The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook (11 page)

ometimes a revved-up imagination is useful. I did come up with one great idea last night, even though I realize that it's a crime:

I will cat-nap Zook from the vet.

I didn't really have a plan at first. In fact, I wasn't even thinking about smuggling
out
. I was thinking about that time Zook was smuggled
in
. In to the hospital to visit my dad, Zook all covered up by a green-and-white napkin with tiny red strawberries stitched around the edges, one of the special-occasion napkins that belonged to my mother's great-aunt Rose.

“This picnic for your father is a special occasion,” my mother had said.

My father had lifted up one corner of that napkin, and when he saw Zook inside, he said, “What's this? A furry taco?” We cracked up at my father's joke, my mom and I, giggling like goofballs.

Of course, his joke wasn't
that
funny. My dad was capable of much more hilarious jokes, believe you me. It's just that he hadn't made a joke for a while, and it really felt like old times, good times, again. I guess that's why I keep thinking about that morning in the hospital over and over.

Anyway, today I'm dancing at O'Leary's while planning and remembering all of this. The song playing on Mario's boom box is “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” sung by Marvin Gaye. I like that song, and all of a sudden, it has personal meaning for me, like some sort of sign that my cat-napping plan is a good one. My mother says that the best songs have personal meaning for you. In this song, a guy is complaining because someone tells him that his love prefers someone else, someone she used to love before.

Don'tcha know that I heard it through the grapevine,
Not much longer would you be mine!

I start imagining the Villain singing those words. The Villain sounds like Marvin Gaye when he sings, in my mother's opinion. But it won't be the grapevine telling my mom the truth about the Villain. And it won't be me taking away her happiness. It will be Zook himself. Actually, the Villain himself, confessing all when confronted with Zook in my arms.

THE VILLAIN (reeling backward in total shock): Why—why—it's my old cat, Mud!

ME: Yes, it's him all right, you cat-shooter, you!

THE VILLAIN (beginning to tremble and sweat): How—how do you know all that?

ME: I have my ways! I know everything!

MY MOM (forehead wrinkled with confusion): I don't understand! How could he be your old cat? Why are you trembling and sweating? Oona, what do you mean by “cat-shooter”? And our cat's name is Zook!

ME (looking at the Villain and narrowing my eyes): Go ahead. 'Fess up!

I'm not sure if the Villain will confess everything or not. Time will tell. But his behavior will alert my mother to his
real character. She'll know something is fishy. They'll part ways, and then I'll tell her all the terrible details. She'll probably thank me.

And now that I think of it, cat-napping Zook won't be a crime because the stolen goods belong to me in the first place. I have a plan, too. I'll remove the screen I just happened to notice in the window over Zook's cage. Then I'll tell a big blue whopper. I'll say that when Zook smelled his beloved owner walking by, he jumped up, clawed through the screen, and leaped out the window. Just like Miraculo/Jewel did in my story for Fred! My dad always said that art imitates life. This will be life imitating art. Well, actually, a blue whopper imitating my story, a green whopper.

Except now I just realized I'll have to come up with another plan. There's probably an alarm on that window.

I begin to wonder if all crimes start this way. For instance, bank robberies. Maybe the bank robbers aren't bad guys to begin with, just people who can't get good jobs. They start imagining an easy way to get money to buy food for their families or gifts for their younger brothers and sisters, and before you know it, they've worked out a plan. In their minds, the plan is foolproof and no one will get hurt, and as soon as
things get better in their lives, maybe they'd even give some of the money back.

I mention my theory about bank robbers to Mario while Freddy and I are having our Daily Slice at O'Leary's. Fred's also wolfing down a big plate of zook.

Mario pinches his nose a few times with one hand, a sign that he's thinking about the topic at hand. Mario is another one of my father figures, but I chose him myself. Mario is very wise. Not only as a pizza businessman, but in lots of other ways. He never had a chance to go to college, but he is an
autodidact
, he told me. An autodidact is a person who has taught himself most of what he knows, and Mario knows a lot, believe you me. I would like to be an autodidact, too—shorten my hours at school, learn whatever I like, whenever and from whomever I like. Kind of like a school furlough. Of course, my mother disapproves.

“People do things they wouldn't ordinarily do when they're desperate,” Mario says about those imaginary bank robbers. “That's why we call them
desperadoes
. They are doing something rebellious for a very good, understandable reason.”

That's so Mario! Wise and kind at the same time.

Desperado
is a good word.

Meanwhile, Freddy keeps jumping up to look out the front door of the store every time he thinks he hears a motorcycle pulling up.

“Freddy, sit down and eat!” I say.

Mario gives me a quick, sharp look, and I know he's wondering why I'm snapping at my brother. I never, ever snap at Freddy that way, but I can't help it today.

