Wild Thing (7 page)

I visited with Wild Thing until the sun was fully up. She never came closer, but eventually felt at ease enough to graze. And when I left the pasture, she lifted her head and watched.

After mucking, I biked home. Catman and Dad were huddled around a silver funnel that had wires coming out of it. In cutoffs and a black shirt with a peace emblem on the front, Catman still looked like he’d stepped out of a hippie antiwar protest.

“Back bike’s back,” Catman announced.

“It is?” Dad glanced up, seeming to see the bike but not me.

“Me too,” I said, trying to act like not being noticed was funny.

“Hello, Winnie.” Dad gathered the funnel thing, a metal band, and a handful of screws.

When we lived on the ranch in Wyoming, Dad used to rush off to his office in Laramie before the school bus came. Sometimes when he got home, Lizzy and I had already gone to bed. Mom used to tell us that Dad peeked in on us. I believed her then. But I’m not sure he did. I’d have bet money he hadn’t peeked in on me since the accident. Who could blame him?

“Morning, Dad,” I said, staring at his work boots.

“Bring the bike over here, will you, Winnie?” Dad asked. “I’ve received three orders for bikes already! Friends of Catman’s.”

“That’s great, Dad.” I wheeled the bike over, not glancing up at Catman. “Where’s Lizzy?”

“Lizzy?” Dad repeated.

“My sister?”

He dropped a screw, picked it up. “Baby-sitting for the Barkers.”

Lizzy got the job three days after we’d moved in. That’s how great she is with people. From what I remembered, Lizzy watched a couple of the Barker kids while their mom or dad ran others to music lessons or something. I hadn’t met any of them yet.

I needed Lizzy to help me find a second job. She already knew every business in Ashland. “When will she be home?” I asked.

“Uh-oh.” Dad patted his pockets. “Pliers.” He trotted off toward the garage, then hollered back, “Thanks for your help, Catman!”

Catman narrowed his Siamese-cat eyes at me. “Lizzy said you need a job. You like any animals besides horses?”

“I love all animals!” I protested.

“Good. Come on.” He took off, hands behind his back as if handcuffed.

“Come? Where?” I asked, jogging to keep up.

Catman didn’t turn around. “I know the woman who runs the pet store.”

“Seriously?” A pet-store job would be perfect. Then I remembered who owned the pet store. “The Spidells won’t hire me. Summer and I don’t exactly get along.”

“Not Pet-Mart,” he said. “Pat’s Pets, over on Second.”

We cut through the pasture behind the house and across a field.

“Mind if I stop by my house?” Catman asked. “Need to pick up something.”

“Sure,” I said, hurrying to keep up with his long strides.

When we crossed a creek, I thought,
One day Wild Thing and I will splash across this creek.

If Lizzy had been in my place, she would already have given Catman our whole history. He probably would have opened up to her too. Most people do.

But Catman and I trekked on to the sounds of cracking twigs, cawing birds, and my footsteps.
He
was catlike quiet.

Two orange tabby cats pranced out of the bushes to greet Catman. They rubbed against his ankles and fell in with us.

“Hey, Wilhemina,” he cooed, scratching the fattest cat, fat enough to be having kittens.

“You named your cat Wilhemina?” I asked, grinning.

“Right-on,” he said, petting the larger, orange cat until she purred. “Charles Dickens—wrote
David Copperfield
and
Tale of Two Cities
—loved his cat. Called him William until the cat had kittens. Changed to Wilhemina.”

“How about that one?” I asked, pointing to the smaller, light orange cat purring at his ankles.

“Moggie,” he said. “That’s what the English call a nonpedigree cat. I rescued this one from a pond. Somebody tried to drown the whole litter.”

He started off again, the cats weaving between his sandals. Catman veered off the path to an overgrown lane lined with vine-twisted trees.

Another cat jumped from the bushes, scaring the breath out of me.

“Burg!” Catman called.

The longhaired, white cat crept to him, not rushing as the other cats had. Its eyes were ringed with black, like a mask.

“Burg?” I asked, trying to pet the cat. But he darted off.

“Cat Burglar,” he answered.

The lane ended in a patch of weeds. I looked up to see a run-down house on a hill, worthy of any ghost story I’d ever read. Gables poked out of a battered roof. Some of the windows had boards hammered over them.

“Wow!” I said, gawking at the monster mansion. “Spooky. Do kids come here on Halloween?”

I thought I saw Catman grin, but it vanished before I could be sure.
“I
do,” he said.

“How long has this place been deserted?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, but made his way through the tall grass up the hill.

The house had to be at least three stories tall, and the whole house needed a coat of paint bad. If I’d had the nerve, I would have asked him to skip
this
shortcut.

Instead of ducking around the house, Catman headed straight for the porch, all three cats at his heels.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

He climbed the porch steps.

“Catman! Don’t go in!”

He reached for the screen door and called back, “Coming?”

I didn’t want him to think I was a scared little kid, so I tiptoed up the stairs. They squeaked. I shivered.

Catman opened the door. The cats scurried in ahead of him.

“Now what are you going to do?” I asked, trying to keep the terror out of my voice—and failing. “Kitty? Kitty?” I whispered. “Catman, we can’t just leave them in there!”

I imagined vampire bats swooping down on the cats.

“It’s cool.” Catman slipped inside and held the door open, leaving me no choice.

