I marveled at each one and then set them carefully in the box just like I’d found them. I shut the lid and put the box back under the quilt. Surely no one would have left such treasures behind unless they had to. Not unless something sudden or terrible had happened.
I felt uneasy then. The light was fading fast outside, the sun going down. Once it got dark, I might not find my way back.
Before I left, I made sure everything was the way I’d found it. I knew I’d be back soon.
In years past, he’d sensed bad weather before it came: rain in the heft of the air, ice and snow in the steely grayness of the light. Not this time.
This year it snowed impossibly early, in flurries at first, then thickly in large, wet flakes. The wind cut easily through his coat and chilled his old bones. His head, his ears, his eyes, his whole aching body told him that winter had come, and that this winter might be his last.
He found his bowls full and waiting for him in the crate at the edge of the man’s front yard. He ate gratefully. The trucks were gone for now, the house dark and quiet. He curled up in the crawlspace, next to the furnace, to get some sleep.
In the morning, he stared out the crawlspace opening at the white world. A foot of snow had swept in as he slept, blanketed his bowls, buried his crate, drifted to cover the crawlspace opening except for a band of daylight at the top. So what? It was warm near the furnace. He had eaten the night before. Water was everywhere. So it was frozen. It would melt.
The snow surprised the girl, too. He heard her shriek overhead in wonder and race outside, heard the door slam behind her. She shouted in delight. No school! No school! Uncle Henry! Come see!
The cat left his place by the furnace, peered through a crack high in the foundation.
The man stormed sleepily after her. Put some clothes on! Shoes at least! For God’s sake, are you crazy?
Oh yes! Oh yes yes yes! she cried, throwing armfuls of powder in the air. What will the crazy girl do first? Throw snowballs? Kerpow!
Hey! the man shouted as one hit him. Hey now! But she didn’t stop, and they erupted into a squealing, shouting duet, a snowy commotion of man and girl.
The cat watched the girl go wild and hurl snowballs at the man, his arms crossed in front of his face. Zing! Splat! she taunted as snowballs flew and landed, sailed and missed.
The man rushed her then, lunged, caught her around the waist, scooped her up in his arms, and swept her onto the porch.
Put me down! she cried. No fair!
She kicked and screamed an empty kind of scream, like when the cat’s stomach was full and he toyed with his food. The girl could easily have kicked harder, bit or scratched the man if she wanted to, wriggled free, and the man held her loosely, his anger a sham. Both were red, wet, shivering, bickering without meaning it. The man whisked her inside because she let him, because she wanted him to.
What would that be like?
7
Snow! In October! The second I saw it I raced outside in my bathrobe, with killjoy Henry hard behind me, calling me crazy. I got even, though. I hurled snowballs at him till he wore snow from head to toe, before he finally bulled his way to me, picked me up, and hauled me back inside.
He brushed off his snow coat and frowned at me, shaking his head. “Hot shower, warm clothes,” he said, pointing up the stairs.
By the time I came back down, he’d made hot chocolate, lit a fire in the study fireplace, and moved two easy chairs in front of the hearth with the ottoman between them. He was settled in the far chair, sipping his cocoa. His face was still splotchy from the cold and he was rubbing his bare head, which he did absentmindedly when he was thinking. He crossed his long legs on the ottoman and wriggled his bare toes.
I sat in the other chair, cupped my hands around the steaming mug, and stretched out my own legs beside his. His feet were just like mine, only bigger, the toes long, the second toes longer than the others and rounded at the top. “We have the same feet,” I said, turning mine in the warmth. “Only mine are small.”
He nodded like he already knew. “One of many things we have in common.”
I looked at him. “Oh, yeah? What else?”
I waited while he considered. I was no end pleased I wouldn’t be sitting in school today with Hargrove Peters staring a hole in the back of my head. My mind wandered to the cabin in the woods, and I wished I could go see it in the snow. Then I heard a faint mew under the house. I closed my eyes to listen and heard it again. The cat was safe and close by and sleeping somewhere warm.
“We’re impulsive,” Henry said finally.
“What?” I snapped, my happy thoughts interrupted.
Henry turned back to the fire. “And short-tempered.”
“What are you talking about?” I said irritably.
“Nothing.”
“I just heard the cat,” I said in a nicer voice. “He’s under the house.”
He turned back to me. “I didn’t hear anything.”
You wouldn’t, I
