Tails of Spring Break (5 page)

Dad shook his head. “It’s odd we haven’t heard that cat. Or seen her.”

Claire stepped around a swampy place in the yard and tiptoed back toward us through the squishy grass. Her eyes were shining. “I didn’t know this until just now,” she said, “but I’m going to get a pet. My pet will be a beautiful fish.”

“W
E NEED TO MAKE
a business calendar,” Claire said later that morning. “We can write down all the things we have to do.”

“We don’t need a calendar,” I said.

“Think of it,” Claire said. “We can make it seven pages long—a page for each day. Every day will have a list in it.”

I thought about it. Maybe Claire’s idea was okay, after all. “It has to be very big,” I said. “We’ll put it up on the wall.” I ran to get my construction paper and colored pens. We divided each day into Morning, Afternoon, and Night.

“We have two pets,” I said. “Let’s use a different color for each.”

Claire looked at me with her eyebrows raised high. “Three,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Three pets.”

I groaned as I remembered China Cat. “But there’s nothing we can do about her, except look for her.”

“We’ll write that in,” Claire said. “LOOK FOR CHINA.”

“Muffin stuff is three times a day,” I said. “Our calendar will get really full. It’s going to look great.”

“The fish have to be in purple,” Claire said, picking through my markers, “because that’s Ruby’s favorite color.”

I sighed. “It’s my business,” I reminded her.

“The calendar was my idea,” she said.

I frowned at her. “China will be red,” I said. “Sierra’s favorite color.”

“Make Muffin blue,” Tyler said. “And read everything to me.”

Claire picked up the purple marker. FEED THE FISH, she printed in the middle of each morning square. I wrote in blue, FEED MUFFIN, for every morning and every afternoon. Then, I wrote THROW THE BALL. PLAY HIDE AND SEEK. WIPE UP PIDDLE. I put a frowny face next to “piddle.”

FIND CHINA, Claire wrote in red marker. She set the marker down.

“There’s not enough red,” Tyler said.

“We have to do more for China,” I said, trying to swallow over the terrible lump in my throat. “We have to stop being afraid of her. We’ve got to turn her back into a pet.”

“Write BRING HER A TOY,” Tyler said. “And SING HER A SONG.”

“How can we?” Claire asked. “We don’t know where she is.”

“We’ll do it where she
maybe
is,” Tyler said.

“We’ll go different places and do it.”

I picked up the red marker and began to write.

When we finished, the calendar looked really important. We taped it onto the family room wall.

At eleven, I filled China’s water dish. “Come for your water,” I called. “Nice kitty.” I thunked her water dish three times with a spoon. Would she hear her dish? Would she come out? If she came, would she leap at me? I waited. Nothing happened.

At one, Claire filled China’s food dish. She went into every room, waving the empty can in the air. “Dinner for China,” she sang.

No cat.

At three, Tyler decided she was behind the couch even though we’d looked there a hundred times. He sang a long song to the couch. China never answered.

At four o’clock, when it was time to take care of Muffin, Claire came along.

“If you’re going to be a business partner,” I said, “you have to do half the work.” I handed her a paper towel.

She jumped back. “No piddle!” she said. “I’ll feed her.”

“No way,” I answered. “That’s the best part!”

She ended up doing nothing, except for writing in the notebook. Before we came home, I taught Muffin a trick. I’d say “Give me a kiss,” and she’d lick my cheek with her cute pink tongue. She even licked Claire’s cheek. Of course, Claire had to scrub it right off with a tissue.

After dinner, Claire and I got out the Parcheesi board.

Tyler sat near us with his construction paper and his blunt scissors. “China will like these,” he said. He held up a paper fish. “I’m going to leave these fish in all the good cat places,” he said.

“Where are the good cat places?” Claire asked.

“I’m finding them,” he said. He bent over the fish he was cutting. “They’re still a secret.”

I sighed and threw the dice. “I wish China hadn’t turned into a wild cat.”

“You just missed a good play,” Claire said. “Pay attention to the game.”

“Is Sierra going to be mad?” Tyler asked.

I nodded. “Her cat is ruined. Sierra will never be my friend again.”

“You can get pen pals,” Claire said. “Pen pals are very interesting.”

“I don’t want pen pals,” I said. “Sierra and I have been best friends forever. Since day care.”

