Homeless

by Laurie Halse Anderson

  “That sounds like Socrates,” Zoe says. “Maybe he’s really feral. The only people he lets near him are Sunita and Gran.”

  Maggie points toward her cousin. “Wait a minute—that black cat, the one that fought with Socrates. She’s pregnant,” she explains to Brenna’s family. “What about her kittens? Will they be feral or tame?”

  Brenna’s mother shrugs. “If they are raised outside, without people, they’ll be feral. That’s why feral cat colonies are such a problem. First you have cats that quickly reproduce, and second, they aren’t socialized as pets. There’s not much that can be done about them.”

  “Except to round them up and kill them,” Brenna says bitterly.

  “I know that sounds harsh, Brenna,” her father says gently. “But you’ve seen the results of overpopulation. When you have too many of one species in one place, nature takes care of it. They run out of food, the weak die. Putting them to sleep is much more humane.”

  The table goes silent as everyone thinks about that.

  “Actually, there is something that we can do for the cats,” I say. They all look at me. “Dr. Mac told me about it this afternoon. It’s called a TVSR program.”

  By the time I finish explaining how the program works, we’ve cleared away the dishes and started on dessert.

  “Dr. Mac promised she would talk to the Animal Control people tomorrow. That’s when they’re supposed to round up the cats.”

  “I’ve never heard of TVSR, but it makes sense,” Mrs. Lake says. “And the animals are released back where they were found?”

  “That’s what bothers me,” I say. “I hate the idea of forcing them to live on their own again. I want to find people to adopt them after they’ve been treated.”

  Sage takes another brownie from the platter. “Wouldn’t work. You heard Dad. A wild animal is a wild animal.”

  “What about Poe?” Brenna challenges him.

  The two of them argue about whether Poe is wild or tame, but I’m not really listening. I’m still back on what Mr. Lake said about his friend who tamed a feral cat.

  I’ll start with Tiger tomorrow. It’s just a matter of being patient, and I can be patient. Cats that were raised in the wild need extra love and understanding. Maybe Socrates was a feral kitten. Dr. Mac told me she found him wandering around the yard when he was tiny. I was able to win his heart. I can do the same with Tiger and the others—I’m sure of it.

  Chapter Seven

  I’m a little late getting to the clinic. On Saturdays, I have an early ballet lesson, and today it ran long.

  Walking up the sidewalk to the front door of the clinic, I feel as if something’s wrong. What is it? I changed out of my ballet clothes. Mother knows where I am. The clinic looks normal, even though there aren’t many clients’ cars parked in the driveway. What’s missing?

  Socrates.

  This is where he usually greets me. A lump grows in my throat, and I try to swallow it. Dr. Mac and Mrs. Lake both said he’d be home soon, but he’s not. If Maggie and Zoe have those flyers ready, we can spread them all over the neighborhood today. We’ll find him. We have to find him.

  As I walk in, the others are clustered around the reception counter. Dr. Mac is trying to listen to the person on the other end of the telephone.

  “Yes,” she says into the phone loudly. “Yes, we are missing a cat.”

  Maggie jumps up and down. “Someone found Socrates!”

  “Shh!” her grandmother says. “You live near the Fraziers?”

  It has to be him!

  “When can we pick him up?” Maggie asks.

  “Is he OK?” I ask.

  “Wait a minute,” Dr. Mac says. “What does the cat look like?” she asks the person on the other end of the line.

  We wait. Dr. Mac nods once, twice.

  “Are you sure?”

  She’s not smiling anymore.

  “Well, thank you for checking. I’m afraid it’s not ours. Good-bye.” She hangs up the phone and turns to us. My heart sinks.

  “The cat she found is orange, but it’s small, about seven or eight pounds. It has white ears, and it’s a female. Sorry, it’s not Socrates.”

  “Guess it’s a good thing we made these flyers after all,” Maggie says glumly. She waves a stack of neon yellow paper. Printed on the front is MISSING CAT and a picture of Socrates sitting on Dr. Mac’s desk.

  “We’ll find him, don’t worry,” Dr. Mac says. “Let’s get in the van.”

