Cat Found Read online

  CAT

  FOUND

  INGRID LEE

  FOR AL, CAT FRIEND

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CLYDESDALE TOWN CRIER

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  About the Auhor

  Copyright

  CLYDESDALE TOWN CRIER

  CAT LADY

  April 15—Police were called to the home of Mary Downs last evening. Neighbors reported strange noises coming from inside the house.

  Mrs. Downs was found semiconscious in her bedroom. Cats roamed the place. “Must have been fifty of ’em,” said the officer. “The smell could have knocked you over.”

  Most locals were shocked to discover that Mary Downs was a “cat lady.”

  “I thought there was something strange going on,” reported Joe Close, one of the neighbors. “Her house was spooky. I went over there a few times, offered to help her clean up the place a little. The old lady never cracked the door open an inch. Guess she didn’t want anybody looking around.”

  Animal Services have taken the cats to a local shelter. Some of the animals appear dehydrated. Five are expecting kittens. “Looks like she collected strays,” said one official. “We found eleven cats in the freezer. Those ones died of natural causes.”

  Mr. Close thought otherwise. “That Downs woman probably stole the cats. You know how old people get — start acting a little off. People like that should be institutionalized.”

  “I hear cats yowling around my trash cans at night,” added Ms. April Winsome, another neighbor. “They have eyes that look right through you.”

  The feral cat problem will be discussed at the next town hall meeting. Some Clydesdale council members have suggested that a roundup of the stray cats might …

  The cat prowled the house restlessly. She scratched at the windows and doors. When the new puppy stuck its chops into her flank, she hissed at it. She swatted its nose. The puppy ran under the bed with its tail between its legs.

  “The cat’s at the puppy again,” the woman complained. “Her mewling makes me crazy. There’s hair everywhere. The furniture is all scratched up. I don’t know why I ever wanted a cat.”

  “Let’s take the cat for a drive,” suggested her husband. “We’ll lose her down a country road. She can take up life on a farm. I don’t want our puppy to grow up with an inferiority complex.”

  The cat crouched on the seat of the car. Her amber eyes glittered in the dark.

  After a while the car stopped, and the man got out. “Scat!” he said. He tossed the cat into the bushes.

  The cat watched the car lights fade into the distance. Her ears caught the night noises. An insect hiccuped, and a swift wing clipped grass. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted. She began to follow the highway, picking her way through the weedy undergrowth.

  A dark shadow plummeted toward the earth: a great feathery beast with sharp claws. Sensing danger, the cat veered helter-skelter onto the open road. A tired truck driver barreling along the white line sounded his horn, and she flattened to the asphalt. The steel trailer skimmed over her back. Wind blasted her fur.

  At the gas station on the outskirts of town, the cat turned onto Main Street. An alleyway took her to a block of apartments. There, under a budding lilac bush, she stopped to think.

  Something was wrong. She was a house cat. She was used to a full bowl of food and a warm bed. Where was her home?

  An eager yowl took her by surprise. Alert to this new danger, she peered between the branches into a pair of blue eyes. The gray tomcat wasted no time. He ran at her….

  It was almost morning when the cat stumbled upon the coal cellar. She slipped between the rotted boards and followed the chute deep into the earth. At the bottom, she rooted into the foam stuffing of an old car seat. All day long she waited for her owners to come fetch her. Thin sticks of sunlight crisscrossed the dark sides of the chute — back and forth, back and forth. By the time night came again, one thing was clear:

  She had waited for nothing.

  The cat crept back to Main Street as Paul Lacy hurried home. Paul grinned when he saw her peeping around a trash can. He stooped to grab a handful of gravel. Score! The first stone hit her right between the eyes. Paul laughed out loud. That cat was a goner. There was nothing at the end of the alley but six feet of plank fence. “Cat!” he yelled, giving chase. “Say your prayers!” He hurled his ammo.

  Her backside to the fence, the cat whirled to face her attacker. Even though she dodged this way and that, the bits of flint cut her tender skin. They stung her eyes. She sprang for the top of the fence. She had to escape.

  A tired voice cut through the dark. “Paul, is that you out there? It’s past curfew. Get in the house right now. Don’t make me send out your dad!”

  The boy paused when he heard his mother. “Cat,” he promised, “looks like you got lucky. Next time I see you, I’ll get you good.” He grabbed a rock. “Here’s something to remember me by.”

  His parting shot split the cat’s front paw right to the bone. She was so intent on flight, she barely noticed. She didn’t stop running until she got back to the coal cellar. The pain caught up with her later. Come morning, her eyes were swollen shut. Her body ached. And her paw was on fire. But she needed water and she needed food. Slowly she made her way up the steep coal chute, leaning into the curved wall for balance.

  The light of day was staggering after the darkness.

  The cat hobbled along until she came to a stagnant ditch. She stopped to lap the murky water. A dead bird lay in the dirt, and she tore at the flesh ravenously. It made her sick.

