Ava and Taco Cat

by Carol Weston

Dear Diary,

  You know how they say to think outside the box? Taco pooped outside the box.

  And it was my fault!

  We were watching TV and I used the downstairs bathroom. Afterward, I shut the door behind me and completely forgot that we’re supposed to leave it open so Taco can go in and out and use his litter box whenever he wants. Just now I remembered that I’d closed that bathroom door hours ago! I went down to open the door but…too late! There were two little poops right next to the door. Cat scat! (Scat is a fancy way to say P-O-O-P—or poo or doo or dung or manure or feces or excrement.)

  Poor Taco! He’d obviously tried to be a good boy! He could have pooped anywhere. And cats prefer to bury their P-O-O-P and not leave it out in the open for everyone to see.

  I got a bunch of toilet paper, picked up the poops, dropped them into the toilet, and flushed.

  I’m glad Taco didn’t pee outside the box. That would have been way harder to clean up.

  Cleaning up the P-O-O-P was surprisingly easy—not that I want to go into the pooper-scooper business.

  Here’s what I’ve been thinking: Most dogs are trainable and protective and loyal and friendly and fun to take on walks (which is good). But when you take your dog on a walk, you have to take a plastic bag with you and deal with the doody (not good). You’re expected to just stand there while your dog is crouching and straining as though it’s nothing. And neither you, nor your dog, are supposed to act embarrassed even though you’re in public. If your dog has diarrhea, you’re still supposed to clean it up. And if there’s no garbage can in sight, well, you’re supposed to just carry the P-O-O-P (or diarrhea!) around in your plastic bag until you find one.

  Yuck!!

  I think cats are more dignified—but then, I’m more of a cat person than a dog person.

  Ava, Cat Person Kid

  P.S. I was brushing my teeth and left the water running. Taco jumped up, stuck his head under the faucet, and starting lapping at the water. It was cute. But it was not dignified!

  P.P.S. I’ll admit that if a stranger wanted to break into your house, a dog might be a handier pet than a cat. Like, there are watchdogs, but no watchcats. A dog might also be handier if you accidentally spilled food on the floor.

  1/9

  Saturday N-O-O-N

  Dear Diary,

  Dad made a big Irish breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, and scones.

  I asked Maybelle to come over, but she had “stuff to do.” She said I should come over Monday after school.

  Monday feels far away, but I said, “Okay,” and decided that that’s when I’d ask her what Zara has been saying about me.

  Mom just took clean clothes out of the dryer to fold, and when the laundry pile was all toasty warm, Taco hopped on top and settled in with his legs tucked under him. He looked like a hen sitting on eggs and seemed pleased with himself.

  Mom and I smiled as if we were sharing an inside joke. I was glad Mom didn’t shoo Taco away or make a remark about cat fur on clean clothes. She even turned to Taco and said in a sing-songy voice I’d never heard before, “Are you finally making yourself at home? Yes, you are. Yes, you are.”

  It was sweet, to tell you the truth.

  Ava and Taco at Home

  1/10

  Dear Diary,

  Dad and I were making Sunday sundaes, and I told him I wished Taco would jump on my bed and snuggle with me and purr.

  Dad said, “Be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  I was about to ask, “How many days was it built in?” but instead said, “He’s had ten days!”

  “And he is warming up to us,” Dad pointed out. We both looked at Taco. He’d found a patch of sunshine on the kitchen floor and was grooming himself: licking his five-toed paws and “brushing” his mismatched ears.

  He might have sensed that we were talking about him because he lifted his head and looked right at me.

  “Who’s a good boy?” I said and got on the floor and puckered up as if to give him a kiss. He sniffed my lips and sneezed a little cat sneeze. That made Dad laugh—and that made Taco scamper off.

  Since Maybelle was (supposedly) busy, Pip and I texted Bea to see if she wanted to come over. She texted, “Can Ben come too?” Pip liked that idea, so we texted back, “Sure.”

