by Meg Cabot
He could crawl into the engine of someone’s parked car and then when the person got in and started the engine to drive away, the cat could get sucked up inside the motor.
Or he could climb a tree and accidentally go too far and get stuck in the upper branches and get scared and not be able to crawl down again, then slowly starve to death.
Or someone could be walking along and see him sitting on the sidewalk and think, What a beautiful cat (because of course Mewsie is the most beautiful cat in the whole world), and just decide to pick him up and take him home to live with them, not even caring that he has a microchip embedded in his neck that says he belongs to me, Allie Finkle.
And Mewsie, because he is very sweet and trusting and, unlike the children of the early settlers and myself, has never known hardship, would never scratch or bite someone who picked him up from the sidewalk.
‘Don’t you understand?’ I yelled. By now I was crying. ‘We have to call the police!’
‘We are not calling the police,’ Mom said, ‘because you can’t find your cat, Allie. What’s the matter with you?’
‘E-everything’s horrible!’ I cried.
‘Oh?’ Dad said. ‘Is A Plus charging you six thousand dollars to reshingle your roof too?’
Thomas!’ Mom said, giving Dad a disapproving look.
‘What’s going on?’ Mark asked. I guess he’d heard all the yelling and come inside to find out what was going on. ‘What’s wrong with Allie?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with Allie.’ Mom walked over to wipe off some of my tears with the bottom of her shirt. ‘She can’t find her cat.’
‘Want me to help look for him?’ Mark asked. ‘I’m exceptional at finding things. When the newts in my class escaped from their terrarium because Casey Giarardi forgot to put the lid back on when he cleaned it, I’m the one who found them in the heating duct.’
‘Mewsie’s not a newt!’ I yelled at him.
‘Well, when Mewsie went missing last time,’ he said, ‘it was my idea to look in the dryer.’
‘I already looked in the dryer,’ I said. I buried my face in Mom’s soft stomach. Her Mom smell was somewhat comforting. Though not enough to calm me down completely. ‘He isn’t in the dryer.’
It’s amazing how quickly life could go from being just a little bit bad to a total disaster. Like in the blink of an eye.
This was probably how the children of the early settlers felt. Like when bugs would get into the seed corn, and they would think, Oh, well, at least there’s the sugar beets, and then a frost would kill all the sugar beets.
Or when you think you have enough money to buy a cellphone and your parents made some new rule like, ‘Oh no, you can’t have a cellphone until you’re in the sixth grade, even if you buy it with your own money.’
Or when you have the best teacher in the world, and some man you don’t even know comes along and steals her away. Proving None of us has any idea how truly awful things can get. That’s a rule.
That’s what I was telling myself as I was staggering around the front yard in the dark a few hours later, my eyes all red-rimmed with tears, going, ‘Mewsie! Mewsie! Here, kitty, kitty!’ in a voice that was hoarse from having called the same thing over and over again, for so long and so loud that Erica and her big brother John and even her sister Missy had come out of their house next door to help me look.
That’s what we were all doing when Uncle Jay drove up.
‘Hi, Allie,’ he said, getting out of the driver’s side of his beaten-up car that had a light-up PizzaExpress sign screwed to the roof. His girlfriend, Harmony, who had long shiny black hair, got out of the passenger side. They were both carrying pizza boxes.
‘Heard the Finkle family is having kind of a tough week,’ Harmony said, smiling at me.
I had no idea what she was talking about. Nothing bad had happened to the rest of my family, except that my parents had to buy a new roof because the old one leaked. Who even cared about that? I was the one who was having a tough week. On top of everything else that had gone wrong, like with the cellphone and the field trip to stupid Honeypot Prairie and Mary Kay and my wonderful teacher getting stolen away by some stranger, which I barely even cared about any more, my cat was missing. A feline life was at stake!
And my family didn’t even care.
Except that I supposed losing my cat was going to make Mom and Dad think I was even less responsible now. Like it was my fault the roofing men hadn’t obeyed the rule, and had left the door open.
I knew there was something wrong with that Mr Johnson. Anyone who could fall for Kevin’s cute face is not to be trusted. That’s a rule.
