The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook (7 page)

I've taught Freddy to do all this, too.

“Hey, what's up with all the crazy blinking and whistling, you two?” my mother asks.

Gramma Dee pushes away an overhanging vine. “I hope it's not allergies. I told Soma she's getting carried away with this urban farmer business.”

“We were just playing a game,” I say, and my mother gives me her Look. It's interesting how a Look can say something without words. My mother's Look can mean many things, depending on the situation. This time it says,
Hmmm, should I worry or laugh? I am leaning toward laughter … Hmmm.

Soma's backyard isn't really a forest of magnificent old oaks, because there's only one magnificent oak, a very old one from way, way back when Oakland was a land of oaks.
Oak. Land. Get it? Kiran says it is the oldest oak tree in Oakland. Kiran is always quoting things he's read in books or heard from his parents.

At the other end of the yard, there's that camellia tree, the one shading our alley. Bushy green ferns and shiny leaves of wild ginger grow in the shade, along with a vine winding over the fence. Gramma Dee is right: Soma is an urban farmer. There are tomato plants and rows of lettuces and poles of beans and pepper plants. And there's also Soma's goat, Bleet, and chickens squawking and screeching in a coop, which wouldn't necessarily be found in a magical forest. But then again, as My Secret Love would say, why not?

I wish for a backyard like this someday with all my heart. I've never lived in a house with a backyard, only an apartment with a balcony that has a cactus plant, two chairs, and a barbecue grill on it. Before my dad died, our alley used to be a pretty nice place to call a backyard, until life got in the way. It's still an OK substitute. Still, I've been wishing for a real backyard lately, based on my Wishing Theory:

1. To make a proper wish, you need to designate a Wishing Object, which in my case is Zook's diamond on his old pendant stored in my underwear drawer. Almost anything
can become a Wishing Object if that object is important to you.

2. It is old-fashioned to believe that wishes should be kept secret. Sharing your wish with someone who totally wants the same thing doubles your power. It just makes sense, don't you think? I've shared my backyard wish with my mom, and she says that would be nice, but it's unlikely we'll ever afford one.

3. Impossible wishes do not come true, in my experience. Improbable wishes have a better chance, especially if the wisher has something to do with making them probable. But it's not impossible that our family will have a backyard one day. I'll even take it without a swimming pool.

Seated on blankets in the shade of the oak are zillions of friends and cousins. Some guests are wearing brightly colored Indian clothing, pants and long tunics called
salwar kameez
. Many of the women are wearing
saris
and flowing, beautiful scarves. They look like summer flowers themselves. There's a long, long table covered with bowls of food. And now Gramma Dee's taffy. And pizzas and zucchini from O'Leary's because Maria and Mario are there, too. A few
people shout “Go Raiders!” when I walk by and I give them a thumbs-up.

Riya is sitting with Kiran and some of her cousins.

“Hey, Cuzzes,” Riya calls to Freddy and me.

Riya calls me Cuz because she says it feels as if I'm her cousin. I like that because I don't have any real cousins. Riya predicts that we actually will be related one day, but she's not sure how. Riya can predict the future by reading the lines on a person's palm, and that's what she says she predicted when she read mine.

Kiran hands me a sheet of blue paper. I notice other guests are holding the same blue papers.

“An information sheet for your edification,” he says. “I'm sure you will find it helpful.”

On those sheets, Kiran has described the rice-feeding ceremony for those, like us, who have never been to an
annaprasan
before. I'm thinking that maybe we should have had a huge celebration for Freddy, too, the first time he tasted solid food. Maybe then he'd know what a big deal eating should be.

I feel very edified as I read Kiran's information sheet, even though he isn't the greatest speller.

The grandmother makes the infint a special conkoction called
payesh,
a mixture of rice, sugar, and water. Then a Seniur Male Member of the mother's family gives the baby his first taste of it.

Their chubby baby brother, Ravi, doesn't really look as if he's about to eat his first solid meal. He looks very cute in his
dhoti kurta (traditionul Indian garb
) and a fancy pointed hat with bangles and balls. He is sitting on his mom's lap beside his dad. They are also wearing beautiful Indian clothing.

Tom, Riya's dad, is of Swedish descent, not Indian descent like his wife, Gitanjali. Riya and Kiran call themselves and baby Ravi “multi-culties.”

“We are the hope of the world,” Kiran once told me.

