“I would love to,” Mrs. Sissy said as she and Cat Woman reentered the room. Vee joined the girls with an astounded expression. That was not expected. Vee would have expected Mrs. Sissy to say she knew they wouldn’t be organized enough for opening day.
Petting Palace
But what the Cat Woman said next was even more unexpected.
Chapter 27
The Cat Woman Said What?
Sleeping bags and duffels at their feet, the S.A.V.E. Squad—and C. P.—waited in the parking lot as the final people left both the community center, the library, and the senior center.
“Weird,” C. P. said, searching through his pockets and retrieving a piece of gum.
“Very,” Sunny said, spinning.
“Special,” Aneta said, sinking to sit on her sleeping bag.
“Like we’re getting away with something,” Esther said, arms folded as she watched the exodus.
Vee agreed with them all. Waiting until everyone was out of the community center and other wings of the building and then getting to go in for the rest of the night was pretty cool. Nobody else got to do that.
A few minutes more and then Cat Woman and a small group of the senior volunteers the girls had come to admire stood in the doorway.
“C’mon in!” Cat Woman called. The men and women next to her beckoned. The kids didn’t need to be invited twice. They grabbed their stuff and headed in.
“We’ll set up our bivouac here.” The enormous man led them to the auditorium.
“Means a sort of campsite,” whispered C. P. At the girls’ how-do-you-know-that? look, he added, “You have to blow one up in the Army of Wun game.”
Vee looked around. A bunch of cots were scattered around the room. Some people had assembled little camping areas with an extension cord, a table, and a lamp. Some cots had inflatable mattresses. A sound system sat on one side of the large room playing some sort of oldies. Another table was heaped with various decorations: crepe paper, ribbons, tinsel. Material to decorate the Cat Room.
“Hello, girls!” a familiar voice sounded from behind them. Mrs. Sissy was there with the mayor. “Look who I brought. My sister can’t resist a party.” They were carrying suitcases. The mayor carried an inflatable mattress in a bag.
“Food first!” called a lady, and everyone, C. P. leading the way, surged over to the three tables filled with slow cookers. The side door to the auditorium was open, and smells from the barbecue filtered in.
“This is such a neat idea. Maybe we should do it as a senior event,” remarked one woman, passing with a plate piled high.
“Wait and see if you can walk tomorrow, then decide,” advised her friend.
Afterward the seniors and the girls set to decorating the Cat Room. Hermann stood on the ladder, and the girls handed up streamers. Next came the banner: THE GREAT CAT CAPER ADOPTION EVENT. That was hung outside the senior center, above the doors. The air was full of autumn. Vee sniffed deeply. What could be the surprise that Cat Woman kept hinting at? She’d been grinning at the girls since they’d entered the senior center. Inside the Cat Room, Aneta neatly lettered name cards for each of the Paws ‘N’ Claws cats and Momma Cat, decorating around the names with cat faces and dots. She also taped a typed paragraph about the personality of the cat.
“Sunny,” she said, taking another card to work on. “What do you think Gladys is thinking up for us?”
Sunny shrugged as she arranged the piles of Cat Kits in a pyramid over in the adoption corner. She stepped back to look. “Yay for catness,” she said. In an aside to Vee, “What do you think the surprise is?”
“Good work, girl,” Hermann said as he passed with an armful of pillows sewn by the seniors. The enormous man carried an equally large armful.
After she had arranged the chairs and pillows in the Petting Palace, Esther looked over Aneta’s shoulder. “Great, ‘Neta! That will show people what their personalities are like.”
“We want them to find their treasure in a forever home,” Aneta said, carefully lettering the name “Tux” for a black-and-white cat that looked like it was wearing a tuxedo.
Frank and Nadine brought in cat carriers with the twenty cats up for adoption with Momma Cat. Since Buzz was adopted, Momma Cat had gone to live at Frank and Nadine’s until the adoption event. The traps had been removed from the Cat Room.
In no time at all, the adoption center was complete. The seniors and the girls took a last look at the cats in their colorfully decorated cages with the name cards, the streamers gently moving in the air currents as they hung from wires strung from one end of the room to the other. The Petting Palace beckoned in one corner, the adoption center right nearby. Yes, thought Vee as they closed the door, the Great Cat Caper would be a stellar event. Tomorrow will be a great day for treasure.
She stopped abruptly; Sunny collided into her. Vee sniffed. Did she smell mouthwash?
“What?” Sunny asked, backing up.
“Do you smell mouthwash?”
“Oh, c’mon, Vee. Tomorrow’s the festival. We’ve done it! This is supposed to be fun!” Sunny pulled her along.
Maybe she was borrowing trouble as one of the pickleball ladies liked to say. She brushed away worries of mouthwash.
Chapter 28
Squadders on a Roll
Gladys is looking for you girls,” said the enormous man as they headed back toward the auditorium where they could hear music. “She’s in the arts and crafts room.”
Cat Woman was rummaging in a closet when the girls arrived. They’d left C. P. prowling the food table and dancing to the music with the seniors. He was a strange boy, that one.
As the older woman turned and greeted them, she pulled out two large plastic tubs. “Thought you girls would like something to do other than dance with old people. Have at it!” She gestured to the tubs.
Sunny ran to the first tub and pulled off the lid. Esther grabbed the second and did the same. They plunged in and began pulling out—roller skates and helmets? But these were not the in-line skates Vee had used before. These were four wheels, two in front and two in back in a leather boot that laced up high. The skates were red with white and blue stars. The helmets looked almost like turtle shells flipped over. The helmet colors matched the skates, each one with a different name on the front: Sissy, Napoleon, Princess, and Queenie, along with others.
“Whoa, yayness.” Sunny was pulling off her sneakers and trying on skates. “Where did you get these?” The other girls hung back, looking to Cat Woman for answers. Maybe the Cat Woman really was crazy.
“Thirty years ago Oakton had a roller derby team. I was the captain. Good memories.”
“These are so cool!” Sunny raved. “Why didn’t you tell us about these before?”
“We were pretty proud of our team. Didn’t want you to make fun of it.”
Would they have? Vee hoped not.
“Who’s ‘we’?” Esther was now trying on skates.
Cat Woman said, “The mayor, Mrs. Sissy, and my daughter. She was barely twenty-one. It was the last time we did something together.”
Something’s not right with her daughter. Vee did the quick math and then laughed at herself. Me doing quick math. Thirty years plus twenty-one. Cat Woman’s daughter would be about fifty or so years old. Her daughter must have died for Cat Woman to demonstrate that kind of sadness.
“And getting sad is not why I opened the closet. Get going, girls.”
“Um,” Aneta said.
What are we going to do with roller skates?
“It’s dark out now, Gladys,” Esther said as though talking to a little kid.
Cat Woman’s smile grew wider. “I know.” Standing in the doorway, she turned and said over her shoulder, “You got permission to skate anywhere you want in the entire community center.” Then she was gone.
For a moment, the only sounds were of the party in the auditorium. Then Aneta, Esther, and Vee leaped on the skates and began pulling them on, pulling them off, and handing them around unt
il they were all on skates. Sunny, already on hers, helped. All the while they chattered about how nobody would ever believe they were doing this.
“How cool is this?” Sunny took a tentative push off on her right foot and slid smoothly over the bare floor. “Yeow! We’re the only kids on the planet that have permission to skate inside!” Another push off, and she was circling the room faster and faster, pumping her arms up and down like she was flying. “Wee-hah!”
Aneta was the next behind. Esther and Vee scrambled to stand, unsteadily at first, then clutching hands and shrieking, they gained more confidence until they circled themselves and grinned.
“Out?” Vee said. She stood closest to the door.
“Out!” the Squad chorused.
They were in the hall and flying fast. They shot down one wing and then another. They soon learned the fastest way to stop was to run into something, preferably not each other. That happened, too. A game of tag morphed out of chasing and shrieks. Piercing screams echoed in the library and the community center halls. Then they tried four across, linking arms and speeding down one wing and crouching and leaning to make the turn into the next wing.
Crash!
“Okay, that needs a little work,” Esther said from the bottom of the pile.
More than an hour later, they had perfected that turn and had graduated to spinning and throwing each other. One girl would skate. A second would skate at her. The first girl would grab the outstretched arm, sit back, and pull. The second girl would screech and be swung in a tight circle, flung back the way she’d come. That moved to two girls in the hall and two swings and flip arounds. More screaming.
When they finally stopped to slowly roll to the auditorium for drinks for dry throats, Aneta summed it up best, Vee thought. “I will never forget the Great Cat Caper.”
“This is the coolest,” Sunny agreed.
“Talk about reward for a good job,” Esther added. “I would never in a kazillion years think Mrs. Sissy would let us do this.”
Vee grinned. “Are you sure she did?”
But when they entered the auditorium, Mrs. Sissy came over, wide smile in place. “Well? Did you girls enjoy our little surprise?”
The music stopped, and the seniors gathered round them.
“Did we ever!” Sunny burst out.
“I liked it,” Aneta supplied, her face still pink from the spinning and shrieking.
“Thank you,” Esther said to the group, who all smiled back.
“It was the best. Nothing could be more exciting,” Vee said. Even the day the Everything Animal producer and the cats went berserk wasn’t as crazy as this. Tomorrow would probably be a little boring, even though she was determined to help the cats find forever homes.
The seniors had one more surprise for them. After the dance floor cleared, Hermann, Gunny, and the pickleball club people set up obstacle courses for the girls to run in the auditorium. They skated around tables and chairs, dodging the soccer balls their friends rolled in their path. This round of skating left them with floor burns, skinned knees, and even more hysterics. The laughing and shouting bounced off the room walls and made it sound as though there were a thousand roller skaters and obstacle makers.
Vee had no idea of the time when the S.A.V.E. Squad collapsed at one end of the room, breathless.
“I can’t move,” panted Aneta, lying flat on her back, chest heaving.
“My feet are gonna fall off.” Sunny pulled off her skates and rubbed her feet. “How many miles did we skate?”
“A kazillion,” Esther replied, sliding down the wall until only her head and shoulders propped up against it.
Vee was too breathless to add anything. She finally felt like the trouble that had dogged her since school began had been spun out of her. Her arms ached from grabbing and being grabbed, and it felt great.
The seniors left by twos and threes until it was Hermann, Mrs. Sissy, the mayor, and the Cat Woman saying good night and heading to their cots and inflatable mattresses.
“Nobody parties like senior citizens,” Sunny said, her words slurring slightly as she staggered sock-footed to her cot and dropped into it. She didn’t say another word.
“And tomorrow is the next adventure,” Vee said with a yawn that almost dislocated her jaw.
Sleep drifted in like wisps of fog as soon as her head touched the flat pillow covered by a paper pillowcase.
Thank You for taking my mind off the retest. “Bless Buzz, especially Flick and all his buddies …” was the last thing she remembered praying.
Chapter 29
No So Purr-fect
Veelie, I want to take you to breakfast for brain food before your test, not spend the time looking at cats.” Dad stood by the tail end of the SUV. Vee stood on the senior center steps. She’d been up early enough to see everyone else still sprawled in sleep around the auditorium. Mrs. Sissy had told her she’d set her watch for the others to wake, so Vee wouldn’t have to.
“I just want you to see what I’ve been doing. Are you coming later then?”
He hesitated. Vee knew that meant he had no intention of coming to the Helpful City Festival. She wanted to feel mad so she wouldn’t cry, but decided instead to look at the treasure of Dad here now.
“Since you won’t be back later, please come in now.”
Another long moment. Dad looked at his watch then flicked the remote at the SUV. “We’ll have to do a drive-thru for your breakfast. And we have to hurry, Vee.”
“Right, Dad.” She turned with him as he came up the steps.
“We have twenty cats that are ready for adopting. We’ve done the cutest Cat Kits for everyone who adopts a cat. Then people can buy other things for their cats or people they know who have cats.” She made sure to mention that the Everything Animal show, a national TV show, would be rolling their cameras at the start of the Great Cat Caper Adoption Event.
He grunted and looked at his watch. “We have to be sure to get you a water bottle for the test. It helps your brain to have plenty of water. You’ve worked hard for this, Vee. I’m sure you’ll do well.”
Oh. Dad was in a different “room.” He probably wouldn’t even see the cats when he was standing in front of them. She took a deep breath. Was there the tiniest whiff of mouthwash? She did a quick scan. Nobody in the hall. “Sure, then I won’t ever have to see Math Man again.”
“Vee.”
“Sorry, Dad. Here’s the Cat Room. Prepare for some awesome catness.” She flung open the door with a grand gesture of her arm. “Ta-dah!”
The Cat Room was still decorated, but there was not a cat in sight. The carriers stood empty, doors swinging wide.
Chapter 30
Catnapped!
I can’t think,” Esther said, clutching her head.
“Too many people giving dumb advice,” Sunny complained, looking again in the Cat Room like she might find all the cats magically there again.
“We must find them.” Aneta had been saying that since Vee ran to awaken the girls after finding the cats missing.
Vee’s brain was whirling. She couldn’t get the smell of mouthwash out of her mind. Right before she opened the door, she’d smelled that mouthwash and thought it odd that weird lady’s smell would still be around so long after the senior center closed. If only Vee had done something then. But what?
“Vee, time to go. You’ll be late for the retest.” Dad was standing by the senior center door, stepping aside every time someone else ran in or out yelling, “The cats are gone!”
“Dad, I can’t go. I have to help find the cats,” Vee said, swallowing hard. What if it had been Buzz still in one of those carriers?
“Vee.”
“Dad, please. It’s important.”
“School is more important than cats. Let’s go.” He stepped toward the door. “If you’re not in the SUV in five minutes, I’m leaving. And you’re headed back to regular sixth grade. Is that what you want?”
“Dad—” What could she say? “My want-to has
been ramped up for weeks. It’s just, well—”
Dad’s face looked like he couldn’t decide whether to yell or cry. It scared Vee.
“I guess—” he paused. “Heather’s been telling me—” He shook his head. “I give up.”
The lump in her throat made it impossible to reply. Dad left.
The girls encircled her with hugs.
“Okay, what do we do now?” She had to get a list going in her head or she would explode. For so many weeks, the retest had been the most important thing. Not anymore. Tomorrow she would have to think about life in the regular sixth grade. But not today.
1. Look by the Dumpster.
2. Look by the lake.
3. Look for loose cats.
4. Look for someone carrying cats?
“Time to head outside,” Esther said.
Vee and Aneta nodded.
“Skates.” Sunny dashed off toward the auditorium. She returned, skates and helmets hanging over both arms. “We can cover more ground faster on skates.”
Wordless, they yanked on skates and helmets. After checking to make sure each other’s skates and helmets were securely fastened, they skated to the entrance of the senior center.
“Last night was perfect. The Cat Room looked perfect. The seniors’ surprise was perfect. It was a perfect night,” Sunny said, her voice trembling.
“Right. Now it’s not perfect.” Esther sounded fierce, her hands on her hips. Sunny reached for the crash bar so they could plunge through the doorway, cling to the rail to get down the steps, and start their search in the great outdoors. Instead, as she leaned on the bar, it opened suddenly and she fell forward. Right into Ginger, the producer for Everything Animal. The two fell over, and the camera crew tossed their cameras to their shoulders and began filming.
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