Masks (6 page)

O
n Wednesday I leave the house early so I can check on Mittens. When I arrive, Dr. Mac is sitting in the waiting room doing paperwork. She looks up at me and smiles softly, but her eyes are worried. “Her fever’s gone back to a hundred and four,” she tells me before I even ask.

“Why aren’t the antibiotics working?” I ask.

“You know how it is, Sunita,” Dr. Mac replies. “You can’t always predict how an animal will react to medication. Peritonitis is a serious infection. I’ve changed her antibiotic to one that’s stronger. We may have to take her back to surgery and put in a drain. A drain is a little
rubber tube inserted into the abdomen that allows infected fluid to drain out of the abdomen and sterile fluids, or even antibiotics, to be flushed in. The drain can be removed when the infection is under control.”

“Can I see her?” I ask.

“Sure,” Dr. Mac agrees. Mittens’ cage is by the window. That’s nice of Dr. Mac to give her sunshine and a view. She’s sleeping all curled into a ball.

When I unlatch the cage, Mittens raises her head a little and looks up at me miserably. I wonder if she blames me. Could she possibly think I hurt her on purpose?

She extends one of her paws, and I cover it with my hand. She licks my hand with her small, dry tongue. At least she doesn’t hate me.

Mittens tries to meow but it comes out like a pathetic croak. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

Maggie comes into the room. “The new medicine will help,” she says.

“I hope so,” I say.

She comes to my side and pets Mittens. “Gran will do everything she can,” Maggie says.

I blink back tears and nod.

In science today, I’m scolded for not knowing the lab instructions the teacher has just given. My math teacher stops me after class to ask if I’m all right. “You were a million miles away,” she says. The worst of it comes in gym, when I’m hit in the shoulder with the basketball because I’m standing on the court not paying one bit of attention.

In English our teacher shows us a video of the play
Les Misérables
. In the beginning of that play, a man goes to jail for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving family. “Is it all right to break a rule if you have a good reason?” my teacher asks us after we’ve viewed the first act of the play.

I recall Brenna’s words about animal rights. I raise my hand and say, “Maybe it could be all right to break a rule if you did it because someone’s rights were being violated. What if you freed a person who was being held captive unjustly?”

The teacher asks my classmates what they think. Everyone agrees that freeing an unjustly captured person would be the right thing to do.

“Who determines what ‘unjust’ means?” my teacher asks.

Hmmm. Brenna thinks it’s unjust to do
medical testing on animals. But Dr. Mac thinks it’s sad but necessary—a few animals die so that lots more can live. I raise my hand. “I guess it can mean different things to different people,” I say. But what does it mean to me?

School’s finally out, and I get on my bike to go over to AVM. At the lab, Julie smiles when I arrive. “You can start by giving all the rodents fresh water and food,” she says. “Then I’ll show you where we keep the cats and the monkeys. You can start caring for them, too.”

She hands me a white lab jacket. I feel sort of cool in it, like a real scientist. Even though washing and refilling water bottles isn’t exactly hard-core science, I enjoy it because the animals are so cute.

In the tank, three white rats sleep huddled together and two scurry around. One of them—my little pal with the bent whisker—comes right over and stretches up, as if he wants to say hi. I push the lid aside and lift him out. As he sniffs my gloved hand, his nose twitches. “Hi, cutie,” I say softly. “I don’t have any food for you now, just water, but I’ll come back with food.”

He sniffs the air and looks around, as if wondering where I’ll be getting this food. His little eyes sparkle alertly.

John, a researcher I met yesterday, walks by. “Don’t get too attached to those guys,” he says.

“Why not?” I ask. “Are they being…killed?”

He nods. “They’ve been genetically altered to be diabetic. Two have been given an experimental drug and two haven’t. We’ll put them all down, then dissect them to compare how the drug has affected their internal organs. If we get the results we expect, we’ll conduct the experiment on a larger population of rats to double-check.”

John grabs a stack of petri dishes and leaves. The little guy in my hand hasn’t understood a word of this. He rests his paw on my finger and looks up at me. He trusts me so much—and he shouldn’t. He doesn’t know that I’m standing here, learning that he’s about to be killed, and I’m not doing anything to stop it. I feel so guilty. It’s horrible!

I remember our discussion in English class today. Would it be fair to say that this little rat is an unjustly captured creature?