Claire landed on my space and sent me home. Then, she won. Tomorrow we’d choose a different game.

“I wonder where Ruby keeps her crystal ball,” Claire said as we got ready for bed. “I wonder if she can tell the future.”

“She probably has a magic broom,” I said. “We could find it and drive it around.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Claire said. “Brooms aren’t really magic. But I think crystal balls are.”

“I hope nothing goes wrong with her fish,” I said. “If she’s magic, she could turn us into mice. And then, China would get us.”

Claire clattered her brush onto the bedside table. “Can we close your bedroom door right now?” she asked.

“Why?”

“China might come in here.” Claire’s eyes were wide. “I keep remembering the way she yowled. It was like a horror movie scream.”

I shivered. “We don’t know where she is. What if she’s . . . ?”

Claire clenched her hands together. “Already in here?”

We jumped off the beds and checked the whole room. Even the closet. No evil eyes stared out at us. Nothing hissed at us. We closed the door tight and jumped back into bed.

I
N THE MIDDLE OF
the night, something made my eyes pop open. The street light outside my window made shadows cross my closet door. I listened hard.

“I heard something,” Claire’s voice said from the other bed.

“Me, too.” My teeth chattered as I spoke.

“Daddy,” a little voice called. “Daddy!” We heard Tyler’s feet thump on the floor and run into Dad’s room.

The sound came again. A growl. Right there in my room. Right between Claire and me! I leaped out of bed and flew through the door, with Claire behind me. We jumped onto Dad’s bed just as he was turning on the light.

“She’s in my room,” I said.

“No,” Tyler said, “she’s under my bed.” He shuddered and crawled into Dad’s arms. “I don’t like her under there.”

Just then, a mutter, a mean, mad sound, came from across the room. “She’s in here,” Claire said, jumping up and down on the bed. “Right THERE.” She pointed to a spot under the window.

We stared. Nothing was there. Nothing at all.

All at once, Dad smiled. “The heat duct,” he said. “Could China be talking through the heat ducts?” He saw my face. “Those metal ducts go under the house and branch up into every room,” he said. “If she’s near any one of them, they’d carry her voice all over the house.”

We were silent as the muttering went on and on. I tiptoed to the place where heat came into Dad’s room. I tapped the metal grate that covered the hole. “China,” I called. “Can you hear me?”

The muttering stopped.

“Go to bed,” I called. “It’s the middle of the night.” I looked at the others. “Maybe she doesn’t know that,” I explained.

“One good thing,” Dad said. “She’s alive. And we haven’t lost her.”

“But if she’s wild,” I said, “she might come out and get us.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Dad said. He looked at me with his special look that meant, “Stop scaring Tyler.”

“Time for us to hit the hay,” he said. He yawned. “It’s the middle of the night, as you just pointed out.”

“I’m staying with you, Daddy,” Tyler said.

Dad sighed. Claire and I went back to my room. We left the door open. Why not? We couldn’t keep China out. She was everywhere.

O
N TUESDAY MORNING, AFTER
Claire and I fed Muffin, we walked to Ruby’s house. After we fed the fish, we sat on the floor of the fish room, watching them. They were better than TV. They moved like acrobats as they twisted and dove through the water.

After a while, I checked the time. “We have to go,” I told Claire. “We have to do a China thing.”

Claire stood up with a sigh. “If I could find Ruby’s crystal ball,” she said, “it might tell us where China is hiding.”

“We’re not supposed to look around other people’s houses,” I said. “Dad said so.”

“I’ll just look here and there,” Claire said. She walked in slow motion to the front door, turning her head back and forth. “She probably keeps it in her bedroom,” she said. “I’d love to see Ruby’s bedroom.”

“We have to go,” I said. I held the door open.

Once we got outside, Claire glided home, pretending she was swimming through the air.

Dad met us at the door. “Did Tyler go with you?”

We shook our heads.

“He must be here then,” Dad said. “I have to warn you. China’s talking a lot.”

I stopped with my jacket half off, half on. “Did you see her?”

He shook his head.

Just then, an eerie yowl came out of the heat duct in the family room and, at the same time, from somewhere in the living room. The whole house echoed with China’s yowl. I covered my ears. “She sounds like TWO cats.”

“I might have known.” Dad strode down the hall. “Tyler,” he called.

