The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook (14 page)

am dreaming about a cat's purr.

A cat's purr is beautiful, like a strange lullaby.

Prrrrrrr … Prrrrrrr …

A cat's purr feels like a car's motor running.

A cat's purr has a smell, too, of kibble and litter and rain and sun and all the people who love it.

And if I could taste a purr, I bet it would taste like taffy. Or the maple syrup on my pancakes for breakfast.

I'm thinking all this in my dream. I'm hungry for syrup on pancakes, so I make a dream decision. I decide to wake up. You can sometimes do that while you're sleeping—ever notice?

Except now that I'm awake, I still hear that purring. I feel
something warm and heavy lying across my legs. I open my eyes, lift my head, and take a peek.

And there's Zook! A real-life Zook, stretching his big brown limbs and looking straight at me with his denim-blue eyes! I am not dreaming. At least, I don't think so. I pinch my arm like you're supposed to do when you're checking those things out. The pinch hurts.

I am not dreaming.

I begin to cry tears of joy. These are my first tears of joy ever. Three seconds ago, I didn't believe in tears of joy. But what do you know? Here they are.

Zook meows, then pulls himself up and lumbers over to me across the blankets. He licks my tears of joy. I draw my blanket over both of us. He still has that alcohol-banana smell from the vet.

“Welcome home, big Zook,” I say.

Now my mother comes into the bedroom, my brother Freddy behind her. “We were waiting for both of you to wake up!” Fred says. He jumps onto my bed and crawls under the blanket with me and Zook.

“You have your shoes on,” I say.

“Oh, I forgot,” says Freddy, kicking them off under the covers.

“Zook was lying outside your bedroom all night, waiting to come in,” my mother says. And she lies down beside me, her arm around both me and Fred, a pretty full lower bunk. My mom and I are looking into each other's eyes. She smells so good. She looks happy again. I'm glad.

“I'm thinking about—” I say. My mother hugs me.

“I know,” she says.

I'm thinking about that time in the hospital with my mom and me in the bed with my father and the wicker basket and the napkin with strawberries on it, and the same alcohol-banana smell, and Zook purring so loud, just like now. Just like that other time, I have to get up to pee. But now I don't want to think about that other time anymore, because today is a Beau Soleil happy day. Zook is home.

So I get up and go to the bathroom and then I blow my nose. When I come back, my mother is still lying with Zook, and she has a certain Look on her face. A kind of scrunched up Look that means she has to say some hard things.

“What?” I ask.

“Three things,” she says. “Actually, four things. Number one: This was Dylan's doing, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's a nurse, Oona, and feels very comfortable using
a needle to give subcutaneous fluids.
Subcutaneous
means ‘under the skin.' He's going to help us care for Zook at home. He really wants to do that. And Oona, I like him.” She touches my cheek, and her own cheeks are pink. “I know he came into our lives all of a sudden. But you'll like him, too. I know you will. So no more name-calling. Please, Oona.”

I open my mouth to say something. I guess I leave it open too long, looking for the right words to keep my mom so happy. But my mother is already moving on.

“Two: No more dancing at O'Leary's. I've already spoken to them.”

I nod dully. I was kind of expecting that.

“Three: Dylan will be picking up Fred from now on.”

“On his bike?” I say. Freddy whoops with excitement and does a somersault on the bed.

“He has a car,” says my mother. “Actually, a truck.” Freddy whoops again, just a bit less excitedly. He likes trucks, as do I. I really think pickups are cool, except that's way beside the point. But there's no time to plead my case, because my mom is on to Number Four.

“And four: I'm forbidding you to wear that Raiders sweatshirt anymore.”

“No way,” I say. I wiggle away from my mother and sit up.

“Way,” says my mother, trying to be cool.

“But it smells like Daddy,” I cry out.

“Oona, it doesn't smell like anyone but you. It doesn't get laundered enough to smell of anything else. It stinks, frankly. OK, OK, I don't mean that exactly.” My mother looks guilty, as if she's just called me a bad name. “But it smells like pizza and the alley, and our own kitchen, and all the places Oona Armstrong hangs out. Not bad smells, but not the odors you want on something you wear. Every day.”

“STINKS!” agrees Freddy, snuggling contentedly against Zook.

I walk over to the sweatshirt, flung on a chair. I pick it up and bury my nose in it. Dad. Sugarless gum and pine needle soap. Fainter and fainter, maybe just a memory. But still him.

“It doesn't smell bad,” I say. “Those are your own subjective opinions.” I've always wanted a chance to say that, ever since I found out what
subjective
means. “Mom, I think we should agree to disagree about this,” I add.

And “agree to disagree” is one of the maturest things a person can say.

“We can agree to disagree all you want, but you're still not wearing that sweatshirt anymore.” My mother is sitting up now, and her mouth is that angry, straight line, which means
“over her dead body,” which would make Freddy and me orphans. I can't win.

