by Susan Lubner
“Laundry?” Zoe asked.
“Yes. Stuff needs to be washed there all the time,” I said. “Towels, blankets… cats love snuggling in whatever.”
“So,” Joss continued, “one time when we were there helping out, we saw a sign for the Tails and Trails 5K run. The race raises money for the Lodge. Lizzy and I started brainstorming about other ways to help. That’s when we came up with our plan to knit and sell cat sweaters.”
“The shelter gets lots of donations, but they still need money to pay for food and medical care for the animals,” I explained to the class. “And the funds will help the dogs, too.”
Zoe shouted out, “Yay!” because she’s way more of a dog person, with her mom’s cat allergies and her four beagles.
Joss held up the sweater. “Introducing Cozy Cat sweaters. I made this!” she announced. The class clapped. “Lizzy made one, too. And she brought in Smoky, so we can show you how easy it is to put one on your cat.”
“It’s like wearing a little blanket,” I said. “And FYI, these sweaters are just ten dollars, or two for eighteen.”
“Are they just for shelter cats?” Cooper asked.
“Any cat would love one,” I said, sounding like an ad on TV. “But if you don’t have your own cat at home, you can buy one for a shelter cat.”
“And you get a free one of these with your sweater order.” Joss held up a decal and made sure everyone got a close look at it.
“Shelter cats don’t even go outside. Why do they need a sweater?” Cooper asked.
“Lots of cats don’t go outside. And the shelter has a screened-in play area for the cats, so technically they do spend time outdoors.” Joss sounded irritated that Cooper wasn’t getting it. I elbowed her to stay cool.
“Anyway,” I said, “the sweaters aren’t only to keep the cats warm. They’re pretty lightweight.”
Joss held one up and pulled at the knitting. “The main reason for the sweater is they keep the cat feeling cozy. Like they’re wearing a cozy little blanket. Get it? Cozy Cat sweaters?”
Joss modeled the sweater over her arm while I squeezed the safety latch on the carrier.
“Smoky will show you how snuggly they are,” I said. The little door swung open, but Smoky was way back inside, crouched up against the rear grill. “Come on, sweetie,” I cooed. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” I reached in and drummed my fingers on the floor of the cage. Smoky stretched his neck forward and sniffed at my hand. He slowly crept closer to the front. “Good boy.” I pulled him out and up, holding him against my chest and patting the top of his head.
“Now watch how easy it is to put one on,” Joss announced, gently stretching open the neck of the sweater. Before she could get two steps closer to me, Smoky catapulted off my shoulder and landed on the teacher’s desk. I felt a sharp sting by my collarbone from his claws. I saw Ms. Santorelli’s eyeballs peek over the top of her eyeglass frames. Smoky sprang to the floor, and papers and pens rained down behind him.
The class exploded into laughter while Joss and I scrambled to catch my cat.
“I don’t think he likes sweaters,” someone yelled out.
“I’ll help you get him,” someone else offered.
“Me too,” Cooper said, right before Smoky bolted out the classroom door.
CHAPTER
14
“NOT TOO SWIFT OF ME TO LEAVE THAT DOOR open,” I heard Ms. Santorelli say as I raced down the hall after the cat.
“Smoky! Stop!” I yelled. He looked at me and waited. He arched his back and pressed himself against the wall. Cooper and Zoe came flying out of the classroom, and with the noise and commotion, Smoky shot off again.
“Come on,” I said to Joss. We turned the corner at the end of the hallway and almost smacked into Mr. Sols, the custodian.
“Whose cat is that?” he asked. Smoky was a few feet behind him.
“Mine,” I said, dodging around him. The cat seemed to be considering which way to run next. I slowed down and took small, soft steps toward him. When I was almost close enough to scoop him up, he shot off into the computer classroom.
“I’ll go get his carrier,” Joss said. I followed my cat into the room, which thankfully was empty, and quickly shut the door behind me. Luckily, there were no computer classes first thing on Mondays.