  Now Bea and Ben are both about to walk in. Pip is nervous, I can tell. She just put on lip gloss. Lip gloss! Next thing you know, she’ll be wearing eyeliner! Or cologne!

  She has also been cleaning her room. She said she’s almost done.

  I said “almost” is an unusual word because all its letters are in alphabetical order.

  I also said that my initials are in alphabetical order and hers aren’t.

  She said, “Who cares?” I said that if my first name were her middle name, she’d be Pip Ava Wren and her initials would be P. A. W.—like “paw.” She rolled her eyes as if she had way more important things to think about—like brushing her hair and getting ready for you-know-who.

  A. E. W.

  1/10

  Sunday night

  Dear Diary,

  There wasn’t enough snow to make snowmen, so Pip, Ben, Bea, and I made snowkids. Pip and Ben kept making happy faces at each other, and their gloves kept touching. Well, Pip and Ben’s snowboy turned out way cuter than Bea’s and my snowgirl. Pip can draw and sculpt! At the last minute, I said they should give their snowboy freckles, so they dotted him with Apple Jacks. Unfortunately, the “freckles” looked like chicken pox. (Fortunately, no one blamed me.)

  Back inside, we all made hot chocolate and ate peanuts. (We aren’t allowed to have peanuts in school, so we always stock up at home.) Pip showed Bea and Ben Alphabet Fish—because she’s proud of it and we’re up to “P is for porcupine fish.” We also talked about Meow Meow, Taco Cat, and even long-lost Goldy Lox. It was fun talking to an eighth-grade boy.

  Ben told us a joke he’d heard:

  Question: What’s the difference between a dog and a cat?

  Answer: When a dog has a wonderful master who feeds him and grooms him and cleans up after him, the dog thinks, “He must be God!” But when a cat has a wonderful master who feeds him and grooms him and cleans up after him, the cat thinks, “I must be God!”

  We laughed, and then Pip went to play a computer game in the living room.

  Bea and I went to the kitchen, and I put my hot chocolate cup in the sink and said, “Bea, can I ask you for advice?” Bea is the only person I know who wants to be an advice columnist when she grows up.

  “If it’s about Taco,” she said, “I don’t have any Pet Pointers. I know some cute cat videos though. And we stock tons of cat books at the shop because Americans own, like, a hundred million cats.”

  “It’s not about Taco,” I said, a lump in my throat. “You know that new fifth-grade girl, Zara?” Bea listened, and I told her that Maybelle was always busy with Zara, and that Zara had asked Chuck about me, and now things were awkward between us.

  “I think you and Maybelle will always be friends,” Bea said reassuringly. “And with Chuck, maybe if you try to act the way you used to, things will go back to how they were.” I didn’t say anything, so she added, “It might feel forced at first, but no one ever died of awkwardness.”

  I nodded, remembering when she’d told Pip that no one ever died of awkwardness. Who knew I’d be asking Bea for advice months later?

  Taco Cat pitter-pattered in and rubbed against our shins. I think he was actually inviting us to pet him.

  “You know what Taco likes?” I said. “To be brushed.”

  I got out his brush, and Bea and I took turns brushing him.

  “Meow Meow loves when we brush him. He purrs up a storm.”

  “Taco never purrs,” I said.

  “Really?” Bea looked surprised.

  “Well, not
yet anyway. He’s very independent. Even for a cat.”

  “Meow Meow is the opposite. She’s very affectionate—but a little needy sometimes.” Bea smiled. “We don’t mind though.”

  I didn’t think I’d mind either. (I mean I’m a little needy sometimes!)

  Ava, Whose Cat Does Not Purr

  P.S. Is having a cat that doesn’t purr like having a dog that doesn’t wag its tail? Will he ever purr? And will he ever realize that I don’t even want to be his master—just his friend?

  P.P.S. Bea and I went to Dad’s computer, and she showed me an amazing video of a cat playing Jenga. I think the cat was gifted or something.”

