by Susan Lubner
Up at the register, I counted out the money our parents had given us to get the fund-raiser started. We were also each donating some of our own money that we had earned from working at the diner.
Thanks to the big discount the lady was giving us, we could buy enough yarn to make at least thirty sweaters and have money left over to buy poster board for the signs we needed to make to tell people about the sale. The lady bagged our yarn and then handed us another sack. Inside was more yarn!
“Consider this a donation for a good cause,” she said.
“Thanks!” we both said at the same time.
“I like kids who like good causes. And I like cats. You have a good day.”
“You too,” we told her.
“Thanks again,” Joss said. We both waved as we headed toward the door. I held it open for Joss and followed her outside.
“See! Charlotte is good luck!” I said, when we stepped back out on the street. “How lucky is getting a bag full of free yarn?”
“Or…” Joss brought her nose so close to mine they almost bumped. “Or…,” she said again, “it was just because the yarn lady was super nice. And she likes cats.” Joss pulled her face back from mine and raised her eyebrows.
“Or”—I said, tipping my head side to side as I said each word in a big voice—“It. Was. Good. Luck.”
“How about both?”
“Okay,” I said, dropping my head back and lifting my face toward the sun. “Both!” I yelled out. The sky was a Popsicle blue. The kind of Popsicle that tasted like raspberry, which I never understood, because raspberries are pink. A white puffy turtle cloud hovered above us. Take it slow? Could that have to do with Charlotte?
“Look at that cloud. It’s a ladybug,” Joss said, pointing at it.
“Oh yeah, it could be a ladybug,” I said. And maybe it was! That would be better than a turtle. I was pretty sure ladybugs were a sign of good luck.
We stopped at Walgreens to get poster board. Then we walked around the Old Port. On Commercial Street, Joss found a pizza crust on the sidewalk and tossed it to the seagulls on one of the piers. We tried on earrings at our favorite store, Hoopla-la. Up on Market Street a lady was handing out samples of a “farmhouse” cheddar in front of the Fermented Cow Cheese Shop.
“Do you have just regular american cheese? Preferably orange?” Joss asked her. She shook her head no. I didn’t mind the cheese, but when we were out of sight, Joss spit her free sample into a trash can. “Gross,” she said.
On Fore Street, we stopped at Maxwell’s to smell soaps and candles. We had a find-the-funniest-birthday-card contest at Card & Paper. We bought three tubes of lip balm at Pucker Up. “Hopefully, Charlotte likes cherry,” I said.
On our way to the café, I found a quarter on Wharf Street wedged between two cobblestones. How many lucky things had happened already since Charlotte had arrived? I was sure today had been luckier than usual.
“Hello!” I said, waving the coin in front of Joss’s face.
It crossed my mind that luck was a lot like a total stranger. It could pop into your life like Charlotte did. It could be good. Or not so good.
That’s why you had to pay attention. Look for the signs. If you read them right, it made all the difference between lucky and almost lucky. And nobody wants to be almost lucky. Because almost lucky isn’t lucky at all.
CHAPTER
10
BY ONE THIRTY, WE WERE BACK IN THE CAR, HEADING home to East Thumb. I wiped at a spot on my jeans. I had pulled my croissant into two pieces to save half for Charlotte and had made a small mess.
“When’s the baby due?” Elle asked.
“Pretty soon,” I told her. I brushed slivers of almond off the back seat. “About seven more weeks.”
“Good.” She smiled at me in the rearview mirror… one of those “baby” smiles that had other things behind them. It was a little bit sad, or nervous, just never straight-out happy.
“So, tomorrow I have to drive you guys to school?” Elle asked. “I should start charging. Maybe I get a cut in your cat sweater thing.”
“Umm… it’s a fund-raiser.” Joss made a face at her sister.
“Umm… it’s a joke,” Elle said.
Joss turned and asked me over the front seat, “Is Smoky ready for his modeling debut?”
“I hope so. He better not get stage fright in front of the class. Maybe I should put the sweater on him before we get him to school?”
“No. We need to demonstrate for the class how easy it is to put one on,” Joss said.
“Who is Smoky, anyway?” Elle asked. “Never heard of that cat.”
I explained how he was a stray cat we brought in. “Fudge was going to be our original sweater model… he’s so super laid-back, but Smoky is fresh off the streets. He’s all skinny and everything. He’s a better example of why our fund-raiser is so important. Plus, he seems laid-back, too. He’s not even scared of Waffles or the other cats.”
Elle pulled up in front of the Community Lodge for Cats & Dogs. Franny had suggested we give each person who buys a cat sweater a free window decal with the shelter’s logo on it. We were picking up the decals today since we planned on taking sweater orders tomorrow after the demonstration with Smoky. Plus, Joss and I wanted to show Franny all the yarn that we had picked out.
“Hurry up,” Elle told us. “I’ll wait in the car.”
“You don’t want to come in?” I asked.
“It makes me sad,” she said. I could understand that. It was probably for the same reason it made me sad sometimes, too—wondering if the animals thought they were here because no one loved them.