It took a minute for my eyes to get used to the dark. When they did, I couldn’t believe how beautiful everything looked. The living room was the size of a gym, but velvet furniture and tapestry wall coverings made it feel homey. A huge couch and maybe a dozen chairs and lamps seemed new, but looked as if they’d been shipped from another century.

“Let’s go!” I whispered. “Somebody’s living here!”

Catman grinned. He leaned over and picked up a cat, a different cat—huge, with short gray hair and a funny face, flat as a silver dollar.

“How’s my Churchill?” Catman asked it.

Churchill?

“Calvin! There you are!” A woman waved down at us from the top of a spiral staircase.

Calvin?

Catman waved back. “Hey, Mom.”

I stared stupidly up the staircase at the chubby woman clomping down. Her deep yellow hair was wound around juice-can curlers. With each step, green slippers peeked out of her fuzzy, red bathrobe.

She rushed down to us. “How wonderful to meet a friend of Calvin’s!”

“Mom, this is Winnie,” he said softly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a sea of multicolored fur closing in on us. Cats crept from under footstools and on top of tables. Cats poured from secret rooms, hissing, competing for Catman’s attention.

Calvin’s mother gasped and fingered my hair. “Natural curl! Thick and shiny! There’s not a girl at my salon who wouldn’t
kill
for hair like this!”

I made a mental note never to go to her salon.

She whisked off her glasses as if she’d just realized she was wearing them. “I could fix those split ends, dear.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.
Could I be more embarrassed?

“Sa-a-ay,” bellowed a man wrestling with his Tweety Bird tie as he crossed the room. “Aren’t you the girl who pedals her bicycle backward?”

So, okay. I
could
get more embarrassed.

“Sa-a-ay, how do you do that? Why, if I sold cars that went backward, where would I be?” He shook my hand hard. “Bart Coolidge of Smart Bart’s Used Cars! You drive ’em, we sell ’em, you drive ’em again! Ever heard of me?”

I shook my head.

He looked disappointed.

Cats continued to close in—big, little, black, white, gray, orange, brown.

“Be right back,” Catman said, handing me a tiny black cat with one white paw. He leaped the banister and zoomed upstairs. Cats scampered after him.

I stroked the kitty’s head, wishing Catman would hurry back.

“That’s Nelson,” Mrs. Coolidge offered, “from Churchill and Wilhemina’s last litter.”

“The boy says Winston Churchill had a cat named Nelson,” Mr. Coolidge explained. “Helped the big man win the war.”

The kitten purred, a rattling hum, then sneezed.

Mr. Coolidge patted his hairpiece as if it were his pet cat. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” he asked me.

I laughed, even without the punch line. Something about Bart Coolidge grew on you. “I don’t know,” I answered.

“To get to Smart Bart’s Used Cars so he could drive for a change!” He laughed in windy huffs that sounded like neighs.

I laughed too.

Catman slid down the banister, a notebook between his teeth. “E-mails,” he said when he’d spit out the notebook.

As we left, Catman pointed at his herd of cats. “Stay.”

They mewed. They waved their tails and circled. But not one made a move to follow us until it was too late and we were on the other side of the closed door.

We left by another path. “Th-they’re nice,” I stammered, feeling guilty for thinking his house was haunted. “I wish we had a house that big.”

“Best pad we’ve had,” he said.

I followed Catman through an empty lot that ended at a brick building just off Main Street. I’d passed it before but thought it was a regular house. Now that I took a better look, I could see the faded white letters on the picture window: Pat’s Pets.

I pressed my nose to the glass and peered inside. Three puppies yapped and pounced the glass. A row of cages lined one wall. One corner had been turned into a dog pen. Another had a desk and computer. Pat’s Pets still looked more like a home than a pet store.

Maybe this would be the answer to my problem. If I could work here, I could earn the money for Wild Thing fast!

Catman walked on in.

I started to follow when I heard a yelp. I turned to see a puppy tied to the bushes—the same abused dog I’d almost run over. “What has your mean master done to you?” I asked, reaching to pet him.

He cringed.

Furious, I stormed into the pet store, ready to give that kid a piece of my mind.

“That’s Winnie,” Catman said. He was towering over a woman who looked as old as my dad and couldn’t have been much taller than me. Short brown curls bounced around her round face and big brown eyes, and her smile showed half her teeth. She wore a fringed, Western vest over a green-checkered shirt and blue jeans.

“Winnie!” she exclaimed, as if we were old friends who hadn’t seen each other for years. I knew right away she was like Lizzy—an instant friend to everyone she ran across.

“Winnie . . . what?” she asked.

“Winnie Willis,” I answered.

“No!” she said, as if I’d just revealed something huge. “You’re Lizzy’s sister!”

I nodded.

“I wondered when I’d get to meet you. Your dad is a genius. Already fixed two aquarium pumps I thought were dead in the water. Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle! No offense,” she said quickly, scanning the pet store. “Oops. Forgot. Gave that monkey to the Cleveland Zoo. So how’s the house working out?”

“Okay,” I said, confused.

“Pat owns your house and barn,” Catman explained.

“You’re Mrs. Haven?” I asked. I’d never met our landlady.

“Call me Pat!” she said. “I insist. Mrs. Haven was my mother-in-law! Lizzy said you were terrific with horses. My husband—God rest his soul—raised horses right in your backyard. Now, what can I do you for?”

Pat Haven talked almost as fast as Lizzy. I glanced at Catman, but he was leaving this to me. “Can I have a job?”

Great sales pitch, Winnie! Maybe Smart Bart’s will hire you to sell used cars.