  It’s a quick drive to Dorset Street, the closest road to Cat Land. Dr. Mac tries to fill the silence in her car by telling us about the Animal Control officer we’ll be meeting.

  “There he is,” she mutters as she parks along the street. A tall, slim man wearing a dark green shirt and matching pants is leaning over some papers on the hood of a red pickup truck with ANIMAL CONTROL painted on the door.

  “Dr. MacKenzie,” he says as Dr. Mac walks over to shake his hand. The five of us trail behind her. “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  “Good morning, Gary,” she says. “You’ve never met my granddaughters, have you? This is Maggie and this is Zoe, and behind them are some of my clinic volunteers—Sunita, Brenna, and David. Everyone, this is Gary Snyder.”

  He looks puzzled at the sudden appearance of a veterinarian and five sixth-graders. We all say polite hellos.

  Dr. Mac sticks her hands in the pockets of her blue jeans. “I must have left fifty messages on your answering machine late yesterday, Gary.”

  “Sorry about that, Doc,” the Animal Control officer answers. “We were out on a bat call. A woman found a whole bunch of bats in her attic, and we had to get them out.” He shudders. “I don’t like bats. They give me the creeps.”

  “Yech,” Zoe says with disgust.

  “Bats are useful. They eat mosquitoes,” Brenna points out.

  “I’ll just use bug spray, thanks,” Zoe says.

  “It took a while, but we got them all out,” Gary continues. “I didn’t get a chance to check my messages. Sorry if you were trying to get me. What brings you out this way?” he asks Dr. Mac. “A house call?”

  “Hardly,” Dr. Mac answers. “I think we’re here for the same reason.” She nods toward the railroad tracks and the clearing beyond. “Those cats.”

  Gary frowns slightly. “Those are feral cats, Dr. MacKenzie. The neighbors here are in an uproar. I’ve got to take them out.”

  “And do what with them?” Brenna asks hotly.

  “I’ll take care of this, Brenna,” Dr. Mac says.

  As she explains the TVSR program to Gary, I keep my fingers crossed behind my back. I hope he agrees to it. Dr. Mac told me in the van that if he says no, there is nothing more she can do. As an Animal Control officer, it’s his job to make decisions about the safety of people and animals.

  Dr. Mac finishes her explanation. Gary glances up the street. No kids are outside playing yet.

  “And who’s paying for all this?” he asks. “The cost of the vaccines, surgery, and medicine is going to add up quickly. You know there’s no extra money in my budget.”

  Dr. Mac looks over at us. I cross my toes inside my sneakers.

  “I won’t charge the county,” she says. “I’ll do it for free and consider it a contribution to the community.”

  Gary rubs the back of his neck. “And they won’t be able to spread anything?”

  “That’s right,” Dr. Mac says.

  We all nod, five heads bobbing up and down in perfect rhythm.

  Dr. Mac walks to the van and brings back a thick binder, which she hands to Gary.

  “I put together some information for you. I figured you would want to read up on it yourself. These studies say that in areas where TVSR is being used, the cat population has decreased slowly and steadily. Some towns have reduced their feral cat population by half after running TVSR programs for a few years.”

  “And you want me to release the cats back here?” Gary says. He doesn’t look convinced.

  “The
neighborhood association will have my head.”

  “If the colony is removed, other feral cats will take it over and the neighbors will be at risk for disease again. TVSR works better. The statistics are very convincing. But you’ll have to do some educating. Have a meeting with the residents. I’d be happy to speak to them if you want.”

  Gary flips through the pages in the notebook with a frown. I’m squeezing my crossed fingers and toes so hard they are getting numb.

  “Please,” I say. “Please let us try this. These cats need our help. We could save their lives. Please.”

  I swallow hard. I’m not used to speaking out like that, especially in front of Animal Control officers.

  Gary takes a deep breath. “Well, I’ve always hated putting these guys to sleep. It’s not their fault.” He glances at the Fraziers’ house. “I’ll do it. We’ll try the program this one time, to see if it works. And I’ll set up a meeting to explain it to the neighbors. But if this doesn’t work, we’ll have to do it the other way. I won’t have a choice.”

  “Thank you very much!” I say with a big grin.

