The Great Cat Caper (6 page)

A
string of cats streaked for the bushes.

Vee sort of saw the mayor and the girls’ faces when she screamed, “Oh, no!” and then dashed across the lot, trying to catch up with the truck as it rumbled past her, the driver nodding his head to what Vee supposed must be the radio.

“Hey!” she shouted, making it to the door and leaping up to pound on it. She heard the mayor’s horrified shriek and the girls’ screams. She knew the girls were on their way with the footsteps sounding behind her, but would any of them get there in time? The driver neared the bin where his claws of death would reach down, snatch the Dumpster with the curious kitten lost in garbage, raise it up, and—

Putting on the speed her dad called “the Vee sprint,” she darted in front of the truck. As she passed its grill, she noted the dead moths in it.
I hope I’m not the latest decoration.
Flapping her hands wildly, she flung a desperate look at the driver whose eyes bulged at her presence. He jerked back in his seat. The brakes squealed. The truck continued to roll. Would she get to the Dumpster before the truck flattened her? A hard bump hit her right leg. It went numb. She slammed into the Dumpster.

That would leave a mark.

She reached up, grabbed the side of the Dumpster, and bounced on the good leg. Hard.

Using the momentum, she hovered halfway over the Dumpster rim. In the next second, she knew to her deepest chagrin that the principle of momentum she’d learned this week in science was going to take her farther than she wanted to go. She was going Dumpster diving whether she wanted to or not. Head. First.

Beetle!

I
t was crazy. The truck hits you, we scream. The mayor gets on the phone with 911.” Sunny was chattering as Vee sat with a blanket around her—sweating—and the paramedic shined a light in her eyes and asked her to follow his fingers. Frank had joined the bunch of people hovering around Vee. He was shaking his head. Vee knew what he was thinking:
drama.

“The curious kitten!” She threw off the blanket. Ouch. That hip was sore.
I really raced a garbage truck. And lost. Unbelievable.

Esther pushed her down gently. “That driver thought he’d mushed you. He didn’t see you dive into the Dumpster—” She leaned in and sniffed. “Yep. Pretty gross with it being a hot day and all.”

Slimy.
Vee’s word for the day. Something glued her armpit together. And
sticky.

Aneta finished the story. “We see nothing first. We do not know if you are, are … Then you put your arm up. The kitten is in it!” She reached forward and hugged Vee then ducked away with a face. “The kitten scratches you and runs away. You are safe. You smell bad.” She brushed something off her shirt.

“You’re a hero,” Sunny said, flopping down next to her as the paramedic moved away to the mayor who was lacing and unlacing her hands. “And boy, can you run fast!”

Vee glanced over at the mayor. Her Dumpster dive had ruined any chance of the girls returning to the senior center. Since the first day of school she’d been apologizing. Every plan that worked before wasn’t working now. Her eyes widened; she dropped the blanket and stood up, keeping the weight off her right hip.

That crazy curious kitten was peeking at her from under the Dumpster the truck had just thudded down before it roared off. Right back into danger. Vee breathed out a pent-up breath. She approached the mayor.

“I am so—,” she began, reaching up a damp hand—
what was that drooling down her arm?
It was green and not pretty. She sensed rather than saw the girls around her. “I want to save these Dumpster cats for my service-learning project. Give them a spot.”

The mayor’s sister looked relieved. “That’s just fine. You do that.” An almost-smile crept across her face. “It will keep you out of my senior center.”

“Yes! The S.A.V.E. Squad saving their catness. Operation Catness!” Sunny spun in circles with delight. Staggering a bit she continued, “We’ll all do it, won’t we!” She looked at Esther and Aneta, who nodded enthusiastically.

“Squad bracelets united!” Esther stepped forward and put out her wrist with the leather string and beads the girls had created after their first adventure.

“Yes! We’ll save the Dumpster cats and find homes for them all!” Sunny touched her wrist to Esther’s. Vee added her bracelet. Aneta followed suit.

Vee scanned them with a
thank-you
look. How hard could it be to find homes for cats this cute? She’d save the curious kitten and more and still have time to study for the retest.

“From what I count in and around that Dumpster, that’s six cats,” the mayor said, looking less than impressed. “That’s not much of a project for super-talented Junior Event Planners like you girls. I have an idea.”

