Catalyst Page 7

  Rising up, Pipsqueak peered out the window. Her tail swished back and forth. “Can we go to dog boy’s house?”

  Zoe didn’t think it was likely she could get a lion-size cat into Harrison’s house without Harrison’s family noticing. Or without giving his dog heart failure. “I don’t think we should leave my room.”

  “What if I keep growing and outgrow this room? Or the whole house?” Pipsqueak was trembling, which made her whiskers quiver and her fur vibrate. “I just found a home! I don’t want to lose it! I don’t want to lose you!”

  Climbing onto the bed with Pipsqueak, Zoe wrapped her arms around her neck. She wasn’t sure what to say—she couldn’t promise that the cat wouldn’t keep growing. Zoe looked out the window over Pipsqueak’s furry head. She saw their barbecue grill in the backyard, along with their swing set, unused for years, and the shed.

  The shed was tucked into the corner of the yard, and it went unused most of the time. Alex had nicknamed it the Shed of Possibilities. It was supposed to be Dad’s pottery shed, back when he toyed with taking up pottery. Then it was Mom’s fix-it shed when she was in her do-it-yourself stage. When Alex was learning how to play saxophone and sounded like a dying cow, it was a music shed. Then it was a gardening shed. And now it was a store-random-stuff shed. Maybe it can also be home to a giant cat, Zoe thought.

  “How would you feel about having your own room?” Zoe asked.

  She could set it up with a bucket of kibble, a bucket of water, and a lot of blankets for a bed. Whenever no one was watching, Pipsqueak could use the backyard as a litter box, and once the construction workers started coming, she could hide whenever they were here.

  “Outside? Away from you?” Pipsqueak asked.

  “Outside is where the birds are.” It was a brilliant idea. She’d be out of sight of Zoe’s family but still close by, and she’d have plenty of room to grow. The shed had a high ceiling and wide barn doors; Dad had wanted extra room for shelves he’d never filled.

  “Birds? Really? You are the best human ever. Let’s go.”

  Together, they went outside.

  While Pipsqueak sniffed at the grass, Zoe opened the shed doors. Dust billowed out. Coughing, she waved it away and poked her head in. Sunlight streamed through the high window, causing the bits of dust in the air to sparkle. The shed was stuffed with old lawn equipment, a broken potter’s wheel, and a lot of boxes—some full and many others empty.

  Perfect, she thought.

  Zoe set to work. She shoved an old lawn mower into one corner of the shed and the broken potter’s wheel into another, then hauled all the empty boxes out onto the lawn to be added to the recycling later. She also discovered three full boxes of books—her parents’ old textbooks and lots of paperbacks—which she put back in the shed but in a neater pile, up on a shelf.

  Once she got the shed cleared out enough, she raided the laundry room in the basement for old sheets and towels. Dragging them outside, she set them up as a soft nest within the shed. “Pipsqueak?” she called.

  Instead of the cat, Harrison stuck his head into the shed. “Hi. I came to warn you that we have to keep Pipsqueak hidden, but I see you’re already working on a hiding place.”

  “She stole the bed last night. So I’m making her a new bed.” She added another sheet to the stack. Looks comfy to me, she thought. Pipsqueak’s going to love it. “Wait, what do you mean you came to warn me? We already agreed to keep her secret.”

  “Yeah, that was before there were more flying poodle sightings. They’re calling it a UFP, for Unidentified Flying Poodle.” He showed her his phone, scrolling through photo after photo of downtown Eastbury, swamped with tourists and their cell phones.

  “You think there’s really a flying dog?” A week earlier Zoe would never have believed it, but Pipsqueak was proof that impossible creatures were possible.

  “It doesn’t matter whether I do or not,” Harrison said. “All these people believe it. But they’d be just as happy to take a selfie with a giant talking cat and then post it online for everyone to see.”

  That wasn’t so bad. “A photo isn’t terrible.”

  “Yeah, until it brings the scientists and the military and everyone else that Surita said we need to watch out for. It would be an Internet circus. Not to mention all the reporters and animal control people and just plain curious people who’d start pounding on your door.”

  Mom would hate an Internet circus. She wanted all attention on her new environmental policy, not on their family. If having a weird sister was a problem, it would be a thousand times worse having a daughter with an overlarge talking cat. “We need to stay out of sight of the tourists,” Zoe said.