Beyond the parking lot were the kennels for the dogs. The outdoor spaces were neat and clean and covered with green tarps. The whole area was surrounded by a chain-link fence and then divided into fenced sections so two or three dogs shared a doghouse and a good-sized space.
A hound with long floppy ears pressed his nose against the fence. Three terriers, all mixed with some other breed, barked and wagged their little tails.
“I know, we love you, too,” Joss told them as we passed by.
“We do. We love you!” I said.
We had never actually adopted any of our pets from a shelter like Joss’s Marco, who came from the Lodge. All of our pets had been strays, living on the streets. They could have been shelter pets if we hadn’t found each other first.
The shelter’s office and the cats were located next to the kennels inside a building that looked like a small house. The lobby was cramped with the front counter taking up most of the space, and it smelled kind of stinky from the animals, but I didn’t mind.
Mounted on the wall was a giant whiteboard that kept track of new arrivals, vet appointments, and who was working on which day. Keys, leashes, and collars in all different sizes hung from hooks everywhere.
Inside, a few visitors filled out paperwork while others waited to see a cat or dog.
“Hey there,” Franny said to us from behind the counter.
Phil, one of the managers, was busy beside her. “Hey,” he said when he saw us. Phil had a silver ring in his nose and his hair was dyed blue. Some days his hair was green, sometimes orange, one time it was gray like an old man’s, which looked kind of funny because he didn’t seem that old.
Franny’s hair was gray all the time, and she wore it in a long braid down her back. She always wore tank tops, even in the winter, usually with the name of some rock band I’d never heard of on the front of it. Zuma, Franny’s giant Maine coon cat, was stretched out and sound asleep on top of the counter.
“I’ve got those decals for you,” she said, handing me a stack held together with a rubber band. They were white, the size of a baseball, with a black paw print in the middle. The Lodge’s name and phone number were on it, but instead of an O in the word lodge there was a small red heart.
“Thanks. These are nice,” I said, showing Joss. “The little heart is a sign that everyone will love our sweaters.”
; “Really?” she said, then to Franny and Phil, “Look at the yarn we bought for the cat sweaters.” She held up a few balls. “Do you like the colors we chose?”
“Really wonderful!” Franny said.
“Nice,” Phil said. “I hope the cats like them.”
Someone filling out a form looked up.
“My cat Fudge would wear anything,” I told him.
“Good for you girls,” Franny said. “I’m sure many cats will appreciate a cozy sweater.”
I saw Phil raise his eyebrows a bit before he motioned to a lady, then led her into the cat room.
“We bought stuff to make posters to advertise the fund-raiser, too,” I said. “We don’t have time to make one now. Joss’s sister is waiting for us. But we’ll be back later this week to put one up.”
“Thank you, girls. You’re the best. Take a quick peek at the new kittens that just arrived.”
We stuffed the yarn back inside the bags. Then we looked into the cat room, which was separated from the lobby by a door with a window halfway up.
Metal cat cages lined two of the walls. Each cage had the cat’s name, a blanket, food and water, and a small pan of litter inside. But the cats spent a lot of time roaming free in the room. Except for the one or two cats whose cages were marked NOT SOCIAL because they either didn’t get along with the others or they had a health issue. They had separate “free time.”
The lady with Phil kneeled by the kittens, who were snuggled together on a blanket in a furry clump. Only one was awake, grabbing at another’s little tail with its paw. Two were orange tabbies and two were black with just a white patch of fur on their chins.
“They’re so little,” Joss said.
“I want to hold one,” I said, feeling a pinch in my chest.
“Not now,” Joss said, pulling my arm. “Elle will get mad if we make her wait long, and we need her to drive us to school tomorrow.”
I nodded. I needed to get home for Charlotte, too.
“See you next time,” Franny said, and we waved good-bye.
Back in the car, Elle refused to make another stop for us since she had already driven us to Portland, the shelter, and, now, back to my house.
“Why won’t you just stop home first so I can grab my knitting needles?” Joss begged.
“You’ve hit your ride quota for the day. You’re lucky you have all those bags to carry or I would have made you guys walk from the shelter.”
“Your house is just a five-minute walk to my house,” I told Joss.
“Fine. I’ll walk over after I get my stuff,” Joss said.
“You got that right,” Elle told her.
The diner was still full of customers at two o’clock when Elle dropped me off. Through the big front windows I saw Mom and Bibi, each for a split second, rushing around. I scooted by quickly so they wouldn’t see me and wave me inside. I wanted to get back to Charlotte right away.
The sun was flashlight-in-your-eyes bright. Twigs and acorn caps snapped and crunched under my boots when I booked it down the alley to my apartment. I raced upstairs and straight to my bedroom. The closet was wide open and empty.
“Charlotte?” I hollered, dropping the bags of yarn and poster board. My chest tightened up and squeezed the breath out of me.
“I’m in here,” she said.
I jogged to the living room. Charlotte was sitting on the couch. The TV was on, but the volume was really low. A box of crackers was on the coffee table. The sight of her was a huge relief. But only for a millisecond.
“What are you doing in here?” I asked.
“I’m sorry… your note said your parents wouldn’t be back until four thirty or five, so I thought it was okay. I’m trying to find the news. You know, to see if I’m in it. Do you think I’m old news by now?”
