The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook (9 page)

“On and on and on, hoarse and exhausted, until finally the Ghost Cat took pity on the mean egg man and gave him a hint.

“‘COME ON! THE MAGIC WORD YOUR PARENTS USED TO MAKE YOU SAY!'

“‘Thanks?' asked the mean egg man. ‘How dee do? Excuse me? Ma'am? Sir? You're welcome? Please pass the pickles? Please? Please! Oh,
that
magic word! OK, I wish you would please, please, please tell me how to make you go away!'

“And Dean the mean egg man's wish was granted. With a sharp claw, the Ghost Cat wrote the answer on a windowpane.”

“
The diamond from my
…” reads Fred. “
T.
RW pail.
Tail
.”

“Right. Being a Ghost Cat was no life at all, and the Ghost Cat couldn't continue on to her next life without that missing diamond. So the message on the windowpane said,
The diamond from my tail will end this tale
.

“‘Here!' shouted Dean the mean egg man, hurling the bracelet with its diamond out the door. ‘And I wish I never see you again! Please.'

“The frightened mean egg man (actually, no longer the egg man, since egg production was so small) sold his business and moved far away to live with his sister in Southern Rebusina. He tried to join a rock band. But hardly any rock band needed a tambourine player, which was the only instrument Mean Dean and his Tambourine knew how to play. He did get work every now and then, but mostly then.

“The Ghost Cat was no longer the Ghost Cat or Jewel, but—”

I paused.

“To be continued!” said Freddy.

“Right.”

father figure is someone who kindly fills in if your father is absent or deceased. For instance, my classmate Carlos has Michael, a Big Brother from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Michael takes him to basketball games. He picks up Carlos after school, and they often go pig out on humongous banana splits at Fentons Creamery. I guess Michael's more big brotherly than fatherly, now that I think of it.

My mother has chosen my teacher, Mr. Fry, as my father figure, although she doesn't call him that. She just said she thought it would be helpful for us to have some talks at recess every now and then. I know she wishes he'd tell me to stop wearing my dad's Raiders sweatshirt every day. But we never
talk about my sweatshirt. Mr. Fry usually lets me choose the topic.

“Well,” says Mr. Fry today.

There are quite a few long, pleasant silences during my talks with Mr. Fry. Mr. Fry is a shy man. (Name Theory: Fry RW
shy.
) Lately we've mostly been talking about cats.

“Zook's still at the vet, hooked up to fluids to flush out his toxins,” I say. “His kidneys aren't working well enough to do the job.”

Mr. Fry nods. “Well,” he says, getting his thoughts together. I study Mr. Fry's cowlick while I'm waiting. It sticks out over his right ear. I figure he tries hard to tame it because it usually looks damp.

“Well. Fluids will certainly help to flush out those toxins,” Mr. Fry says finally, nodding his head. “Don't you worry.”

I believe him because Mr. Fry himself has three cats.

“My own cat had kidney trouble last year. He was given fluids and he's fit as a fiddle now,” Mr. Fry says.

I'm not sure I understand what “fit as a fiddle” means, but I suppose it means that you can get a tune out of it, if it's a fiddle, and that you're back to normal, if you're a cat. Mr.
Fry knows all about tunes, because he plays the cello in the Sailors' Chamber Orchestra. He told us that fact on the first day of school, when he was introducing himself to us.

“I love sailing and movies and mystery novels, and have recently taken up tennis. And I'm allergic to pickles,” said Mr. Fry.

“Hoo-hoo, allergic to pickles!” a Rowdy called out from somewhere around Table 2. Our class is made up of Rowdies and Listeners. I'm in the latter group. Rowdies are a few sandwiches short of an all-day picnic, as my dad would have said.

My gramma works in a school office. She knows which teachers keep a lid on things and why. Mr. Fry doesn't know much about keeping lids on. That's why Room 7 keeps boiling over, in Gramma Dee's opinion.

“You don't begin the year trying to be pals with students. You start off firm, set some rules, and then loosen up a bit as the school year goes on,” Gramma Dee says.

The Rowdies always talk to one another while he's trying to teach. They throw pencils and rolled-up paper across the room. They mumble “Pass the pickles, please” under their breaths and laugh.

Mr. Fry keeps telling everybody to “keep it down to a dull roar.”

My gramma says there shouldn't be any roar at all, dull or any other kind.

“I think it's because Mr. Fry is a cat owner and not a dog owner,” I say to Riya and Kiran on the way to pick up Freddy at preschool. Today was a pretty noisy day in Room 7.