  1/11 (palindrome date)

  in bed

  Dear Diary,

  After school, I went to Maybelle’s—just me. It started out fun. We made popcorn (P-O-P-P-O-P-P-O-P) and played Slow Down/Speed Up. It’s the game when one person starts doing something, whether it’s jumping jacks or juggling marshmallows, and the other says, “Slow down!” or “Speed up!” The person has to do whatever she’s doing really slowwwwly or lightning fast. When Carmen or Lucia play it with us, they say, “¡Más lento!” or “¡Más rápido!” And in the summer, we sometimes go outside and do slow and fast cartwheels.

  Today, I was happy to be playing with just Maybelle (and not Zara). We started making necklaces with her beads, but after a while, I couldn’t hold in my questions anymore. So I asked straight out: “Did Zara say anything about me, like, behind my back?”

  Maybelle looked guilty and as if she didn’t know if she should answer.

  Which was an answer right there.

  “What did she say?” I pressed.

  Maybelle folded her legs up and put her chin on her knee. I could tell she didn’t want to report their conversations, but maybe I was sort of cornering her.

  She sighed, and we both looked at our beads instead of at each other. “She thinks,” Maybelle finally began in a quiet voice, “that you’re kind of a teachers’ pet.”

  My mouth flopped open. Even though that may not be untrue (which is a double negative), it was not what I expected to hear.

  Still, I decided I could live with that. I mean, it’s a fact that Mrs. Lemons likes me. And I like her back. But for what it’s worth, not all teachers think I’m special. I annoy Miss Hamshire. She acts like I’m bad at math on purpose.

  Well, it turned out that Maybelle wasn’t done! While I was contemplating Zara’s first complaint, Maybelle came up with a second.

  “Zara also says that your primary topic of conversation is your cat.”

  That made me mad! Of course I talk a lot about Taco Cat! I was desperate for a cat, then I got one, and we’ve had him only eleven days! What does Zara expect me to talk about? Carpet cleaners? Climate change?

  I was trying to decide whether to defend myself when Maybelle said that Zara also wonders why I haven’t let her meet Taco yet.

  What?!?

  “I haven’t stopped her from meeting him,” I said.

  “She says you’ve never once invited her over even though she helped make the paper mice.”

  I wanted to shout, “Oh puh-lease! Zara doesn’t have the right to jump feetfirst into my whole life!” But I didn’t. I just mumbled, “She can meet him.”

  “Now?” Maybelle asked, which made me feel sort of cornered.

  I shrugged and said, “I guess.” Then I wished I hadn’t, because suddenly Maybelle was speed-dialing Zara and inviting her to hang out at my house! Next thing you know, Maybelle’s mom was driving Maybelle and me to my house and picking up Zara on the way as though that had been the plan all along! I couldn’t believe it!!

  Even Dad looked surprised when he opened the door and there we were, all three of us. We walked in and searched all over for Taco and finally found him sleeping in the corner of Mom’s closet, by the slippers.

  Zara said he was handsome.

  I said that cats spend most of the day sleeping—about eighteen hours.

  Maybelle said, “That’s three-fourths of the day! Humans sleep only one-third of the day.” That was a very Maybelle thing to say. (She can do fractions in her head.)

  Zara said that sloths sleep even more. “They sleep more than any other animal in the animal kingdom.”

  Zara had brought a ping-pong ball for Taco to play with, and he chased it around and even let her pet him. At first, I thought Taco was being a traitor. But I told myself not to feel that way. The problem though, is that it’s hard not to feel whatever you’re feeling, even when you try to talk yourself out of it.

  Taco wanted to keep playing, and he pressed his little white zigzag against Zara’s shin. She laughed and said, “He’s giving me a head butt!” For a second, I thought she was calling my cat a butthead! Then I realized that this was in my head.

  Anyway, Maybelle said that in 1963, France sent the first cat ever into outer space. “Her name was Felicette.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Oui,” Maybelle said. “A lot of animals went into space. Dogs, monkeys, mice, turtles, even newts and fruit flies.”

  “Newts?” Zara and I said at the exact same time.

  She gave me a little smile so I went ahead and gave her a little smile back, which was nice of me. Then we both said “Jinx” at the same time.