Smoky sat down on the opposite side of the room. He rubbed his head against the metal heating vent in the wall.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry you got scared,” I told him. I didn’t dare to move closer, so I lowered myself to the floor. I would wait until he was relaxed enough to come to me. “You are a good boy.”
I wished Joss would hurry with the carrier. Maybe now Smoky couldn’t wait to get back inside of it. While I made little kissing noises, trying to get him to move closer to me, I noticed a small hole next to the vent. I wondered if he could fit into such a little space. Smoky noticed the hole, too, and seemed to wonder the exact same thing. He sniffed at the edges, then he peeked inside.
“No!” I shouted, startling him. He jerked his head up. His ears twitched. Then he went right back to sniffing at it again. I rushed over to him, but before I could grab him, he disappeared inside the wall. I dropped to my knees and peered inside. I couldn’t see a thing except a whole bunch of pitch-black. “Smoky!”
I heard the door open and close softly. “He discover that hole there, did he?” Mr. Sols asked.
I couldn’t answer, my throat was so tight.
“Uh-huh,” Mr. Sols answered his own question. “Cats are a curious bunch, aren’t they?”
The hole started just a couple of inches above the floor. The opening was only about the size of a softball. But Smoky was a skinny cat. A skinny, missing cat.
Joss came in with the carrier.
“No way!” she said, spotting the hole.
“I’ll stay and see if the cat comes out,” Mr. Sols told us. “You two, go get some food that we can entice him with.”
“He’s hiding in a wall!” Joss announced when we got back to the classroom.
“Probably because he doesn’t want to wear a dumb sweater,” Cooper said.
“Cooper!” Zoe yelled at him.
“I better notify the principal and let her know there’s a missing cat,” Ms. Santorelli said.
“Is Lizzy in trouble?” Zoe asked.
“Of course not. Not at all. And don’t worry, Lizzy,” Ms. Santorelli said as she put her arm around my shoulders. “He’ll come out.” Then she smiled at me just like Elle had when she had asked about the baby. It was a little too wide, and she was not saying, but was probably thinking, hopefully.
“He needs to come out now,” I said. My voice sounded shaky. “The classroom will be full of students soon. He’ll be scared.”
“Try not to panic, sweetie,” Ms. Santorelli said. “Worst-case scenario, he’ll wait until the coast is clear. He won’t stay in there forever.”
“I need to tell my mom. I told her to come get Smoky by nine thirty. I have to tell her he’s gone.” I pulled out my phone and texted her the bad news.
“Don’t worry, Lizzy,” said Joss. “He’s probably just having fun. Remember how he likes to jump in and out of closets?”
“That’s weird,” Cooper said. “Why does he do that?”
“Because he does, okay?” Joss said, splaying her hands out at him. “What’s it to you?”
“We need food,” I said. “He’ll come out to eat.”
“I’ve got a turkey sandwich,” Zoe said. “I can buy lunch if someone lends me money.”
“You kids, keep your lunches. I brought a turkey sandwich today, too,” Ms. Santorelli said. “We’ll put some of the meat on a plate and leave it in the computer room.”
“Maybe he’s too nervous to be hungry,” Cooper was saying. “What if he doesn’t come out? What if he can’t get out?”
“He just finished being a lost cat,” I said. I blinked fast so the tears I felt pooling wouldn’t spill out.
“Let’s leave the food and
see what happens,” my teacher said.
Sandwich specials of the every-other-day-or-so were always popping into my head at random times. But there was nothing random about where my brain was going with this one. Right smack in the middle of two tons of worry, it was all about Smoky. Smoked Black Forest ham, a ring of pineapple, swiss cheese on a dark rye bagel. What else would I call it but the Black Hole?
By lunch, I had checked the computer room three more times. Mrs. Potter, the computer teacher, was usually a crab cake on the best of days. But she must have felt sorry for me, or maybe my cat. She was nice about letting me come in to check the hole, even though my barging into her room disrupted her classes.
“He hasn’t come out yet,” she told me each time. And I could see that the turkey was still on the plate. I had no appetite, either.
In spite of everything, there was a steady stream of kids coming over to our lunch table to order Cozy Cat sweaters.