  “Well, the shed is a brilliant idea.”

  Zoe grinned, pleased. She’d thought so too. “Pipsqueak, want to try it out?”

  Pipsqueak didn’t answer.

  “I think she likes the boxes better,” Harrison said.

  Zoe peeked out of the shed, and sure enough, Pipsqueak had squirmed into the mountain of empty boxes and was napping. Zoe laughed. She thought of the thousands of online photos of cats in boxes. “Okay then. Redesign!”

  Evicting Pipsqueak from the boxes, Zoe tossed a box to Harrison, who caught it and tossed it into the shed. She threw the next box. And the next.

  “Faster!” Harrison called.

  She tossed box after box until he was buried in cardboard and both of them were laughing. Together they created a box fort, piling the boxes high inside the shed in the shape of an igloo, large enough for a lion-size cat. They spread the old towels and sheets inside, making a comfy bed.

  Finishing, Zoe called to Pipsqueak, “Come try it out!”

  Pipsqueak trotted in, sniffed the boxes, and then crawled inside the box igloo.

  “What if she doesn’t like it?” Zoe whispered to Harrison, suddenly anxious again. She didn’t have a backup plan for where Pipsqueak could live. If the shed didn’t work . . .

  The cat stuck her nose out. “It’s perfect!” she declared, purring loudly.

  See, I can handle this! Zoe thought. Tourists or no tourists, I can take care of her and keep her safe and happy. She’d never felt so proud of herself. It was a really nice feeling. I did this.

  From the house, Zoe heard her mother call, “Zoe!”

  “Uh-oh. Stay here,” Zoe told Pipsqueak. She had hoped Mom would be stuck at the mayor’s office a bit longer. Surita was a wonderfully inattentive babysitter.

  Zoe scurried out of the shed with Harrison.

  Hands on her hips, Mom stood in the kitchen doorway surveying the mess of gardening and pottery supplies Zoe had pulled out of the shed and strewn across the yard. “What are you doing?”

  In her best perky voice Zoe said, “Harrison and I are building a box fort! That’s okay, Mom, isn’t it?”

  Mom sighed again. “Your father and I should have insisted on camp—we shouldn’t have given you veto power on that. But we thought with Alex going away, one laidback summer with just family and friends was a good idea.”

  “It’s still a good idea,” Zoe insisted. She couldn’t go to camp and leave Pipsqueak, not with people on the lookout for weird animals. “You said I could spend the summer at home as long as I didn’t spend all my time moping or letting my brain rot. And I’m not! Box fort!”

  Rattle, clank— from the shed.

  “Wind,” Harrison said quickly, at the same time as Zoe said “Squirrels.”

  “I promise I’ll clean everything up,” Zoe said. “You don’t need to worry about a thing.” Stay inside, Pipsqueak! Smiling as innocently as she could, she leaned against the shed door.

  Mom studied them both for a moment, clearly suspicious but just as clearly not sure what she was suspicious about, and then her phone beeped. Another sigh. “First you wanted a kitten, and now you’re redecorating the backyard. You know, I pictured a much calmer summer.”

  So did I, Zoe thought.

  “Speaking of your new kitten, where is Pipsqueak? You haven’t le
ft her unsupervised where she could get into trouble, have you? She’s your responsibility.”

  Zoe and Harrison looked at each other. “She’s at Harrison’s house,” Zoe said.

  “Yeah, with my cousin.”

  “Surita loves kittens,” Zoe said, hoping her mom never talked to Surita about her views on kittens, puppies, and rainbows. “She’s happy to watch her. And us. She’s been keeping a close eye on us. So none of us get into trouble.”

  “Fine,” Mom said. “I don’t want to find a single gardening shear on the lawn.” Mom wagged her finger. “And don’t injure yourself on any trowels or rakes or anything. And don’t touch any poison ivy. Or play in traffic. Or with matches. Or juggle knives.”

  Answering her phone, Mom hurried back inside. As the kitchen door swung shut, the shed shook again. Crash, rattle, squeak. And then a muffled “Oops!”

