by Susan Lubner
“So what are you worried about?” Joss was asking. “I can tell it’s something.”
“Am I a terrible person?” I asked her.
“Why are you even asking me that?”
I had told Joss everything about the meeting with Blumstein, except the part about the cause of the fire.
“Promise me you won’t tell Charlotte,” I said.
“Tell Charlotte what?”
Before she even promised me she’d keep it a secret, I blurted it out. Then I added, “I don’t want her to leave yet.”
“Wow,” Joss said. “Refraction… it was the sun’s fault?”
I nodded. “So. Now do you think I’m a terrible person?”
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and I squirmed a bit in my seat.
“Actually, you’re the opposite of terrible,” she finally said. “If it wasn’t for you, Charlotte would be out on the streets! Do you ever think about what could have happened to her if that were the case?”
“Maybe she would have already gone back home,” I said.
“You’ll never know that for sure. At least she’s been safe. But you do know for sure… Charlotte can’t stay forever. I mean, I know you know that she can’t stay for infinity, duh, but… the baby isn’t coming for another month and a half. That’s a really long time for her to be away from her family. Never mind living in a closet. Hello?”
“I know.” I sighed. My breath made a foggy stain on the window.
Joss reached over me and traced a tic-tac-toe board on the cold glass. “FYI,” she said, “a terrible person wouldn’t worry if they were a terrible person. But a not-at all-terrible person would.” She made an X in the center square. “Your turn.”
I drew an O in one of the spaces. We went back and forth, but there was no winner. That felt like a bad sign.
It was four fifteen when we pulled into the bus station. We ran the two blocks to The Community Lodge for Cats & Dogs. Mom was picking us up at the shelter at 5:30 p.m. and bringing cat food to drop off at school for Smoky on our way home.
The shelter dogs barked like mad when we jogged past them.
“Hey, girls,” Phil shouted to us from inside a kennel. He was refilling water bowls. His hair was still blue.
We waved. “Hi, Phil,” I said.
A husky jogged to the fence to get a closer look at us. “Hi, cutie.” I blew a kiss at his white furry face. I wished I could take the husky and every one of the dogs home with me. But Mom already said with Smoky, we were at capacity.
Inside, a giant basket of laundry was waiting for us. Joss picked it up and I followed her to the basement where the washing machine was. I measured detergent while Joss dropped the dirty blankets and sheets into the drum.
“What’s Franny’s secret?” my mom liked to tease. “You do all that laundry at the shelter and I can’t even get you to put your dirty clothes in a hamper!”
Back upstairs, Franny was behind the counter filling out the whiteboard. She was writing in the names of the kittens that would be going to the vet over the next couple of days.
“Hello there,” she said to us. “Can you grab a couple of carriers, please?” She held up two fingers. All of her fingers were stacked up to the knuckles with rings, even her thumbs. She let us count them once. Twenty-three!
“Those four baby girls are heading out in the morning to be chipped and spayed,” Franny told us.
She handed us markers and a roll of masking tape. “Annabelle and Mimi on one. Emmy and Boo-Boo on the other,” Franny said, as we labeled the crates.
“I like their names,” Joss said.
“They certainly are sweet,” Franny said.
Joss unzipped her backpack and pulled out a Cozy Cat sweater. “Speaking of sweet… hel-lo!” She swung the sweater over her head.
“Oh my gracious, let me see that!” Franny held the sweater up against Zuma before handing it back to Joss. “Adorable! Zuma needs extra-large.”
“It’s one size fits all,” Joss said. “They’re totally stretchy.”
Next to the front door, I hung up the poster Charlotte had made. Joss pinned the sweater beside it. “We’ll leave this sample so anyone who comes into the shelter will see it,” she said.
“Perfect,” Franny said.
Joss and I fist-bumped. “We’ve sold three sweaters already,” I told her. “And those are just the ones we got paid for and have delivered. But we have lots more orders.”
