The Great Cat Caper (2 page)

T
here it was, Oakton Community Center. Vee bounced to rearrange the weight of her backpack. Before today it was a good place—where she met the girls who were now her best friends. She sighed. “I just can’t tell them what happened at school today.”

A squirrel ran in front of her and up a tree, chattering. “I don’t care what you would do,” she said to it. “I’ll just have to think of something.” The bushy-tailed rodent flicked his tail in response and dashed out of sight into the upper boughs.

“Sure.” Vee brushed her black-as-night bangs out of her eyes. “Desert me when it gets a little tough.” There was no putting it off. Vee’s stride grew longer and longer until she was running, backpack digging into her back with each bounce. She’d probably get cuts in her back that would get infected. She would die. Math will have killed her.

Regular sixth grade tomorrow. Not what she’d worked so hard for. As she stopped and put her hands on her knees to catch a breath, she looked up. All she had to do was turn the corner. The girls would be waiting on the library steps.

From behind her, she heard running feet. Two little girls, wearing school uniforms like the ones her friend Aneta wore to school, pounded past.

“I’m telling Mom first.”

“No you’re not. I was the one who was chosen, not you.”

“You get everything first. I’m telling Mom—”

“Yeah, like it’s all about you. You only talk about yourself….” Their voices faded out of earshot.

Plan:

1. Get the girls to tell all about their day.

2. Before Esther asks …

3. Check Anti-Trouble Phone and shriek, “I have to get home!”

4. Go home and talk to Mom and make a list to stay in the ALC.

“It’ll be stellar.” This cheered her a bit after the dismal day, and she increased her speed. The library steps were empty.
Not a problem,
she thought, unloading the pack and sitting on the steps. She had a plan:

In the next breath, she heard the Squad giggles and conversation before the girls rounded the corner of the community center.

“You’re kidding,” Sunny’s happy voice bubbled first. Of course. Redheaded Sunny’s hazel eyes were always sparkling about something. She was the coolest homeschooled kid Vee had ever met. “Melissa isn’t at your school this year?”

What?
Scrambling to her feet, Vee pulled on her backpack. That was stupendous news! Melissa Dayton-Snipp had made Aneta’s life miserable at the Cunningham Preparatory Academy where the two attended.

Blond, blue-eyed Aneta, voice always quiet, her English getting better and better, said, “No! She is living in Europe and going to a horse school.”

The next voice was Esther’s nasal, high-pitched voice. This time she wasn’t complaining. If there was a Squadder whom Vee still had to get used to, it was the dark blond, chunky Esther. Somehow she and her narrowed, hazel stink eye tied Vee’s nerves in knots.
She likes correcting me too much.

“Yeah, I was sitting right there when the computer teacher pointed to me and said, ‘Esther Martin. You must be the coordinator of the computer room for your grade!’”

Vee paused.

“Can you believe the complete yay-ness of it?” It was Sunny again. “I’ve been shooting pics with the digital camera my uncle Dave sent me a couple of weeks ago. My pictures got me in”—a Sunny squeal and Vee could picture her friend spinning around, arms out—“an advanced digital photography course. I’m the only kid in there!”

Three perfect first days of school. Everybody had their spot. Vee turned and fled.

N
ow what am I going to do
? Vee had covered the distance across the parking lot before she knew what her long legs were doing.
Home. Just. Get. Home.
She pushed off with her right foot to make a sharp left turn and cut through the back of the community center. A few streets to cross, another left turn, and she’d be home. Mom would help her make a plan and this, well,
beetling
day could be over.

In another second, she saw C. P. heading toward her, looking at the candy bar in his hand. She veered off course toward the Dumpster in the corner of the parking lot tucked in an untended bunch of trees and bushes just beginning to show a turn of leaf color. Five cats, crouched on the lid of the Dumpster, scattered. Too late, she noted the rotting pear on the ground. Her left foot hit the goo, slid, and she did a split into the bushes, dragging her right knee across the pavement. As her backpack thudded between her shoulders, the wind oooff’d out of her. Face-plant. Right into a bush. Prickly lettuce, a weird weed she’d learned about in earth science last year.
Ouch.