‘Come on, Allie, cheer up,’ Uncle Jay said. ‘I’m sure Mewsie’s just gone on a walkabout.’
Erica and her brother and sister had waved goodnight to me from the yard, wishing me luck. I barely noticed. I was busy following Uncle Jay and Harmony up on to the front porch.
‘What’s a walkabout?’ I asked.
‘It’s when someone feels the need to break away from the daily grind,’ Uncle Jay said, ‘in the hope of eventually finding his spiritual path. So he takes off for a while to have some new adventures.’
Tears filled my eyes again.
‘But I don’t want Mewsie to take off for a while to have some new adventures,’ I said with a wail.
‘Oh, Allie,’ Harmony said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. ‘I’m sure Mewsie’s fine. Jay didn’t mean it like that.’
‘Yes I did,’ Uncle Jay said. ‘That’s the thing with a walkabout, Allie. Fighting it doesn’t do anybody any good.’
I stared at Uncle Jay like he was crazy. So did Harmony.
‘That’s nuts,’ I cried. ‘Mewsie’s not seeking his spiritual path. He’s a cat!’
‘Well,’ Uncle Jay said, ‘I’m just saying. Walkabouts happen. It’s like . . . well, one of your rules. You just have to accept it.’
I reached up to dry my eyes with the sleeve of my windbreaker.
‘It is not a rule! I’m not just going to accept that Mewsie has gone on a walkabout,’ I said, my hoarse voice breaking. ‘I’m going to stay out here all night, calling for him, if I have to. And if he doesn’t come home tonight, I’m going to make flyers tomorrow with a picture of him and a description, and hang them all over the neighbourhood, asking for people’s help looking for him. And I’m going to call the animal shelter every single day to see if anyone has brought him in. And I’m going to make Mom hold up one of the flyers on her TV show. And I’m never going to stop looking for him, ever—’
‘Hey, Allie!’
The glassed-in storm door opened, and Mark stood there, panting like he’d just run very fast from some faraway place.
‘What?’ I asked him, still crying. ‘Mark, I’m having a very important conversation right now.’
‘Kevin and I found Mewsie,’ he said.
My heart heaved. ‘Where?’
‘You’ll never believe it,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’
He started thumping up the stairs. I thumped after him, my pulse racing almost as fast as my feet. You’ll never believe it.
What did that mean? Was Mewsie all right? Did this mean he hadn’t gone on a walkabout?
If Mewsie was all right, I told myself as I followed Mark, I would do everything within my power to become a more responsible person. I would try to accept the fact that we were going to Honeypot Prairie on our field trip tomorrow and not somewhere good like the Children’s Museum, and I would stop complaining about that (in my head).
I would try to accept that fact that Mrs Hunter might not be willing to switch from teaching fourth grade to fifth grade just for me. And that she might want to marry someone some day, and move away.
If Mewsie was all right, I would not only become more responsible about these things, but I would stop complaining about my parents refusing to let me have a cellphone, even using my own money. I wouldn’t even complain any more (in my head) about stupid Mary Kay Shiner.
W
ho even cared about a cellphone, or riding on a bus with my ex-best friend, anyway?
Not me.
None of those things mattered.
The only things that matter are the people – and pets – you love.
That was probably the number one rule of all.
I just had to remember that.
Mark swerved around the corner at the top of the stairs, disappearing into his bedroom. I followed him . . . then skidded to a stop.
Rule #9
Make Sure Your Little Brothers Don’t Do Stupid Things
Kevin was sitting on the floor of Mark’s closet, picking what appeared to be mushrooms off his shirt. He was covered in dust and grime and . . . snail-shells.
‘You went into the wall!’ I accused him.
Mark and Kevin both shushed me.
‘Not so loud,’ Mark said. ‘Do you want Mom and Dad to find out? They’ll kill us. Or take away our DSs, at least.’
‘But . . .’ I couldn’t believe it. We weren’t allowed to go into in the wall. Dad had said so. It was a rule. ‘It’s dangerous in there. You could have gotten stuck. Or fallen through the dry rot. Or made the entire house collapse on us!’
Kevin looked at me blankly. ‘Allie,’ he said, ‘I wore my hard hat.’
