Socks

by Beverly Cleary

  Beverly Cleary

  Socks

  Illustrated by

  Tracy Dockray

  Contents

  1. The Kitten Sale

  2. The Brickers’ Other Pet

  3. Socks and the Formula

  4. The Evening the Sitter Came

  5. A Visit from Nana

  6. Old Taylor

  7. Socks and Charles William

  About the Author

  Other Books by Beverly Cleary

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  The Kitten Sale

  The tabby kitten hooked his white paws over the edge of the box marked, Kittens 25¢ or Best Offer. The girl with the stringy hair and sunburned arms picked him up and set him down in the midst of his wiggling, crawling, mewing brothers and sisters. He wanted to get out; she wanted him to stay in. The puzzling struggle had gone on all morning in the space between the mailbox and the newspaper rack near the door of the supermarket.

  “Nice fresh kittens for sale,” called out the girl, whose name was Debbie. She usually held the kitten in her arms, and he expected her to hold him now.

  “Stupid,” said her brother George, embarrassed to be selling kittens with his younger sister on a summer morning. “Whoever heard of fresh kittens?”

  “Me,” said Debbie, as she pushed the kitten down once more. Then she repeated at the top of her voice, “Nice fresh kittens for sale.” She knew she was not stupid, and she enjoyed annoying her brother. The two had quarreled at breakfast. George said Debbie should sell the kittens, because she played with them and that made them hers. Debbie said George should sell the kittens, because she didn’t know how to make change. Besides, he was the one who had brought the mother home when she was a kitten, so that made her kittens his. Their father said, “Stop bickering, you two. You can both sell them,” and that was that.

  The white-pawed kitten, unaware of the hard feelings between brother and sister, tried again. He stepped on another kitten and this time managed to lift his chin over the rim of the carton. His surprised blue eyes took in a parking lot full of shoppers pushing grocery carts among cars glittering in the summer heat. He was fascinated and frightened.

  “Now Socks,” said Debbie, as she unhooked his claws from the cardboard, “be a good kitten.”

  Socks’s orange-and-white sister caught his tail and bit it. Socks rolled over on his back and swiped at her with one white paw. He no longer felt playful toward a littermate who bit his tail. Now that he was seven weeks old, he wanted to escape from all the rolling, pouncing, and nipping that went on inside the box.

  Unfortunately, no shopper was willing to buy Socks his freedom. Several paused to smile at the sign, and then Socks found himself shoved to the bottom of the heap by Debbie.

  “What are you going to do with all the money when you sell the kittens?” asked an elderly woman who was lonely for her grandchildren.

  “Daddy says we should save up to have the mother cat shoveled, so she won’t have kittens all the time,” answered Debbie.

  “Spayed,” corrected George. “She means he said we should have the mother spayed.”

  “Oh, my,” said the woman and hurried into the market.

  “Stupid,” said George. “Anyway, Dad was joking, I think.”

  This time Debbie looked as if she agreed with her brother that she might be stupid. “What are we going to do?” she asked, as she plucked Socks from the edge of the carton once more. “Nobody wants them.”

  “Mark them down, I guess. Dad said to give them away if we had to.” The boy borrowed a felt-tipped pen from a checker in the market and, while Socks peered over the edge of the carton, crossed out the 25¢ on his sign and wrote 20¢ above it.

  “Kittens for sale.” Debbie’s voice sounded encouraging as she hid Socks under two of his littermates. He promptly wiggled out. On a day like this his own fur was warm enough.

  “Why do you keep hiding Socks?” George tried to look as if he just happened to be standing there by the mailbox and had nothing to do with the kittens.

  “Because he’s the best kitten, and I want to keep him,” said Debbie.

  “Dad won’t let you,” her brother reminded her. “He says the house is getting to smell like cats.”

  Socks found himself plucked from the litter and cradled in the girl’s arms. “Well, at least we can find a good home for him.” Debbie was admitting the truth of her brother’s statement. “I don’t want just anybody to take Socks.”

