The Great Cat Caper (3 page)

B
ill turned from the kitchen sink, holding two gigantic sopping potatoes in his paw-like hands.

“Hi,” Vee said, standing in the doorway, her wounds pulsing “ow” with each heartbeat. “Where’s Mom?”

Bill was a diesel mechanic, so his hands were much rougher than Dad’s. Dad shook hands a lot at the business meetings he had with people who gave him money to build all his businesses. “Your mom called. It’s you and me tonight for dinner. She’s showing a house she thinks they might make an offer on.” His dark brows went up as his wide mouth made a crazy expression. “Here’s hoping, huh?”

Vee forced a smile.

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “I’m, uh, going to do my homework.”

Again the eyebrows shot toward the dark, curly hair that fell over his deeply tanned forehead. “On the first day of school?”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. Her prickly lettuce rash—or this
beetling
day—was pushing her to cry.

“Anything you want to talk about—like how was your first day and why do you look like you’ve been in a fight?”

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Bill. He was just …
not
her father.
Her
father was taking the Twin Terrors to their soccer games and buying them tokens at Pizza Crazy. The last Dad Weekend, she’d had to go to
two
soccer games, hold coats, and cut up oranges. The Twin Terrors and their stinky feet had made her glad to return to Bill’s quiet house.

Bill was trying hard to be whatever he was supposed to be in this new family blend. Trouble was, it was
aawwwk
ward. Was he supposed to be a dad replacement? Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be like a dad at all. She sometimes mixed up the conversations her parents and their new-ish spouses had had with her.
“I’m not trying to replace your—insert ‘mother’ or ‘father’ here—I just want you to be part of our new life.”

Another sigh. Who had what spot in the family was just so …
weird
these days. A spot in the Accelerated Learning Center was the only safe thing. Oops. Bill was looking at her. Had she been standing there with her mouth puckered up like a baby about to cry? Her backpack slid off her shoulder, bouncing on her knee with the lettuce rash. “Ow. No thanks. It was—just school. You know.”

“Not much I don’t. I dropped out before I graduated.” He gestured with the dripping potatoes. “I’m better with my hands working on the big rigs.” He grinned the all-out smile that her mom said made her stomach wobble.
TMI, Mom.
“I washed my hands after work. You’re safe.”

As she headed for the stairs, Bill’s deep voice followed behind her. “Your mom says potatoes take about an hour and a half for these big ones. After that we’re on our own for what to put on them.”

She called back, “Okay,” and slogged down the hall to her room. After placing her backpack in the oversized chocolate-colored beanbag in the corner by the window, she pulled off the long-sleeved peasant blouse that had been way too hot for the first day of school and pulled a T-shirt over her head. Grimacing, she peeled the capris off her bloody knee. Those pants would take some explaining to Mom. After pulling on shorts—carefully—she hobbled to the bathroom, washed her knees and hands—yelping between clenched teeth—and then bandaged the knees.

All the while, she thought of the curious kitten. Where did it sleep? She hoped not in the Dumpster. Once the ordeal of the knees was complete, she stiff-legged it back to her room and the beanbag. She pulled the backpack out of it and flopped down. A little kitten would love a beanbag like this. It would be like an entire planet to the small feline.

“You,” she told herself severely, “do not have time to worry about wild cats. Do not be lazy. Ramp up your want-to.” That was one of Dad’s favorite lines. Heaving herself out of the beanbag and taking a quick glance at her room to make sure everything was in its place, she decided a snack before baked potatoes was necessary.

Downstairs, the kitchen island was littered with the contents of the fridge. Bill’s head was deep within it.

“What are you doing?”

He sighed, backing out and straightening. “Looking for stuff to put on potatoes. Nutritional stuff for a healthy dinner. Your mother said.”

She squinted a disbelieving look up at his six feet. “Like how much stuff do you want?” She shot a glance at the counter. “I don’t think they grow potatoes big enough to hold all this.”

Bill’s laugh was as full as his smile. It began back in his throat, rolled up and out in a rich laugh that made you feel like you’d said something funny. And smart.

