Dad kept shaking his head as he scooped ice cream into dishes for Claire and me.
“Tyler’s crazy, too,” I said. I wondered again where China was hiding.
After dessert, Claire and I played Checkers. She beat me two out of three. “Tomorrow, we play Sorry,” I told her.
“I love Sorry,” Claire said.
I sighed.
Just before we turned out the light, Claire said,
“I’m glad I didn’t go to Washington, D.C.”
“You’re kidding.” I turned to look at her. “We had green throw-up. A crazy cat. A dead Harry Truman.”
“It was very interesting.” She closed her notebook and put it on the bedside table. “I’m ready to pray,” she said.
First, we made sure China was not in my room. Claire closed the door while I straightened the blanket on top of the heat duct. It got cold in my room with no heat coming in, but at least, we wouldn’t hear China. I turned out the light and slid out of bed and onto my knees. My talk with Mom’s poster was short. “I can’t wait for spring vacation to be over,” I whispered. In my whole life, I’d never said THAT!
I pushed my forehead against my bed and thought about what to say next. “Claire is sort of okay,” I whispered very softly.
What was I saying? Was I going crazy, too? I climbed back into bed, disgusted.
Chapter 20
China–Still Wild
FRIDAY MORNING, AFTER WE got back from feeding Ruby’s fish, Tyler had disappeared.
“I’ve looked everywhere,” Dad told us. He raised his voice. “Young man,” he said, “you’re in big trouble.” He lowered his voice. “He’s hiding,” he told us. “I’ve been putting up my shelves, but I keep hearing him.”
We followed him into his office.
“I finally have room for all those files that were stacked in the closet,” he told us. He slid his closet door open and then turned back with a surprised look. “Who’s been in here?” he asked. “I had things sorted into piles.”
Claire and I peered around him into the closet. “Not me,” I said.
“Me,” a little voice said. There in the back of Dad’s closet stood Tyler with dust bunnies on his sweatshirt. “I was playing,” he said.
“In my closet?”
“Under it,” Tyler answered in that same little voice. He clicked the flashlight off and on. Then he hid the light behind his back and brushed at a dust bunny on his knee.
Dad stepped into the closet. “What do you mean—under it?” Then he stepped back out, shaking his head. “I forgot the trap door for getting under the house is in here. I’ve never gone down it. Never needed to.”
“It was open a little bit when I found it,” Tyler said. “It looked like a good cat place. So I went down.”
“That was brave of you,” Dad said. “Good thing you had a flashlight.” He looked hard at Tyler. “Did you find her?”
Tyler nodded.
“You found China?” Claire and I spoke at once.
“She likes it under the house,” Tyler said. “We’ve been talking cat talk down there. She tells me what stuff to bring her.”
We crowded around the trap door and peered into the darkness. When Tyler turned on the flashlight, we saw cobwebs and a gravelly floor. On the floor were cut-out paper fish and Legos and trucks. A bowl of water. A can of cat food.
Claire shuddered. “I bet there are bugs and spiders.” She looked at Tyler in amazement.
“I see China,” I said. “Hi, China.” Far off in a back corner, two slitted eyes flashed. As Tyler moved the light, I could see metal heat ducts branching toward all parts of the house. No wonder China’s voice had traveled through them.
“Hissssss!”
I jumped back into Dad’s office.
“She’s getting to be my friend,” Tyler said. “I know how to talk to wild animals.”
“You’re some kid,” Dad said. He brushed his hand across Tyler’s red hair and then looked at his hand. “Cobwebs,” he said.
Tyler shook his head and something black fell out of his ear. “She’s all dirty too,” he said. “She’s lucky. She’ll brush off.” He looked up at Dad. “Am I in trouble?”
“You’re a hero,” Dad said. “A hero who needs a bath.”
“We can help you tame her,” I told Tyler. “We’ll bring stuff to you. I’ve got a little ball with a jingle in it. And Claire made a thing out of beads that we can hang for her to hit with her paw.” I looked down into the hole. “That you can hang,” I said.
