All Fall Down (9 page)

The man rounded a stack of boxes and glared
down at Missy. He looked twice as big as her daddy. He was sweaty
with mean little eyes, and he smelled bad, like the rotten smell in
the garage only worse. He wore dirty overalls with no shirt on
underneath, and his arms and shoulders were hairy. Somehow all that
dark, dirty hair on all that bare skin scared Missy more than
anything, and she knew she'd been right to think he was a
not-so-nice man.

His eyes narrowed. "You're the little girl
from next door. What the hell you doing in my garage?"

Missy didn't say anything, just held onto
the box with the kittens.

"Answer me!"

Missy's daddy never shouted at her. She felt
tears well up in her eyes. Her legs were shaking so bad she almost
fell down. She didn't think she'd be able to speak, but somehow she
managed. "I just wanted to see the kittens," she said.

"See the kittens," the man repeated. "What,
are you stupid or something? Your parents didn't teach you better
than to break into someone else's house?"

"I didn't break anything." It wasn't exactly
a lie. She did plan to put his fence back together to make it
better than it had been before, just like her daddy made other
people's furniture better than before.

"Damn cat."

The man grabbed the box from her, and this
time Missy did fall down. She watched helplessly as the man reached
one fat had inside the opening and hauled out a kitten.

It was the smallest kitten Missy had ever
seen. No bigger than the man's palm, it had little itty-bitty legs.
Its eyes were open but it didn't look like it could see very well.
It was orange and white, and when it opened its mouth to yelp, it
had sharp little teeth inside no bigger than a splinter.

"Here," the man said. "Now you seen a
kitten. Go home."

The kitten looked so scared. Where was its
momma?

"What are you going to do with it?" Missy
asked.

"Whatever the hell I want to," the man said.
"Damn strays. Don't need no more strays in the world."

Missy understood then what the man would do
to the kitten. His hand was so big and the kitten was so small. He
could crush it just like Missy could crush the grasshoppers she
caught, not that she ever would.

The not-so-nice man was going to kill the
kitten. Kill it and the rest of the kittens in the box. Maybe he'd
already killed their momma.

Missy couldn't let that happen. She shoved
at his fat stomach with as much strength as she could. "No! You let
it go! I'll take care of it. Give it to me!"

The man only stumbled back one step, then he
caught his balance. His mean little eyes got meaner. He grabbed
Missy's arm with his other hand. His hand felt oily and wrong, and
she didn't like the way he was looking at her.

"What's to say you even come in here?" He
wasn't shouting now, and he didn't sound angry anymore. It was like
he wasn't really talking to her but only to himself. "You coulda
just wandered off down the street. I seen your parents let you play
outside all day. Who's to say you didn't get in someone's car and
they up and drove off with you? Anybody ask, I'd just say I never
seen you. Wouldn't no one be the wiser."

His hand was so tight on her arm, it was
beginning to hurt. Missy tried to pull away, but he just hung on
tighter. "Let me go!" she shouted. "You're hurting me!"

He snorted. "You ain't seen nothing
yet."

The momma cat came out of nowhere, or at
least that's what it looked like to Missy. One minute the man was
looking down at Missy with a weird smile on his face, and the next
minute he was screaming because the momma cat had jumped on his
bare shoulders and sunk all her claws in.

The man let go of Missy and the kitten at
the same time. Missy caught the kitten just before it hit the
concrete floor. Its little baby claws felt like pinpricks on
Missy's skin, but she didn't let it go. Instead she backed away
from the man as quick as she could, and when the momma cat leaped
off the man's shoulders and came after Missy, Missy opened her palm
and let the momma cat take the kitten from her.

In just a few short leaps, the momma cat and
her kitten were through the broken window. Missy wanted to save the
other kittens, but she needed help.

She needed her daddy.

She ran for the garage door, but the man
caught her. He grabbed a handful of Missy's hair and yanked, and
Missy screamed.

She screamed for her daddy as loud and long
as she could. She kept on screaming even after the man clamped a
hand over her mouth. He pulled her back through the garage and into
the house.

Missy kicked at him and
tried to hit him, but he still held her tight. She wished she
hadn't left her daddy's hammer by the fence. If she hit him with
the hammer, she was sure
that
would make him let her go.

"If you don't shut up, I'm gonna kill those
kittens, and then I'm gonna go next door and kill your mommy and
daddy, you understand?"

Missy went still. He wouldn't really do
that, would he? Kill Mommy and Daddy?

"That's a good girl," he said. "You and me,
we're gonna get along just fine."

Someone pounded on the man's front door. Not
knocks, like when the Fuller Brush Man came calling, but real hard
pounding that made the door rattle.

"Go away!" the man yelled at the door.
"Whatever you're selling, we don't want none."

What if it wasn't the Fuller Brush Man? What
if her daddy was at the front door, and he went away because he
didn't know she was here?