As a big sister, it’s a rule and my responsibility to Make sure my little brothers don’t do stupid things, like crawl into holes in the walls of their closets that my parents had to put there to check on dry rot and leaks. ‘You could have been killed!’
‘But we found Mewsie!’ Kevin said.
‘You did?’ I looked quickly around Mark’s room, my heart speeding up again. ‘Where? Where is he?’
Mark pointed with the flashlight at the dark hole out of which Kevin had just crawled. ‘In there.’
All the spit in my mouth dried up.
‘Mewsie is . . . in the wall?’
Kevin nodded eagerly. ‘Way in the back,’ he said. ‘All curled up in the corner.’
‘Look,’ Mark said, switching on the flashlight. ‘You can see him.’
‘Wait,’ Kevin said. ‘Wear this.’
I didn’t want to, but felt like I had to, for safety’s sake. I put on his hard hat.
Then I grabbed the flashlight and ducked my head and shoulders into the hole. I could wiggle in pretty far . . .
. . . even though it was super and dark and creepy in there, and there were all those mushrooms and snails and probably spiders too.
I didn’t care though. That’s how much I wanted to find my cat.
‘Where?’ I demanded from inside the woodsy-smelling hole. ‘I don’t see him.’ I could see deep into the inner caverns of the interior of our house – all beams and two-by-fours, under what the roofing man would have called the eaves . . .
And then I heard it. A tiny, ‘Mrowr?’ that was the sleepy sound with which Mewsie greeted me every time I walked into a room and woke him up.
And my flashlight beam fell on two bright, glowing dots . . . cat’s eyes. And a tiny grey and black striped body, curled up in a dark corner beneath an eave, all snug and warm and happy as a clam.
‘Mewsie!’ I cried. ‘Oh, Mewsie!’
I was so happy and relieved, I didn’t care that I too was probably getting dry rot and snails on me. Mewsie was alive! And safe! He hadn’t gone on a walkabout.
OK, he was in the wall.
But he wasn’t outside, getting sucked into someone’s car engine or being catnapped.
‘Mewsie,’ I called. ‘Here, kitty!’
‘He won’t come,’ I heard Mark say behind me. ‘We already tried calling him. He likes it in there.’
‘Allie!’
Suddenly my ankles were seized, and I was dragged out from inside the wall. I turned my head and found myself blinking up at Uncle Jay.
‘What are you doing in there?’ he asked in disbelief.
‘Mewsie’s in the wall,’ I said, taking off the hard hat. ‘He’s been there this whole time. He didn’t go on a walkabout.’
‘Oh.’ Uncle Jay scratched his chin. ‘Well, that’s good. I guess. Listen, your mom wants you to go set the table for dinner. And you better wash your hands first. And, uh, comb your hair.’
I stared at him like he was crazy.
‘I can’t come to dinner,’ I said. ‘I have to get Mewsie out of the wall.’
‘Why?’ Uncle Jay looked confused. ‘He’s fine.’
‘But he can’t stay inside the wall!’ I couldn’t believe this. Was I the only person in my entire family who understood the proper care of pets? ‘It isn’t safe. What if the roofing people come back? They could knock him down into a hole or something. And then he’ll get trapped, and we won’t be able to get him out. And he’ll be stuck there forever and turn into a cat skeleton.’
Uncle Jay shook his head.
Allie,’ he said, ‘he’s a cat. He’s not going to fall down any holes.’
How could Uncle Jay not understand this?
‘He already went into a hole,’ I pointed out to him. ‘The one in Mark’s wall. What if there are more holes in there?’ I asked. ‘And he finds them and goes in them, deeper and deeper inside the house, until—’
‘Until what?’ Uncle Jay asked. ‘He ends up where? Narnia?’
I just stared at Uncle Jay. Of course Mewsie wasn’t going to end up in Narnia. There is no such place. Because it’s made up. I’m pretty sure.
And if there was such a place, I highly doubted you could get to it though a hole in Mark’s wall. At least, I hadn’t seen any talking mice or ice queens while I’d been in there.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But—’
‘Look,’ Uncle Jay said. ‘Just put some cat treats down on the floor and ignore him. He’ll come out when he gets hungry. And then when he does, we’ll close Mark’s closet door and Mewsie won’t be able to go in there again. End of story.’
