hands the phone to me.

“Thanks.” I take the phone and wander toward the living room for some privacy. “Hi, Maggie,” I say.

“I have the most awesome news,” she launches in right away.

“About Mittens?” I ask hopefully.

“No. Sorry,” she says. “I mean, nothing bad has happened. Nothing at all has happened as far as I know. Gran is still watching her. This is about something completely different.”

“Oh, OK,” I say, feeling let down. “What?”

“Listen to this! Brenna’s mom was right—the woman who just moved in is an artist, and she’s offering a mask-making workshop. Four sessions this week for just twenty dollars! I went to the market with Brenna and her mom after you left. There was a sign-up sheet right there. I called Gran and she said I could sign up. Brenna’s mom
agreed, too. So I signed us all up! Can you go?”

“Hang on,” I say. I ask Mom for permission and she says OK, since it’s only four sessions. I tell Maggie I can.

“Great!” she says. “It starts Monday at four-thirty. Think of it—we’ll be able to go in her house and look around to see if she has any potions!”

Is Maggie serious? I think of the black cat and wonder if it really does belong to that woman. Being a witch’s cat is better than being no one’s cat.

What am I thinking? “That’s ridiculous. She’s not a witch!” I tell Maggie firmly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…whatever,” Maggie says. “But it’ll be fun to get into her place and look around!”

M
onday morning before school I bike over to see Mittens. She was still weak yesterday when I visited. I’m worried that she’s not much better by now.

“I’m concerned about that myself,” Dr. Mac admits when I ask her about it. “She shouldn’t still be so weak. And her temperature is running a little high.”

I slip quietly into the recovery room, open the cage door, and pet Mittens until she falls asleep. Then I gently close the door and head out to class.

After school I meet up with Maggie, Brenna, and David at Dr. Mac’s Place. We’d planned to
walk together to our first mask-making class. “I can’t go to the class,” I tell them. “I have to stay here at the clinic with Mittens.”

“Her condition hasn’t changed, Sunita,” Dr. Mac says. “Mittens will probably sleep for a while now. Why don’t you go. Mittens won’t even know you’re here if you stay.”

“You can come back later when she’s awake and knows you’re here,” Brenna adds.

“We’ll come right back and visit her after the mask class,” David suggests.

I shrug. “Well, OK.” I’m not really in the mood for doing anything, but I guess I have to get my mind off Mittens somehow.

I can’t seem to do it, though. As I walk down the road beside my friends, I picture Mittens lying there with her insides aching, and my nose tingles, that old crying feeling. I fight it down.

We soon come near the converted barn. It’s just a little way down the road from the clinic. “Look around for any sign of witchcraft,” Brenna says. “I’ve never seen a real witch.”

“And you’re not going to see one now,” I say dryly.

“Oh, be quiet, Sunita,” Maggie says. “You’re spoiling the fun.”

A sign on the front door says
MASK MAKERS COME IN
. When Brenna opens the door, it gives a long, squealing squeak straight out of a haunted-house movie. “She’s not a witch, huh?” Brenna whispers.

“Having a squeaky door doesn’t make you a witch!” I whisper back.

David speaks in a mysterious, scary voice. “We’ll soon see about that!” He breaks into maniacal laughter.

Maggie pokes him in the back. “You’re such a weirdo!”

We walk through a shadowy foyer to a very large room with an extremely high ceiling. Two big skylights let in the orange and red light of sunset. A kitchen is separated from the rest of the room by a four-foot-high divider. Its window gives a view of the woods behind the house. Two love seats sit in front of a stone fireplace that burns with a cozy fire. To the left is a wooden table with benches on either side. Five kids I recognize from school—three girls and two boys—are already seated at one end of the table.

What interests me most, though, are the masks that completely cover the wall by the
table. All the masks are animal faces made of clay or papier-mâché. An orange tiger with purple stripes outlined in gold has a mysterious smile. Is he going to be friendly or bite your hand off? It’s hard to tell. A lion with a lush mane of coiled golden wire bares two gleaming white ceramic fangs.

“They’re awesome,” Brenna says, looking at the masks.

A gray elephant mask hangs at the very top, waving his trunk out over the rest of the masks. His tusks look like stainless steel polished to a high shine.

Right at my eye level hangs a row of house-cat masks with various spots, stripes, and colorings. I admire each of them, but the last one makes me gasp. It isn’t a fantasy mask at all—it’s strikingly realistic. The mask is black with startling green eyes and wild black fur.

“What?” Brenna asks me.

“That last mask,” I say. “It looks like the black cat we saw last week.”

“How can you tell?” David asks. “We only saw the cat for a second.”