Three facts about prickly lettuce:

1. You don’t want it in your salad.

2. It grows just about anywhere in any soil.

3. It hurts when you face-plant into it.

Pulling the rest of her through the bushes, she lay there for a moment, panting. Had C. P. seen her? If he had, her life was over. C. P. was way too curious about
everything.
She held her breath, listening. If he had seen her, she’d hear him pounding toward her on the parking lot cement. She closed her eyes, waiting to hear his scratchy voice. “Hey, whatcha doing down there, Vee? Looking for treasure?” Then he would laugh his hyena laugh. At that point, unbelievably, her day would get worse.

But C. P. didn’t come. After her heart began pounding in her ears and she knew she’d either have to breathe or pass out, she chose breathing.
If
C. P. was coming. She sucked in a gasping breath.

No C. P.

Safe in a secret spot, behind the protection of the spiny bushes, she curled up her limbs for a few moments like a fawn then awkwardly pulled herself to a crouched position. She peered out. The Dumpster obscured most of the parking lot, but she had a good view of the library steps where C. P. had joined the S.A.V.E. Squadders.

They had to go home sometime. She would wait. The cottonwood tree’s rough bark scraped against her spine. She’d learned about that tree last year, too. Moments passed. A stinging sensation began on her right knee and both heels of her hands. An inspection revealed a rash of angry, red, seeping dots of blood. Ick. More than bugs, she didn’t like to see her own blood. She would probably be okay with bugs if it hadn’t been for the addition of the Twin Terrors to her life.

She fumbled to get her backpack off then froze. The tiniest sound of a breaking branch reached her ear. She whirled. C. P.? She scanned the green-yellow prickly bush behind the tree, near the Dumpster. The five cats had returned to the top of the Dumpster and were sunning themselves.

Someone
was
watching her.

The softest something brushed her. Holding her breath, she closed her eyes.
Please don’t let it be something like a caterpillar with creepy antennas and eighty zillion feet.
She imagined it creeping nearer to the tender, scratched elbow. Or the shredded knee. Maybe it was a rat.
Please, not a rat.
A rabid raccoon? That mouthy squirrel?

The softness spread further over her elbow. The stinging got worse. Then a rough—tongue?

Tongue?

Vee opened her eyes and forced herself to look down at her right elbow.

A bitsy scrap of a kitten was licking the blood off her elbow, squeaking as it did so. It was about two handfuls of gray kitten with black stripes and a black nose smudge. Bugged out eyes and slit-like pupils let her know they had surprised each other. Each kitten ear had a tuft of bedhead-like fur sticking straight up. Vee removed her arm. The kitten hissed and leaped backward, straight-legged.

“Shoo!” Vee whispered. Where was its mother? It was too little to be by itself. Was one of those Dumpster cats its mother?

The kitten studied her from a safer distance. Vee’s right leg was going to sleep, and she moved it. The kitten showed its teeth and hissed—a tiny bit of fur with huge white fangs. Vee snorted. Tough wasn’t going to work for this kitten. Then she thought of those fangs sinking into her ankle that was within biting range of the little feline. It could happen.

A heavily accented voice cut into Vee’s concentration. The moment she took her gaze off the kitten, it pounced nearer.

“Go away,” Vee whispered. The kitten arched its back and twitched its tail. Vee’s eyes crinkled into slits, and she smothered a giggle.

A harsh voice broke in. “What good are kots vit disease and no homes? The Helpful City Festival is in almost one month. They vill not vant to see kots vit no home like this.” All the V-sounding words made Vee dizzy. Crab-crawling a bit forward, Vee leaned to the left and saw a tall, spare man talking to a woman. Where had she seen her before? Medium height, silvery hair. She could be a million old ladies. She stood holding an aluminum pie pan. The Dumpster cats were watching from the lid, tails lashing.

The curious kitten darted forward and bumped Vee’s hand then bounced away, back humped.

“Hey, I didn’t tell you to come to me,” Vee muttered to the kitten, trying to listen to the two people argue.

The woman—Vee knew she’d seen her up close before, but where?—straightened. “We started the problem. Idiots won’t spay and neuter their pets. Dump them when it’s not convenient anymore. They don’t necessarily have disease, Hermann. Someone must save the kitties.”

He interrupted. “No point to feeding the kots. Animal Control gonna get rid of them before the festival in about a month. The judges don’t vant to see kots in a city that’s supposed to help people.”

“Hermann, you ninny. Helpful means helpful wherever there’s a need. This parking lot is their home. These cats need a place.”

