Ava and Taco Cat

by Carol Weston

  When the lady with the nostril ring said, “Right this way,” I made a face at Pip and hopped right up. Pip hesitated, but then she hopped up too! We tagged along as though we were Kid #5 and Kid #6!

  The family was so excited about getting a dog that they didn’t notice us sneaking in behind them. And the lady with the nostril ring was so happy that someone was adopting a pet rather than dropping one off that she didn’t either.

  The family followed the signs for dogs and turned left. Pip and I followed the signs for cats and turned right.

  Soon we were standing in front of cages and cages of cats! It was like a wall of cats!

  Each cat had a food bowl, water bowl, litter box, and soft cloth. Some were asleep, but most were wide-awake. One poked his nose out, and another poked his paw out, and another twitched his ears. There was an old white cat and an old black cat pacing back and forth, back and forth. I wondered if they were senile felines (S-E-N-I-L-E-F-E-L-I-N-E-S), which is a palindrome I came up with recently. Then I felt bad for wondering that. Poor cats!

  On the cages were clipboards with pieces of paper. They said things like “indoor cat” and “outdoor cat” and “finicky eater” and “not good with other cats.” One said “gentle with children.” Another said “may require time to warm up to new people.”

  “Where’s the one that got hurt?” Pip asked. We both knew that we needed to find him before someone found us!

  “I’m looking!!” I said. And I was! I was searching and searching for the honey-colored cat. I did not want to fall in love with the wrong cat by mistake!

  Pip spotted a sign about “adoption options.” It said that if you couldn’t provide a “forever home,” maybe you could provide a “foster home.” She read it out loud and said, “Think we can talk Mom and Dad into letting us have a cat for a month?”

  “I don’t want a cat for a month!” I said. “I want a forever cat! And I want the one we came to find!”

  But where was the cat with the bitten-up ear and soft white zigzag?

  We walked down the hall and entered a second room filled with nothing but kittens. Observation: the only thing cuter than a wall of cats is a wall of kittens! The room smelled a little tiny bit of cat pee (kitten pee?) but I didn’t even mind because the kittens were seriously cute—probably because they were so unserious. One was swatting a ball. Another yawned a big yawn, and then started closing its eyes and flopped over—fast asleep on its food bowl. Another was napping inside its litter box. Each cage had one toy and two or three (or even four!) kittens, and most were licking each other and playing and tumbling. One fluffy gray kitten stood on its hind legs and put out a front paw as if to high-five me. It was hard not to fall head-over-heels in love—but I resisted because I’d made up my mind about which cat I wanted to save.

  Pip pointed out a sign that said: “Please adopt kittens in pairs.” She looked at me and said, “I wish we could.”

  Just then a short lady with a long braid walked in. “Hello, girls.” She was carrying a cage and must have assumed we were allowed to be there.

  “Hello,” we chimed and followed her back to the room with the grown-up cats.

  The volunteer placed the cage on top of a row of other cages. “This yellow tabby arrived this morning,” she said, adjusting the clipboard. “Got himself into quite a scuffle, poor fella.”

  Pip and I walked over to the yellow tabby. He looked at me with big, sad, round green eyes. He was like a skinny lion cub with a white Harry Potter zigzag above his nose. His right leg was also white, as if he’d broken it and was wearing a cat cast. And the tip of his tail was white, as if he’d dipped it into paint.

  Pip and I both knew this was the cat we’d come to find! I looked at him and he looked at me, and I wished I could adopt him right then and there!

  “He’s a bit skittish,” the lady said.

  “Scottish?” Pip said.

  “Skittish,” the lady repeated. “Frightened. You know, a scaredy-cat. But who can blame him? He’s been through a lot.”

  “How much does he cost?” I asked.

  Pip stared at me, eyes wide.

  “Kittens come with a small price tag—unless you take two,” the lady answered. “But older cats are free. We want them to find good homes.”

  “Can I put this one on hold?” I asked.

  “That’s not our policy.” She smiled. “But you may spend a few minutes with him to see if it would be a good fit. And your parents can fill out an application stating that they understand that pet ownership is a big commitment and responsibility.” We did not mention that our parents were not with us and didn’t even know we were there. “Cats can live fifteen to twenty years,” the lady continued, “so we always check references. But if everything goes smoothly, you can take him home today. I bet he’d like that.”

  She gave the cat a smile, and the cat gave me a blink, and I wished I could promise him a forever home.

  “Would you like me to go over this with your parents?” the lady asked. Pip and I exchanged a look and said, “No!” at the exact same time.

  I wanted to say, “Jinx!” but instead mumbled, “Thanks anyway.” Then Pip and I hurried off and raced downstairs and out of the building.

  Outside, we started biking the three blocks to Taco Time. Pip was just ahead of me.

  “He neeeeeeds us!” I called up to her.

  “If we get to keep him,” Pip shouted back, “we could name him van Gogh.”

  “Van Gogh?”

  “Because of his ear!” she shouted. Pip has a poster of van Gogh sunflowers and once told me that when van Gogh couldn’t sell any paintings, he got so upset and unstable that he cut off a piece of his ear and mailed it to a woman. Or something.

  Well, I did not want to name our cat after a depressed artist with mismatched ears! So I said so—or shouted so.

  “You have any better ideas?” Pip shouted back.

  I considered saying, “Dandelion!” because then we could call him Dandy. But the cat’s fur was more lion-colored than dandelion-colored. I also considered saying, “Honey,” but he was a tough tomcat so that wouldn’t work. I shouted, “Not yet.”

  Pip and I got to Taco Time and parked our bikes. I was trying and trying to come up with the perfect name, but I couldn’t think of one. We ordered and our tacos arrived, and soon I was staring at mine and suddenly it occurred to me that the hurt cat was the exact same color as my…taco!

  “I’ve got it!” I said a little too loudly. “Taco!” I couldn’t believe what my brilliant brain came up with next. “No! Wait!” I said. “His name is…Taco Cat! T-A-C-O-C-A-T! It’s a palindrome!”

  “That’s genius!” Pip said, and I could feel myself beaming. “But you’ll never be able to convince B-O-B and A-N-N-A.” To be funny, Pip spelled out our parents’ names.

  “Never say ‘never,’” I said.

  I will now stop writing because my hand is about to fall off. (Figuratively, not literally.)

  Ava Wren, Future Cat Owner?

  12/29

  after dinner, which was stew

  Dear Diary,

  Pip’s boyfriend texted Pip a photo of a big lungfish in the Shedd Aquarium. She texted him back a photo of the little catfish in our ABC book. Then Ben texted her a whole school of fish. From the face she made, you’d think he’d sent her a box of chocolates.

  I just looked up “school of fish,” and here are ten more good expressions:

  1. A kindle of kittens

  2. A prickle of hedgehogs

  3. A troop of monkeys

  4. A band of gorillas

  5. A pride of lions

  6. A leap of leopards

  7. A tower of giraffes

  8. A zeal of zebras

  9. A flamboyance of flamingos

  10. An exaltation of larks

  A bunch of people is
called a crowd, but there’s no expression for a bunch of wrens—besides flock.

  If I could invent one for my birthday, I’d invent “a wonder of wrens.”

  Wonderful Ava Wren Who Wants Wonderful Taco Cat

  12/29

  bedtime

  Dear Diary,

  Pip and I made a drum fish and an electric eel. The electric eel, I’m sorry to report, is pretty ugly.

  Funny that some things are pretty ugly, but nothing is ugly pretty.

  This is my eel poem:

  E is for electric eel.

  The electric eel looks like a worm or a snake.

  Beware, beware of the shock it can make.

  I wish I could shock my parents and tell them that we are adopting a cat, instead of having to ask (or beg).

  Ava, Asking About Adopting an Animal

  12/30

  right before dinner

  Dear Diary,

  Pip and I didn’t know whether to tell Mom and Dad that we went to the rescue center. We didn’t want to lie, but we also didn’t want to get in trouble if they found out.

  Finally I decided to spill all to Dad. A few weeks ago, Mom and Dad both said I should speak my mind. Besides, my birthday is in two days, and parents don’t ground kids right before their birthdays, do they?

  While Dad was paying bills, I got out thirteen index cards and wrote one letter on each. When I finished, I made a fan out of them so Dad could see it was a palindrome: W-A-S-I-T-A-C-A-T-I-S-A-W.

  “Was it a cat I saw?” Dad read. “Good one, Ava!”

  “Dad, Pip and I did see a cat,” I said. “We went looking for that injured cat Mom told us about. And we found him!”

  “What do you mean ‘found’ him?”

  “At the rescue center.”

  Dad looked more puzzled than mad. Maybe now that Pip is a teenager and not as shy as she used to be, he doesn’t object to our doing some things on our own?

  Weird that Pip is old enough to be independent and wear a bra and have a boyfriend!

  I don’t want to be independent or wear a bra or have a boyfriend. I just want Taco Cat!

  I told Dad all about him, even his name.

  “T-A-C-O-C-A-T? That’s clever.” Dad laughed. “But Ava, you know Mom doesn’t want a pet.”

  “I know.” I wanted to add that it’s not fair that Mom gets to spend all day with tons of animals when we don’t even have one. “But I almost wish we had a mouse problem,” I said. “Like, an explosion of mice.”

  And that’s when I got an idea. An amazing idea. It was so amazing, I decided to call Maybelle and ask her to come over and help me with an “art project.” (Dad said we could have a short after-dinner playdate since it’s still vacation.)

  But when I called Maybelle, she said, “Zara asked if she could sleep over, and I said okay and now we’re about to have dinner. Can she come too?”

  “I guess,” I mumbled, surprised that Maybelle was having a sleepover with Zara, a girl who had just moved to Misty Oaks in September. Since when did my best-friend-since-first-grade have sleepovers with anyone besides me? To be honest, the thought of Maybelle and Zara having dinner together or even microwaving marshmallows made my stomach lurch.

  Next I called my neighbors, Carmen and Lucia. I could hear Carmen asking her mom in Spanish if they could come over. Their parents are from Peru. Carmen and Lucia are twins and they each have a Paddington Bear. They say their bears are twins from Peru too.

  I wish I could speak Spanish. I wish I were bilingual instead of just lingual. People say I have a “way with words,” but I know only one language—so far.

  I went into Pip’s room. She was illustrating our F page:

  F is for flying fish.

  This lucky fast fish has wings and can fly.

  When mean fish swim close, it jumps ten feet high.

  “Pip,” I asked, “do you know how to draw mice?”

  She made a face and said, “Duh.”

  “Good,” I said and told her my amazing idea—my amazing plan. She said it sounded dumb—but she got right to work.

  Ava the Amazing

  12/30

  9:09 p.m.

  Dear Diary,

  Six people in one bedroom is pretty squooshy, but we sat in a circle: Pip and me, Carmen and Lucia, Maybelle and Zara. Pip showed us all her life-size drawing of a model house mouse. It had dot eyes, round ears, short whiskers, a curly tail, and (I don’t know how Pip does this) kind of a cute personality. I gave everyone a pencil and scissors, and in the middle, we put a stack of paper, erasers, and a pencil sharpener.

  “Why are we making paper mice?” Carmen asked. She and Lucia were both wearing green. They don’t dress exactly the same, but they always wear the same color.

  “Because my birthday is the day after tomorrow and I want a pet cat.” I said that I wanted to show our parents how practical a cat could be.

  “Practical?” Maybelle asked.

  “Like, what if we had a mouse invasion?”

  “I don’t get it,” Zara said. She crossed her legs, but not the crisscross applesauce way. She crossed them yoga style, feet on top. I wondered if she thought mouse-making was immature. Was it? “What are you going to do with all the mice?”

  “Put them all over the furniture,” I said. “First thing tomorrow, before our mom and dad wake up.”

  Zara looked like she didn’t quite get it. (Confession: I didn’t quite get what she was doing on my bedroom floor.) She shrugged and said, “I once had a pet guinea pig.”

  “In Peru, people eat guinea pigs,” Carmen replied.

  “Ewww!” Zara said.

  “They roast them on spits,” Lucia added.

  “Did you ever try one?” Zara asked, squinching her face.

  “They’re yummy with garlic and lemon,” Lucia admitted, looking sheepish. (Note: sheepish is a funny word. No one ever looks cattish or doggish or guinea-piggish.)

  “What happened to your guinea pig?” Carmen asked.

  “My cousin got to keep it when I had to move in with my grandparents,” Zara answered, putting down her scissors.

  It was strange having this new girl in my room. Were we supposed to ask about her family? Or not ask? After an awkward moment, Carmen said, “We once had pet mice.”

  “All they did was multiply!” Lucia added.

  “It was disgusting!” Carmen said.

  Pip wasn’t saying much of anything. She was being as quiet as she used to be. Probably because of Zara.

  I decided to tell the Aesop fable “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse.” The twins like it when I tell fables, so I even spiced it up a little:

  A country mouse invites a city mouse for dinner, but there’s nothing to eat besides a little pile of beans. Then the city mouse, who is snobby, invites the country mouse to come dine with him. The two mice sneak into a fancy banquet hall and are about to dig into delicious leftovers—everything from lobster to banana splits. But no sooner do they start nibbling at what’s left of the feast, than a hungry cat and giant barking dog chase them into a hole.

  “That’s it?” Zara asked.

  “What’s the moral?” Lucia asked.

  “It’s better to eat beans in peace than lobster in danger,” I said.

  “Or maybe it has to do with making new friends?” Zara said.

  “I don’t think so,” I said because I didn’t, and because I didn’t like that Zara was making friends with my friends.

  “You know what?” Maybelle said. “We’re making suburban mice!”

  “I just made three blind mice!” Carmen said. “Look!”

  Lucia looked, then quickly erased the eye dots from three of her mice. “Me too!” she chimed, and they both started humming “Three Blind Mice.”

  Maybelle said, “Did you know that if you hold your nose, you
can’t hum?”

  “Really?” Pip said.

  “Really!” Maybelle said and told us all to start humming “Three Blind Mice.” We did, even Zara. Maybelle raised her arms as if she were conducting a symphony. “On your marks, get set, go!” she said and held her nose, so we all held our noses. She was right: Our mouse-making factory fell silent! You can’t hum and hold your nose at the same time!

  After we’d made many, many mini mice (alliteration alert!), Pip got out Alphabet Fish, and Zara started asking questions. I know asking questions is considered considerate, but she was asking a lot of questions. She asked why we were making a book (because we felt like it), and why it was about fish (because Pip likes fish), and if we’d ever made a book together before (no), and if Pip took art classes (yes), and if I took writing classes (no), and what G was going to be for (goldfish).

  She said, “G could be for guppy.”

  I said Pip and I had already decided that G was going to be for goldfish.

  Zara said, “Guppy sounds cuter.” I looked at Maybelle to see if she thought Zara was being a bossy busybody, but Maybelle was admiring Pip’s illustrations. “And I like the title Something Fishy,” Zara added.

  “The title is Alphabet Fish,” I replied in a firm voice. Carmen and Lucia exchanged a worried look. “And G is for goldfish,” I stated, “in honor of our pet goldfish who died.” I almost told her that we’d named her Goldy Lox because LOX and LOCKS are homonyms: “lox,” like smoked fish, and “locks,” like the blond hair of the girl with the three bears, so it was a funny punny name. But I didn’t want Zara to ask any more questions.

  Soon Maybelle’s mom came to pick up Maybelle and Zara so they could have their stupid sleepover. Maybelle’s mom said she could drop the twins off too, “no problem.”

  But it was a problem because when everyone climbed into the same car, talking and laughing, I felt a twinge of loneliness. (Actually, a few twinges.)

  By the time I went back upstairs, Pip was in bed with a book, and I knew she wouldn’t want to talk. So I got in bed too and started writing in you.