  Zoe and Harrison opened the shed door to see Pipsqueak standing king-of-the-mountain style on top of all the boxes, several of which were crushed beneath her. Tools had fallen off the shed walls, and the pottery wheel had tipped on its side. One box of books had spilled off the shelf.

  Pipsqueak stared at them guiltily, and they stared back. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Zoe said.

  “Can I read one of these books?” Pipsqueak asked.

  “Sure,” Zoe said automatically, then: “Do you know how to read?”

  Picking up a book between her paws, Pipsqueak opened it and used a claw to turn a page. “Yes, I do!” She sounded delighted.

  Zoe tried to decide what was more amazing: that her cat had grown, that she could talk, or that she could read without a single lesson. She watched Pipsqueak study the words, carefully turning pages with one extended claw. “You read,” she said, “and we’ll clean up.”

  As Pipsqueak turned the pages, Zoe began cleaning up the gardening supplies and the rest of the mess, finding new homes for things in the garage or behind the shed, and straightening the boxes.

  Harrison half helped while staring at his phone. “So she can talk and read . . . That’s new data! It should help us figure out why . . . Hey, look, there’s been another sighting of the UFP. This one is behind the elementary school.”

  Their old elementary school wasn’t far away. Zoe hoped the poodle went in some other direction soon. The last thing she needed was for some weird dog to accidentally lead people closer to Pipsqueak.

  The more she thought about it, the more it seemed a huge coincidence that there could be two supernatural creatures in their little town at the same time. Could there really be some connection?

  “Maybe the Unidentified Flying Poodle and Pipsqueak both escaped from a lab,” Harrison said, apparently thinking the same thing Zoe was. “Pipsqueak could be a science experiment.”

  “Or she could be the pet of a giant cat lady,” Zoe suggested, “and her owner is going to climb down the beanstalk to search for her.”

  “Or a superhero’s sidekick.”

  Looking up from her book, Pipsqueak said, “I’m no one’s sidekick. And I do not belong to a giant cat lady. I belong to you, Zoe. And you belong to me. You said so. You’re mine, and I’m yours. And I will take care of you forever and ever.”

  “I will,” Zoe promised. “But until we know how to help you, you have to stay hidden. Can you do that? If you’re seen, you could be taken away. At best, we’ll have tourists camped out on our front lawn day and night. At worst, we’ll have SWAT teams and military and—”

  “Zoe, you’re scaring her,” Harrison said. “And me. This is why she’s in the shed. It was a good idea! She’ll be safe here.”

  What if it’s not enough? Zoe thought. Then what will we do?

  “I’ll stay in the shed,” Pipsqueak vowed. “No one will know I’m—”

  All of them jumped as Zoe’s mom’s voice rang out again, “Zoe, time to come inside. Harrison, you should head home too.”

  Quickly Zoe said to Pipsqueak, “Stay hidden. And don’t worry. You’ll be fine here.”

  Retreating into her box fort, Pipsqueak stuck her head deep into one of the larger boxes. If you peeked inside the fort, the rest of her body, from the neck down, was still visible, but her face was in the box.

  With one last smile at Pipsqueak, Zoe hurried out of the shed, and Harrison shut the door behind them. “Kind of would love to see the look on your mom’s face if we told her we had a giant talking cat in the shed.”

  “But we’re not going to do that, right?” Zoe said.

  “Right.”

  “No more dithering, you two!” Mom called. “The news is reporting more sightings of that flying dog, one of them just half a mile from here. They’re recommending keeping all children and pets inside until the menace—flying or not—is caught.”

  “Definitely no telling anyone,” Zoe whispered to Harrison.

  * * *

  That evening, after saying good night to Mom, Dad, and Alex, Zoe waited until she heard the TV in the living room switch on, and then she climbed out of her bedroom window. She wasn’t as short and scrawny as Harrison, and it took her longer to maneuver, but she made it. By the light of the kitchen, she crept across the yard to the shed.

  Zoe knocked, then opened the shed door. “It’s me.”

  Pipsqueak padded outside. “Finally. I was lonely waiting for you.” She flopped on the grass, and Zoe sat next to her, close enough to plunge her arms into the cat’s fur and pet her neck and cheek. It felt like hugging a very fluffy lion.

  “How did you know I’d come?” Zoe wondered if she’d become telepathic.