“Sympathy buys,” Joss whispered in my ear. “But we’ll take it.”
I could hear the conversations happening around me, but my mind was far, far away. Behind the walls of the school. What was he doing in there? Was there enough air? What about electrical wires? I grabbed the edge of the lunch table. What if he chewed on one?
Someone across from me was asking about monogramming.
What’s that? Joss wanted to know.
Initials, someone explained.
This isn’t L.L.Bean! I heard her answer.
I felt like a complete fraud selling the sweaters now. I was supposed to be helping animals, not setting them up to run away again. What sign had I missed to warn me that bringing a cat to school was a stupid idea? I should have been more focused. Because the signs were out there. I had to pay better attention. Terrible things happened when I didn’t. What if Smoky was stuck forever? What if he died in there?
When I noticed Mr. Sols standing by our table, my brain still felt like it was bubble-wrapped. Joss shook my arm, and I snapped to attention.
“He’s out?” I said, jumping up from my seat. “Where is he?” I smiled at Mr. Sols. The lunch table cheered.
“Well, no,” Mr. Sols said. “But when the classroom cleared, he must have come out to eat. The plate is licked clean. Then he went back inside the wall.”
My heart wilted. “Didn’t Mrs. Potter try to catch him?”
“Apparently, she was in the restroom when it happened,” he said.
“But we know now he can find his way out! That’s great news, Lizzy,” Joss said.
There were lots of times when I wished I spoke “cat,” and this was one of them. Like when a shelter cat was sick and couldn’t be let out of its cage to play with the other cats. Usually, the sick cat would cry, and I’d try to explain that it wasn’t because they weren’t as loved. It was just because they were contagious. But cats don’t understand stuff like spreadable germs.
So, even though I spoke into the hole and explained to Smoky that it was safe to come out, he wouldn’t. Because I can’t speak cat and he can’t understand human. Except when I hug him and kiss the top of his head. He can understand that. But I couldn’t do that, because by the end of the day, he still hadn’t come out.
CHAPTER
15
JOSS CONVINCED ME TO HEAD HOME RATHER THAN stay after school.
“You know how cats are. They don’t listen on purpose. He’ll be out tomorrow. Plus, you’ll feel better after ice cream.” We hustled across the walkway to our school bus.
I nodded. I knew what she meant about cats not listening. I had texted my mom an update and left Smoky a pile of chicken salad from one half of my uneaten sandwich. I saved the rest for Charlotte.
“You think Charlotte will feel as bad as I do about Smoky? She loves him, too. I hope she isn’t mad at me.” I grabbed Joss’s arm. “What if she gets so mad, she leaves?” If having Charlotte in my house was supposed to bring me good luck, what horrible thing was waiting to happen if she left? My stomach felt like it was full of broken glass.
“I bet you anything he’ll be waiting for you when we go in tomorrow,” Joss said for the second time.
The door flaps closed, and the bus lurched forward. On the ride home, I hoped like crazy Smoky would be waiting for me tomorrow. If he wasn’t, I wondered if Charlotte wouldn’t be waiting for me after school tomorrow, either.
It was just a few minutes past three thirty when we got to the diner, which was already closed for the day. Bibi pulled the door open when we knocked.
“Good afternoon, sugar cookies,” she said. She had her coat on like she was ready to leave. But she shut the door behind us, relocked it, and went into the kitchen to chat with Sid.
Joss and I plunked down at the counter.
“You know what I think?”
“What?” Joss asked.
I swiveled my seat in her direction so our knees touched. “At first, I thought I missed a sign that a cat school visit was a bad idea. But now I realize that Smoky disappearing into the wall was the sign.”
“Of what?” Joss sighed and rolled her eyes, but I didn’t care.
“A sign that we should let Charlotte’s parents know that she’s okay,” I whispered.
“Really?”
“When Smoky disappeared, I felt sick to my stomach. But once I knew he could find his way out, and that he was okay, I felt better. We have to try to make her parents feel better.”
“How do we do that?”