  “You don’t see a line of people forming to buy kittens, do you?” asked George. To pass the time he had read the headlines of the newspapers in the rack and the label on the mailbox and was starting in on the signs posted in the windows of the market.

  Socks tried to climb Debbie’s T-shirt, but she held him back while she watched the faces of shoppers for signs of interest. Once a man approached, but he only wanted to drop a letter in the mailbox. A woman paused long enough to look at each kitten and then say, “No, I can’t bear to think of anything as warm and furry as a kitten on such a hot day.”

  Children entering the market with their parents begged to be allowed to buy a kitten, just one, please, please, with their very own money, but no one actually bought a kitten. “I guess it just isn’t kitten weather,” said Debbie.

  Socks struggled to free himself from the heat of the girl’s sweaty arms. “Be good, Socks,” said Debbie. “We’re trying to find you a nice home.”

  “Fat chance.” George had finished reading the signs in the window and was even more bored. Special prices on ground beef and soap and announcements of cake sales did not interest him.

  A woman with her hair on rollers, wearing a muumuu and rubber-thong sandals, herded three children and a tired-looking mongrel across the parking lot. The tallest, a girl barely old enough to read, shrieked, “Mommy, look! A kitten sale!”

  “I want one! I want one!” shouted her younger brother and sister.

  Debbie and George exchanged a look. The dog, sensing a long argument, lay down in front of the market door where customers had to step over him. Panting used up all his energy, and he had none left with which to investigate kittens.

  “I want that one with white feet,” said the boy, who was wearing new swimming trunks.

  “I saw him first!” The younger girl shoved her brother.

  “Cut it out, you two,” ordered the mother, guiding her brood across the traffic lane.

  “Not Socks. Please not Socks.” There was desperation in Debbie’s whisper. Socks could feel thumping beneath her T-shirt as she held him closer. “They’re the kind that will squeeze him and forget to give him water. I can tell.”

  George did not answer, but he frowned as the three children approached. He had good reason to quarrel with his sister, but that did not mean he approved of quarreling.

  The oldest of the three joined the squabble. “I get him, because I’m the oldest. You two can have Bad Dog.” The dog, hearing his name, lifted his head, decided nothing of importance was happening, and dropped it again.

  The younger girl, who was wearing her sister’s outgrown shorts and blouse, objected. “Just because you’re oldest you always think you can have everything.”

  “No fair!” shouted the boy. “Bad Dog belongs to all of us.”

  Debbie unhooked the kitten’s claws from her T-shirt and tried to hide him behind her back. Socks struggled. Until this morning Debbie always had been careful to support his feet when she held him, and she never had squeezed before.

  “I want that one with white feet that the girl is hiding,” said the older girl.

  “Me too! Me too!” The boy jumped up and down and clutched his swimming trunks, which his mother had bought for him to grow into.

 
“I know!” The younger sister had found a solution. “Mommy can buy us each a kitten.”

  “That’s what you think,” said the weary mother. “One is plenty. We’ll take the one with white feet.”

  Socks had almost wiggled free when a second pair of hands seized him. He felt himself being lifted. Metal creaked, the hands thrust him into darkness, and he found himself falling. He landed on something smooth in a dark, stifling place. Above he heard a creak and a clang. Outside he heard shouting and the sound of Debbie’s bursting into tears. The strangest things had happened to Socks that morning.

  “He mailed him!” cried the small boy. “That big boy mailed the kitten I wanted.”

  “The one I wanted,” contradicted his big sister.

  “Cut it out, you kids,” said the mother.

  The little sister shrieked, “Mommy, he hit me!” Now she had her brother in the wrong.

  Socks slipped and slid on the letters that crackled beneath his paws as he explored the dark mailbox. The place was sweltering, but it was free from other kittens. For the first time in seven weeks of life Socks had found a place where no one could step on his face or bite his tail. He lay down on the letters to catch up on the rest he had missed that morning.