We ran to get stuff for China. Then, we did all the things that we’d written on the calendar. We sang songs. We read her poems and nursery rhymes. We bounced a ball. We brought more food. China’s slitted eyes never changed as she stared at us through the darkness of the crawl space. Pretty soon we knew Tyler hadn’t tamed her at all.
She was still wild.
Chapter 21
Tea with Ruby
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, RUBY PHONED. “I’m home,” she said.
“Did you read our note?” I asked when she let us in the door. “Did we do something wrong?”
“Harry Truman was old,” Ruby said.
I looked closely at her. She looked sad. Did she blame us? I couldn’t tell.
She was wearing silver tights. A silver cloth covered her curly hair and flowed down her back. She’d tied a purple scarf around her waist and little bells hung from the bottom of it and jingled as she moved. “Fish die,” she said. “Anyone who has fish will tell you that.”
“So, it wasn’t our fault?” I asked. I had to be sure.
“Not your fault,” she answered.
Claire heaved a sigh of relief.
Thick incense smells filled the room. Claire sneezed five times in the hallway. In Ruby’s kitchen, Harry’s plate lay on the counter.
We went to stand around him. “You made him beautiful,” Ruby said. “Thank you.” She held her hands over Harry’s body and closed her eyes. “He’s traveling a river,” she said, “on his way to a different dream. I hear the water.”
“Life is but a dream,” Claire murmured. She looked up at Ruby, her eyes round with amazement.
“It’s the kettle,” I said. “Your water’s boiling.”
Ruby blinked her eyes and turned off the burner under the tea kettle. She took a blue-and-gold tin box out of the cupboard. “Will you stay for a cup of tea?” she asked.
As we nodded, Ruby dropped tea bags into mugs.
Claire moved closer to Ruby. “Before Harry died, I was going to ask my father if I could have some fish.”
Ruby poured steaming water into the mugs and smells of roses and peppermint came out of the steam. “I hope you didn’t change your mind,” she said. “I love having fish. They’re wonderful pets.” We followed her to the dining room table and sat down.
“I’m never going to have a pet,” Claire said. “You just get to like them, and then they die.”
“I understand,” Ruby said. “But if you never let yourself like something, you’ll miss out on the fun of life. It’s okay to love something that might die.”
Claire shook her head. She stared into her mug. “My mother. . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I know you lost your mother,” Ruby said. “But she loved you and you loved her. You have all your loving times to remember. Would you have told your mother you didn’t want to love her, because she might die?”
“Of course not,” Claire said.
Ruby bent toward her. “There are many things in this world for us to love. Friends and pets and everything around us.” Her silver scarf fell forward over her face and she pushed it back with her hand. “We need to love them all as much as possible.” She picked up her tea and cradled her hands around the mug. “If your dad says it’s okay to have fish, I can help you get started. I’ve learned a lot about them over the last few years.”
Claire shifted her feet under the table. At last, she looked up. “No,” she said. “I mean, no, thank you.”
Ruby touched the back
of Claire’s hand. Then, she turned to me. “Tell me how your business is going,” she said. “Did you have other pets to take care of?”
I coughed on a swallow of tea. “Maybe we should talk about something else,” I said.
Ruby got the whole story out of us. She leaned back in her chair. As she crossed her legs, bells jingled at the edge of her skirt. “It sounds like you girls did a good job. You worked hard.”
“Do you think China Cat will get tame again?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Ruby answered.
“Could you maybe look it up?” Claire leaned forward. “Like in your crystal ball?”
Ruby laughed out loud. “I don’t have a crystal ball,” she said.
“Then how can you tell people’s fortunes?” Claire asked.
Ruby smiled. “I use the Tarot cards,” she said. “But all I do is lay out the cards. Each person does her own figuring out. If you girls come to visit me again, I can show you how the cards work.”
After we finished our tea, Ruby paid us sixteen dollars. She said that was what she usually paid her regular pet sitter. We thanked her and started toward home.
