Claws! (8 page)

The glass doors slid shut behind us. I could still hear the cats carrying on in the store.

Lou and the two other men formed a tight circle around me. Their faces were grim and angry. Lou had his eyes on the cat carrier in my hands.

I raised it to him. “I—I brought her back,” I stammered in a tiny, frightened voice. “I—I’m so sorry I stole her.”

I tried to push the carrier into his hands.

But to my surprise he shoved it back at me.

“That’s why we’ve been chasing after you,” he said. “That’s why we’ve been trying to catch you. I had to tell you—
you can’t bring the cat back.”

“Huh?” A gasp escaped my throat. I still had the cat carrier held high in front of me. “What did you just say?”

“You can’t bring her back,” Lou said. “Get away from here. And take that cat with you.”

“You can’t bring that dead cat back here,” one of the other clerks said.

Dead cat?

“Don’t come anywhere near here with her,” Lou said. “Go away. Now. I’m warning you.”

“But—but —” I sputtered.

The three men held tense fists at their sides and glared at me.

“Go,” Lou muttered through gritted teeth.

My head was spinning. The clerk’s words kept swimming through my mind.

“You can’t bring that dead cat back here.”

Gripping the cat carrier tightly, I turned and ran. My shoes slapped the asphalt parking lot. I ran without seeing, without thinking.

I just heard those terrifying words over and over.

Did I really have a dead cat in my hands?

I saw Bella get run over by that truck. How could she be back?

I could still hear the yowls of the cats inside the store. I reached the bus stop and glanced back. The three men were still standing in the parking lot, watching me.

They wanted to make sure I left. Why were they so afraid?

I had only questions. No answers.

When the bus finally came, I climbed on and took my seat in the very back. I set the carrier down gently on my lap.

The bus started up. I brought my face close to the screen on the carrier. Bella was sitting up, staring out at me calmly.

“Are you really dead?” I asked her softly.

She brought her face up against the screen and tried to lick my hand.

Amanda was waiting on the front stoop of the Caplans’ house. “Where did you go?” she asked. “Why did you take the cat?”

“We have to talk,” I said. “It’s too weird. It’s all too weird.”

I set the carrier down. Bella let out a soft cry.

Amanda squatted down to see Bella. “Is she okay?”

“I—I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, I don’t really know. I took her back to Cat Heaven.”

“You
what?”
Amanda cried.

“They wouldn’t take her back,” I said. “They’ve been searching for us all this time to tell us we can’t return her.”

“That’s crazy,” Amanda said.

“That’s not the crazy part,” I said. “Here’s the crazy part. They told me this cat is dead.”

To my surprise, Amanda burst out laughing.

“I really believed you for a moment,” she said. She slapped my shoulder. “You got me. You looked as serious as an artichoke!”

“I
am
serious,” I told her. “It isn’t a joke.”

“You’re saying there’s a dead cat looking out
at us from this carrier case?” Amanda demanded. “Bella Two is a dead cat? Some kind of zombie?”

I shrugged. “That’s what they told me. And they weren’t joking. They were totally serious.”

“Do you have the Caplans’ key?” Amanda said. “Let’s go inside and talk about this.”

I unlocked the front door, picked up the cat carrier, and followed Amanda inside.

“Oh, nooo!” I uttered a cry.

We both stopped in the doorway and cried out in shock.

The living room was
filled
with cats.

Two cats sprawled on the couch. One sat on the coffee table. Another cat had climbed on top of the TV. Two sat on the carpet in front of us.

They were scrawny and mean looking. Hunched. Their fur ragged and patchy. One of them had only half a tail. The cat perched on the TV was missing an eye.

Inside the carrier, Bella let out a screech. She began to claw furiously at the side. The door popped open—and Bella came shooting out.

The cats tossed back their heads and began to yowl. They jumped off the furniture and began to circle Amanda and me. They eyed us menacingly. Bared their fangs and hissed.

“Do you see them?” I cried.

Amanda grabbed my shirtsleeve. “Yes. I see them. Where did these cats come from?” she cried. “What are they
doing
here?”

“I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “Maybe—maybe they’re
all dead
!”

Bella arched her back and screeched at the circling cats. The black fur on her back stood straight up. She screeched again and again.

“Let’s get
out
of here!” I cried.

Amanda and I spun away from them. We started for the front door.

And the door swung open in front of us.

“Hey!” I cried out.

Mrs. Caplan came walking in.

She wore a short-sleeved red T-shirt over a long-sleeved yellow T-shirt and a short purple skirt. She had her dark hair tied up in a purple bandanna. When she saw the ragged cats, her dark eyes bulged. She dropped the suitcase she’d been carrying.

Mr. Caplan came in right behind her, lugging two suitcases. He wore a red-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt and white tennis shorts.