“Well, I'm going to stay in my bedroom forever then,” I say. I can hear how babyish I sound.

Actually, for about ten seconds, I really mean it. I will be Autodidact Kid in my Raiders sweatshirt. I will stay in my room and learn everything I need online all by myself. And I'm sure I can convince Gramma Dee to sneak in tons of books, too, along with my meals. Gramma Dee loves sharing books and discussing them. She and Soma attend two book groups together.

During these ten seconds, out of the corner of my eye, I can see Zook pulling himself up and moving toward the end of my bunk. My mother and I are still staring each other down, and I'm thinking my Autodidact Kid thoughts. Only Freddy notices Zook climbing onto the chair.

“Look!” he says.

Zook is standing on top of my sweatshirt, and he's kneading it back and forth, back and forth, with his big front paws. That's what cats do when they're sleepy and about to hunker down for a snooze. It's instinctive, going back to when they were kittens drinking their mama's milk. I myself get a warm milk feeling inside me, watching Zook do that.

“Everything's settled, then,” says my mother. “Looks like your sweatshirt is now officially a cat bed. At least Zook likes that smell.” She gives me a quick look.

I duck my head, trying hard to hide my smile.

“Hey, saw that smile!” my mother says.

There's an old, old custom in my family. It began way back before I was born, when my parents were first married. If there's an argument going on and one of the arguers smiles, then the argument's over and a compromise must be reached.

“All right,” says my mother. “A compromise must be reached. You can wear that sweatshirt once a month. Take the deal or leave it. Now get dressed. Dylan's coming over to begin Zook's home treatment. And no black. I'm tired of seeing you in that color.”

“Black's not a color,” I say.

“Right. Then I rest my case.”

I shrug one shoulder, but we both know I've given in. I'm not ready to be an autodidact. Yet.

Anyway, Zook's home. Zook's home! And he likes his new bed. Will I want to wear Zook's bed, even if it's only once a month? I don't think so. But I don't admit that to my mom.

I've grown in the past few months since I began wearing
that sweatshirt full-time. All my tops are too tight, except for one T-shirt that Maria and Mario gave me. Men's size small, with O'L
EARY'S
—P
IZZA
S
UPREMO
on the back. It used to be way, way too big, but now it's just a bit too big. So that's what I wear.

ow I will see Zook and the Villain, together at last! I will be watching his every move, prepared to point out the clues of his villainry to my mom. I'm just sorry I have to be the one to do that to her.

The Villain comes over carrying a cardboard box. He removes some scary-looking things, spreading them all out on the coffee table in the living room: a long, snakelike, see-through tube, a needle that looks like a little weapon, and a coat hanger. He takes out a paper pouch, tears it open, and removes a clear bag filled with something that looks like water. He puts that bag into our salad bowl, which Mom has filled with warm water.

“We're going to warm up this fluid solution and then get
it under Zook's skin,” he says. “Think of it like the Gatorade athletes drink when they're dehydrated. The solution is made up of some good stuff: sodium and potassium and calcium, which Zook needs.”

“Yum,” I say.

The Villain dries off the bag. Then he attaches one end of the long tube, called a drip line, to the bottom of the bag. He attaches a needle to the other end of the drip line. He pushes the hooked part of the coat hanger through the top of the bag and hooks it to our living room bookshelf.

“Look at Dylan's hands,” says Gramma Dee. “Beautiful hands, like the hands of God painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

When Gramma Dee says that, the Villain laughs. “Not quite,” he says.

“What's the Sistine Chapel?” I ask.

“The Sistine Chapel is a famous chapel in Vatican City, which is a tiny country inside of Italy,” Gramma Dee says.

Gramma Dee is always going on about the trip to Italy and India she's going to take with Soma one of these days, when they've retired and saved up enough funds. Gramma Dee pulls an art book from our shelf to show us this special ceiling. Sure enough, there's God, with wavy hair, a long gray
beard, and muscles, kindly stretching out his big hand to give life to a tired-looking Adam. It was painted by a famous artist named Michelangelo way back in the 1500s.

My mom giggles. “I think you're being overly dramatic, Ma,” she says.

“No, I'm not,” says Gramma Dee, looking at the painting and then at Dylan. “Those are healing hands, and that makes them beautiful.”

I look at the Villain's hands. His fingers are slender and brown. They look like ordinary hands to me, except for the long nails on his right hand for all that guitar-plucking. I watch them suspiciously.

“Bring on the patient,” the Villain says.

My mother brings Zook from our bedroom, where he's been snoozing. He's wrapped up in my Raiders sweatshirt and only his head peeps out.

“I've wrapped him up in case he protests,” she says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Honey, Dylan will be injecting him,” my mother says.

I knew that. On the other hand, I didn't. You can know and not know something at the very same time—ever notice?