  Outside the commotion continued. “I’m fed up with you kids fighting all the time,” said the mother. “Just for that we won’t buy a kitten at all.”

  All three children protested. “No fair!” “You said you’d buy us a kitten. You promised!” “Please, Mommy. Just one. We won’t fight anymore. Honest.”

  “Come along,” said the mother, relieved to have an excuse for leaving the kitten behind. “I’ll buy you popsicles. I need a kitten like a hole in the head.”

  This decision was followed by shouts of, “I want lime!” “I want grape!” “I don’t want a popsicle! I want a Slurpy.”

  Socks was discovering that the heat inside the box made sleep impossible. The chute at the top opened. “Socks, are you all right down there?” Socks recognized the tearful voice as Debbie’s even though it sounded loud and hollow. Then she demanded of her brother, “How are we going to get him out? He’ll roast if we leave him in there. He’ll starve. He’ll die!” She tried to cool the box by opening and closing the creaky chute.

  “You didn’t want a bunch of fighting kids to get him, did you?” asked George. “You want him to go to a good home, don’t you?”

  “How can we sell him when he’s in the mailbox?” asked Debbie. “Nobody can see him.”

  “Look,” said George, “it says on the box that the mail will be picked up at eleven twenty-three A.M. The clock in the market says eleven fifteen. All we have to do is wait for the mailman to unlock the box and we’ll get Socks back.”

  There was a loud sniff outside the mailbox. “Are you sure the mailman will give him back?” Hope and respect for her brother had replaced fear and anger in Debbie’s voice.

  “Sure, I’m sure,” said George. “The post office doesn’t want kittens any more than anyone else.”

  “I hope nobody wants to mail a package before eleven twenty-three. It might hit Socks.” The tears were gone from Debbie’s voice. “Nice fresh kittens for sale!” she called out, as she tried to fan air into the mailbox.

  Socks stretched out panting, puzzled by all that had happened. A letter falling from above was only another puzzlement, but the heat forced him to mew in distress.

  “Hang on, Socks.” Debbie’s voice echoed down the chute. “Help is coming.”

  At precisely twenty-three minutes after eleven, as he lay gasping on the letters, Socks was frightened by the sounds of keys rattling against metal. Before he could move, the side of the box dropped down and he lay blinking in the glare of the sun before an audience of shoppers.

  “Well, how about that?” said the driver of the mail truck, when he saw the kitten.

  “Socks!” cried Debbie, rescuing her kitten from the letters.

  “Don’t you know it’s a federal offense to tamper with the United States mails?” asked the driver, as he scooped mail into his sack. Debbie looked so alarmed that he said, “Relax. I’m only joking. A kitten doesn’t count as mail unless he has stamps stuck on him, and even then I’m not sure.”

  The scene attracted more shoppers. A young couple pushing a cart of groceries toward the parking lot paused to watch what was going on. Debbie, trusting their appearance, held Socks up for their inspection. “This is Socks,” she said. “We named him Socks, because he looks like he’s wearing white socks.”

  “He’s the smartest kitten in the bunch,” said George, his voice brimming with hope. If they sold one kitten, they could sell more, and he would be free to go to the library.

  Unaware that his future was about to be decided, Socks struggled and mewed to be put down. Debbie would not let him go. “See,” she said to the young couple, “he likes you.”

  “Look at his little paws and his little pointy tail,” cried the young woman, whose name was Marilyn Bricker. “And look at his beautiful markings: those black stripes on his head and the black rings around his tail like the rings on a raccoon’s tail and those little white socks. Oh Bill, we must take him. We need a cat to sleep in front of the fireplace this winter now that we have a house.”

  “He’s a very smart kitten.” George pressed for a sale. “He’s housebroken, too.”

  “I always wanted a kitten when I was a kid,” remarked Bill Bricker, “but my mother didn’t like cats.”

  “Then you should have a kitten now,” said his wife.