“What do you mean?” Riya asks.

Most people would understand exactly what I mean, but Riya doesn't know much about pets. Her parents won't allow them. You have to take off your shoes when you go into their house, and since dogs don't have any shoes to take off, just their big, dirty paws messing up the carpets, that's the end of that.

“Dog owners learn how to be the boss,” I explain. “You have to be the alpha with dogs. That means number one. A cat owner doesn't have to learn how to be the boss of its cat. Cats are their own bosses. You can't train a cat to listen to you.”

“Just like the kids in the class are the bosses of Mr. Fry,” says Kiran. Kiran, a year older than us, had Mr. Fry the year before.

“Right,” I say. Even Mr. Fry's cowlick is the boss over him.

Then Kiran says, “You know what? In my opinion, cats aren't as likable as dogs.”

What a thing to say, especially to someone whose beloved pet is in the hospital!

“That's not true!” I say, totally shocked. “Of course cats are just as likable as dogs.”

Kiran himself wishes his parents would allow them to have a dog. He's read many training books about them in preparation for the future pets he'll have when he's on his own. Every year he watches the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on TV. He can reel off the top four smartest breeds (border collie, poodle, German shepherd, and golden retriever) and even tell you what to feed a dog with diarrhea (rice and cottage cheese). He also knows the difference between a domestic and a Persian breed of cat, and a thing or two about scratching posts. But when a person has too much book knowledge and not enough actual experience, their theories can be off base. Way, way off base.

“Cats just don't seem to have that much love or allegiance to their owners,” Kiran says.

“Love or allegiance! They have loads of that!” I say. “Right this minute, this very minute, Zook is longing for our entire family.”

“Well, you said a cat doesn't obey its owners,” says Riya.

“You don't have to command a cat to love you!” I say hotly. “And Zook does love us!”

We have reached Freddy's school. Freddy's face is pressed against the front window, just like Zook's face always is, waiting for us after school. Freddy's school is called the Little Tots Playskool. That's the way they spell it. Playskool. It seems weird that an educational establishment would use the wrong spelling on purpose, but there you go.

We all go into the Playskool, and I put my initials on the sign-out sheet:
O.A.
I make the
A
have a fancy, mature, loopy cat tail, like this:

I am very proud to have the responsibility of signing Freddy out.

And then, walking home, I continue our discussion.

I tell Riya and Kiran how my mom and I smuggled Zook into the hospital to visit my father, the story that's been going around and around in my head these past few days.

“Zook was in a wicker basket covered with a green-and-white
cloth napkin with strawberries on it,” I say. “No animals were allowed into the hospital except special therapy dogs, and I don't think there was such a thing as a therapy cat at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center. I had my hand resting on top of the napkin to keep Zook calm so he wouldn't wriggle around. A nurse saw my mom and me and said, ‘That looks like a delicious picnic you've got there!' and I said, ‘Sure is.' Then we marched right in.”

“I thought you said no one saw you go in,” Kiran says.

I forgot I'd already told them the story. “Well, I left out that part last time,” I say.

I add more details to this story every time I tell it. Every single time I think about it, actually.

“So we went in, and my dad pulled off the napkin and laughed because he was expecting submarine sandwiches or tacos or something. He didn't have much appetite then, anyway. He lifted Zook out. That wasn't easy for my dad to do because he wasn't as strong as he used to be, and Zook is big. But it was worth it, because Zook licked his face all over. Believe me, there was lots of love and allegiance in that bed! He snuggled up next to my dad under his blankets. Zook was purring so loud, like a car motor, or like a refrigerator when you leave the door open, so loud that we had to turn up the
radio every time a nurse came into the room. He stayed with my dad for hours and hours.”

“Hours and hours and hours,” says Freddy, who wasn't even there, but had heard the story a couple of times.

Zook wasn't actually in that bed for hours and hours. Maybe just thirty minutes or so. But it seems like hours and hours every time I think about it. But sometimes it feels like it was just a few minutes. A person's memory is funny that way—ever notice?

“Well, maybe Zook is a special cat,” says Riya.

“He sure is,” I say.

We say good-bye at Telegraph and 49th, and I'm really not sure if we just had a discussion or some sort of argument. Riya and Kiran and I always have little arguments that blow over without even talking about them again. I guess that's what makes us such good friends.

Fred and I walk by Bank of the West and check it out. No problems there. We don't walk past the Villain's house, because I've seen much too much of him lately. There were two more just-going-out-for-coffees this week.