The Time Thief

by Angela Dorsey

  “Let’s wait until we get some purple too,” said Mika. “And some red. Otherwise it’ll look funny.”

  “It’s too wet now, anyway.”

  Angel jumped to the chair seat. Shocked, she looked down at her paws and meowed, then jumped as far from the chair as she could. Mika laughed as she scooped her up and wiped the pink paws on her oversized T-shirt, then cuddled the cat.

  “That’s better than a rainbow,” said Aimee, behind her.

  Mika looked back. Four grey paw prints showed in the pink on the seat of the chair. She smiled. “It’s perfect,” she said. “Angel’s helping us decorate.”

  “Now she belongs here too. Your mom and dad just have to let you keep her.”

  The sunlight glistening on the grass suddenly vanished and Mika glanced up at the overcast sky. “Oh no. It looks like it’s going to start raining again. I’m so sick of rain.”

  “I know. Me too. It feels like it’s rained for weeks.”

  “No, months.”

  “Years.”

  “Decades.”

  The two girls giggled as they carried the chair onto the covered porch.

  After lunch, Mika and Aimee sketched out the mural they wanted to paint in the fort’s second room. When it was time to go, Mika gathered Angel into her arms, and the two girls walked onto the porch.

  Aimee checked the paint on the pink chair. “It’s almost dry.”

  “Good,” said Mika, staring off toward the forest.

  Aimee followed her gaze. “Should we shoot the flare or walk home by ourselves?”

  “I think it’s gone. And besides, I just remembered, we can’t have them come. Not if we want to take Angel back with us.” When Aimee looked at her nervously, Mika added, “But let’s bring the flare shooter just in case.”

  The walk home was completely uneventful. Moments before the house came into view, Mika gave Angel to Aimee. “Mom might ask me to do something for her when we get home,” she explained as she helped her friend zip Angel inside her jacket.

  “She looks like she knows exactly what to do,” Aimee said in surprise when the little cat snuggled against her stomach.

  Mika smiled. “She’s done this a couple times already.”

  Mika’s mom was in the backyard taking dry laundry from the clothesline when Mika and Aimee opened the gate. Mika was infinitely grateful she’d thought to give Angel to Aimee, because the moment her mom saw her, she started ordering her around. Mika rushed to help carry the fresh-smelling clothes inside while Aimee ran up to wait in her room. Huge raindrops started to fall as Mika ran across the back lawn with the last armful. By the time she got into the house, rain was streaming from her hair.

  She grabbed a towel from the bathroom to dry herself, then slipped into her bedroom and shut the door. Aimee was lying on the bed, tickling Angel’s stomach as the cat batted her fingers with soft paws.

  “They just have to let you keep her,” she said, looking up at Mika dreamily. “She’s so sweet.”

  “I’m afraid to tell them,” admitted Mika, plopping down beside them. “What if they say no? What’ll I do then?”

  “But what else is there to do?”

  “Maybe I can keep her a secret in my room. Or maybe she can live with Grandma for a while.” She sighed. “More than anything, I wish I could tell them. I know they’d fall in love with her if they gave her a chance. Well, maybe not Dad. I can’t imagine him falling in love with any cat, even one as perfect as Angel.”

  “I don’t see how they couldn’t like her,” said Aimee. “But then grownups can be really weird sometimes.”

  Suddenly the door flew open. Joseph stood in the doorway.

  “Mika, Mom says you’re supposed to ...” His eyes opened wide. “A cat!” he yelled. “A kitty cat!”

  “Come inside, Joseph. Quick!” Mika ordered in a loud whisper.

  “Is it yours, Mika?” Joseph asked, still far too loud. “Can I pet it?”

  “Shut the door before Mom sees.” Why couldn’t he ever listen to her? He was going to ruin everything.

  “Sees what?” Mom stepped into the open doorway. “Who’s this? Is she yours, Aimee? Please say she’s yours.”

  Mika swallowed. “Mom? This is Angel. I found her last night.” She watched her mom’s eyes, hoping her expression would soften. It didn’t.

  Mom turned to Aimee. “It’s time for you to go home now, Aimee,” she said, her voice firm. “We’re going to hold a family meeting.”

  Chapter 6

  “See you tomorrow, Mika,” Aimee said quietly and touched Mika’s arm. Her hand lingered over Angel’s back before she got off the bed.

  Mika nodded goodbye to her friend, her eyes brimming with tears. Mom looked more than upset, she looked angry. There was no way she’d say yes now.

  “Mom, she’s a really quiet cat,” was all Mika could think to say, once Aimee had gone.

  Matt burst into the room, Billy right behind him. “A kitty?” Matt shrieked, bombarding her with his voice. “Where’s a kitty?” He stopped short when he saw Angel sitting calmly on the bed, washing one snowy paw.

  “What’s its name, Mika?” yelled Billy. “Can I hold it?”

  “Shhh, don’t be so loud! No, you can’t hold her,” Mika said, then gulped and looked up at Mom. The disapproving look was even stronger. “Maybe later you can touch her,” she added quickly.

  “Is this why you asked me about a pet yesterday?”

  Tears filled Mika’s eyes again. “Yeah, I found her on the way to Aimee’s house last night.” She sniffled. “We were just saying how much you’d love her, if you got to know her.”

  “Can we keep her, Mom? Can we? Can we?” asked Joseph.

  “Can we, Mom? Can we? Can we?” echoed the twins.

  Mika could have kissed them, she was so grateful. “Come here, Joseph,” she said. All three boys rushed forward. “Only Joseph to start with.” Surprisingly, the twins listened to her. Joseph crept toward the bed, his gaze locked on Angel. “Go ahead, touch her back,” encouraged Mika.

  Joseph touched the grey patch on Angel’s back with one finger. “She’s so soft,” he whispered.

  Angel stopped washing and mewed to him, then rubbed her face against his arm.

  “She likes me!”

  Finally, Mom smiled — just a small, tense smile, but it was a start. “Bring her downstairs and we’ll talk. Come on, boys.” She grabbed the twins’ pudgy hands. “Let’s go get Daddy.”

  Mika pulled Angel onto her lap. “What are we going to do if they say no?” she whispered to the cat.

  “Mom will let us keep her,” Joseph said. “She’s so pretty. She must be the beautiful-est cat in the world.”

  “She needs us, Joseph. She doesn’t have a home or a family of her own. She’s all by herself.”

  “Can I be her big brother?”

  Mika smiled. “You would be an awesome big brother for her,” she said. She rubbed her cheek against Angel’s downy coat and let the little cat climb up on her shoulders. “I have something for you to carry downstairs.” She reached onto the top shelf of her closet and brought down a cat toy she’d once made for Tiger.

  Joseph took the spool and string reverently in his hand. “What is it?”

  “I’ll show you downstairs,” said Mika and walked into the hallway.

  “Mika?” Joseph’s voice was soft behind her.

  “Yeah?” she asked, looking back.

  He stood in the doorway, his head bowed. “I’m sorry for being so loud.” He sounded ready to cry.

  “It’s okay, Joseph. Mom would’ve found out anyway. It’s not your fault.” And as she said the words, she knew they were true. There was no way she could’ve ever kept Angel a secret, from her mom anyway.

  When Joseph threw his arms around her waist, her eyes opened wide. Tentatively, she patted his back.

  “Really, it’s fine.”

  “Okay.” Joseph pulled away, wiping tears from his face, and together they descended the stairs.

&n
bsp; Mika’s parents were waiting on the couch in the living room, with Billy and Matt wiggling impatiently on the floor at their feet. Both twins jumped up the moment Mika and Joseph entered the room.

  “Can I touch her now?” yelled Billy, hopping up and down in front of Mika, his grubby hands reaching for Angel. “Can I? Can I?”

  “No, I want to!” Matt screeched just a little bit louder, jumping just a tad higher.

  “Stay back!” shouted Joseph in a lion’s roar.

  Mika shuddered. Fighting, more than anything, would make her parents say no. She longed to scream “Shut up” at all three of them, but she knew that would make things even worse. There was only one way to play this; for Angel’s sake, she had to force herself to be patient.

  She knelt beside her brothers. “Now, boys,” she said, trying to sound like her mom. “This is Angel. You have to be really nice to her, because she’s smaller than you. You want her to like you, don’t you, Joseph?”

  Joseph nodded.

  “Billy? Matt?” When the twins nodded, she continued. “She will only like you if you are very nice to her, and if you’re very quiet around her. Now watch this.”

  Mika held out her hand and Joseph put the cat toy in her palm. Slowly she dragged the spool across the carpet with the string. Angel bounced toward the homemade toy, then leapt on it and dug in her claws. Mika pulled it away from her, and the spool skittered across the floor with Angel right behind it, swatting and jabbing.

  Joyous laughter burst from the Trio, and Mika looked up to see her parents smiling. Trust Angel to win them all over in seconds. It was absolute proof that the little cat was beyond amazing.

  “Can I try?” asked Joseph.

  “No, me, me,” the twins chorused.

  “You can take turns,” said Mika. “Joseph can go first because he saw Angel first.”

  “I saw her next.”

  “Then I saw her.”

  Mika showed Joseph how fast to pull the spool across the floor, then stepped back and sank into the fluffy chair beside the couch.

  “I promise to take really good care of her,” she said to her parents. “Please let me keep her. She hasn’t got anyone but me. I mean, us.”

  “She doesn’t look like a stray to me,” Dad said.

  “That’s true,” Mom agreed. “Her coat is shiny. She’s a good weight. She’s not even afraid of people, like a lot of strays.”

  “She was really hungry when I found her.”

  “That might mean she’s been lost for a few days,” said Dad. “Her owner could be looking for her.”

  Mika felt her hopes fall. They were right. Angel was not a typical stray.

  Mom patted her hand. “She also might be abandoned, so let’s not jump to conclusions. Since you found her on the way to Aimee’s, someone may have dropped her off in the woods, hoping she’d be able to survive on her own.”

  Dad stroked his chin. “I think you should put up some posters around town, describing her. Then if her owners still want her, they’ll know where she is.”

  “And if they don’t come? Can I keep her?”

  “Let’s wait a week before we decide that,” suggested Mom. “By then we’ll know if she has an owner, plus we’ll know how things are working between her and the boys.”

  “Okay,” said Mika. It wasn’t the perfect answer, but it was infinitely better than a no. And Angel probably had been abandoned. No one lived out here but the Smiths, Aimee’s family, and hers. Unless the Smiths had recently gotten a new cat, there was no one in their neighbourhood who could have lost Angel.

  The little cat had decided once again that she was dirty and was washing in the centre of the rug. Joseph, Billy, and Matt tried to copy her as she thrust one hind leg up by her ear and started to lick the back of it. Mika giggled and curled up in the comfy chair to watch their contortions.

  Her mom and dad’s voices droned in the background as they talked about their day, just as they’d always done before Grandpa died. She watched the boys tire of trying to lick their pant legs and run out of the room. Seconds later, the sound of them vrooming their trucks along the upstairs hallway drifted down to them. The noise blended with her parents’ voices, and Mika’s eyelids drooped.

  Angel gave her tail a final swipe, then she regally unbent herself and strolled to Mika’s chair, where she jumped up, curled into a ball, and started to purr. Mika closed her eyes. The voices in the background grew further away.

  Abruptly, her eyes sprung open. What was that? What had her mom just said?

  “Yeah, it was the strangest thing. From a distance, it looked just like a wolf.”

  “What was it?” asked Dad.

  “A dog. A big, black dog, just standing beside the road out in front, like it was guarding our house. Or watching it.”

  “I wonder who it belongs to. Maybe Angel’s not the only abandoned animal around here.”

  “Maybe. I stopped and called it, but it ran into the forest.”

  “If you see it again, offer it some food. It’s probably hungry. And then we can see if it has a collar.”

  Mom nodded. “Good idea. I’ll do that.”

  Mika shivered despite the warmth of her chair, despite Angel’s satisfied rumbles. A big black dog that looked like a wolf? Now that was interesting. It could be what she and Aimee saw in the woods.

  But something about her parents’ words didn’t make sense. If the dog had been abandoned with Angel, wouldn’t they know each other? And if they knew each other, had possibly even lived in the same home together, why had Angel been so afraid?

  Chapter 7

  Mom rapped on Mika’s bedroom door early the next morning. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” she said brightly.

  Mika rolled over in bed.

  “The boys are up and you’re babysitting, remember?”

  Mika groaned. She hadn’t fallen asleep until a few hours ago; new worries had chased her sleep away. And no, she didn’t remember anything about babysitting.

  “Mika! Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, okay. I’m up.”

  Mom’s footsteps retreated. Mika covered her head with her quilt. Just a few more minutes …

  But sleep once again was fading away. As it withdrew, a memory filtered into her mind: her parents asking her to babysit last night, and her happily saying yes, because she wanted them to let her keep Angel.

  Great.

  Mika sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and held her head in her hands. They hadn’t even told her where they were going, though she’d asked two or three times. But apparently it was important they go, at least according to them.

  Thankfully, Aimee was allowed to spend the morning with them. After the adults left, Mika and Aimee took the opportunity to give the Trio a lesson in cat care. They explained how much food to give Angel, how important fresh water was, and how to clean her litter box, then showed the boys how to pet and play with her: gently, not just energetically. When they finished their lesson, the twins decided to go outside and play football in the front yard, just like the big guys on TV, while Joseph grabbed his magnifying glass and headed out to look for bugs in the backyard.

  “Bugs?” asked Aimee the second Joseph shut the door behind him. “When it’s raining?”

  “Yeah,” answered Mika. “He hardly feels the rain when he has bugs on his brain.” She pulled a chair up to the kitchen window and sat where she could keep an eye on the twins, now rolling around in a muddy tackle in the front yard. Angel settled on her lap and purred.

  “After your parents get home, we should go to the abandoned house,” said Aimee.

  Mika flinched. Angel gazed up into her face and meowed.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Aimee.

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes, there is.”

  If Mika could say anything about her friend, it would be that she was observant — and extremely persistent. Aimee wasn’t going to let her avoid the topic. “You promise you won’t laugh?” Mika asked.

&n
bsp; “Sure. Why would I laugh?”

  “Because it’s dumb.” Mika cleared her throat. “Mom saw a big black dog yesterday, and I wonder if that was what we saw by the fort.”

  “That’s better than a wolf, or less scary anyway.” Aimee looked puzzled. “But why would that make me laugh?”

  “I saw another black dog recently, and though I know it can’t be the same dog, it still creeps me out.” She shivered. “I didn’t tell you the worse thing about that old house. In the living room there’s a painting of a really mean-looking woman whose eyes seem to follow you around the room, and … a big black dog with yellow eyes.”

  “But that’s just coincidence. It has to be.”

  “Except for one thing. After I grabbed Angel from the old house and was almost home ...” Mika stopped, embarrassed. “Well, first I should tell you I ran out of the house without shutting the doors, because I, uh, panicked. Anyway, when I was almost home, I heard noises coming from the house. Three loud bangs. Someone slammed the doors I left open.”

  “Really? So you think someone’s living there again?”

  Mika nodded. “Maybe someone from that family moved back, and they have a black dog that looks like the one in the painting, like a descendant or something.” She paused. “I know it sounds stupid, but what if Angel belongs to the person who lives there now? Maybe they went out shopping or something, and Angel felt lonely so she was meowing. Maybe I stole her.”

  “But it wouldn’t be your fault if you did. You didn’t know.”

  “But that’s not the worst thing …” Mika’s voice cracked as she prepared to speak her biggest fear aloud. “What if they come to claim her?” She blinked back tears as she looked down at Angel, now curled into a white ball. The cat was so sweet, so perfect in every way. Could she bear it if she lost her?

  “But there are other explanations too, for everything,” said Aimee. “The wind could’ve blown the doors shut. The dog might’ve been a stray. There are tons of black dogs in the world and lots of them have yellow eyes.”

  Mika ran her hand along the curve of Angel’s back. “I hope you’re right.”

  “We won’t go to the old house until we know for sure no one lives there,” Aimee said firmly. “And don’t worry about anyone coming for her. You said she was hungry when you found her.”