Murphy & Mousetrap (2 page)

Supper was hot and steamy on the stove and smelled like fried salmon, Murphy and
Mousetrap's favorite. Mousetrap stayed at Murphy's heels as Murphy walked back and forth with plates and knives and forks. Then the cat jumped up onto a chair and watched expectantly as Mom placed fish and potatoes next to the butter and salt and pepper.

“Mmmm,” Murphy said as he sat down. “Supper looks good.”

2

“How was your day at school?” Mom asked. She sat at one end of the table, and Murphy sat at the other. The window was between them on one side, and Mousetrap sat on the chair opposite the window.

“Good,” Murphy said. He plopped a pile of mashed potatoes next to his fish. “Real good.”

After he smoothed out a gully in the top of the potatoes and filled it with soft butter, he said, “I found a really cool green stone on the way home.”

Mom said, “Great,” and then she added, “I got a new job today.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Murphy didn't know much about the work Mom did. He knew Mom left early in the morning and arrived home in time to make supper. Except Saturday and Sunday. Those days they spent together. The other thing Murphy knew was Mom's job never paid quite enough money to buy everything they needed. Sometimes Mom couldn't afford to pay the phone bill if she talked too much long distance. Other times she didn't have enough money to buy milk for the whole week, and by Friday Murphy had to eat toast and jam instead of cereal for breakfast.

“I'll make a lot more money, and we'll get to move home.”

“That's good,” Murphy said. Mom would be happy if she had enough money to take him to a movie or out for lunch.

He pulled a strip of salmon off his plate, checked for bones and tossed it on the chair in front of Mousetrap. Mousetrap rubbed his pink nose into the fish and lapped it happily into his mouth.

“What do you mean, we'll get to move home?” Murphy asked.

“With Grandma.” Murphy could tell from the look on Mom's face that she was happy about moving and her new job. “We're going to move back to the reserve. To Grandma's place up island where I lived when I was a kid.”

Murphy remembered Grandma's house. He had visited in the summer. When he got there his cousins had chased him around the field and up the street until he ran into the house and hid in the bathroom. He ended up sitting next to Mom almost the whole day while she talked to Grandma, Auntie Jean and Uncle Charlie.

When Mom told him to go out and play with Albert and Danny, he said he wasn't feeling well. It was true. He wasn't feeling well, and the more he thought about playing with the boys, the worse he felt. They came in once or twice and said, “Come on, Murphy. We're gonna play soccer,” but he could tell from the sound of their voices that playing soccer with them wouldn't be safe.

Mom called Grandma's place the Indian reserve. Sometimes she called it the First Nation,
but she never called it home. Grandma's place wasn't home. Not for Murphy.

“This is our home,” Murphy said.

“But we'll get to live with my family,” Mom said. “You'll love it.”

“We're family,” Murphy said. “You, me and Mousetrap.”

Mom wasn't thinking the same way as Murphy, and he didn't like what she said.

“There'll be other boys around. You won't be so lonely, all on your own. And there'll be your aunties and uncles.”

“I'm not lonely,” Murphy said. “This is home. I have you and Mousetrap.”

Why did Mom have to talk about moving home? They had a perfectly good home.

He looked around the kitchen. His drawings and paintings covered one wall—some he had done as long ago as kindergarten. Fridge magnets held up photos of Mom and Mousetrap and Murphy and photos of the camping trip with Bernie and Chas, Mom's best friends. Murphy thought about when he helped Mom cut the curtain to fit the kitchen window, and how he had chosen the kitchen
wallpaper himself—colorful blue and green airplanes.

Grandma's place wasn't anything like the apartment. When Murphy traveled up the island to visit Grandma there were always a lot of people around the house. They might be his aunties and uncles, but he didn't know them.

Murphy only talked to Grandma on the phone once in a while. Whenever Murphy overheard phone conversations between Mom and her sisters, who lived on the reserve, Mom always said she liked being in the city and living in the apartment.

“You said you didn't want to live on the Indian reserve,” Murphy said. “You don't even talk to your family. Hardly ever.”

“I've been talking to Grandma a lot lately. She wants me to move home. And our First Nation offered me a good job,” Mom said.

Mousetrap had curled up in a ball on the chair and tucked his face under the tip of his tail. He was full of salmon and pleased as he could be.

“We'll have an apartment in Grandma's basement. Just for us. It's all ready.”

Murphy didn't know what the Indian reserve was except that's where Grandma lived. All the houses around Grandma's place belonged to his aunties and uncles, and Mom said all the kids were his cousins. There were no apartment buildings, gas stations, streetlights or sidewalks. There was no McDonalds. There wasn't even a school nearby. There were plenty of houses. Most of them looked old and were placed higgledypiggledy off to the side of the road, not lined up straight like they were in the city. There were fields and bushes and mountains that were far too high for Murphy to climb. And there was a long sandy beach with millions of brightly colored stones.

When Murphy thought about the stones he felt a little bit excited. There would be more than stones for his collection. Murphy remembered Mom telling him that if he turned the stones over he could find glass trade beads and arrowheads that his great-grandparents had used.

Everyone around Grandma's house was
First Nation. That was the part that worried Murphy. He didn't look anything like the people on the reserve. Mom said if someone looked closely they could tell Murphy was First Nation. At least half-First Nation. She said he looked like her. They had the same big round eyes and thick hair, except everything about Murphy was light, and everything about Mom was dark. Especially Murphy's skin. It was so white it burned beet-red in the summer if he wasn't careful. “Pale skin. That's another thing his dad left him,” Murphy had overheard Mom say to Chas.