  “I didn’t. But I hoped you would.”

  “I always will,” Zoe said firmly. “Just like you said: you’re my cat, and I’m your person. You can count on that.”

  It was a clear summer night, stars visible to the haze of the horizon, fireflies flickering around the yard, and crickets chirping. An enormous cat was purring. You know, a typical summer night.

  A perfect summer night, Zoe corrected herself.

  “It’s nice out.” She thought of the flying poodle and wondered where it was, what it was, and if it was still half a mile away, looking up at the stars too.

  “Mmm. I’m still growing.” Rolling onto her back, Pipsqueak kicked one paw skyward, as if playing with an invisible ball of yarn. “What if I don’t ever stop?”

  “You’ll stop.”

  “You’re worried I won’t,” Pipsqueak said. “I can tell.”

  There wasn’t much Zoe could say to that. It was true. The shed would work only so long as Pipsqueak fit into it. If she grew to, say, larger than an elephant, they could have a problem. Zoe hoped Aunt Alecia would know what to do. “We’ll find a way to stop whatever’s happening to you.”

  They lay side by side, not touching, looking up at the stars. Zoe wondered what Pipsqueak was thinking about. Did she have any idea where she came from? Did she wonder if there were others like her?

  “Do you think fireflies are tasty?” Pipsqueak asked.

  Okay, so she’s not worrying that much. “Yuck. No. They’re bugs.”

  “Crickets are tasty.”

  “Why are you eating bugs? I feed you kibble.”

  “For the record, I know you’re feeding me Harrison’s dog food,” Pipsqueak said. “I can read the label. I may go on a hunger strike in protest.” She thought about it for a moment. “After breakfast tomorrow.”

  “You ate all the cat food from the vet, and Harrison’s parents buy economy-size dog food,” Zoe said. “But I’ll find a way to get more cat food. How do you even know what a hunger strike is?”

  “World History: From Pyramids to Pyramid Schemes,” the cat said. “Eleventh edition. It was on the shelf in the shed. I read it while you were inside with your family. I thought it would have a lot more cats in it. There was a cat on the cover.”

  “Oh.” Zoe had no idea what to say to that. “Pipsqueak . . . We should start thinking about what we’ll do if I can’t keep you safe here.” She hated to say it, but
all it would take would be for Pipsqueak to step out of her shed to relieve herself or chase a butterfly at the same time as one of the construction workers glanced into the backyard. Or for Mom or Dad to decide they needed something from the shed. Or for Alex to insist on seeing her new tiny kitten. As much as she tried to convince herself that everything was fine, it could dip into VERY NOT FINE very quickly. “I’ve sent that letter to my aunt, but it will still be a few days until I hear back, and even then, she might not know what—”

  “I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Pipsqueak announced. “Stop talking.” She placed her paw on Zoe’s face. Her claws weren’t out, and the pads of her paws were as soft as pillows. It tickled a little. “Everything’s fine at this moment in time, and that’s enough.”

  Zoe laughed in spite of herself. “All right. What do you want to talk about?”

  “Fireflies,” Pipsqueak said. “I’m going to eat one.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Stretching her back, Pipsqueak stood. She sniffed the air. She held herself still, and when a firefly blinked, she bounded over, snapping at it. Lying on the ground, Zoe watched her—the giant cat bouncing all around her. The cat’s jaws closed over a patch of air where there was a firefly.

  Its light winked out.

  Then Pipsqueak spat. “Yuck.”

  “Told you so,” Zoe said.

  “Humph.” Pipsqueak plopped back down on the grass. They resumed looking at the stars, and Zoe tried to identify the North Star. It was up from the Big Dipper. Squinting, she traced a line with her finger.

  Maybe this couldn’t last. Maybe Pipsqueak would grow too big for the shed. Maybe she’d be spotted. But none of that had happened yet. And there was the chance it wouldn’t. And like Pipsqueak said, that’s enough, Zoe thought. She’s happy.

  And so am I.

  She had to stop worrying so much.

  This is going to work.

   Chapter 7

  THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK, Zoe thought five days later.

  She’d squirreled herself away in her room to read through Aunt Alecia’s letter, which had finally arrived. So far, she’d read it twice. While her family watched TV in the living room after dinner, she read through it a third time: