Random Acts of Kittens

by Yamile Saied Méndez

  My heart panged. Not every person who felt lonely was the best candidate for a kitten … right?

  Sighing, I put the papers down. Something furry brushed my skin and tickled me. At my feet, Max and Meggie attacked each other and rolled in a hug until the leg of the bed stopped them. Max glared up at the hanging bedspread and attacked it instead. She looked like a kitty Tarzan, and soon Meggie joined her in their game of swinging from the bedspread. For being so tiny, Max sure was the mastermind.

  In that moment, Julieta came into my room, and when she saw the kittens hanging from the bed, she covered her mouth and said, “Oh my gosh, Nati! If Mami sees them …”

  She didn’t need to end that sentence. The silky fabric had four sets of tiny-but-obvious rips that I wouldn’t be able to hide with anything.

  “Oops,” I said. “Don’t tell, Juli, please. Five more weeks, and I’ll have to let them go.”

  “Five? More like six.” Juli’s eyes softened. She picked up the kitty sisters and kissed them on top of their heads. When she looked at me, she grimaced. “And you might want to check the nest. Harry keeps going on the blanket.”

  She left with kittens in hand, and I turned the comforter around so the tears on the fabric wouldn’t be the first thing Mami saw when she entered my room.

  Five-ish weeks to go. Would the house and my family survive the kittens in one piece?

  Between support group before class, school, and taking care of the kittens, the next few days flew by; they tumbled into each other, and before I knew it, weeks had passed. In that time, Meera’s parents told my mom she didn’t need to drive the kids anymore. I felt almost guilty for avoiding the car rides together. Every time I saw Bodhi at school, he stopped to tell me something about the Kitten Cupid videos. He was obsessed.

  My heart was a battle zone.

  During that time, I turned in my paper to Mrs. Thomas. I’d written about the shelter’s need for volunteers and had included the lost pet ad from Gigi’s previous family. Without going into too much detail, I wrote about kittens that didn’t make it without the help of volunteers and foster families. When Mrs. Thomas returned the paper, I saw a 100% in pink marker, and the smile on her face made me blush with satisfaction.

  She winked at me but didn’t comment aloud to the class. I wondered about that smile and the wink every time I checked on my FAstro to load a new video or photo.

  In less exciting news, during that time Reuben stopped by the house only once, and I suspected he did because it was Beli’s last night before heading back to Puerto Rico.

  I had wanted to set up the Kitten Olympics, with obstacle courses I’d designed when I was supposed to be practicing math facts. I was sure it would help bring out their personalities, even if I already felt I knew each of them so well. But he wasn’t any help at all. While I connected boxes and plastic tubes with duct tape, he just played with the kittens the whole time.

  When he kept brushing away my comments about lining up the kittens for a race or swinging the string for the catch-the-feather game, I switched tactics. I suggested we go over the rest of the applications. I still wasn’t sure who the finalists were.

  “Put me down for Johnny. You know I’m his favorite,” Reuben said in a quirky voice.

  That boy couldn’t do anything serious.

  When he started throwing jokes around, it meant nothing would get done. Something was brewing in Reuben’s mind, but I didn’t know what.

  The only moment he became interested in what I was doing was when I told him Brigham’s had been one of the two applications that arrived right under the wire the night before. His answers had been surprisingly sweet. I hadn’t read Hayden’s yet.

  “Really? You’re going to believe anything Brigham writes? He’s Andrew’s minion!” Reuben complained, red-faced as he tried to shake off Harry, Meggie, and Fifi, who were trying to climb his jeans legs. They looked like mountain climbers struggling to reach Mount Everest’s summit. Johnnycakes watched them smugly from his throne on Reuben’s arms.

  “They look like they want to eat you,” I said, fascinated at how determined the kittens were. I’d never seen them act this way other than when they smelled Beli’s cooking. “What did you touch before coming here?”

  Reuben smiled sheepishly and said, “I was helping my mom with the arepas filling for tonight.”

  “Now they think you’re a giant arepa.” I laughed.

  “I promise I washed my hands,” he said, finally plucking off one kitten at a time. Meggie had found the feather toy and was shredding it, and each of her siblings tumbled over to join her. I would be cleaning up feather bits for days. At six weeks old, they were all menaces; bringing all of them out at once was a questionable choice. Fifi pounced onto Gigi’s stomach and she howled in protest.

  “They’re kind of a handful even for Gigi,” I said, laughing.

  “No kitting!” Reuben replied, and for a second, it seemed like everything was back to normal. Almost.

  Until he remembered Brigham’s application. “Honestly,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that he wants a kitten for his little brother. Have you ever seen Trevyn? He’s just Brigham 2.0, the meaner and crueler version. Ask Bodhi what he thinks of him.”

  “Maybe a kitten is what he needs to calm down,” I said, biting my pencil. Not that I was even remotely considering Brigham, but the fact that Reuben had assumed I was made me angry, so I kept going. “A kitten’s not supposed to be a reward for being nice … I don’t know. Maybe Trevyn needs a kitten to learn about kindness.”

  Reuben just stared at me. “If you give him any of our kittens, Natalia, I will never talk to you again.”

  Reuben exaggerated all the time. This time, though, there was a seriousness behind the words that chilled me. Reuben had been my only constant friend all this time, and the days without him had been almost unbearable. But why would he talk to me this way?

  “Ours?” I snarled. “They’re my cats, Reuben Francis, and I make the choices. I have the power!” In my defense, the expression sounded funny in my mind. But he didn’t take it that way. He didn’t even smile. Instead, his chin quivered, and silently, he gathered the kittens and began leading them to the laundry room like a pied piper. Gigi saw her chance and stayed in the kitchen, seeking refuge under Beli’s legs as she made dinner. Beli sent me a questioning look, and I shrugged, feeling worse than if she’d told me off.

  “Hey,” I said when Reuben came back. “It was a joke.”

  “I’m not laughing. How many times have you told me that if no one laughs, then it’s not a joke?” he said, wringing his hands as if he wanted to tell me something else but didn’t know how.

  I was scared of what he’d say, so I spoke first. “Don’t you have to be at your best friend’s now? Careful she doesn’t think you like me better, you know?” He looked so confused, so I added, “Meera, yes. I’m talking about her. Don’t look so surprised. You never come over anymore, and when you do, it looks like you can’t wait to tell me you need to go. So go, Reuben!”

  The silence that followed was louder than the roar of an airplane engine. Beli looked up, but she didn’t say anything. Reuben walked over to where she was, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Have a great flight back home, Beli.”

  And he left without looking back at me or even saying goodbye.

  * * *

  Later, when I was doing dishes, Beli picked up a towel and started drying the pans. She’d been cooking for days, not only for tonight but to last us weeks. The fridge and freezer were packed. If she couldn’t be here, at least we’d be well fed. If that wasn’t an act of love, I didn’t know what was.

  Her suitcases sat by the door, and soon she and Mami would be heading to the airport for her to catch the red-eye flight to New York City and then on to San Juan.

  I sighed, and Beli pulled me close with an arm.

  “Te voy a extrañar, mi chiquita,” she said in a husky voice.

  I knew it was true that she would miss me. Not as much as
I’d miss her, though. Without her, I’d be by myself most of the time. It’d be just the cats and me. Mami and Julieta had their own lives, and Reuben was acting all weird. I didn’t understand him anymore.

  “Have a great trip, Beli” was all I managed to say. I knew she’d be happy back home, in her little house by the beach with Tío Mako’s canary Pichuco singing to her in the mornings. She’d be happy with her cafecito and pan soba’o, and here I’d be with my reheated quesitos and empanadillas. At least I’d have my kittens. But only for a few more days, and then they’d be gone too.

  She kissed me on the cheek and said, “I left you a present on your bed. I hope you love it.”

  “You’re sure you’re not coming to the airport?” Julieta asked, pausing in the doorway.

  I shook my head. For a second, I regretted telling Mami that I’d rather stay home, but even the thought of Beli leaving made my eyes prickle with tears. If I actually saw her leaving, who knew if I’d ever stop crying?

  I’d gone to the airport to see Papi off when he left in September, and I wasn’t ever going to put myself in that situation again. I couldn’t avoid the sadness of someone else’s absence, but I could avoid the drawn-out airport goodbye.

  “Nati, I can’t find my camera. Have you seen it? I wanted to get some nice shots at the airport,” Juli said.

  Her question startled me so badly I dropped a cup and it shattered in the sink. “Oops,” I said, but my bright cheeks must have been the proof she needed to know I was hiding something.

  Her eyes looked just like Reuben’s when I’d told him to go to Meera’s.

  “Give it back, Natalia,” Julieta said, her hand facing up, her foot tapping on the floor.

  “I don’t have it,” I said.

  Beli cleared her throat, and I sighed.

  I could just barely deal with Papi being gone so long, Reuben being mad at me, and having to say goodbye to the kittens, but not with Beli looking so disappointed in me. I couldn’t let her go thinking Julieta and I were fighting.

  I stomped to my room and saw a big box on top of the comforter. I’d open it later, when I wasn’t upset. Maybe I didn’t deserve this present with how I’d behaved with my sister. I rummaged in my closet for the camera and headed back to the kitchen with it.

  Julieta and Beli had been mumbling by the door. Mami was already out in the car.

  “Here,” I said, handing the camera to my sister.

  Julieta took it, and the first thing she did was turn it on, like she wanted to see if I’d broken it.

  She looked up at me and said, “I would’ve happily lent you the camera if you asked, you know? Why did you take it? I can’t ever trust you, Natalia.”

  She didn’t even sound angry, so I couldn’t react defensively. My sister was right, and not even Beli could side with me in this argument.

  Mami honked outside, and without another word, Julieta headed out.

  My heart fluttered like a butterfly that fell to the ground with the heavy rain. The wings of my heart were machucadas, bruised with so many bumps.

  Beli hugged me one last time and said, “You know, gatos are adorable. But pushing everyone else away, playing angry tag, won’t make you happy, Nati. Think about that.” She kissed my forehead and smiled. “Remember I’m hashtag Team Natalia all the way.”

  Before I could promise I’d try again, that I wouldn’t let my fears turn me into a sour lemon, Beli went out to the car. She’d left the box of dominoes she loved on the table, like a promise that soon she’d be back.

  For a while, I played with the kittens and tried to get them to run the obstacle course. Herding kittens by myself was impossible, though. After playing all day, they fell asleep one by one, wiped out from all their adventures. I tried to scoop up Max to cuddle with her, but Gigi sent me a look that I interpreted as don’t you dare, so instead, I picked up the applications I’d printed out and went over them again and again.

  So many people wanted a kitten, not only from school but from all over the neighborhood. It was so hard to know how to choose. How to choose right. I browsed Astros trying to catch glimpses of people’s lives, but in their regular accounts, they only posted the best for the world to see. It was in the FAstros, with made-up names, that they showed who they really were. Why did we all hide behind screens and fake accounts?

  I got a headache and turned off the computer and went back to the printouts. Hayden’s application was perfect, going over his story about Bagheera and Catsby, and how much he loved them. After five years without them, he figured it was about time to try again. He thought having a kitten at his parents’ house would be calming while he did all his work for college. He, of course, wrote down Fifi as his first pick.

  Other applications were easy to throw in the garbage. For example, Saylor said that her main reason for adopting was to transform the kitten into a social media celebrity.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, crushing the paper and tossing it in the garbage.

  After a while, only a handful of applications made the final list. I stacked them on the table: Jojo and Hayden were solid yeses. Meera’s and Lilah’s were off to the side. Every time I decided to take them out of the pile, something inside me stopped me. It was like a whisper telling me to reconsider. Even if both of them had been mean to me, they might be the best for one of the kittens.

  Beli’s words not to play angry tag rang in my memory along with Hayden’s warning not to let my prejudices and ego get in the way of the kittens’ fur-ever happy families.