Missy bit down on the fleshy palm of the
man's hand. He yelped just like the kitten and yanked his hand
away.

As soon as his nasty-tasting hand was away
from her mouth, Missy screamed for her daddy.

Things happened fast after that. One minute
the mean man was dragging her toward the back of the house, and the
next minute the front door flew open and Missy's daddy and mommy
came running inside. Mommy was carrying one of daddy's tools—a
mallet, Missy learned later—and her daddy had a big hammer. They
both went after the mean man and made him let Missy go, then her
daddy hit him. Not with the hammer but with his fists.

Mommy held Missy in her arms and kept saying
everything would be all right. Missy hid her face in her mother's
dress and tried to pretend she didn't hear the sound of her daddy
hitting the mean man. She wanted to be anywhere else in the whole
world than in this mean man's house.

The police came after that and took the mean
man away. They took away some of the boxes in the garage, too, and
Missy was scared they were going to take the kittens. She cried so
hard that the nice officer who'd asked Missy all sorts of questions
about what the mean man had said promised to make sure the kittens
weren't hurt. Only when the officer brought the box inside the
house, the kittens were all gone.

"Are you sure they're not in another box?"
Missy asked the officer.

The officer exchanged a strange look with
Missy's mommy. Missy had heard the police officers say the other
boxes had movies and pictures in them, but they couldn't have been
nice movies or pictures because Daddy had looked really angry when
he heard about the movies and pictures, and Mommy had just hugged
Missy harder.

"No, they're not in another box," the nice
officer said.

"Their momma probably came and took them
away," Mommy said.

Just like she did with the little orange and
white kitty. Missy felt better about that. The momma cat was taking
care of her kittens just like Mommy and Daddy had taken care of
her.

That night, when Mommy and Daddy put her to
bed, Mommy asked Missy what she had been thinking, going in a
stranger's house like that.

"I've never seen baby kittens before," Missy
said. "I just wanted to look."

Missy thought she might get in trouble then,
but Daddy just smiled at her then looked at Mommy. "You're the one
who calls her a little explorer," he said to Mommy.

"She's lonely," Mommy said. "She needs
something to keep her busy."

Daddy sighed. "I know. We could get her a
dog, I suppose."

A dog? Missy didn't want a dog. "I want a
cat," she said.

She thought that asking might make her Daddy
sad thinking about his own cat, but instead laughed. "A cat. Why am
I not surprised?"

Mommy shrugged. "It would be cheaper than
getting her a little brother or sister."

Missy blinked. Parents could do that? Just
go out and get a baby brother or sister? Only Missy's friend Laura
didn't like her baby brother because he tried to take all of her
toys.

"I'd rather have a cat," Missy said.

That made both her parents laugh. Missy
didn't understand why, but at least they weren't mad at her. The
police weren't mad at her either. The only person who'd been mad at
her was the mean man, but he was a Very Bad Man, her mommy said,
and he was Going Away For A Long Time, her daddy said.

"Well," Daddy said once he was done
laughing. "If you're going to have a cat, we need to have a new
rule. No more exploring in any yard but our own. The world's not a
safe place for explorers with big hearts. So you have to stay in
our yard if you want a cat. Can you do that?"

Could she do that? Missy thought she could
do anything for a cat of her very own.

"Yes!" she said. "Only, can I get a kitten?"
The little orange and white kitten had looked so cute. "I'd rather
have a kitten."

Instead of laughing again, both her parents
hugged her, and Missy hugged them back. She didn't even complain
when they hugged her too tight.

The mean man hadn't hurt her mommy and
daddy, and he hadn't hurt the kittens. The momma cat had taken her
kittens away, and while Missy was sad that she hadn't seen any of
the other kittens, she was going to get a kitten of her very
own.

When Missy closed her eyes to go to sleep,
she knew that today had been a Very Good Day.

~ ~ ~

About the Author

Writer of the popular
Patient Z
zombie survivor series, Annie Reed describes herself as a desert
rat who longs to live by the ocean. Born and raised in Northern
Nevada, Annie started her writing career in science fiction. She
soon branched out into mystery and fantasy before she discovered
the thrill of writing about people who just won't die.

Besides writing about zombies and kids
who don't exactly have a normal childhood, Annie writes about the
lighter side of life in her Diz and Dee fantasy detective series,
which includes
The Case of the Missing Elf
and
My
Cousin, the Rabbit,
and the forthcoming
Secret Witness
Seagull.

Annie still lives in Northern Nevada with
her husband and daughter, who share their house with a number of
high-maintenance cats. A friend to backyard bunnies and kamikaze
quail, Annie would probably befriend dogs, too, except they'd chase
the rabbits.

To find out more about Annie, visit
www.annie-reed.com, where Annie posts a free short story every
Thursday.

Connect with Me Online:

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Scribblings

Twitter:
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(annie_reed) on Twitter

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Reed's author page