“It was in my yard Saturday night,” I tell
them. “I got a very close look at it. It has a nip out of its left ear, just like this mask. That’s got to be the cat.”

“Welcome, everyone!” A woman wearing a long purple Indian-print skirt comes into the room. She wears a red velvet vest over a flowing white shirt. She looks around at the class, but her gaze settles on me. Like the cat, she has huge green eyes. “We’ve met already, haven’t we?” she says to me.

My mind races. I know I’ve never seen her before! For some reason I picture the black cat, its green eyes staring at me. “I don’t think we have,” I murmur.

“Hmmm, I thought we had,” she says.

I now understand why my friends think this woman is a witch. She’s definitely not ugly, but she has high, sharp cheekbones and a thick mane of wild, gray-streaked black hair that hangs down past her shoulders.

She smiles at the class and begins to speak. “I am Michaela Griffin, and I will be your guide through the mysterious world of mask making.” Her voice is low, melodic, and a little scratchy, which I think sounds cool.

She begins passing out bundles of bendable
wire. “We’re going to create the mask framework from wire. Then we’ll build it in papier-mâché. I’ve picked these materials because it’s so easy to correct any mistakes, and papier-mâché doesn’t require baking or firing in a kiln. A good coat of varnish should finish it nicely.”

“Can we wear these for Halloween?” David asks.

“Yes, although I wouldn’t wear your mask out in the rain,” she replies. “Be careful with the mask if you wear it. I encourage you to think of your mask as a work of art rather than just a means to disguise yourself. Masks can be used to hide the real self, or to reveal it,” she says. “I prefer masks that reveal. They’re more interesting.”

I am soon totally involved in bending and shaping my wire form. But I’m only working on a face shape. I’m not sure yet what it will be.

A few days ago, I might have begun making a tiger mask like Maggie suggested. I almost could have believed what Maggie saw in me. Now, I don’t feel tigerlike at all. Which animal is careless, worried, and confused? That animal would represent me best. But I can’t think of one that acts that way.

“This is fun,” Brenna says. She’s making a
fox mask. I nod, realizing that I haven’t worried about Mittens since we walked in the door.

The time goes quickly, and soon we’re cleaning up. “See you all tomorrow,” Michaela says.

“What did you think of the class?” Maggie asks us as we walk down the road to the clinic.

“Fun,” Brenna answers.

“Yeah, cool,” David agrees.

“I think
Michaela’s
cool,” I say. “She’s so mysterious.”

“OK, Maggie, what did her eyes tell you?” David asks in his spooky voice.

“She’s nice, but sort of unusual. I need more time to figure her out,” Maggie admits.

We go back to the clinic to visit Mittens. She lies limp in her cage, barely managing to lift her head when we come in. Her eyes are dull and lifeless.

“Poor thing,” Brenna says sympathetically.

Mittens falls asleep and we all leave quietly. In the waiting room, Dr. Mac sits behind the reception desk filling out some forms.

“Mittens is about the same, Sunita,” Dr. Mac
tells me. “But her fever is not responding the way it should.”

I nod.

“I’m going to watch her very closely,” she says. “I’ll be taking her temp every hour.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“How was the mask-making class?” she asks us.

“Awesome!” Brenna and David say at the same time.

“I can’t wait to go back to Michaela’s tomorrow,” Brenna adds as she and David put on their jackets to leave.

“I can’t either,” Maggie agrees.

When I say nothing, they all look at me. “You liked it, too, didn’t you, Sunita?” Maggie asks.

“I loved it, but I…uh…I’m not sure I can make it to the mask class tomorrow,” I tell them.

“Why not?” David asks.

“I took an internship at AVM Labs. It starts tomorrow.”

“Are you crazy?” Brenna demands. “You can’t work at AVM!”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Animal research,” Brenna replies. “AVM does
tests on animals. Animals are killed just so scientists can run tests on them. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that!”

I hadn’t thought about any of this. I knew AVM made medicines to help animals, but I didn’t realize they tested on animals, too.

Dr. Mac looks up from the front desk. “Wait a minute, Brenna,” she says. “Slow down. AVM is—”

“—a kill lab,” Brenna interrupts. “A bad place where they kill animals.”

“It’s not that simple, Brenna,” Dr. Mac continues.

“It’s simple to me!” Brenna says angrily.

“Many new medicines are developed at AVM,” Dr. Mac insists. “The company is well-respected among veterinarians. They do very important work.”

“No one asks the animals how they feel about it,” Brenna says.

Dr. Mac sighs, then looks at me. “Sunita, I think an internship at AVM is a great opportunity for you. But I hope you won’t stop working here at the clinic. You are so wonderful with the animals.”