Place.
That cat-feeding woman now had Vee’s attention. How could a Dumpster surrounded by ouchy prickly lettuce be an acceptable place to live?

“Der crazy in der head, Gladys. Nobody vants to help cats vit don’t belong to nobody.”

“If you think Animal Control is going to haul off these cats, you better think again. Not while I’m alive.” The woman’s voice was fierce. Hermann grumbled under his breath.

Once again a smooth softness flowed across Vee. She absently pushed away the kitten. For such a young kitten without its mother, it seemed pretty brave. She glanced down. The kitten sat about three feet away, eyeballing a fluffy caterpillar waving its antenna, marching its creepy bazillion feet halfway across Vee’s hand.

For the second time that day, she shrieked, “Beetle!” and, with her backpack banging off one arm, leaped to her feet, then staggered through the prickly lettuce and into the parking lot. To her left, Hermann and Gladys stepped out from behind the Dumpster.

“What is the matter vit you?” the man snapped. “What are you doing in these bushes?” Did he think Vee had
on purpose
skidded on a slimy pear, face-planted into prickly lettuce, and had a creepy caterpillar crawl over her hand? She shuddered, scratching her hand vigorously.

The Cat Woman glared. “Are you trying to haul off my cats?” She turned a withering glance on Hermann. “Are you making children do your dirty work these days?”

Time to exit. Flinging her head up, trying to ignore the man and woman and march off with dignity, she got as far as the head fling. The S.A.V.E. Squad and C. P. stood on the library steps, their mouths hanging open.

Out of the corner of her eye, the curious kitten and the other cats shot past her, across the parking lot, loping left toward the lake. The curious kitten hopped to a stop, looked back, and made eye contact with Vee. Then it was gone. Vee felt curiously disappointed. Oh, the
beetling
day that wouldn’t end!

Esther’s voice sounded across the parking lot, high, loud, and accusing. Vee only heard bits. Hands on hips, “—never told us!” Esther said, ignoring that Vee had just emerged bloody, limping, and getting yelled at by two senior citizens.

Tell her what?
Vee continued her painful approach. Her face ramped up sharper stings, and she gingerly patted the scratches. “I—I was tying my shoes, and a caterpillar ran over my hand.” Wow. That was feeble—a word on the language arts vocab list.

“Why were you tying your shoes in the bushes?” Esther asked, fists still firmly planted on her pudgy hips.

Vee sighed. In a last effort to get at least some part of her plan in action, she yanked the ATP from her pocket and gasped, “I’ve got to get home before I get in trouble.”

Aneta flipped her long blond hair over one shoulder and hunched her shoulders. Easily the tallest of the four girls—and everyone was taller than C. P.—she stood like she was proud of being tall. “But we did not tell about our first day of school like we said. And C. P….”

Already edging away from the group, every scratched part of her in full sting, Vee wanted to know,
Why has nobody asked why my face is bleeding? Or my hands? Or why I have a full-blown bloody shred across my knee?

Sunny spun in a circle. “Oh yeah. The C. P. thing
is
crazy. Who would have thought that?”

C. P. swiveled his head from Vee to Sunny. “Hey,” he said, swallowing something. “Why would it be so crazy that I would transfer into Moby Perkins’ smart kids’ class?”

Vee stopped backing away.
Zizzle!
In her damaged condition, she thought her hearing must be going.

Esther stepped forward, peered, and then gasped. “You’re bleeding!”

Just. Get. Home. That’s all she wanted to do. Anything to get home to her mother who could begin to make some sense of the world’s worst first day of school. It would be even better if it were Mom and Dad together to help her. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not with Bill at Mom’s house and Heather at Dad’s. As in Bill and Heather, their new
spouses.

“What is it with you and bugs?” C. P. had finished the caramel or whatever and was picking up his backpack. “First the beetle in school today and now—”

“How did you know about the beetle?” The words shot out.

Sunny led Vee over to the steps and prodded her shoulder. “Sit down. You look like you got in a fight with a cat.”

“How did you know about the cat?” She sat. It had been watching her. Rather than creepy, it was—special.

C. P. wandered off. The girls clustered around Vee. She looked over her shoulder. Hermann walked down the parking lot to the senior citizen door and entered.

“Who’s the grouchy guy?” Esther asked, plopping down next to Vee. With the next question, she had already forgotten him. “How come you didn’t tell us C. P. was going to be in your accelerated class at school?”

Beetle.