“We came home a few days early —” he said. But then his mouth dropped open. His eyes blinked behind his round eyeglasses. “What’s going
on
in here?” he cried.

“Where did these cats come from? Where is Bella?” Mrs. Caplan demanded in her booming voice.

I pointed. Bella had crawled under the couch. She was hissing at the other cats.

Mr. Caplan bent down and picked Bella up. He soothed her, holding her tightly against his chest.

The other cats grew quiet. They stopped prowling and gazed up at the Caplans.

“How did they get in here?” Mrs. Caplan demanded.

“I … have to tell you the whole story,” I said. “Amanda and I … well … we’re really sorry.”

“Sorry?” she asked.

“We left the front door open,” Amanda said. “Bella ran out and got run over by a truck. So … I got this great idea that didn’t turn out so great.”

“We went to that pet store, Cat Heaven,” I said. “And we brought home this substitute cat. We—we thought maybe we could fool you into thinking it was the real Bella.”

“We know it was a terrible thing to do,” Amanda said.

“And we’re so—so sorry,” I said again. “We messed up. It’s totally our fault.”

Mrs. Caplan put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be sorry, Mickey,” she said. “We should have told you the truth.”

I squinted at her. “The truth?”

She nodded. “Yes. Bella was a dead cat from the beginning. Bella died four years ago.”

The Caplans shooed the scraggly cats out of the way. They sat down on the couch. Mr. Caplan still held Bella in his arms.

Amanda and I stood awkwardly in the center of the room. We waited for them to explain.

“I’ll make this short and sweet,” Mr. Caplan said, petting Bella. “Four years ago, Bella ran out of the house and was run over by a truck. But we couldn’t bear to part with her. Then someone told us about the place where cats who die violent deaths go—Cat Heaven.”

Amanda and I both gasped. “It isn’t a store?” I said. “It
really
is cat heaven?”

“The cats in front are live cats,” Mr. Caplan said. “But the cats in the back room are dead. They appear alive in every way. You bring them home, and they are fine. The problem is, if they get out of the house, they reenact their violent death.”

I stared hard at him. “You mean —”

“Bella ran out of the house three times before,” Mrs. Caplan said, shaking her head sadly. “Each time, she was run over by a truck. Then we had to go back to Cat Heaven to bring her home again.”

“But what are these other cats?” Mr. Caplan demanded. “Are they dead, too? What are they doing here?”

“I—I think they escaped when I stole Bella,” I stammered. “I grabbed Bella and ran out the back door. I knocked cages over. These cats must have escaped, too. They followed me. They’ve been
haunting
me!”

“Oh, wow.” Mr. Caplan shook his head. “That’s bad, Mickey. That’s really bad.”

“Don’t you realize what you’ve done?” Mrs. Caplan’s face had gone pale. Her chin trembled. “Don’t you realize you’ve
ruined your life?”

I stared at her. I couldn’t speak. I wanted to ask her why she said that. But I couldn’t find any words.

Mr. Caplan sat petting Bella. He kept his eyes on the cat. He didn’t look at me.

The other cats padded closer to me. They watched me, as if they expected something from me. A gray cat with half its tail missing brushed against my leg.

“You can’t just walk in and take a dead cat from the back room at Cat Heaven,” Mrs. Caplan explained finally. “Only the cat’s
true owner
can carry it out of the store. Only a cat’s true owner can claim it.”

“If the dead cat is taken out by the wrong owner, it will become evil,” Mr. Caplan said, shaking his head. “Bella is gentle now. But she will become angry and wildly, fiercely evil.”

“I—I know,” I muttered.

“We had a lot of trouble with her,” Amanda said.

“You’ve upset the whole cat universe,” Mr. Caplan continued.

“These other dead cats belong to you now, Mickey,” Mrs. Caplan said. “You let them out. They will haunt you. They will stay with you forever.”

“They—they’ve been following me everywhere,” I stammered. “Giving me presents. Then attacking me.”

She sighed. “Poor boy. You—you didn’t know what you were doing. But now these cats will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“No!” I cried. “No way! That can’t be!”

The gray cat brushed my leg again. It sent chills up my body. The other cats stood stiffly, staring up at me.

“What can I do?” I demanded. “I—I’ll round them up and take them back to Cat Heaven.”

“You can’t take them back,” Mr. Caplan said softly. “The store won’t take them back.”

I pictured Lou out in the parking lot. Telling me to take Bella away and never come back.

“But … I can’t….These cats … I …”

I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t think straight.

“I’m so so so sorry,” Mrs. Caplan said. “We never thought this would happen.”

“There must be something Mickey can do,” Amanda said in a trembling voice.

The Caplans both shook their heads sadly.