  I wished I could call Reuben, that we could discuss this like we normally would. He’d become so irrational when I’d jokingly said Brigham might be a good candidate, I was afraid that if I mentioned I was considering Lilah, very loosely, he wouldn’t speak to me again. And if I told him I’d chosen Bodhi and Meera, would he be relieved or just tell me “I told you so”?

  Life was so complicated!

  If only everything was naps and cuteness like with the kittens. Crushed by loneliness and the need to talk to someone, I checked back on my FAstro. Even if I wanted to stay away from it, looking at it was like an itch I just had to scratch. Even when I’d just been a lurker, it had helped to see what everyone else was doing. Now that I could be in on the action, even if no one knew who I was, I felt part of everything again.

  There were hundreds of views of the latest kitten video. It was one of my favorites to date. Beli caught it by sheer luck on her phone and emailed it to me, and after I made sure I didn’t appear on the video at all, I’d uploaded it to my feed.

  Mami had asked me to vacuum the kitchen and living room, but as soon as I turned on the vacuum, Gigi arched her back, hissed, and started stalking me. The five kittens, even Max, were watching me vacuum with curiosity and fear. I didn’t see Gigi give the order to attack, but at once, the six cats jumped on the vacuum’s hose and started trying to take it down.

  At first, I’d been in shock at how earnest they seemed in bringing down the beast.

  How long had they been planning the attack? I imagined Gigi speaking to them when they were newly born, preparing them for the moment when they’d all jump the red dragon.

  I smiled now remembering how I’d laughed with Beli yesterday when she had to stop recording.

  These tiny creatures had brought so much happiness into my life. How was I going to say goodbye to them? Especially to Max. I didn’t dare ask Mami if I could keep her too, but the truth was, I wanted her for myself. Maybe I could wait up and ask, but they’d be back super late, and Mami wouldn’t be in the mood to argue.

  Mami and Juli would wait for Beli’s airplane to take off at midnight, to make sure she was safely on her way. Besides, I had a long day at school tomorrow, so I went to bed.

  On my bed awaited Beli’s present, like hope wrapped in printed paper of kittens and crowns. How in the world she’d found this paper, I’d never guess.

  Careful not to tear the wrapping paper, I opened the package. My fingers prickled at the touch of wool ins
ide the box. I took out seven sweaters made of the same bright pink yarn I’d seen hanging from Beli’s purse like a tail. Five of the sweaters were a tiny bit too big for the kittens now, but they’d fit perfectly when it was time for them to go home in a week. Another one was perfect for Gigi, and then the last one was for me. They all had the same heart design with tiny triangular ears on top. The design on mine was in the front, and the cats’ on the back. A paper flew down from my sweater. I unfolded it and recognized Beli’s elegant loopy handwriting immediately.

  Beli had never written me a letter before.

  Nati Natalia,

  I made these sweaters for los gatitos and for you while you were at school. I think they’ll be the perfect going-to-their-fur-ever-home outfits, and I think you’ll look beautiful in one too. I hope you fix this speed bump on the road of friendship with Reuben. Having a friend is a treasure. Having one like Reuben is such an abundance. Why do you keep pushing him away?

  I’m glad you have your gatita to keep you company. You and your mami will need each other more than ever. Your mami and Julieta have a special bond. It was just the two of them for a long time until your papi came along. But it doesn’t mean your mami doesn’t adore you just like I adore her.

  I’m not leaving because I love your tío Mako and your primas more than I love you and your mom and sister. I’m leaving because I’m needed at home. Goodbyes are sad, but think about our hug when we see each other next!

  Keep me updated on all things gatitos. Send me a picture or two of you and Gigi. She’s busy with her babies now, but once she gets the chance to be a pampered kitten for the first time in her life, I know she’ll be a great companion and friend.

  Con amor,

  Abuela Beli

  I read the letter twice and put it inside my planner.

  Gigi meowed, and I made room in the bed for her. Tomorrow at school, I’d ask Solange why she hadn’t applied. Maybe I could convince her to give kittens a try. And maybe I’d be able to confide in Reuben and tell him Bodhi was one of the finalists for the kittens even if I couldn’t forgive Meera. Tomorrow would be a new day.