“I’ll be there on Saturday around ten-ish. Phil can hold down the fort here for an hour or so.”
“Do you have the Marco pictures?” I asked Joss. “Let’s put one up next to the poster.”
For publicity purposes we had planned to take pictures of Smoky wearing a Cozy Cat sweater that day at school, but of course it hadn’t happened. So Joss had taken a few pictures of her cat Marco wearing one.
Marco looked super peeved to be wearing the sweater, with his ears flattened back. In one of the pictures it looked like he was trying to bite Elle’s arm. He wasn’t a good candidate for the job.
“I told you we should have used Fudge,” I said.
“This one isn’t too bad.” Joss pointed to a picture of Marco slung over Elle’s shoulder facing away from the camera. Even though his ears were still flat you couldn’t see his face and how annoyed he really was.
Joss put the photo up next to the sweater. I wrote in the prices where I could find space on the poster without ruining Charlotte’s art. When we finished, we still had time before my mom came to visit with the cats and see the new kittens.
I peered through the glass window of the cat room. “Awww, look at them,” I said, pointing to one racing after a small ball. “Come on,” I said to Joss.
We closed the door behind us just as a bunch of cats ran over to greet us. Some meowed.
“Hi, everyone,” I called out. “Did you miss us?” I petted all the ones that had gathered around my legs.
The first thing Joss and I liked to do was to read all the names on the outside of the cages to see who had gone home and who was still there. It always made me feel good to see names I didn’t recognize, because that meant others had found a forever home.
There was one large window in the room and underneath it a carpet-covered window seat where the cats liked to bask in the sun during the day. The floor was cement and covered with small area rugs, toys, scratching posts, bright-colored bowls of water, and litter boxes. A lot of the cats liked the “trees,” which were tall carpet-covered structures for climbing and lounging.
I picked up one of the orange kittens and Joss held one of the black ones and we sat down on a rug.
“She has a little beard.” Joss pressed the kitten gently to her face.
I kissed the kitten I was holding on the top of its head and stroked its tiny triangle of an ear. Joss and I took turns with all four of them so they each got an equal amount of love and kisses. Then we turned our attention to the rest of the cats, playing with them, tickling bellies, and scratching backs. Only Trudy couldn’t come out of her cage, which made me feel bad until I saw that she was sound asleep.
We refilled the water bowls and scooped a couple of the boxes that needed cleaning before we said good-bye to the cats and went back out front to wash our hands.
While we waited for my mom, I told Franny about Smoky.
“Stop putting food out,” she said.
“He’ll starve!” I said.
“Oh, no he won’t. He’s having some fun with you. He’s smarter than you think. The inside of that wall probably feels like a palace to him. He waits for the coast to be clear and when it is, he gobbles up his dinner and goes back inside that cozy hole.”
“It’s mean to take away his food,” Joss said.
“Nope,” Franny said, “it’s not. Ever hear of the cat and the fiddle?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, he’s the cat, and Lizzy’s the fiddle.” Franny winked at me. “He’s playing you like one. Trust me. He’ll co
me out looking for food. And when he doesn’t find it, he’ll come looking for someone to get it for him.”
I sure hoped she was right.
CHAPTER
20
BY THURSDAY, SMOKY STILL HADN’T COME OUT, but more horrible stuff was waiting for me at school.
“I want my money back,” Cooper said. He pushed up his sleeve. His arm had a long, bloody scratch on it.
“Whoa. What happened?” I asked.
“Your stupid cat sweater. That’s what happened. I tried to put it on my cat and he tried to kill me. Look at these.” Cooper yanked the top of his shirt down and showed me three ugly scratches.
“Wow,” was all I could think of to say. I thought about Sid and Phil both telling me that sweater-wearing cats might be risky.
“Well, we don’t do refunds,” Joss said. “It’s for charity.”
“I don’t care. I want my money back.”
“It’s not our fault your cat is nuts,” Joss said.
“My cat is not nuts. Your idea is dumb.”
