The Painted Ponies of Partequineus and The Summer of the Kittens (12 page)

Cats like Rice Krispies too, just like me.

It was almost time to leave for school, and I closed the window so the bugs wouldn't get in and picked up my backpack and went out, shutting the door after me. I thought about asking Mom to stay out of my room, but that wasn't a good idea, 'cause she'd just wonder why and maybe go snooping, and today wasn't one of her cleaning days, so I just left the door closed and went downstairs and said goodbye and went to school.

When I came home for lunch, the first thing I did was go upstairs and look for the cat, and when I went into my room she was asleep on the bed, only there was this funny kind of smell. I hunted around and found a yellow puddle in one corner.

Cat pee really stinks!

I got a towel and wiped it up, and then I scrubbed the floor with a washcloth and some soap until the smell disappeared - well, most of it, anyway - and then I washed the towel out in the bathroom sink and hung it up. Finally I opened the window and picked the cat up and carried her to the windowsill, but she didn't want to go out, so I had to leave the window open and hoped she wouldn't pee on the floor again, or something worse. After lunch I checked on her again, only she wasn't there, so I shut the window and went back to school.

Over the next few days we sort of developed a system that worked pretty well. I sneaked food up to my room after breakfast and after supper, and I left the window open while she ate. She seemed to know that I wanted her to go out after that, and most times she jumped up on the windowsill and ran down the tree. You should see her do that. She hangs on with her claws and goes down backwards, just like I do in my elm tree, only I haven't got any claws, of course, which is why I have boards nailed into the trunk to hang on to.

Once when she didn't want to go out and I had to leave for school, I had to sneak downstairs with her and put her out the front door when Mom was in the kitchen. She hasn't peed on the floor again, and I'm really glad about that.

Oh, yeah, and I gave her a name. She's Maggie now.

So today when I came home Maggie was outside the window as usual, waiting for me to let her in, and I did. I stayed up there and did my homework, and after supper - Dad was home for a change - I offered to clean up and put away the leftovers like I always do ever since Maggie came so I can save some food for her without Mom noticing, and when Dad went into his den and Mom started loading the dishwasher, I took the meat I snitched upstairs and fed her.

While she was eating I had to go to the bathroom, and I shut my bedroom door but I guess the latch didn't close tight, and when I came back it was standing open and Maggie was gone. I had left the window open and I went over to look out, hoping I'd see her climbing down the tree, only she wasn't there, and right then I heard Dad holler and I ran to the top of the stairs and found him standing in the middle of the living room. Maggie was halfway down with her ears kind of laid back, and Dad was shouting at her.

“What the hell is a cat doing in here!”

Mom came hurrying out of the kitchen, and I ran halfway down the stairs and picked Maggie up and petted her, but she was all kind of tense from Dad yelling like that, and she dug her claws into my shoulder. It hurt.

“Louise,” Dad hollered, “did you tell this child she could bring a cat into this house?”

“Of course not,” Mom said, and then she said to me, “Where did it come from?”

“Some college kids dropped it off last week,” I said, and I guess I kind of mumbled because Dad said “What did you say?” really loud and kind of mean.

“Don't yell at her like that,” Mom said. “She said some college students left it here.”

“Here?” He was glaring at me. “In this house?”

“In the vacant lot across the street,” I said.

“So what is it doing in my house?”

“
Our
house,” Mom said. “Hanna, put the cat outside.”

“I can't,” I told her.

“Why not?”

“'Cause she'll just get right back in.”

“Not if we don't open the door,” Dad said.

“She doesn't come in the door,” I said, really quiet, and Dad said “What?” really loud, and the cat sank her claws into me again and I let her loose and she ran back upstairs.

“That's enough!” Dad said, and he pushed past me up the stairs and into my bedroom, only the cat was gone 'cause I'd left the window open. I followed him in, and he stared at the window and then turned around and said, “How long has this been going on?”

Mom came in, and I could tell she was getting mad 'cause I hadn't told her about the cat. Well, I was getting mad too.

“
Somebody
has to feed her,” I said. “Those college kids just left her, and so I took her some hamburger and some chicken and she followed me home, and I let her in once, and she wanted to go out and she knocked the screen loose and ran down the tree, only she came back again, and I've been feeding her ever since, and I want to keep her.”

“It's not your responsibility,” Dad said.

“It has to be
somebody's
, or she'll die,” I said. “Paul Gallico says people are always doing that, they keep a pet as long as it's not too much trouble, but when it becomes too much work for them, they just kick it out. They
abandon
it.”

“Who's Paul Gallico?” Dad interrupted.

“And cats that have always lived with people don't know how to take care of themselves, they can't catch mice or anything, and unless somebody teaches them, like the way Jennie taught Peter, they starve to death, or get hit by cars, or get beat up by other cats or eaten by wild animals, or… or…” I was sort of running down, and so mad I couldn't think of what else I wanted to say.

“What is this child talking about?” Dad said.

“It's in a book she's been reading,” Mom said. “Hanna, let's just calm down a minute and think this through. We could take her to the animal shelter downtown.”

“Yeah, right, and if nobody adopts her, sooner or later they'll just kill her.”

“They don't kill healthy animals.”

“Mom, they
do! 
They get like hundreds of stray cats, the lady told me so, and when they run out of enough cages they have to kill the ones who've been there the longest.”

“What lady?” Mom said.