“I like Ruby,” Claire said. Rain sprinkled her hair with silver drops. She’d forgotten to open her umbrella.
“She’s nice,” I said.
“But still,” Claire said, all at once snapping her umbrella open, “I’m not getting any fish. I don’t care what she said. I’m not going to start liking something that’s going to die.”
Chapter 22
Two Moms
WHEN WE GOT HOME, Dad was in the kitchen, starting to make his famous toasted tuna sandwiches. “We have to talk about tomorrow,” I told him.
“About Sierra getting back?” He stopped chopping the onion and laid down the big knife.
“What are we going to tell them?”
“The truth?” Dad asked.
I sighed. “That she’s gone crazy? That she won’t come out from under our house?”
Dad started again on the onions. Then he scraped the tiny pieces into the bowl of tuna salad. “Do you want olives?” he asked.
I nodded and got the olive jar from the refrigerator. “We didn’t make her turn wild. She did it to herself as soon as she found out they were going to leave her here.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Dad said. “Maybe we can offer them a new cat.”
“They want China.”
He nodded. “I know.”
As he spread tuna on the bread slices, I thought about school on Monday and how Sierra wouldn’t be speaking to me. Every recess, she’d play with someone else. We’d never play at each other’s houses again. “Sadness makes me tired,” I told Dad.
He stopped spreading tuna and held his arms out. Usually, Dad’s hugs could take bad things away. But not this time. That night when we got ready for bed, Claire was still talking about Ruby.
I pulled off my shoe and dropped it on the floor. Tomorrow, Claire would leave, and I’d get my room back. If it weren’t for China, by Sunday everything would be back to normal.
“Want to see my mother?” Claire asked. I stared at her.
She reached under her pillow and pulled out that pencil case. She opened it, took out a photograph, and turned it toward me. In the photo, a woman was sitting on the steps of Claire’s front porch. Her blonde hair shone in the sunlight. She was holding a little girl.
“Is that you?” I asked. “On her lap?” Claire nodded.
I studied the face of the woman in the picture and looked again at Claire. “You look just like her,” I said.
Claire stared at me. Then she smiled. “That’s the nicest thing you ever said to me, Katie.”
I handed back the photo. “It’s true.”
“Can I see your mom?” Claire asked.
I paused, one sock on, one off. I could almost feel Mom’s poster, right under me, under my bed. But what if Claire said something mean about Mom?
I reached under my bed. Touched the rolled-up poster.
I pulled it out a little bit. Then, I pushed it back. “You won’t like her.”
“Why?” Claire asked.
“Because she’s still alive.”
“You are lucky. Your mother’s only gone to another state.” Claire jumped down beside me on the floor. She sat close to me, in her blue-and-white striped pajamas. “Show me, anyway.”
“I’m not lucky,” I said. “This is worse.”
Claire shook her head. “Nothing’s worse than dying.”
“My mother could be here,” I said slowly, “but she doesn’t want to be.”
Claire was silent, her blue eyes looking back at me. All at once, her eyes filled with tears.
I swallowed. “I don’t know why she likes singing so much,” I said, blinking back my tears. “She likes singing more than being my mom.”
There. I’d said it. Something I’d been thinking for a long time. I kicked at the foot of my bed. Ouch! I hunched over and rubbed my toe.
Claire hugged her knees to her chest. “I guess my mom liked going skiing. She could have stayed home with me that day.” She rubbed her tears away with her pajama sleeve. “If only I’d been sick. But how could I know which day was the one for getting sick?” She sighed. “We both lost our moms,” she said. “And both our moms made us mad. And sad.”
Both our moms. . . .
I reached again under the bed. This time, I pulled out the poster and unrolled it. I stared at Mom’s smile. I was still scared. What would Claire say?
“Wow!” Claire said. “Cute clothes.”
Giggles snorted out my nose. I should have known. Of course, Claire would love my mom’s sparkly vest.