“Hold on, you guys,” I said. “It’s fine. We’ll give you back your money.”
“Lizzy!” Joss said.
I pulled her to the side and whispered, “We don’t want him to be mad, okay? He’ll tell the whole school not to buy our cat sweaters. Let’s just give him back his ten dollars.”
“Fine. But give us back the sweater and the shelter decal or you’re not getting your money,” she told Cooper. She marched off in a huff.
Cooper pulled the sweater out of his backpack. “I don’t want it, anyway,” he said, handing it over to me.
“I don’t have any money with me today, but I’ll bring your ten dollars tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget,” he told me.
“I won’t. And you can keep the decal. Sorry it didn’t work out.” I felt bad that he was all scratched up. And worse that the cat didn’t like wearing our sweater.
As if reading my mind, Cooper said, “Your own cat doesn’t want to wear one. He’s scared if he comes out of the wall that you’ll make him.”
The bell sounded, and Zoe sprinted into the room, pulling some kind of metal contraption on wheels behind her. She dropped a cat sweater on my desk on the way to her seat.
“Here,” she said, “You can keep the money as a donation, but my cousin doesn’t want the sweater. Rocco bit her when she tried to put it on him.”
“Seriously?” I heard Joss say.
Zoe parked the contraption by her seat and went to the back of the room to put up a poster on the Heart the World board.
“What do we have here?” Ms. Santorelli smiled. Most of us swiveled around in our seats to get a look at the poster Zoe was tacking up.
“Port-a-cycle,” Zoe told us as she pinned it into the cork.
“Like a port-a-potty?” Cooper asked.
“Nope. Well, maybe a little bit. It is portable. But it’s not a potty.” A tall trash can made of wire was strapped to a dolly with a bunch of bungee cords. Zoe pulled it to the front of the class. “My idea for Heart the World is to help some of the older people around East Thumb get their recyclables out to the curb for pickup day. I load their bottles and newspapers in here.” She waved her hand over the opening of the trash bin like a game-show host showing off a new car. “Then I wheel all the recyclables out to the curb for them and toss everything in their bin.”
“Just out of curiosity, why wouldn’t you just lug their own bins to the curb in the first place?” Cooper asked.
Zoe looked stunned. “I like my idea better,” she said. “My bin has wheels.” She pulled the port-a-cycle back to her seat and sat down.
“It’s fantastic, Zoe. Remember,” Ms. Santorelli told the class, “the purpose of Heart the World is to do something kind for somebody. Pay it forward! And our board is still pretty empty. Let’s see if we can fill it up. There are lots of ways to love the world, people!”
But the concept of loving the world wasn’t working out so well for Joss and me. We were trying to pay it forward, but everything seemed to be moving backward for us. By lunch, everyone but Ms. Santorelli had canceled their sweater orders. And most of the customers that actually had a sweater for their cat were showing off their bite marks and bloody scratches.
“This stinks!” Joss said.
“No kidding. I mean, our fund-raiser at the diner is Saturday. No one will show up. We have to cancel.”
“Or we could just try to sell them, anyway,” Joss said.
“No, we can’t do that,” I told her. “That would be shady, knowing what we know about all the scratches. Plus, this is a small town. Word spreads fast.”
“There goes all the money we were going to raise.” Joss dropped her face down on the small pile of sweaters. “What a waste.”
“Wait. Get up,” I said. “Give me one of those sweaters.”
“Here. Take them all.”
“You know how cats love to sit on things… a piece of paper, a book? Fudge sits on my computer keys all the time. What if instead of sweaters, we knit blankets for them to lie on?”
Joss smiled. “I knew I loved you for a reason.”
“Just one reason?” I fake frowned.
“We don’t even have to change the Cozy Cat name. Blankets are cozy.”
“Cozier than sweaters!” I said.
“Plus, the blankets will be even faster to knit than the sweaters… no leg or head holes!”