Taking the two steps to the island, she surveyed the piles. “Okay, let’s start with what you don’t need.”

He closed the fridge door and sat on a stool across from her. He swept his arm magnanimously. “Go ahead. This counter looks like my workshop in the garage.”

Vee had to agree, having peeked in the door once. She folded her arms and surveyed the excess. “I’d start with getting rid of the jar of peaches.”

More Bill laughter. A tiny smile refused to hide inside Vee’s face.

“Okay,” he said. “Give me credit for that one. I just forgot to put it back in the fridge when I was after the pineapple.”

The plastic container on the counter held pineapple tidbits left over from the cottage cheese and pineapple her mom ate every day for lunch. “You’re going to put pineapple on a baked potato?”

Bill nodded, pulling another container toward the pineapple. “I was thinking that the potato could be like a pizza crust and we’d load pizza-topping-type stuff on it.” He leaned forward over the leftover broccoli, the plastic bag of pepperoni, the hummus, a bunch of green onion, a red and green pepper, and a jar of olives and pulled the Canadian bacon package next to the pineapple. “See? A Hawaiian special potato. Whaddaya think?”

“I think there’s a reason Mom cooks.” She pushed the pineapple away, kept the Canadian bacon, and then pointed. “I’ll eat
that
with butter and sour cream. And green onions. I’ll put everything else back.”

“Works for me!” Bill’s face relaxed. “I think your mom would be cool with that.”

Cool with that.
Her dad never said that. Bill sometimes sounded like a kid. Wasn’t he supposed to be the grown-up?

With Bill’s head back in the fridge, Vee handed him the rejected potato toppings.

“So what happened that makes you look like you’ve run through a barbed-wire fence?” His voice sounded muffled deep in the recesses of the side-by-side fridge. “Oh. Your mom got a phone message from the school.”

The retest, the curious kitten, Hermann and the Cat Woman, C. P., the service-learning project. For a moment, she wavered.
Trust Bill with a beetling day?
The next thought bopped the first one away. It was between her and Mom. Bill didn’t fit in the spot for this problem. Laughing over dinner, yes, but not the big stuff.

T
he sound of the garage door closing awoke Vee the next morning. Her first thought was the curious kitten. What did a Dumpster cat eat for breakfast? Maybe it was better if she didn’t know. She rolled over to check her alarm clock.
Ye-ow!
Her tattered hands and knees protested loudly. Managing to roll to an upright position, she checked the clock: 6 a.m. Good. She’d have time to talk to her mother before she left for work. If the plan she’d made right before she fell asleep worked, Vee would not be heading for regular sixth grade.

After her Tuesday morning ritual of showering and conditioning her hair, she dried it and styled it into pigtails. She pulled on a pair of capris and a short-sleeve, long-waisted blouse she’d set out on the beanbag last night then slid everything she’d need into her backpack.

1. Tell Mom the Plan.

2. Guidance counselor says Yes to the Plan.

3. Catch up on yesterday’s math class work.

4. Keep want-to ramped up (eek!).

5. Tell girls the Plan.

“Mom? …” On her way downstairs, she listened. “Oh, Mumseyyyyy!”

From the last step, she spotted the sheet of lined paper on the island counter.
Oh, beetle.
Her mother was gone
already?
She was glad her mom was one of the top Realtors in Oakton, but couldn’t the
beetling
houses wait at least until her mother heard the Plan?

“Hey, little girl,”
her mother’s scribbly handwriting ran.
“So sorry, baby, about the regular sixth grade. I’ll be home early, and we’ll go over your plans for the service-learning project the school mentioned. Bunches of hugs, Mumsey.”
Her mom always signed her notes “Mumsey.”