  “Did the cat live?” I asked Maybelle.

  Maybelle said the cat went up for fifteen minutes and “came back famous.”

  Zara said, “Cool.” She was petting Taco and he was letting her. “What a good cat,” she said. I appreciated her appreciation, even though I was glad Taco did not choose that moment to purr. But then Zara said something I did not appreciate. She said, “I wonder who he used to belong to.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. Obviously, I think of Taco as mine, not as some hand-me-down stray.

  “I mean, did you look for Lost Cat signs?”

  “No…” I said and wondered whether we should have.

  “My stepfather once had a dog that got lost,” Zara continued. “But it had tags, and we put up signs, and the person who found him gave him back.”

  “Taco didn’t have tags and we didn’t see any signs,” I stated in a way that I hoped made it clear that this conversation was over.

  Soon Maybelle and Zara left, and I felt irritated that Zara had come over at all. I hugged Taco close and was glad that he was mine, and that he’s Taco Wren—not Taco Smith or Taco Jones or even Taco Bell!

  Ava Elle Wren, Owner of Taco Cat Wren

  P.S. Dinner was a revolting concoction of kale, quinoa, and mushrooms. Ugh! Why can’t we have Taco Tuesdays instead of Meatless Mondays?

  1/12

  barely awake

  Dear Diary,

  I had the scariest dream!

  A gigantic elephant was trying to barge into my room. I locked the door, but the elephant started getting in anyway. I was really scared and didn’t know where to hide, and I hoped it would not get in and trample or squash me!

  When I woke up, I thought: What the heck was that about? Had I read something scary before bed? Was my nightmare inspired by an Aesop fable about elephants?

  But no, I hadn’t. And I doubt Aesop wrote about elephants in ancient Greece.

  I doubt Basho wrote about elephants in ancient Japan either.

  My mind was all over the place, and then I remembered the expression “an elephant in the room,” which means the upsetting thing no one is talking about.

  Right now what’s upsetting me is what Zara said about Lost Cat signs. I have to admit: it didn’t even occur to me to look for Lost Cat signs—let alone round up my friends to make Found Cat signs. And even if I had made Found Cat signs, I probably wouldn’t have posted them in plain sight. I would have posted them in closets and behind doors!

  Should I talk to Mom or Dad about this?

  I wish Z
ara had kept her mouth zipped!

  Ava, Angry

  1/13

  bedtime

  Dear Diary,

  Question: What if someone out there is looking for Taco Cat?

  I don’t even want to think about that.

  I could think about Chuck, but he and I haven’t said a word to each other in six days.

  I could think about Maybelle because she’s coming over again tomorrow. But what if Zara thinks she’s invited? She isn’t!

  Sometimes I wish I could just turn off my brain.

  Ava, Agitated

  1/14

  4:11

  Dear Diary,

  Maybelle came over, and Dad built us a fire in the fireplace while we made banana milk. That’s when we put bananas and ice cream and ice in a blender. (Taco hates when we use the blender.) We also made a snack of banana slices topped with dabs of chunky peanut butter. (Dad and Mom both bought bananas so we have way too many.) Anyway, Maybelle and I took off our shoes and warmed our toes by the fire, and I decided to tell her that I’d been worrying.

  “About what?”

  “About what Zara said about Lost Cat signs and also”—my voice caught—“about Zara wanting to steal you away.” I looked into the fire, which was crackly and smoky-smelling and yellow-orange with a little blue and purple too. Then I looked at Maybelle and added softly, “I don’t want you to dump me.”

  “Ava, I would never dump you,” Maybelle said. She sounded a teeny tiny bit annoyed. “And I didn’t get mad last fall when you started spending time with Bea.”

  “True,” I said, feeling embarrassed and bite-size.

  “Besides, didn’t you once tell me that Bea said people can’t steal friends, they can only make friends?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, impressed that Maybelle remembered.

  “Zara is new,” she continued, “and it seemed like she could use a friend. And you weren’t around much because you had just gotten Taco.”