Uh-oh. Simple job. Just a simple service-learning project. Please.

“Oh, girls! Sissy, I know you’re going to love it.” The mayor threw an arm around her larger sibling. Mrs. Sissy didn’t look like she was going to love anything her shorter, dynamic sister had to say.

Everyone stepped back to the senior center steps.

The mayor looked at her sister. “What is your primary goal between now and the end of October?”

Her sister looked aggrieved. “You know as well as I do. Win the Helpful City Festival contest. Show Oakton has the best volunteers and helpful programs for its citizens.”

“
I
envision our Helpful City Festival working toward the contest by connecting disparate populations, our youths and our seniors,” the mayor said.

Vee made a note to look up
disparate.
It sounded scary. “I envision a lot of work,” she muttered. A giggle escaped Sunny. Vee stole another look toward the Dumpster. The curious kitten sat washing its face, watching Vee. Yes, she wanted to give the curious kitten a spot. She did
not
want to become an event in the mayor’s Helpful City Festival.

The mayor turned to Frank, who was looking at his phone. She nudged him. “Frank, you’d be great to supervise the girls. Sissy,”—she hugged her sister—“you want to win this Helpful City Contest. I just gave you an easy way to be different.” She beamed at everyone, waggled her fingers again, and headed toward her car in the parking lot. “Vee, just zip me an e-mail when you come up with your ideas. I am totally supportive!”

The girls traded looks. Vee and the curious kitten traded looks.
It is no longer just finding you a spot.
Vee sent the thoughts the kitten’s way. It’s turned into a
beetling
great cat caper.

S
chool was pretty much a blur the rest of the week with the girls arguing over how to save the cats. Even language arts, which was usually unforgettable. On Friday, at lunch, the kids at the table waved their hands in front of Vee when she looked right through them. C. P. said she had cat fever. One of the kids wanted to know if it was contagious. She remembered
that.
Dumb.

Soon, however, their saving cats would be complete. As she jogged toward the community center for Operation Catness, her backpack banged against her back.
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
In her head, she recited the plan they’d finally agreed on:

It would take about an hour and a half to catch the momma cat, the kittens, and the three other grown cats. After the handoff to Nadine and Frank, she would buzz on home and get the math tutoring over with. Then Mom would order pizza, and she, Bill, and Mom would watch a movie during dinner. Then Dad would pick her up for the weekend.

Maybe on Sunday she could pop over and see the curious kitten at Frank and Nadine’s. Monday, the Squad would have to come up with the additional ideas the mayor would like. She remembered their first adventure. Four girls with nothing in common but their differences. Now they were fast friends, even if they still sometimes disagreed. Ideas would come quickly. End of trouble.

As she approached the senior center and saw the girls streaming from different directions, converging toward the steps, she laughed. Operation Catness begins! Sunny rolled in on her knobby-tire bike with her messenger bag slung across her shoulders. Aneta lugged a canvas bag; Esther tipped off her blue backpack with her school’s name emblazoned across it.

“Are we ready?” Vee reviewed the list with the girls. “Let’s start Operation Catness!”

Aneta looked hesitant. “Do we need Frank to be here?” She glanced over at the Dumpster. So did Vee. Not a cat to be seen. That was okay.

“Once we open the cans of tuna, they will come running. It happens in all the cat food commercials.” Vee hoped the curious kitten would pick her can first.

Sunny shrugged. “I bet the mayor just wanted Frank to be in on the project so he could drive us if we need it. You know, because it’s a senior center project and all, and he’s the senior center driver.”

“What about the Cat Woman?” Esther stuck her hands on her hips. “I think we’re moving too fast. I think we should have her here to help us. I mean, what do we know about Dumpster cats?”

Vee felt her familiar impatience rising with Esther. That girl seemed to get going in the opposite direction every time Vee came up with a plan. Didn’t Esther remember Vee needed to study for this retest and couldn’t spend all day tracking down Frank? “What’s so hard about catching cats?” she asked. “I’ve watched the Cat Woman feed them a couple of times. She sets the food out and steps aside. Only this time, when they’re eating, we’ll slowly move in and pick them up.”

Unflapping her canvas messenger bag, Aneta withdrew several cans of tuna. Esther and Sunny did the same with their bags, giggling as the pile of canned tuna grew. Vee added hers to the pile.