“At the
animal shelter!
  Aren't you listening to me?”

“When have you been going to the animal shelter?”

“I go all the time. I help them clean out the cages, and they let me put food in the bowls and pet the cats and stuff. And I know they kill them sometimes, 'cause they disappear, and I know nobody adopts them 'cause almost nobody wants a big cat, only kittens.”

“They euthanize them,” Dad said. “It's painless.”

“I don't care how they do it! They end up dead just the same!”

“All right,” Mom said, “since you've already started to feed it, even though you know you shouldn't have, I guess we could…” 

“No!” Dad said, and Mom said “Wait a minute!” and all of a sudden they were yelling at each other instead of at me, and Mom was saying how Dad was never home anyway, and it wasn't his business what went on here, 'cause he was taking his business someplace else.  Mom said things like “Hanna lives here too!” and Dad said, “I still pay the bills around here!” They went on like that for a long time, at least it seemed like a long time to me, and Dad got real mad and ran downstairs and got his car keys and went roaring out of the driveway like he always does when they fight.

Mom sat down on my bed and I sat down too. I was pretty upset, and she put her arm around me until I settled down.

“You know what you did was wrong,” she said at last.

“I don't think so,” I said. I was still mad. “You can't just let an animal starve to death.”

“What I mean is, it was wrong not to tell me.”

“You wouldn't have let me feed her.”

“You don't know that for sure.”

“Yes I do.”

Mom sort of sighed. “Okay, you're probably right, but the damage is done now. The cat probably thinks it lives here, and…”

“She,” I interrupted. “Her name's Maggie.”

“Okay, she. Is she trained? Does she mess on the floor?”

“She only did that once, 'cause the window was closed when she had to go. I cleaned it up, and now I always make sure the window is open when I'm not home.”

“That explains why I found it open yesterday,” Mom said. “Okay, here's how it's going to be. You can keep her, only she has to stay outdoors most of the time, especially when your father's home. And you'll have to train her to use the door. We can't be leaving the window open all the time.”

“So she can come downstairs?”

“Yes, but only to eat and to go in and out. You can feed her in the kitchen. But you have to take care of her yourself. And if she makes a mess or scratches the furniture, we'll have to get rid of her.”

“She won't. And I'll clean up after her and everything. Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a hug.

“This is probably going to cause a lot of trouble,” she said. Then she smiled at me. “No more leaving the window open, now.”

“But she's used to it.”

“Okay, the next time she wants to come in, you can let her, but then you have to show her where the door is. The back door. Oh God, I must be out of my mind.”

“Maggie's a good cat,” I told her. “It'll be fine.”

May 30
^th

 

Hey, Diary!

My favourite book in the whole world is
The Abandoned
, by a man named Paul Gallico. It's all about this boy named Peter who wanted a kitten, only his mother and father wouldn't let him have one, and he got in an accident and when he woke up he was a cat, only he wasn't really awake, just in a coma and dreaming, only you don't find that out until the end of the book, and because he was really a boy he didn't know anything about how to be a cat, and because he was a stray and it was a really dangerous world, this other cat named Jennie Baldrin taught him how to be a cat, what to do, how to find food and stuff, so he wouldn't get into trouble or get killed.  I've read it four times.

I loaned it to Jimmy once.  About a week later I asked him if he'd read it yet, and he said, “I'm working on it,” only I could tell he didn't like the story much. He was only reading it because he knew it was important to me, and like I said, I'm his best friend.

Maybe
I'm
important to
him
, too.

Anyway, he was pretending to like it 'cause he just didn't want to hurt my feelings, on account of he knew how much I loved that book. And so I didn't mention it again for about a month, but then I wanted it back so I could read it again, and I asked him if he'd read it yet.

“Most of it,” he said. “You can have it back now.”

“How come you didn't finish it?” I asked.

“It made me too sad.”

“How come?” I said, but he just shook his head. I guess he didn't like reading about anybody, even a cat, who couldn't take care of himself without help.

I didn't mean to make him sad. He's important to me, too, just like I'm important to him.

At least I'm important to somebody.

We got our class pictures back today. They're pretty good. I'm sitting in the front row, second one in, next to Jimmy who's on the very end, only if you don't know him, you wouldn't pay any special attention, 'cause he looks just like everybody else. Our homeroom picture is the only one where there's a row of kids sitting in the front, with the others standing behind. In all the other class pictures, everybody's either standing up or kneeling down in front.

How that happened was, the photographer lined us all up in front of the stage in the gym, and he had Jimmy wheel himself right into the centre, like he was special, only I could tell Jimmy didn't like that, and I didn't either. When the man was all ready to take the picture I stepped out of line and tugged on Mrs. Crawford's arm - Mrs. Crawford is our teacher, I guess you know that - and she leaned down so I could whisper to her. I told her what I thought should happen, and she shook her head and told me to get back in place, only I didn't. I said I wouldn't be in the picture the way things were.

Mrs. Crawford is nice. She really listens to kids, you know? Not like some teachers who are all like do-as-I-tell-you all the time. She asked the photographer to wait a minute, even though he looked really impatient, 'cause he had a whole bunch of homerooms to take pictures of, and she had me walk away from the class so the other kids couldn't hear what we were saying. She's really good about that kind of thing, not embarrassing anybody in front of the whole class.

“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?” she asked me.

“Jimmy spends his whole life being different,” I said. “Just this once, why can't he be like all the rest of us?”