  A woman pushed a carriage along the sidewalk, cooing at her baby in a soft, warm voice. When the dirty creature with the runny eyes crossed her path, she was frightened. “Nasty cat!” she cried. “Get away from my baby!” She swung her bag.

  The cat scurried back to the safety of the coal cellar. For hours she shivered. Mucus glued her eyes shut. Her insides churned. Coal dust matted her coat. And her paw wouldn’t hold her up. It was late afternoon by the time thirst drove her out of the cellar and through the lots to Main Street again.

  People moved out of her path. Some people even crossed the street.

  Cats like that were bad luck.

  The cat soldiered on blindly. She was so far gone, she walked right into Billy Reddick.

  ONE

  “I’m going to the corner,” Billy Reddick said. “Can I have money for a soda?”

  His mother looked up from her textbook. “Billy, you know I don’t have any. I’m out of work. You have to wait until I finish this course and find myself another job. There’s juice in the fridge.”

  Billy’s father walked in. When he saw the books and papers strewn over the table, his face got redder than a ripe tomato. “This place is a mess,” he grunted. “Least a man can do is come home to a tidy house. Seeing as you’re a kept woman.”

  Billy looked at his father. “Dad, can I have a dollar for a soda?”

  Reddick tossed a crumpled dollar onto the table. “Sure
, kid. Just remember where the money’s coming from.” He dropped his toolbox on top of the papers and looked at his wife. “Time you started dinner,” he said.

  “You know how to heat up a frying pan,” Mae shot back.

  Their bickering didn’t let up. Money was tight. Ever since his mother had lost her job and enrolled in a training course, Billy’s dad had been bent out of shape.

  Billy grabbed the dollar and took off.

  Main Street traffic was winding down for the day. Most of the stores drowsed in the spring sunshine. Even the drugstore was empty. Billy checked out a rack of old comics and drank his soda. He kept thinking about his mom and dad. Sometimes his mom got so angry at his father, she didn’t speak to him for days. Other times, his dad stayed out all night. Billy couldn’t stop thinking. What if one day his mother decided to leave? What if one day she up and disappeared?

  The cat limping down the street took Billy by surprise. Most of the stray cats around town kept out of sight. They did their roaming after dark. This one walked a crooked line down the sidewalk in broad daylight. Billy almost tripped over it.

  Billy watched the cat crawl under some fruit crates stacked up behind the small chapel. It was a pretty ugly cat. The fur was powdered with black grime. Dried mucus zippered the eyes.

  As he stood looking, an older boy in a ponytail and a City Hall uniform came out from behind the chapel. The boy scowled at Billy before he hurried away. Billy eyed the little brick church. What was that guy doing around the back of it? No one had prayed in there for a long time. There were chains looped through the double doors. Dust dulled the stained-glass window in the gable. And the bell tower was boarded up. Everyone in town knew the bell that should have been inside was long gone.

  Billy looked down at the plywood crates again. He bent close and called, “Cat. Hey, cat.”

  The thing practically rushed into his arms.

  Billy didn’t know what to do. He stood up with his hands full of cat. Cat hair stuck to his shirt. Black powder smeared his skin. Billy looked around for some help. People hurrying by paid him no mind. They had their dinners to think about. He was just a dirty boy with a dirty cat.

  The cat felt so light. Billy could feel its heart beating out of time. One paw was wet with infection, and the smell of it made him gag. He threw the cat down. “Scat!” he said.

  The cat crawled back under the fruit crates. Billy stood there for a while longer before he went home. When he got to his apartment, there was a note.

  At the library. Meat loaf in the fridge.

  Mom

  Billy went out again. Somehow he ended up back behind the chapel. “Cat,” he called. He leaned over the fruit crates again. “Cat, you still there?”

  Nothing.

  Billy lifted the stack of crates. The cat crouched in a damp heap. “Look,” he said. “My dad would never let me bring you home. He hates cats.”

  Billy lowered the crates again and walked away. Maybe there was an early ball practice going on at the park. He was halfway down Main Street before he changed his mind.

  Back at the fruit crates, he took one more look underneath.

  The cat hadn’t moved.

  “I suppose I could take you to the shelter,” he sighed. “There’s nothing else to do around here.” The shelter wasn’t far. A friend of Billy’s had gone there for a dog once, and Billy had tagged along.

  He scooped up the cat, holding it so the wet paw didn’t touch him.

  “Where’ve you been?” Billy said as he carried the cat. He could see some lighter hair under the powder. “That black stuff looks like coal dust. You been hiding in a coal bin?”

  The cat hung limply in his arms. Maybe the sore foot was making it sick.

  “What did you do?” Billy asked. His arms were getting tired. “Did you get hit by a rock? A car run over your paw? “

  There was no answer.

  It was just a dumb, dirty cat.

  By the time he got to the animal shelter, it was closing time. The woman at the front desk wanted to get home to her kids. “It’s late,” she said when Billy walked in. “Come back tomorrow.”

  “I found a cat,” he said. “There’s something wrong with its paw.”

  Just what she needed now, the woman thought. “Who owns it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Billy. “It hasn’t got a collar. I found it wandering down the street.”