“Okay, I think we should open the cans here and then put them on the plates like the Cat Woman does,” Vee said, inspecting the pile of tuna with pride. There was enough tuna to feed two cities’ Dumpster cats. Operation Catness was a great plan.

“Umm—” It was Sunny smothering a giggle.

Vee raised her gaze. “What?”

“Can opener? Pie plates?”

The
stellar
leaked out of her plan like air out of a balloon that had the misfortune to fall into the Twin Terrors’ hands. How could she forget to put those on her list? Lists were her specialty. She
thought
in lists. They were what got her into the accelerated class. She chewed the inside of her lip. Tutoring three times a week along with everything else was messing up her brain.

“There’s an opener in the senior center kitchen.” Aneta shoved her hands into her skirt pockets. “But I do not want to go in there.”

The girls looked at one another.

Finally Vee sighed. “Okay, I’ll go in and ask.” On the way in, she could feel the girls’ eyes boring into her and tried to make her steps jaunty, like she wasn’t afraid of (1) Mrs. Sissy, (2) the cook Aneta helped on the day of the fire, or (3) Hermann, if he found out the girls had cut short his plan to get rid of the cats.

Once inside, Vee blinked to adjust from the brightness. As she passed a tired-looking brown-and-gray-haired woman, the woman ducked away from her like Vee had reached out and bit her. A medicine-y mouthwash smell about blew Vee over as the woman passed, hugging the wall.

Whew.

In the kitchen she found a friendly face. “That’s a hard task you’ve given yourselves, and I don’t mean maybe,” the woman said. Vee smiled and took the proffered can opener, promising to bring it right back. She also accepted four pie pans and headed out the door with a light heart. Operation Catness was again proving stellar!

Two more steps, then
WHAM.
She ran smack into the Cat Woman. Since they were the same height, their foreheads banged.
That
kind of smacked. Vee shoved out her arms to keep the woman from falling but ended up pushing her down with the pie pans. They clattered loudly on the corridor, along with the can opener at the same moment as Mrs. Sissy walked out the door across the way. Hermann was with her.

Mrs. Sissy leaped forward to help the Cat Woman, pushing away Vee’s assistance. “What are you up to now?” she cried. “Pushing down helpless old women?”

Vee remembered Sunny telling her they were not allowed to call the seniors “old.” It did not, however, seem a good time to remind Mrs. Sissy.

Hermann set the Cat Woman on her feet. Then the two turned and regarded Vee. Hermann’s face set in hard lines. Vee’s face flamed like a bad sunburn. She knelt and picked up the can opener and pans.

“I forgot the can opener and pie pans,” she said, her words jerking a bit over her madly beating heart. Honestly, you’d think she’d knocked over Cat Woman
on purpose.

Hermann grunted. “Kots und kids. Bah! You tink you got und easy job. Yah! My way is better. You vill see.”

If people would just leave them alone, they would get this project finished and get those cats into good spots. Hermann would see. She shifted impatiently, sneaking a look at her watch. No way was she going to be late a second time for Math Man.

“You!” Cat Woman huffed and straightened her velour running jacket, which, Vee noticed, was covered in cat hair. She suddenly remembered where she’d first seen the woman. During the girls’ first adventure, she’d been the woman who wouldn’t stop talking about her cats when they stopped at her door with an important mission. She opened her mouth to say more when Frank joined the group.

His gaze took in the can opener and the pie pans then went up to Vee. His eyebrows slanted together. She remembered Aneta’s comment, “Do we need Frank here?” From the indignant expression on his face,
yes.

“What happened to including the project supervisor in your little project?” he asked, folding long, skinny arms over an equally skinny chest.

“Hey, you!” It was the friendliest voice so far. Nadine walked up to her husband and slid an arm around his waist. She smiled at Vee.

“Whatcha up to?”

“Our project,” Vee stammered. “We’re going to catch the cats to start our project.”

A heavy silence sucked the oxygen out of the corridor before four voices chorused, “Oh no, you’re not!”

An hour later Vee and the girls stood shaking their heads.

“Who knew?” Sunny said.

“Not us,” Aneta said.

“We messed up big-time,” Esther said.

Nothing is going right
, Vee agreed.