This sounded like the stupidest plan ever.
Or maybe the smartest. I couldn’t decide.
But since the only other plan I could think of was to sit in front of the hole in Mark’s closet wall, crying and begging Mewsie to come out, I decided to go with Uncle Jay’s plan. Since the truth was, I was pretty hungry for dinner. And I didn’t think my plan was going to work.
I went into my room and got the little bag of cat treats that Santa had given to Mewsie in his Christmas stocking (not that I believe in Santa. Necessarily).
Then, after shaking the bag a few times outside the hole, and calling to Mewsie (but of course, he didn’t budge. He liked it there in Narnia too much. Only it wasn’t really Narnia, of course), I left a little pile of the treats on Mark’s bedroom floor.
Then I washed my hands and combed my hair and went down to set the table for dinner, which was delicious pizza from PizzaExpress (or at least, the pizza was delicious after I lifted up the cheese and scraped off all the tomato sauce, which I have to do because one of my rules is Never eat anything red).
What else could I do? At least I knew where Mewsie was.
Then, as soon as dinner was over, after helping put the dishes in the dishwasher, I ran back upstairs . . .
. . . just in time to catch Mewsie, having come out to eat the entire pile of cat treats (he’s such a pig sometimes), dart back inside the hole.
‘Nooooo!’ I yelled, lunging after him.
But it was too late.
‘Mrowr?’ he said to me from deep inside the hole, in a completely cheerful way, like he thought the whole thing was a wonderful game. ‘Mewsie,’ I called into the hole, ‘come out of there!’ But he wouldn’t.
Uncle Jay was right: there was nothing I could do. My cat was on a walkabout. And I just had to wait until his spiritual quest was over, and he was ready to come home.
Rule #10
It’s Rude to Tell Someone They Look Like a French Poodle. Unless They Are, in Fact, a French Poodle
I don’t think I’d ever been in as bad a mood as I was on the day of my first field trip ever.
‘Absolutel
y not,’ Mom said, when I asked if I could just stay home.
‘But, Mom, you don’t understand,’ I pleaded with her. ‘Mewsie—’
‘– is fine,’ Mom said. ‘We know exactly where he is. He’s completely safe, and nothing is going to happen to him.’
Mom was so, so wrong.
‘But what if—’
‘Allie,’ Mom said. ‘You’ve been wanting to go on a field trip your entire life. Now is your big chance. And you’re trying to get out of it? What’s wrong with you?’
What was wrong with me was that my cat was on a walkabout and I was really worried. I was going to be so far away – all the way at stupid, boring Honeypot Prairie – with no cellphone and no way to reach me if anything happened.
But my mom made me turn round and march all the way back to my room and get dressed. I was going to Honeypot Prairie whether I liked it or not.
As it happened, I did not like it.
‘Ha,’ Kevin said when he saw me in my nightgown and apron. ‘You look funny.’
‘Oh,’ I said, staring pointedly at his hard hat. ‘And you look real normal.’
‘Workmen wear these,’ he informed me.
‘Yeah,’ I said, showing him my fist. ‘Well, you’ll be wearing this if you don’t shut up.’
‘Allie!’ Mom said, shocked. ‘You know we do not condone violence in this family.’
It was fine for her. She hadn’t been up all night, worrying about her cat, shivering in the cold and dark (and OK, maybe it wasn’t cold inside the wall. It was actually pretty warm, which was why Mewsie liked it and wouldn’t come out. So Mewsie hadn’t actually been shivering at all).
But whatever.
There were probably mice in there too. Which was another reason Mewsie like it.
Great! My sweet, adorable cat was in the wall, catching and eating dangerous, disease-carrying mice.
Which by the way was nothing like how things were in Narnia. At least in the books.
Mom and Dad promised to warn the roofing guys that Mewsie was inside the wall, and not to let them do anything that might end up with him being sealed up inside the wall forever.
But they wouldn’t take any of my suggestions as to how to get him out of the wall (such as hiring a professional demolition squad to blast him out. If done delicately, I was sure this would work).