“No. And you have to be careful. What if I had been wrong and my mom came home early? I mean, you don’t want to get caught.”
She nodded. “I don’t want you to get caught, either.”
“I’d get in big trouble for this,” I said.
“I know. But hiding is boring.”
“I have a bunch of books you can read,” I told her. “And Joss is coming over.” I explained about our cat sweater project.
“Okay.” Charlotte shut the TV off. “I better head back to closet-ville.”
I grabbed the box of crackers. “Keep these in case you need a snack when the coast isn’t clear.”
“Sure. And is it okay that I ate some of that lasagna in the fridge? I didn’t leave any dirty dishes behind or anything.”
“That’s fine,” I said.
Once Charlotte was back inside my closet, I quickly took the dog out to pee. I felt guilty because I usually would have walked him, but then I would have felt guilty about leaving Charlotte again.
When Waffles and I got back to my bedroom, Charlotte was standing by my desk holding a photo of my parents and me smiling outside of our diner. She held it a bit closer to her face before she set it down. She sighed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She turned around to face me. “Oh, how about pretty much everything?” She plopped back down inside the closet and pulled her knees to her chest. She wrapped her pale arms around her legs and dropped her head. I saw a tear slide off her face and hit the floor.
“Hey,” I said, kneeling by her.
“Everything is wrong,” she said again. Charlotte lifted her head up and wiped her nose. A part of me wanted to tell her to just go home. I thought about her parents and my own parents and how out of their minds with sadness they would be if I ever ran away. Especially if they had no idea if I was even okay. But she was my lucky charm.
“Living in someone’s closet is hard,” she said. Then she quickly added, “I mean, I’m thankful that you’re letting me stay here, I am, really. But I don’t like having to be here, you know? I really miss the twins. I want to go home.”
“You want to leave?” I asked. I tried to make my words sound the opposite of what I was feeling in that second: borderline panicked.
“I was so mad when I left on Friday that I didn’t ever want to go home,” Charlotte said. “But now…”
“Now, what?” I asked her.
She lifted her head and reached for the croissant I offered her. “Now, even if I wanted to… I’m… I’m not sure if I can ever go home.”
“I’m confused,” I said.
She took a small bite. After she swallowed, she said, “I think I might have burned that house down.”
CHAPTER
11
MY MOUTH OPENED UP SO WIDE I COULD HAVE probably parked the Enterprise inside it.
“But, I’m not positive,” Charlotte said.
“Positive about what?” Joss asked, barging into my room with her knitting bag slung over her shoulder. “You guys should keep it down. What if I was Lizzy’s mom? I could hear you in the hall.” Fudge and Smoky trotted in before Joss kicked her leg behind her and gave my bedroom door a gentle boot. It slammed shut.
I looked at Charlotte. Was she going to say something? Or was I supposed to?
“I… I was worried that…” Charlotte looked at me and stopped talking.
“What? Tell me! What?” Joss looked at me. Waffles bumped up against Joss, asking for a scratch.
“I ran away the day before you found me. I left Friday right when I finished school. By the time I found the empty apartment, it was dark outside. It was freezing cold in there. And I tried to light some dried leaves in the fireplace. I found some matches under the sink.”
“You burned the house down!” Joss practically screeched.
“She couldn’t have,” I said, thinking about when Joss and I had climbed through the window to look for the cat. “I mean… when exactly did you light the fire? Because when we got there the next morning we didn’t see or smell anything burning in the fireplace—right, Joss?
“I didn’t do a great job trying to start one. I couldn’t get a match to light. They were kind of wet.
But I tried. After the third try, I realized that if I did light a fire, someone might see the smoke coming out of the chimney and find me. So I just gave up.”
“Well then, that couldn’t have caused a house to catch on fire,” I said. “Could it?”
“Maybe I didn’t realize that I sparked something… and then it smoldered… and maybe a leaf caught on fire… or something…”
“Like, so many hours later?” I asked. “Is that possible?”
All three of us shrugged at the same time.
“I have no clue,” Joss said. “But that doesn’t sound very possible to me.”
“Especially if you didn’t even light the match,” I added.
“But it’s not impossible, either, right?” Charlotte asked.
“I think it had to be some other thing that caused it,” I said.
“Even if by some crazy way you did spark something, it was just an accident,” Joss pointed out.
“But I shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. I’m a runaway and… an intruder… and now maybe a fire starter.”
“Don’t put it like that,” Joss said, “it sounds even worse.”
Charlotte’s eyes filled up. “And there’s something else…”
What else could there be? I wanted to shout.
“You know how you asked why I came to East Thumb? Well, it’s true I only had twelve dollars for the bus, but I also knew I’d have a place to hide. I knew that apartment house was empty.”
“How did you know?”
“The guy that owns it is a client of my mom’s. I saw some paperwork about it on her desk.”
“Client?” I asked.
“She’s a lawyer. She helps people who go broke and can’t pay their bills.”
“So you may have burned down this broke guy’s house?” I tried asking in such a gentle way it didn’t even sound like my voice.