  Debbie and George exchanged a look that wiped away their disagreements of the morning. They were about to sell a kitten.

  Mr. Bricker reached into the pocket of his jeans for change. “Fifty cents is the best offer I can make,” he said with a smile.

  “Oh, that’s all right.” Debbie was willing to be generous. “Daddy said to give them away if we had to.”

  “Thank you,” said George, as he accepted two twenty-five-cent pieces.

  Debbie felt she should say something to make the transaction official. “Satisfaction guaranteed or your money—” She thought better of what she was about to say and instead handed the kitten to Mrs. Bricker. “Bye, Socks,” she said. “Be a good kitten.”

  Socks found himself cuddled, not squeezed, in the arms of the strange Mrs. Bricker while George said to his sister, “Look, if you’re ever going to learn to make change, you’ve got to learn that fifty cents is a lot more than twenty cents.”

  “Socks, did you hear what the girl said?” Mrs. Bricker stroked the tabby markings on the tiny head. “She said satisfaction guaranteed.” Socks’s eyes were closing. He was worn out by all that had happened that morning.

  “To us or to the kitten?” asked Mr. Bricker, as he lifted the bags of groceries over the tailgate of an old station wagon.

  “To the kitten, of course.” Marilyn Bricker laughed affectionately. “I know you and your heart of Jell-O.”

  2

  The Brickers’ Other Pet

  The Brickers drove Socks to a shabby house with a weedy lawn, a fragrant lemon bush, and geraniums growing in earth comfortable for a kitten to dig in. They made a bed for Socks from a carton and an old sweatshirt and placed it in the laundry beside his dish. They did not object when he chose instead to sleep on the couch in the living room, which, except for a chair with loopy upholstery, was furnished in what the Brickers described to their college-student friends as “contemporary cast-off.” They fed him canned and dry cat foods and bought raw meat for him. They wiped his paws on a good bath towel whenever he came in with wet feet, because they had not been married long enough to have an old bath towel, and when the winter rains came, they supplied him with a pan of Kitty Litter.

  The Brickers talked to their cat. “Socks, you’re getting a lot of service around here,” said Mr. Bricker, as he left his studies to get down on his hands and knees and retrieve the Ping-Pong ball Socks had batted under the chest of drawers out of reach of his paw.

&
nbsp; “Such silky fur.” Mrs. Bricker spoke in her just-for-Socks voice as she left off typing to press her cheek against his coat and let her long hair fall over him like a curtain. Socks’s throat throbbed with purrs. He was especially happy when he could interrupt her work on the papers that she typed for students. Her typewriter was his rival for her attention, and Socks did not like rivals.

  The only real unpleasantness in Socks’s new life was an unhappy day spent in a veterinary’s hospital, which was soon forgotten. Socks thrived. His eyes changed from blue to the color of new leaves. He grew into a sleek cat, affectionate toward his loving owners but firm about getting his own way. He was the center of the Bricker household, and he was content.

  Then a strange thing happened. Mrs. Bricker’s lap began to shrink. One day Socks was perfectly comfortable resting on her knees, and the next day he did not have quite enough room. Each time he napped on her lap, he had to curl himself into a tighter ball with his tail wrapped more closely around his body. Finally one evening, when trying to find room to rest his chin, he lost his balance and fell to the floor with a thump. Both Brickers burst out laughing. Socks was insulted. He turned his back and twitched his tail back and forth across the carpet to show his displeasure.

  “Poor Socks!” said Mrs. Bricker between giggles. “You lost your dignity, didn’t you?”

  “Come on, old boy!” coaxed Mr. Bricker. “Try my lap for size.” He moved his chair away from his desk to make room.

  The tail twitched. The Brickers would have to work harder before Socks would forgive them. Owners must be disciplined. If they really wanted to be forgiven, they would have to tempt him with a snack from the refrigerator.

  Instead of going to the kitchen, Mrs. Bricker suddenly said in an urgent voice, “Bill! It’s time to go.”