That's when I developed my Hope-of-the-World Theory. One day in the distant future, the whole world will be intermarried. Human beings will be like one big happy family and peace will reign among the world's peoples, because everyone will get to understand everyone else's differences, living with them all day long. But then I began wondering how we'd decide which holidays and ceremonies to celebrate since there would be so much good stuff to choose from. We'd be going to parties all the time. Or people could end up fighting
about which celebrations to weed out, which would kind of spoil the peace, unless they set up some sort of holiday schedule and took turns. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how much fun it could be.

The Senior Male Member of the mother's family, Riya's uncle Arjun (the one who is in a rock band and plans to move to L.A. to become famous one day), feeds a spoonful of the sweet rice mixture to baby Ravi, who really loves it, opening his little mouth for more. Lots of guests and relatives go up to feed him the
payesh
, and let me tell you, that baby is very happy.

I realize again that I haven't thought about Zook for a while, but this time I don't feel guilty because it's such a beautiful day. All that food smells so yummy, everyone is happy, and the sun is warm on my back. Bleet the goat is nuzzling Freddy's chin and making him laugh.

“Thank you, Zook,” I say, because when I got that good idea about giving our job money to the cat rescue society, it was definitely a message from Zook to go out and enjoy the day. Which I am.

Then, just like that, I'M NOT.

Riya is leaping to her feet, running across the yard to
the gate as someone enters the yard from the street. “Uncle Dylan!” she yells.

And Uncle Arjun is at the gate, too, and other guests, laughing and slapping Uncle Dylan on the back, welcoming him back to Oakland after some sort of long trip he took. The sun is in my eyes when I look up, but it's him, all right, with his flashing white teeth and long braid, and a piratey silver earring in his ear. Probably thinks he's the handsomest person in the world.

Dylan.

RW VILLAIN.

Figures!

ook wasn't sending me a message to go to that party. If he was sending me any message at all, which I doubt, it was NOT to go to that party. And to make sure my mom stayed home, too.

Because that's where my mother met the Villain. That's where he kept staring at her and her orangey curly hair, like a big halo around her head. And that's where he smelled her Beau Soleil perfume. And that's where he sang ballads to her with Uncle Arjun's guitar when the sun went down romantically behind the big oak tree and candles were lit in Soma's beautiful garden.

“See? See?” said Riya, watching them. “I told you we
would be cousins. Your mother will become betrothed to Uncle Dylan. I can just tell. The palm never lies.”

First of all, Uncle Villain isn't Riya's real uncle, just a singer in her uncle Arjun's band at night. He's a nurse during the day.

Second of all, the whole band will be moving to L.A. soon to try to get famous, according to what Riya has always told me. I reminded her of that.

“Love will always find a way,” Riya said.

Baloney. No. Way. My mom and I and Freddy like it here in Oakland, not L.A.

Third of all, palm reading is an inexact science. That's what Gramma Dee says.

Fourth of all, my mother and Dylan are very different people. And I don't mean race or religion, because I happen to really believe in my Hope-of-the-World Theory about the future of the human race. It's just that my mother is a very nice person and Dylan abuses cats. There will be no betrothal between them.

And fifth of all … Well, I can't think of a fifth of all, but there must be hundreds of other reasons. My mother will find out herself pretty soon. Tonight, probably. They are out together, but it's not a date.

“We are just going out for coffee,” my mother told us. “Gramma Dee's coming over.”

“Well, that means you'll be back very early,” I said. “We don't need a babysitter.”

“Gramma Dee likes being here,” said my mother. “She gets lonely.”

So here we are, Freddy and I, trying to sleep. Mom's been out a long time. They must be drinking lots of coffee, which is surprising because my mother prefers tea.

This is Zook's third night at the vet. We sure do miss him terribly. I hear the TV in the living room, but Gramma Dee's snoring is the background music. Zook always likes her snoring. He sleeps on her chest when Gramma Dee babysits. But in the deep of night, he comes to sleep with us, starting off on Freddy's pillow, then climbing down to mine at dawn.

I hear Freddy tossing around, kicking off the blankets. I can guess what's coming.

“Oona, what happened next after Miraculo?” he asks. “Please tell me.”

K,” I say. “But it's a ghost tale. A scary one. You'd better come down to my bunk for company.” I myself hop out of bed to get a flashlight and my rebus-making stuff from the pocket of my shorts, which I'd flung on a chair. Fred is already in my bunk, all googly-eyed.