Slapping her head with one hand, Vee hustled to the fridge. Service-learning project. She remembered now that Mr. Tuttle had been talking about it when the guidance counselor hauled her off. She snagged a carton of yogurt, an apple, and a string cheese from the second shelf that she had convinced her mother and Bill should be her school lunch and after-school snack shelf. Closing the door with her foot, she added it to her backpack. Then, with the thought of the curious kitten peeking out at her yesterday, she grabbed a mini can of tuna with the pop-top lid her mom sometimes ate. Into the pack it went. “A little extra treat for you, curious kitten,” she said to nobody.

Another moment and she’d neatly printed her response to her mother and was out the door for school.

   
Dear Mumsey,

The ALC seemed noisier this morning than the previous day. Fewer kids sat by themselves trying to look like they liked sitting by themselves. More were falling backward into the tub, laughing, sitting talking in the window seats, and generally no longer uneasy about a new school year.

Luckies.

The moment Mr. Tuttle closed the leader-citizen class, Vee dashed to the front of the room.

“Can I have a pass to the guidance office?”

He straightened from digging through the piles on his desk. “Can I help you with anything, Vee?”

She shook her head. “It’s about yesterday.”

For a moment he frowned, as though her
yesterday
hadn’t registered on his radar. Then his face saddened. “I’ll be sad to see you go, Vee.”

“I’m not going,” she said, taking the pass he handed her. “I have a plan.”

She didn’t even care if someone saw her running in the halls. She knocked on the office door. No answer. She knocked again and tried the handle. Locked. Good thing she’d come prepared with notebook and pen. She wrote:

Folding the note, she slipped it under the door.

Back in her seat in the ALC—oh, how she wanted it to continue to be her seat—Vee fished out the math book. Time to catch up. Where to start? Oh. The board. Each teacher placed their homework and any other notes on a white board that hung to the right of the big main board.

Fractions. Vee hated fractions. They were stupid. Rational numbers? If there were rational numbers, were there irrational numbers? Irrational, like Dad said her dislike of the math tutor, Math Man, was? Inside, a super math zizzle zoomed around her stomach.

A hand was on her shoulder. Mr. Tuttle. This hand-on-the-shoulder bit was getting old. “Guidance counselor. In the hall.” Another glance at the math book and Vee wasn’t sure her note mattered. How could she understand seventh-grade math if last year’s review zizzled her insides?

The guidance counselor held up the note. “I have your plan.” She smiled. “Shall we talk?”

Should she go for the Plan? Vee hesitated.

The thought of the Squadders feeling sorry for her (except for maybe Esther, who secretly might be glad) rushed in. Bill and Mom. Spot. Dad and Heather. Spot. The Twin Terrors. Spot. Her. SPOT-LESS.

It did matter. She wanted—
needed
—her spot. It was the only place where she mattered. She so wanted to
matter.
Somewhere.

“Yes.” This time her voice was firm. “My plan.”

The guidance counselor gazed down the hall where two fifth-grade girls that Vee had seen at lunch were pushing an AV cart and taking turns jumping on the cart and riding it. She started to say something in that direction, shook her head, and turned back to Vee. “You are one of our most determined students, Vee,” she said.

Vee’s eyes filled quickly. Two tears spilled from her left eye and one from the right. “It’s my spot,” she whispered.

“Pretty much the first month is review, which just might give you the boost to push you over on the retake.” The counselor appeared to be thinking out loud. “I’ve asked Ms. Smith. It’s okay with her. Since that’s the day the Helpful City Festival begins, there’s no school. The festival won’t open until noon, so you can take the retest in the morning. The charities looking for volunteers and vendors will be setting up their booths then. You can set up your service-learning project after the retest.”

Sure. Whatever her service-learning project ended up
being.
Vee counted quickly. Just over a month. She could do this, pass the retest, and get back to the business of being one of the smart kids in the ALC.

Another hand on the shoulder. Did teachers learn this in teacher school? “Just don’t put too much pressure on yourself, Vee. There’s more to your sixth-grade year than being in the accelerated center. Lots of great kids are in the other sixth-grade class.”

But Vee, while hearing, was not listening. Giddy with relief, she pushed open the door to the ALC, ignoring the doubt that popped up deep within her. She had a chance. She would win her spot.