  “Thanks,” Dr. Mac says. “It will be good to work together.”

  He places the binder on the front seat of his truck. “So we need to round up a bunch of them for you to take back, huh? Want to use my traps?”

  “Traps?” I say. “We’re going to trap them? That sounds horrible. Won’t that hurt them?”

  Gary laughs. “It’s not that kind of trap,” he says, reaching for something in the back of the pickup. “This is a humane trap. Let me show you how it works.”

  The trap looks like a big cat carrier, but its sides can slide back and forth to hold the caged animal still, squeezing it gently when the vet is trying to give a shot.

  “We usually have to give wild animals a sedative before we treat them,” Gary explains. “You would not believe the fuss they can put up.”

  I’d put up a big fuss, too, if someone trapped me in a metal box, but I don’t say that. Once we get these cats taken care of, maybe I’ll design a better trap. That would be a great project for the school science fair.

  Dr. Mac lifts her bandaged hand. “Wish I’d had one of those yesterday,” she says.

  “We’ll make sure no one gets hurt,” Gary promises. “How many do you want to trap today?”

  “I can handle about six at a time at the clinic,” Dr. Mac replies. “I brought some nice, smelly tuna to stick inside the traps.”

  “That will bring them running,” he says. “I’ll start setting these up.”

  Dr. Mac turns to us. “I don’t think this will take too long. Why don’t you start passing out flyers?”

  “Sounds like a plan. C’mon, guys,” Maggie says.

  “Is it OK if I stay to watch?” I ask Dr. Mac. “I might see Socrates.”

  “All right, Sunita,” Dr. Mac says as she takes one of the traps out of Gary’s pickup. “You’ll be our observer. But you are here to watch, not touch. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say.

  We cross over the railroad tracks to Cat Land. It’s deserted, but I can feel the eyes watching us from the tall grass.

  A curtain moves in the Fraziers’ window, but I can’t see who is watching us. I wish I could go in and explain to Jamie what we’re doing, but his mom might not understand. I hope his mom goes to Gary’s meeting.

  “Sunita, why don’t you sit over there?” Dr. Mac says as Gary sets up the traps. She points to some broken slabs of concrete piled at the edge of the clearing.

  Gary nods to Dr. Mac. The traps are all set. The two of them walk to the opposite side of the clearing and crouch down out of sight. I sit as still as a mouse.

  It takes a few minutes, but the cats appear, slinking out of the weeds and slithering out of the boxcar, their noses twitching in the air, trying to trace that tantalizing tuna smell. We saw a lot of these cats yesterday—the gray with the broken tail, the black-and-white young cats. But no Socrates. They circle the traps warily. I bet they suspect something is wrong. Will they go inside the funny-looking things for a treat?

  Something brushes by my hand. A fly. I flick my hand to make it go away. It lands again, tickles my hand. I look down.

  Oh, my gosh. There she is, sitting right next to me—Mittens, the soon-to-be mom cat that fought with Socrates! I glance around quickly, but there’s no sign of our feisty orange clinic cat. I just know he followed her here after their fight. Maybe he’ll come out, too, if he smells that tuna.

  Mittens tilts her black head back and looks me in the eye. I bet I know what she’s thinking—Where have you been? I’ve been waiting.

  I squint. Hidden under the fur on her neck is a black flea collar. Wait—that means Mittens isn’t a feral cat after all. She was abandoned! She used to have people who loved her, and now she’s all alone. She’s not wild, she’s domesticated—a house cat who wants to live inside and sleep on bedspreads. She’s safe.

  I know Dr. Mac told me not to touch any of these cats, but I can’t help myself. Mittens is probably used to people. Will she let me touch her? She won’t scratch me, I just know it. I reach my fingers out slowly.

  Mittens bumps her head against my hand.

  She likes me!

  I scratch between her ears and she starts to purr. She rubs the edge of her mouth against my knuckles. This is great! I wish I could pick her up.

  Bang!

  A trap in the clearing swings shut, locking a cat inside. Bang! Bang! Bang! Three more traps close.