Suddenly, I had an idea.

I rushed to the front door and pulled it wide open. Then I motioned to the cats. “Go! Out the door! All of you—GO!”

They stared up at me without moving.

“Go!” I screamed, waving my arms wildly. “Out the door! Beat it! Get lost! Go!”

No.

They didn’t move. They didn’t even turn their heads to the door.

Failure.

I let out a long, weary sigh.

Suddenly, I had a
better
idea.

I turned and darted out of the house. I crossed the lawn to my house. Ran upstairs to my room.

My brain was whirring. I could almost hear it spinning.

I pulled the top off Zorro’s glass cage and carefully picked the little guy up. I brushed some wood shavings off his fur. The mouse twitched his nose and gazed up at me with his little black-dot eyes.

“I’m sorry, Zorro,” I told him. “I’m really going to miss you, fella. But I need you to save my life today.”

I cupped him in my hands and ran back to the Caplans’ house.

I was heartbroken. I didn’t want to lose Zorro. He was an awesome pet.

But I couldn’t be more desperate. My life depended on this. He was my only hope. My only hope of not having to spend my life haunted by a dozen scraggly, vicious dead cats.

I carried him into the living room. No one had moved. The Caplans sat on the couch, shaking their heads, murmuring to each other. Mr. Caplan had Bella in his lap. Amanda stood leaning against the back of an armchair.

The dead cats all turned to watch me. I raised Zorro high so they could see him.

“What are you doing?” Amanda demanded. “Why did you bring your mouse?”

“Just watch,” I said. “I hope—I hope this works.”

I pulled the front door open wide. Then I swung Zorro around so the dead cats could all see him again.

Then I lowered the little white mouse to the floor. Gave him a light push. And sent him scampering to the door.

I turned to the cats. “Go get him!” I cried. “Chase him! Get him! GO!”

Again, they stared up at me. Again, they didn’t move.

“Get the mouse! Chase the mouse!” I screamed. “Go, go, GO!”

I turned and saw Zorro darting to the Caplans’ front yard. I felt so bad. The cats weren’t moving. Had I sacrificed my pet for
nothing?

I dropped to my knees on the carpet. Defeated. Ruined.

I felt like crying, but I forced it back. I couldn’t
keep my shoulders from heaving up and down. I buried my face in my hands.

Then I heard a soft padding sound. I lowered my hands. I saw the dead cats sniffing the air, gazing at the open front door.

Sniffing the mouse?

Without warning, they took off.

They darted past me, brushing me as they went by. They didn’t make a sound. They stampeded out the open door, picking up speed as they ran after the mouse.

Bella leaped off Mr. Caplan’s lap. The Caplans both uttered startled cries as the black cat hurtled across the carpet and out the front door.

None of us spoke.

We froze there in the living room. The four of us. No cats.

A few seconds later, I heard the squeal of skidding truck tires and Bella’s screech of death.

We stayed silent for a long moment. The silence rang in my ears.

Mr. Caplan jumped up from the couch. His face was very red. A smile spread slowly across it. He slapped me a high five. “Brilliant!” he boomed.

Mrs. Caplan was smiling, too. She stood up and came over to Amanda and me. “Mickey, that was genius,” she said. “We couldn’t return the dead cats to Cat Heaven. But they could return
themselves.”

“They all ran out to recreate their violent deaths,” Mr. Caplan said. “They will be back in Cat Heaven in no time.”

Mrs. Caplan let out a long sigh. “Thank goodness that’s over,” she told her husband. “Let’s unpack our bags and then go to Cat Heaven and pick up Bella from the back room. She hates it when we leave her there too long.”

Well, I guess it was kind of a happy ending. The Caplans paid Amanda and me an extra fifty dollars each since we had so much trouble.

A few days later, Mom was driving me to my tennis lesson. I’m not a great tennis player. But I’m getting better.

The tennis courts are inside a huge white bubble on the outskirts of town. There are maybe a hundred courts. The smack of tennis balls is deafening.

We were almost there when I saw a store I’d never seen before. “Hey, Mom—stop,” I said. I pointed to the big sign over the door. “Check that out.”

The store was called Mouse Heaven.

“I have to go in for a minute,” I said. I started to open the car door.

Mom held me back. “Mickey, you’ll be late for your lesson.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” I said. “I swear.”

I darted into the store. A long, narrow store with two rows of glass cages. The air inside smelled of piney wood shavings.

I moved down the two rows of cages. White mice crawled through their shavings or slept curled up on the cage floors. A few stared out at me, twitching their little noses.

I stopped at the very last cage. I lowered my face to the glass.

“Zorro!” I cried.
“There
you are!” The little guy stared up at me, twitching his tail.

“Zorro!”

Should I bring him home?