Murphy put down his fork and squished his fists into his eyes. They felt hot and stingy like tears would burst out if he didn't stop them. Finally he looked up at Mom.

He rubbed the tickle out of his nose and asked, “What about Mousetrap?”

“He'll come with us,” Mom said. “Of course. We wouldn't leave him behind.” She reached over and stroked Mousetrap's head.

It wasn't the idea of leaving Mousetrap behind that worried Murphy; it was the memory of the cats he had seen around Grandma's place.
Cats on the reserve didn't look like Mousetrap. They weren't fat and fluffy like they slept on velvet pillows. They were lean, with hungry looks on their faces. They didn't seem like they were stuffed with salmon. There wasn't one pure white cat, not one with silky white hair and not a spot of another color on its body, not on the reserve.

“What if Mousetrap doesn't want to move?” Murphy asked.

Mom laughed.

It wasn't funny. Murphy knew that given the choice Mousetrap would stay right where they were. And Murphy agreed with his cat.

“Mousetrap will love it,” Mom said. “You wait, Murphy, both of you will love it.”

After supper, Murphy loaded the dishwasher and went into his bedroom. He gathered the piles of stones he had left by his computer and put them away neatly into the cardboard boxes he used to store his collection. He shut down his computer and climbed into bed. Mousetrap jumped up beside him. Murphy shut his eyes tight and listened for the low rumbling purr from deep in Mousetrap's belly.

3

“February first,” Mom said. “Only four weeks until we have to be out of this apartment.”

She dragged boxes home from the grocery store and piled them in each room. She pulled blankets, old clothes and books from shelves and closets and folded them neatly in the boxes. When a box was full, she taped it closed and wrote boldly with felt pen on the top: MURPHY'S CLOTHES or BOOKS or BLANKETS or SHOES.

The apartment didn't feel like home after Mom started packing. Mousetrap crept around the giant cardboard towers, and Murphy tried to ignore them. He didn't want to play hide-and-seek after school anymore, and Mom didn't
have time to play anything. One week before they had to leave the apartment, Bernie and Chas drove into the parking lot in a big green pickup truck.

Murphy stood at the door of the apartment with Mousetrap wrapped in his arms watching Mom and Bernie and Chas carry out box after box after box.

“We're just leaving the stuff we'll need in the next week,” Mom said.

They left the beds, the sofa and the kitchen table and chairs. The bathroom closet was empty except for the toothbrushes and a few containers of Mom's things. Two plates, two glasses and two bowls sat in the kitchen cabinet. The only thing left in Murphy's room was a laundry hamper next to his bed with a few pairs of socks, underwear, jeans and a couple of T-shirts. Even his dresser had been packed in the truck.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Chas said to Mom once the truck was loaded. Chas and Bernie lived in the apartment across the street from Mom and Murphy. They had been
Mom's best friends for as long as Murphy could remember.

Mom slumped forward. “It's kind of late to be asking that now, don't you think?” she said. Chas put her arms around Mom's shoulders.

“But we're going to miss you,” Chas said.

“I have to go,” Mom insisted. “Don't make me cry. It's an opportunity for me. I won't get a job offer like this again.”

“I know, I know,” Chas said.

“I have to, Chas,” Mom threw her arms around her friend.

“Quit it, you girls,” Bernie said. “We're only going up for the day. We'll be right back.”

Mom checked the boxes piled in the back of the truck, nodded and said, “We'll follow behind in my car and meet you there.”

“Come on, Murphy,” Mom said. “Time to go.”

Murphy's chin drooped. His hands gripped Mousetrap firmly.

“You better put Mousetrap back in the apartment,” Mom said. “He won't want to drive all that way.”

Murphy turned back to the empty apartment. “He doesn't want to stay home,” Murphy said. “How about if I stay home with him?”

“Grandma's expecting us,” Mom said. “She's cooking supper.”

Mousetrap curled his paws around Murphy's wrists. Murphy knew Mousetrap didn't want to ride all the way to Grandma's. It would take three hours to get there and three hours to get home. But Mousetrap wouldn't want to stay home either, not in an empty apartment, or a nearly empty apartment, all by himself.

“We'll be okay here,” Murphy said. “Bernie and Chas can eat Grandma's supper. And you.”

He dipped his nose into the soft belly of his cat. How would Mousetrap be sure they were coming back?

“Take him back inside, Murphy,” Mom said. “And hurry up. We have to go.”

Mom's words were sharp. She was tired. It wasn't a good time to argue with her.

“Then let's take him with us. He won't mind the drive.” Murphy knew his words weren't true. Mousetrap hated the car.

“You know he doesn't like being in the car,” Mom said. “Last time he threw up in the back seat.”

And it stank. After Mousetrap's last ride, the car had a sickly smell for months even though Mom had scrubbed and scrubbed.

Mom was right. Murphy couldn't stay home, and Mousetrap couldn't come. Murphy trudged back into the apartment. He entered his bedroom. The bed looked the same as ever. Mom hadn't pulled the sheets and blankets off yet. Murphy leaned forward to place Mousetrap on the bed, but the cat curled his paws around Murphy's arm.