  Mittens looks around, not sure what to do. The trapped cats howl in outrage, and Mittens runs off before I can stop her, disappearing into that green tangle of bushes and weeds. I’ll never find her in there.

  Chapter Eight

  Back at the clinic, Dr. Mac warns me to stand at the far end of the room before she starts to treat the first cat. I think she’s being too careful. The cat is in a cage, after all. But I do what she tells me.

  She sedates him, just like she did Tiger, but it is a lot easier to do with the special Animal Control cage. The cat protests with a loud “me-oww!” but quickly relaxes as the medicine takes effect. Dr. Mac relaxes then, too.

  “OK, you can come closer if you want,” she says. “He’s not going anywhere for a while.” She opens the trap and lifts out our patient. “On second thought, you may not want to come closer—this cat is crawling with fleas.”

  Our first TVSR patient is a scrawny, light gray male cat. Dr. Mac quickly checks his heart, lungs, and temperature, and feels his body for bumps or bone problems. She peeks in his mouth.

  “Whew! Bad breath. I bet he has an infection in there somewhere. We’ll deal with that under anesthetic. Can you get me a tube of antiseptic cream?”

  I bring the cream and some gauze, too.

  Dr. Mac squeezes the cream onto the gauze pad and gently wipes it on an infected, swollen paw. “That will feel better when you come around,” she murmurs.

  “Is that all you have to do?” I ask.

  “I wish it were, but it’s not.”

  Once the paw is cleaned up, Dr. Mac draws blood for tests and vaccinates the cat for rabies and other cat diseases. She adds a long-acting antibiotic injection to fight off infection. Then she sprays on a flea killer.

  “I’ll operate on him once he’s hydrated,” she says. “We’ll neuter him so he won’t father any kittens. As soon as he’s recovered, we’ll take him back to where we found him.”

  “Do you have to?” I ask. “Maybe he’ll get used to people if he’s around us.”

  “Believe me, after three days living here, he’ll be more than ready to leave.”

  Dr. Mac wraps the cat in a towel and hands him to me. “Why don’t you tuck him in for me? Put him in the row of cages in the corner. I’ll go fetch the next feral patient.”

  After I put the sedated cat in a cage, I peek in on Tiger. He is wide awake today, his ears twitching as he watches me carefully.

  Dr. Gabe, the clinic’s associate vet, walks in holding an
injured parrot. “Don’t get too close to that cat,” he warns. “Tiger there has quite a reach!”

  “He looks a lot better,” I say.

  “I’ll say.” Dr. Gabe chuckles.

  He opens the door to a birdcage. “Now stay in there and take it easy,” he tells the parrot. “You are not a dog. You should not be attacking the mailman.”

  The parrot steps off his arm and onto the perch.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I ask.

  “He keeps flying into the window in his family’s living room whenever the mailman walks up the sidewalk. We thought he might have a broken wing, but the X-ray was negative. His folks will be picking him up soon. My prescription is to either move his cage or close the curtains.” He pauses. “I was going to tell you something. What was it?”

  “Tiger?” I suggest.

  He snaps his fingers. “Exactly. You should see the hole he put in my lab coat! That cat has claws of steel and a wicked temper.”

  I peer in through the metal bars of Tiger’s cage. He is sitting with his front paws tucked under him. The I.V. is gone. That means he has enough fluids in his body. He looks a lot better than he did yesterday. Dr. Mac must have bathed and groomed him while he was under the anesthetic for surgery. He almost looks like a different cat. He sure sounds like one—he’s purring a happy tune. I can just imagine what he would look like stretched out on my bed.

  “All right, I’m outta here,” Dr. Gabe says.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “Out to Lucas Quinn’s stables. He has a horse with an injured hoof.” He peers into the parrot’s cage. “At least he didn’t get it trying to scare away the mailman,” he tells the bird.

  “Br-awk! Fresh boy! Fresh boy!” the parrot squawks as Dr. Gabe heads out the door. When the door closes behind him, Tiger starts to talk to me.

  “Mee-row!” he wails.

  I know Dr. Mac told us not to touch any of the strays, but I can’t help it. Mittens was so friendly to me at Cat Land. I know Tiger will be, too. Now’s my chance to get to know him.