Chapter 23
The Final Tail
BY SATURDAY AFTERNOON, MY room looked like me again. Mom’s poster hung next to my dresser. Claire had rolled up her pale blue rug and filled her bags with her blue stationery, her projects, and her clothes. Her mother’s photo stood on the bedside table. She was writing in her notebook. Her face looked somehow softer; she was even smiling.
“Pen pals?” I asked.
She looked up and shook her head. “A list. I like those yellow-and-black striped ones, and I want those blue ones with the black eye things. And one of those flat ones. . . .”
“You’re getting fish?”
She nodded. “I think we ARE supposed to love things,” she said, “even if they might die.”
Ruby’s words. That made sense to me, too.
I looked at Claire. Had she changed? Or was I just getting used to her? “Thanks for being my business partner,” I said.
She hugged the notebook against her chest. “Thanks for letting me.”
The doorbell rang.
Claire started toward the door. “I hope it’s my father. I hope it’s not Sierra.”
We heard Dad open the front door. “How was Hawaii?” he asked.
Claire and I froze.
“Sunshine the whole time,” Sierra’s mom answered. “Look at my tan.”
“I got a tan, too,” Sierra’s voice said.
“Rained here almost every day,” Dad said.
I touched Claire’s arm. “We have to get this over with.”
In the hallway, we almost bumped into Tyler. “Come on, China,” he said. “Come see who’s here.”
“Mew,” China Cat said.
Claire and I stopped short. We stared at China.
“Mew,” she said again. She waved her tail at us. She wound herself around Tyler’s legs and pushed her head up for a pat as she passed in front of him.
“Nice kitty,” Tyler crooned.
China walked down the hall beside Tyler. Her hips swayed. She sang a deep, happy song. “There you are,” Mrs. Dymond said. “Why, you look great, China!”
I heard Dad drop something on the floor. “Huh?” he asked.
Claire and I went to stand in the front hall as China bounded into Mrs. Dymond’s arms and nuzzled her head under her chin.
Sierra grinned at me a
nd handed me a box. “I brought a pretty shell for your collection,” she said. But then, her grin faded as she looked behind me. At Claire.
“I was at Katie’s house all week,” Claire said. “We’re business partners now.”
Sierra’s mouth dropped open.
“That reminds me,” Mrs. Dymond said. “We owe Katie forty dollars.” She passed China to Mr. Dymond and got out her checkbook.
I went to stand beside her. “Wait,” I said.
“I suppose you’ll split it with Claire,” Mrs. Dymond said, “since she’s your business partner.”
She began to write the check.
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes. But mostly, it’s Tyler’s.”
Beside me, Claire nodded. Dad cleared his throat and nodded, too.
Tyler shoved his hands into his pockets. All at once, he looked five instead of four. “China liked me the best,” he said proudly.
“I’ll write the check to Katie,” Mrs. Dymond said, “and the three of you can decide how to split it.”
While Claire and Tyler collected cat toys, Sierra and I carried some of China’s stuff out to her car. “Lots to tell you,” I told her as we shoved things into the back seat.
“Poor you,” Sierra said. “Claire was at your house all week?”
“It was an awful week,” I answered, “but not because of Claire.”
“What could be worse than Claire?” Sierra rolled her eyes.
I tipped my face up and tasted rain on my tongue. “A bunch of things are worse,” I said.
As Claire came up to us with a bag filled with paper fish and jingly toys, I began a list: “Piddle puddles. Green vomit. Monster cat. Yes, Sierra, your cat went crazy.”
“But Tyler did too,” Claire said. “And Harry Truman died. . . .”
Sierra put her hands over her ears. “Next year,” she said, “you guys have to get out of Oregon.”
I thought about vacations coming up. People going on trips. Pets left lonely and sad with no one to take care of them. Now that I thought back, the week hadn’t been that bad.
“Maybe I’ll stick around,” I said. “A lonely pet might need me.”
Tails of Spring Break Page 6