There was a loud clank and a splat. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Zoe had dropped her lunch tray. A pile of mac and cheese had just missed her foot and a puddle of red fruit juice was spreading out across the floor. I watched it flow into a wide heart-like shape.
“Look!” I whispered to Joss. “Do you see that?” I pointed to the red juice.
“Yeah. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to clean up that mess.”
“Not that,” I said. “The way the juice is flowing. Do you see? It’s making a giant red heart on the floor.”
Joss looked again. “That might be a stretch. I mean, if it is a heart, it’s kind of lopsided on one side.”
“It’s very heart-like,” I said. “Plus, it’s red.”
“Well, the juice was red. I mean, it’s not like it magically turned red when it spilled!”
“It’s just so weird… the whole Heart the World thing… and now there’s a big heart on the floor. I think it’s a sign.”
“It’s a defective-looking heart, if you ask me. So if it’s a sign, it’s probably not a very good one.”
True that it wasn’t a perfectly shaped heart. But it was pretty close. “Real-life hearts aren’t perfectly shaped, anyway,” I said.
Joss shrugged her shoulders and wiped jelly off her mouth. “One never knows, I guess,” she said.
Cooper came over with a bunch of napkins and helped Zoe clean up the mess. I watched the heart disappear.
Back in the classroom, I made a few edits to the poster we had hung up on the Heart the World board and wrote in the word blanket over the crossed-out word sweater.
Joss made an announcement to the class and asked everyone to spread the news about the cat blankets so that people would show up to our event Saturday.
“Okay, well, I guess you can keep my ten dollars if I get a blanket now,” Cooper told us.
“Yay!” I said.
The afternoon dragged on because I wanted to get home and start knitting the blankets and let Charlotte know the new plan. Plus, we had sweater posters at the shelter that we needed to change. I had to call Franny and tell her. I wiggled in my seat a bit and tried to focus on the discussion about Mesopotamia. When I looked up, Ms. Santorelli stopped speaking. She looked at me with her eyebrows raised and her eyes pulled wide open. She pointed at me. I sat up straighter. Right away I thought, busted. She could tell I wasn’t paying one bit of attention.
“Everyone stay in your seats and keep quiet,” she said in a hushed voice. We all turned to watch when she sprinted on tiptoes to shut the classroom door. Th
en she grabbed Smoky’s carrier, which had been sitting in a corner of the classroom since Monday.
That’s when I looked down at my feet.
Smoky! I had almost shouted but I stopped myself. I made a happy little squeak instead. He was right under my desk! My cat was back! He curled around my leg. Someone else must have spotted him, too, because they announced: “The cat is back!”
The rest of the class burst into a unified cheer. Smoky froze, his front paws splayed out a bit, his tail puffed up, and his ears pointed back.
Ms. Santorelli shushed everyone. “Do not spook him.” The room got quiet.
“He’s afraid,” I said softly. Ms. Santorelli placed the carrier by my desk. Smoky came closer and sniffed at it. That’s when I reached down and pulled him up onto my lap. I pressed him against my chest. “It’s okay, Smoky. I’m sorry you’re scared. You’ve been lost and found two times in less than a week, silly boy.” I rested my cheek on the top of his head. The whole class watched in silence when I slowly slid out of my chair and kneeled by the carrier. I had barely opened the little door when Smoky scurried in quickly, as if he couldn’t wait to get home. He curled up in a ball and stared out at me with his celery-green eyes.
“News flash,” Cooper said. “Don’t try to put one of your dumb sweaters on him.”
“They’re blankets now,” I reminded him as I turned the little lock. I pulled on the door to double-check that it was secure.
“Franny was right! Taking his food away worked!” Joss was saying.
“He’s hungry,” I said.
Ms. Santorelli fed him some cheese from her lunch. I texted my mom to tell her the good news, and to ask her to pick Smoky and me up after school.
All of a sudden my day wasn’t so horrible. Saturday’s fund-raising event was back on. Smoky was coming home. And that random weird-shaped heart. It meant something. Something big, I was sure.