“Meooow,”said a voice that sounded a little bit like Tyler.

“Meeeeeoooow,” said another voice that came out of the heat ducts. That one had to be China.

“Come out,” Dad said in a stern voice.

Tyler’s face, bright red, peeked out from under his bed. Claire covered her eyes as he flashed the flashlight in her face.

“I’ve looked everywhere for you,” Dad said. “Why didn’t you answer?”

“I did,” Tyler said. He clicked the light at me and crawled back under the bed. “Meeooow,” he said.

“Meooow,” all the heat ducts answered. And then we heard, “Huff, huff, huff.”

“Huff, huff, huff,” Tyler said.

“I don’t understand,” Claire said in a little voice.

“There’s a heat duct under that bed,” Dad explained. “They’re talking to each other through the ducts.” As he turned toward the door, he raised his voice. “I’ll be in my office, Tyler,” he called, “in case you need me.”

Evil hisses came from under the bed. I clapped my hands again over my ears, but the sounds were too loud. All over the house, the heat ducts began to hiss.

There was no safe place.

W
HEN I ASKED DAD
, he said, “No. Absolutely not.” We could not move to a motel.

“How about my house?” Claire asked.

“Thanks, but we’re staying here,” Dad said. “This is our home.”

“Some home,” I said. “Haunted.”

Claire and I gave up on Dad and went into my bedroom.

“I’ve got to do something besides think about China,” I told her. “Muffin would like some rain boots. I’ll make them out of the cloth on my broken umbrella.”

“I’m going to make something very beautiful,” Claire said. “A necklace to wear to Ruby’s house.” She reached for her bead box.

All afternoon, Tyler crept around the house with the flashlight. He and China kept on hissing. “Quit that,” I told Tyler. But he wouldn’t stop.

At four o’clock, we took Muffin’s boots to her. Muffin chewed them right off. “You’ll have wet feet then,” I told her as I let her into the yard.

“Let’s go home, Claire,” I said when we came back in. “I figured out how to make these boots better.”

She looked up from writing in the notebook. “I got it all,” she said. “Muffin happy to see us. Ate all her food. Hated her boots. Pooped in the back yard. Katie didn’t throw the ball.”

“You don’t have to write THAT.” I said.

“You’re supposed to exercise her. Today, you didn’t.”

“I don’t have to throw the ball every time.”

Claire made another note. “I hope she doesn’t start to gain weight.”

“One time of not throwing the ball? She’s going to gain weight?”

“You know what else?” Claire pointed at the Mrs. Anderson’s refrigerator. “They have a dentist appointment coming up. See that little bitty paper?”

“So?”

“You can hardly see that paper. I bet they forget to go.”

“It’s not our business, Claire.” Muffin drank water and sneezed it on my arm. I filled up her bowl and set it on the floor. “Let’s go.”

“You know what else?” she asked.

I patted Muffin’s silky ears while I waited.

Claire tucked the notebook under her arm and poked her finger into the dirt around Mrs. Anderson’s leafy house plant on the table. “I bet she wanted us to water this.”

“I’m going to lock you in if you don’t come,” I said.

“I can move it so it’ll get more light,” she said. “Be . . . gonia glori . . . osa,” she read from a little tag. “Look how it’s drooping.”

“I don’t think you should move things,” I said.

Claire watered the plant and thumped it onto the floor under a lamp. She glanced at the refrigerator door again. “I’ll need to fix that dentist thing too,” she said. “Tomorrow, I’ll put a blue arrow on the refrigerator. I’ll make it point to that little paper.”

I rolled my eyes. As I picked up the house key, Muffin’s tail drooped to the floor and she looked ready to cry. “Poor baby,” I said. “If we didn’t have a crazy cat living with us, we’d take you home.” Claire and I took turns giving Muffin twenty-six more pats while we said the alphabet. By the time we got to Z, Muffin’s eyes sparkled and her tail waved like a happy flag.

That night, Claire wanted to play Parcheesi again. I beat her. The first time I’d won. Of course, Claire had to point that out.

The whole time we played, we could hear China muttering. Tyler kept sneaking around, going from heat duct to heat duct. “She’s loudest here,” he called once from the kitchen.

Dad showed me how to close the heat duct between our beds. “I can’t figure out where she is,” he said. “She can’t be inside the ducts. They’re sealed.”