After finishing at AVM, I grab my bike and ride to Michaela’s barn. It’s cold, so I make myself small and tight inside my jacket. The wind blows my hair all around my face. Tree branches whip into one another and throw long shadows. There’s something spooky about October, even without Halloween being at the end of it. Maybe that’s why they put a scary holiday in October in the first place.

It’s almost dark. I think of stories I’ve heard, about how people once thought witches actually turned into black cats. What if that cat really was the woman who moved in down the street? I smile at the silly idea. It would be kind of cool, though—to be able to walk around town as a cat, then hop on a broomstick and fly.

Pretty soon I see lights from Michaela’s windows. We’re having our third mask-making session today. I haven’t decided yet what kind of mask I want to make. I’m almost to Michaela’s door when a black streak races in front of me. I hit my brakes, hard. It’s the stray. I try to see where it’s running to, but it’s too dark and shadowy.

“That’s twice!” David says, coming up from behind me with Maggie and Brenna.

For a second I look at Brenna, but she turns away coldly. Maggie waves.

“You’ve been crossed by a black cat two times,” David reminds me, sounding as if this is a big deal. “How’s your luck been?”

“Not great,” I admit.

It is pretty weird how my luck has gotten so bad since the black cat first crossed my path. Now what does this second crossing mean—is more bad luck coming my way? What if a second crossing reverses the luck, making it good?

This can’t possibly be me thinking this!

The other kids we know from school are already in Michaela’s big main room. Michaela—dressed today in loose black pants and an oversized purple velour shirt—is showing them something. As we sit at the table, I see what she has. It’s another mask of the black stray.

This one is larger and much more beautiful than the one on the wall. Instead of being covered in fur, this mask has been fired with a black glaze. Michaela has created the cat’s wild, swirling fur by twisting and molding the clay into fine points. The eyes are green and luminous.

“Hello,” Michaela greets us. “I was just explaining that recently a fabulous animal, an amazing
cat, has come into my life. It’s such a magical creature, and it intrigues me. You will see that I’ve already done one mask of it there on the wall.” She nods toward the one I spotted on Monday.

“Told you,” I whisper to my friends.

“I’ve decided I’m not pleased with that smaller mask,” she goes on. “The fur is all wrong. It makes it silly, like a stuffed toy. So I’m having a second try at it. This is clay, which I like better for this particular subject because it has an earthiness that befits this cat. If any of you continue to work on masks after this workshop, I urge you to think about what medium is best for your subject, as it really is an important decision.”

She gathers up some burlap from the floor at her feet and drapes it over her creation. We sort through the pile of wire mask frames Michaela has placed on the table. Michaela goes to her kitchen and begins mixing a powder with water. For a moment I can picture her as a witch working on a potion.

She looks up sharply. “Papier-mâché,” she explains, as if she’s heard my thoughts. “Some of you will be ready for it today.”

“You’re blushing,” Maggie whispers to me. “What’s going on?”

I realize I’m embarrassed because I feel Michaela has caught me thinking she’s a witch! Of course that’s totally goofy.

“Nothing’s going on,” I answer Maggie. “It’s just warm in here.”

Brenna glances over at us. When I look back at her, she quickly looks down at her wire work.

As I work, I think about Michaela and the black cat. It must be her pet. But if she loves it so much, why would she let it get so ragged and matted? I feel angry at her for neglecting her pet. I decide to ask Michaela why she doesn’t take better care of it.

When the other kids start packing up to leave, I dawdle until they’re all gone. The idea of confronting Michaela makes me jittery, but I have to say something to her about how she’s neglecting that cat or I’ll never feel right about myself.

I glance around, looking for Michaela. She’s gone. Maybe she’s gone outside.

When I push open the back door to look for her, something seems to push back. I force the door open and am blown by a strong gust. A
light over the door makes a pool of yellow and casts the rest of the yard in gray shadow.

Meow.

I look toward the sound and see Michaela several yards away—on all fours, making meowing cat sounds! I step closer, wondering what she’s doing. She keeps crawling and meowing among the bushes. The trees behind her rustle in the wind. Michaela crawls in so far that I can’t see her.

Then something moves. It’s the black stray running from the bushes back toward the house. Michaela has turned into the stray! I know that’s insane—but it’s what my eyes are telling me!