“We could send an anonymous letter. Or an e-mail would be much faster. We’d let them know that she’s safe,” I said softly.
“What if the e-mail gets traced back to us? We could get in lots of trouble for hiding someone. Especially if the police are looking for her. Besides, if we do that behind Charlotte’s back, it would be kind of like us being tattletales.”
I hadn’t thought about that. Bibi walked over holding a to-go container.
Sid yelled to us from behind the griddle. “Hey, girls. Ice cream?”
“For sure, thanks,” Joss said.
“Two cookie doughs. One with sprinkles, one with hot fudge,” he said to us.
“Thanks, Sid,” I told him. He popped his head through the space above the griddle. I gave him a thumbs-up. And he gave me two thumbs-up back and a smile.
Bibi was still standing by me, and she placed her hand on my shoulder. “Hey, sugar. I’m not going to beat around the bush here. Your dad was not feeling well today,” she told me. “But he’s okay, now. I promise.” She moved her hand to my head and patted my hair.
I looked around me. What a dope I was to not even notice he wasn’t here. I had figured Dad was in the back office where he often was when the diner closed. “Where is he?” I asked.
“He’s at home.”
“Dad never, ever misses work,” I said.
“I know. But don’t be worried, he’s fine,” Bibi said, sliding the to-go container in front of me. “Sid made chicken soup for you to bring home to him.” I had barely had the chance to let worry sink in. But the way she looked at me, with her head tilted to one side and her eyes all sweet and a little sad, I started to panic.
“What’s wrong with my dad?” I jumped off the stool. I felt my throat tighten up. What sign had I missed where I didn’t see this coming?
“He was feeling… uncomfortable… during the breakfast rush.”
“What kind of uncomfortable?” Joss asked, before I could get the words out.
“He said his chest hurt. He did scare us. But luck was with us, and there was a doctor in the diner this morning.”
I looked at Joss. “That was lucky,” I said.
“It wasn’t very lucky that he wasn’t feeling well in the first place,” Joss pointed out.
“But, sugar, he’s good as gold now,” she quickly added. “Your mom took him to the ER earlier and everything was fine.”
“What?” I hollered. “The emergency room?”
“Turned out to be nothing serious,” Sid yelled from the kitchen. “Not his hear
t. Just his heartburn flaring up again.”
“That’s right,” Bibi tried to assure me. “They ran all the right tests, and he feels much better. He even wanted to come back in to work. But your mother said no. We convinced him to take the rest of the day off.”
“Can we get those ice creams to go?” Joss asked Sid.
“Sorry. I can’t think of ice cream right now,” I said. I grabbed the soup, my bag, and my coat.
Joss caught up with me as I was running up the stairs to the apartment.
“Dad!” I yelled as I burst inside. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of paperwork.
“Hey, honey. Shhhhhh… Mom is napping. I saw the texts you sent her. Sorry about your bad day,” he said to me. “Smoky will be back. He’s just being a cat.”
“My bad day? Are you okay?” I put the soup down, dropped my stuff on the floor, and gave him a hug.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“But Sid said you thought you were having a heart attack!”
Dad shook his head no. “It wasn’t. It was nothing like that. By the way, did Sid tell you that your smokestack sandwich was a hit?”
“Dad, are you really okay?” He didn’t look any different than he usually did, which made me relax a bit.
“It was just heartburn. That’s all. Now come on. Sit down and let’s talk sandwiches.”
Dad pulled out the chair next to him and patted the seat.
“Fine,” I said. I sat down. Joss sat, too, and pushed my cup of ice cream in front of me.
I told him about the Black Hole sandwich. “But I thought of another one for later this week, too. The Early Riser.”
“How did you come up with it?” he asked me.
“Ever hear the saying, ‘Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise’?”
“You know Ben Franklin?” Joss asked my dad.
“Not personally, but I’ve heard of him.” Dad winked at me.
“We’re reading about him at school. That thing he said made me think of a breakfast sandwich. A turned-up version of our roll-up: egg, cheese, and ham or bacon, but for the special we’ll serve it between two pieces of french toast! You like it?”