“Freddy is obsessed with motorcycles lately,” I say. “It's a bit unhealthy, in my opinion.”

“Maybe it's Dylan he likes?” Mario asks.

“No, it's the motorcycle,” I say.

But I know Mario is right, as usual.

I have so many questions about love! What makes it true, and what makes it not-so-true? Why does love seem so hard, and why is almost every single song about love so sad? I don't want to make my mother unhappy. But shouldn't she find out the truth?

And what about Freddy's little hurting heart?

I want to ask Mario's advice, but there just isn't time. Hundreds and hundreds of lovey-dovey texts are probably zooming back and forth between my mother and the Villain right this very second.

I jump up from my seat. “We have to go home now,” I blue-whopper. “My mother is coming home early.”

“That's nice,” says Mario.

I saw the Villain put his hand on my mom's shoulder when they were washing dishes together last night. Things are happening way, way too quickly. I am a DESPERADO!

“Come, Freddy,” I say. I grab his hand, and out the door we go.

here are we going? Why are we rushing?” Freddy asks. His short legs are pumping away because I'm walking so fast, almost running.

“We're not rushing,” I say.

“Yes, we are,” he says, panting a bit.

He's right. It feels like a big whoosh of wind is blowing me down the street. I want to get started on my new plan before I lose my nerve.

“OK, we're going to the vet and I'm rushing because I want to get there before visiting hours are over,” I say.

“I didn't know there were visiting hours at the vet,” says Fred.

Actually, no one had mentioned anything about visiting
hours. I'd even looked for a big sign announcing the hours, like the sign on the wall at the hospital where my father had been, but I hadn't seen one at the Good Samaritan Veterinary Clinic.

“Of course there are visiting hours!” I say, and the thought that there really aren't makes me angry. I walk even faster.

We've reached the clinic. We go up the front stairs, then through the big glass doors.

There are two Good Samaritan receptionists at the front desk. I notice that one of them is wearing a T-shirt that says D
OG
I
S
G
OD
S
PELLED
B
ACKWARD
. Under normal circumstances, I'd want to spend some time pondering that, but now all I have time to think about is Zook and my plan.

PLAN

STEP ONE: Freddy and I somehow stroll through the door toward the examining rooms.

STEP TWO AND ALIBI: If someone questions us, we and our mom brought our gerbil in for a regular exam. We're just strolling the hallway while we wait for it to be examined, that's all.

STEP THREE: Hunt for the big room where all the over-nighters are kept.

STEP FOUR: Find it.

STEP FIVE: Somehow free Zook and somehow hide him under my sweatshirt and smuggle him out, just for a few hours or so.

PROBLEMS: Too many “somehows.”

“May I help you?” asks a receptionist, not the one wearing the D
OG
I
S
G
OD
S
PELLED
B
ACKWARD
T-shirt. This one is wearing dangly, sparkly earrings with circles and spokes. They look like cat toys, and under normal circumstances I'd probably warn her about those earrings. Not the greatest fashion choice if you work around cats.

Instead, I say, “We're waiting to meet my mother. She's parking the car. She'll be here in a few minutes with our sick gerbil.”

Freddy turns toward me, his eyes popping out of his head. Even Freddy, who believes almost everything, gets that this is a great big whopper.

“Do you have an appointment?” Sparkly Earrings asks.

“It's an emergency,” I say. “He was turning as purple as an eggplant and throwing up and seeing double. So we came right over.”

“Oh, my,” says Sparkly Earrings.

“His name is Matilda,” I continue, sitting down on the scratched red couch. “We thought he was a girl at first, that's why he's called Matilda. It's not easy figuring out those kinds of things with gerbils. Of course, we couldn't tell for sure that he was seeing double, except that he kept nibbling on an invisible garbanzo bean and an invisible carrot stick near the real garbanzo bean and carrot stick. He also smells funny.”

I figure if I give lots of details, my story will sound real and true. I learned that from my father.

I continue. “Matilda smells like pot roast. It's weird.”

“And also pickle pancakes,” says Freddy, really getting into the blue-whopper thing. I know my brother very well. The poopy jokes will be next.

Sparkly Earrings doesn't help matters. “Maybe Matilda ate something that's upset his little tummy,” she says.

“Maybe,” I say, frowning at Freddy.

“He's really poopy!” Freddy says, giggling. “Super-duper stinky poopy!”

I ignore him and try to look worried about Matilda for the both of us, easy to do because I'm worried about a real patient named Zook. And worried about my plan, too, which seems silly now, in real life. Not to mention almost impossible. The last time I'd been at the Good Samaritan Veterinary Clinic, it
had been very busy. I'd felt practically invisible. It's not busy at all today, and Freddy and I aren't invisible.

“SUPER-DUPER STINKY POOPY!” shouts Freddy. He has his head in my lap. He's giggling so hard, his nose is running.