  The woman sighed. What a headache. The town was full of stray cats. The shelter had more cats than they had cages. And the complaints! Why, just that morning a man had come storming up to the front desk with a dead bird. “It’s a cardinal!” he had yelled. “A female. The bird used to come late afternoon for the sunflower seeds. Now it’s nothing but feather and bone.”

  The man had tears in his eyes, he was so worked up.“Those wild cats are to blame — the feral ones. They probably got at the young in the nest, too. Those cats are killing machines. They see a bird and they have to catch it. The city’s got to get rid of them, I tell you — before there are no birds left to sing.”

  The woman behind the desk looked at the boy with the cat. She went to the back and got a hamster cage. “Well, thanks for bringing the cat in,” she told Billy. She eyed the thing with a tired frown. What was all that black dust? “We’ll take care of it for you. Put it in here.”

  Billy looked at the small wire cage. He looked at the dirty cat in his arms.

  “What’ll you do with it?” he asked.

  “Listen, kid,” the woman said bitterly. “I’ll be honest with you. There are too many stray cats in this town. Anybody can see that this one’s beyond saving. We’ll put it down. Best way to stop its suffering.”

  She held out the cage.

  Billy looked down. The cat shifted a bit in his arms. It pulled open one crusty lid and looked up at him.

  The eye gleamed like a dark drop of honey.

  Billy started to think. His bedroom was at the very back of the apartment, behind the utility room at the end of a long hallway. His dad and mom never went in there. And Billy always kept his door closed.

  He shook his head at the woman behind the counter. “I changed my mind,” he said.

  Maybe he would keep the cat.

  TWO

  She was a female cat.

  Around the back of his building, Billy hid her in the box of sand saved for winter ice. He went up the back steps to the third-floor landing of his apartment. His mom and dad were out, so he brought the cat inside.

  His bedroom dresser was kitty-corner to the wall. Billy stripped off his shirt and spread it over the floor in the space at the back. When he placed the cat on top, she crumpled into a dark heap and started to shake.

  What now?

  Her paw dripped steadily. Billy went to the bathroom where his mother kept the medical supplies. Somewhere in a drawer of old tubes, there was a cream for skin scrapes. He found the cream, and filled a dish with warm, soapy water. Then he wormed his way back behind the dresser.

  When he picked up the cat, she sagged through his fingers like a hank of drain hair. “Cat,” he said. “Your paw’s festering. It needs a hand.”

  Billy dunked the bad paw into the warm, soapy water and swished it around. He was careful. The cat had claws. He didn’t want to be a scratching post. After the paw was well soaked, he cleaned the pus away with a tissue. Somewhere in the process, the cat roused herself and took over. She licked the wound until Billy could see the rawness. When he put on the cream, she shook her paw in the air.

  Billy snuck back downstairs with a foil pan and filled it with sand from the box. He didn’t spill a single grain on the way up. He slid the pan into a corner of his closet. He filled a bowl with fresh cold water and coaxed the cat till it got her attention. She lapped the bowl dry. Billy stayed there until she went to sleep. Maybe he took a nap, too. It didn’t seem more than a minute or two before his mom got home.

  “Billy!” she called from the hall. “You haven’t touched the meat loaf. Come out of that roo
m and eat some dinner.”

  “Cat,” Billy warned. “You’d better be quiet.”

  As if he needed to say that. The cat was sleeping so hard, she didn’t flick a whisker.

  Billy wiped the black dust from his arms and face and grabbed another shirt. He turned and surveyed his room. No one would ever think he was hiding a cat. His room was so messy, he could have hidden a pride of lions.

  After dinner, Billy went back to his bedroom with a chunk of meat loaf in his pocket. He took a glass of milk, too. “First time I ever saw you take some milk without me even asking you to,” his mother said.

  The cat stayed behind the dresser for six days. She was as quiet as a wintry night. Sometimes her body shook and Billy had to rest his hand on her back to stop the trembling. When he went to school, he covered her with his flannel bathrobe so she stayed warm. The cat drank lots of water. She ate the food that Billy filched from his dinner plate, and she used the pan of sand in the closet. Every day she licked her injury. When she was done licking, Billy put on the cream. Then she shook her paw.

  After a few days, Billy found himself thinking about the cat when he should have been thinking about his science class or his math homework. Was she warm enough? Did he leave the closet door open? Did he leave his bedroom door shut? The school days dragged like a loose pair of pants. After the last bell, when all his friends went to the drugstore parking lot to skateboard, he hurried home. By the time he got to the apartment, he was almost running. He didn’t calm down till he looked behind his dresser and felt warm breath.

  “Cat,” he said. “I don’t want you to die.”

  On the seventh day, the cat got up.

  Billy was stringing new laces in his good shoes when she peeked around the dresser. Billy pretended not to notice as she zigzagged her way up close enough to grab a whiff of his socks. They must have smelled all right because she settled down between his feet.

  Billy didn’t move. His big toe itched, but he kept still.