“Like, cigarettes? Yuck.”
“Does your mom bowl?” Bryony asks.
“Does she what?” I realize how dumb a question that must sound when Bryony points at the bowling alley we’re standing next to. “No.”
“Too bad,” Bryony says.
“How did you know it was me?” I ask.
“My dad didn’t know who you were,” Bryony says. “He figured it had to be the new girl.”
I walk back home, Bryony walking along with me, her little dog weaving back and forth as it sniffs trees, fallen leaves, a mystery stain, a crumpled Arby’s bag. I try to figure out how to shake Bryony off before we get there, but she’s got no agenda other than walking her dog, and my house is as good a destination as any.
“Oh, you’re really near Rachel,” she says as we get close. “That’s her house, there.” Rachel’s house is bright blue. Eccentric looking, for a house.
“Just so you know,” I say as we reach my house, “I climbed out the window when I left. I’m climbing back in when I get home, but I’m not breaking in.”
She gives me a sidelong look. “Okay,” she says. “See you tomorrow?”
“Probably,” I say, and I scramble back up. She’s still watching me from below as I climb in my window and rehook my screen. I shut the window, pull the shade, and flip on my bedroom light.
There is an animal on my bed.
This is so startling that I gasp. For a second, I’m convinced it’s one of the raccoons I was watching earlier, but then my brain sorts out that it’s a cat. It’s an orange cat with darker orange tabby striping on its face, so once I stop panicking, it is obviously not a raccoon. The cat is sprawled out in a C shape right next to my pillow and looking up at me like it thinks it lives here.
And then it meows at me, once. Kind of pathetically.
I sit down and pet it. Hesitantly, because when I was little I got yelled at a bunch of times for trying to pet strange animals. (Admittedly, pretty regularly I was trying to pet a squirrel or a chipmunk.) The cat rubs its head against my hand and purrs. When I stroke my hand down its back, I can feel its ribs through the fur. I don’t know how skinny cats are supposed to be, but this one feels really skinny, even though it looks pretty big.
I leave the cat shut in my room and go rummaging through the kitchen. We don’t have any cat food, but we do have some cans of tuna my mother bought for sandwiches. I open up a can and also fill a coffee mug of tap water in case the cat is thirsty, and I bring both back to my room.
The cat hops off my bed the second it smells the tuna and rubs itself against my legs, purring, as I close my door and put the food down.
I sit down on my bed, watching it eat. And I take some pictures, because although any sort of animal pictures are good on CatNet, cat pictures are definitely the best animal pictures. It’s kind of fun taking pictures of an animal that will hold still and even look at my camera occasionally. In good light, even.
My mother is going to kill me when she finds out about this.
7
Clowder
LittleBrownBat: So hey, I seem to have a cat.
{picture}
I mean, I don’t have a cat? But it seems to think it’s my cat.
Firestar: Yaaaaaaaaaay! Kitty!!!!
Hermione: Look at that fluffy orange fur. He is gorgeous!
LittleBrownBat: Okay, but my mom isn’t going to let me keep it.
Icosahedron: Just don’t tell her.
LittleBrownBat: You don’t think she’ll notice there’s a cat living in the house?
CheshireCat: Why won’t she let you have a cat? Does she have an allergy, or is it just that having a cat when you move would be too hard?
LittleBrownBat: It’s not an allergy. Maybe it’s the moving? I don’t know.
Firestar: Okay, so here’s what you do. Keep the cat and don’t tell her.
LittleBrownBat: She will notice sooner or later!
Firestar: She never comes into your room at night right? Is that still true?
LittleBrownBat: So far.
Firestar: So in the morning put the cat back outside. Let it in at night.
LittleBrownBat: Won’t it run away?
Firestar: You are FEEDING it. If you feed something IT WILL COME BACK.
Boom Storm: Confirmed.
Hermione: Can’t you just ask if you can keep the cat?
Firestar: omg Hermione let her keep her cat!
I am pro-cat!
Icosahedron: Yeah, don’t ask. If you ask, they can say no.
CheshireCat: I, too, am pro-cat. What’s the worst thing that can happen if you keep it?
LittleBrownBat: Mom finds out and makes me get rid of the cat.
CheshireCat: So whether you tell her or don’t tell her, the downside in the end is that you might have to get rid of the cat?
LittleBrownBat: I am definitely going to have to move sooner or later and probably she won’t let me bring the cat with me.
CheshireCat: If the cat is currently homeless, will he be worse off if he is homed for three months, then homeless again?
Hermione: I still don’t understand why asking to keep the cat is just out of the question?
LittleBrownBat: I think Mom might actually be more likely to let me keep it if I’ve been feeding it for months and it’s obviously
my
cat …
Firestar: Dooooooooooo itttttttttttt
Marvin: I’m with Firestar.
Icosahedron: Ditto. Obviously.
LittleBrownBat: She’s going to notice if I keep stealing tuna. I’m going to have to buy cat food and keep it hidden somewhere.
Icosahedron: Don’t hide your cat food under the bed. Sooner or later, parents always look under the bed.
Hermione: What were you hiding under your bed, Ico?
Icosahedron: A laptop. Actually, four laptops.
Marvin: And yet here you are on the internet.
Icosahedron: Well obviously they weren’t my ONLY laptops. They were laptops I was going to sell as secret backup laptops to
