School-Tripped

by Jennifer L. Holm

  I nodded. “And a name. Let’s call her Pizza Kitty!”

  “Agreed!” Penny said. “What should we do with her?”

  I cleared a space in my basket and made a soft bed out of a packet of tissues.

  “Perfect!” Penny said.

  “Purr-fect!” I corrected her.

  We put my basket on the ground and gently encouraged the kitten to go inside.

  She was shy at first, but once she felt how soft the tissue bed was, she snuggled right in.

  “Aw, good little Pizza Kitty,” Penny said. “Have you lost your mommy?”

  “Or your mittens?” I asked.

  Pizza Kitty just closed her eyes and began to fall asleep.

  I carefully picked up my basket, and Penny and I got to work searching for the kitten’s mother. We looked for a long time, but there were no other cats to be found.

  Finally, I saw something.

  “Check it out!” I called to Penny, pointing at a flyer taped on a pole of a street sign.

  “That looks just like Pizza Kitty!” I exclaimed.

  “It IS her,” Penny agreed. “We have to bring her back home!”

  I took the flyer off the pole and entered the address on my Whiz Bang™, but there was no 1026 Pea Street in the whole city.

  “How can that be?” Penny asked, puzzled.

  I looked more closely at the flyer. The writing was all running together, kind of like on my permission slip.

  “I think this is only part of the address,” I told Penny. “It looks like it got soaked in the rain.”

  Penny nodded.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” she said. “We’ll have to find her owner another way.”

  “I know!” I said. “We can look up street names that start with ‘Pea’ on my Whiz Bang™!”

  “Yes! Great idea!” Penny said.

  I felt a little guilty about bringing my phone, but at least now I was using it for a good cause. We were kitten rescuers!

  I started scrolling, but stopped when I heard Penny gasp.

  “Look! A mime!” she said. She pointed across the street to where a young man in black-and-white clothes was standing on the corner.

  “And he’s miming hailing a cab!” I said. “That’s pretty impressive.”

  A cab pulled over, and he got in.

  “Oh,” I said. “Guess he wasn’t miming after all.”

  Just then, loud music began blaring, and a crowd of twenty or so people ran past us, all doing a synchronized dance. A teenage girl bumped into me, and my Whiz Bang™ went flying. It hit the ground with a SMASH and got kicked to the curb by another dancer rushing past.

  Stunned, we watched the dance crew go by in a wave of motion and song. Finally, there was a crescendo of noise and a big finish. The music stopped, and everyone quickly dispersed. A minute later, it was as if nothing had ever happened at all.

  “What is going on?” I asked Penny.

  “It’s a flash mob,” Penny explained. “A group of dancers that does surprise performances. I’ve watched a bunch of videos online.”

  I walked over to the gutter, where my broken phone lay in a puddle of garbage and sewer water. The shattered screen blinked once, then turned off for good.

  “More like a SMASH mob,” I groaned. My parents would not be happy. I could already see a lot of chores in my future.

  Now we’re lost, with a lost kitten, and we don’t even have a cell phone!” Penny exclaimed.

  “What about your cell phone?” I asked.

  “Some of us actually follow the rules, Babymouse,” she said.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Penny looked across the street. “Hey, isn’t that a pay phone?”

  “Before there were cell phones,” Penny explained, “people had to use pay phones. There’s a slot where you put in coins. My grandma told me about them.”

  At the pay phone, we found a gross old phone book (another thing I’d never seen before) with an alphabetical list of the streets in the city. Penny tore out the page that started with “Pea.”

  We decided to head to Peach Street first. But we still didn’t have a phone or a map, so we had to flag down a passing cyclist for directions.

  “Excuse me,” I said politely. “Can you please point me in the direction of Peach Street?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “Make a left at the next street, then walk twenty blocks north. That will get you pretty close.”

  TWENTY blocks? My hopes sank. My feet were really starting to hurt. Talk about suffering for fashion.

  “Thanks,” I said, disheartened.

  “Anytime. Cute kitten, by the way!” With that, he rode off.

  * * *

  We followed the bike guy’s directions. But soon, my feet had gone from bad to worse. I suddenly wished I had worn my stinky old tennis shoes. My eyes started to tear up.

  “What’s wrong?” Penny asked.

  “My feet are KILLING me!” I replied, showing her the massive blisters on my poor ankles.

  “Ouch!” Penny said. “I think we need to take a detour to find you some new shoes. Let’s try that boutique down the block.”

  We walked (I hobbled) down to the boutique, which was worth it. Because the window was filled with all sorts of adorable shoes.

  “This place looks great!” I said.

  But the minute we stepped (hobbled) through the door, the saleslady shook her head.

  “Sorry, girls,” she said. “No pets allowed in the boutique!”

  “So unfair,” I told Penny as we walked out the door.

  “Seriously!” she agreed.

  The next place we tried was a party-supply store. I didn’t want to bother, but Penny insisted.

  “You never know when you might get lucky!” she said excitedly, trying on a sparkly tiara. Luck hadn’t been on my side, but what did I have to lose?

  “Excuse me, do you happen to sell shoes?” I asked the teenage employee.

  “Sure. Aisle ten,” he said, pointing to the back of the store.

  (Note to self: it’s never a good sign when an employee directs you to the back of the store.)

  When I got to aisle ten, I immediately regretted letting Penny talk me into trying this place.

  We headed out (without the shoes, thank you very much!) and walked until we got to a corner pharmacy.

  “I’m going to get some bandages to cover my blisters,” I told Penny.

  “Good call,” she said. “We can also pick up some water and kitten food.”

  Pizza Kitty meowed affectionately, almost as if she understood.

  On my way to the first-aid aisle, I passed a rack of cheap plastic flip-flops.

  “Bingo!” I yelled.

  Penny peeked her head around the corner. “What? You decided you want the clown shoes?”

  “No! I found flip-flops!”

  I found my size and tried them on. They were a bit flimsy and bright orange, but at this point, I couldn’t afford to be fashionable. I needed something comfortable, and these fit the bill!

  We headed to the registers in the front of the store.

  While Penny was paying, I noticed a disposable-camera display.

  “Hey! Maybe we should get a disposable camera,” I told her. “We can document little kitty in the big city!”

  “Great idea!” Penny said, giving me a thumbs-up.

  I added one to my shopping basket.

  “What a cute kitten!” the sales associate said as she rang up my things. “Okay, that will be $15.32.”

  “Wow!” I said. “That’s more than I expected.”

  “Do you want the adorable-pet discount?” she asked with a smile.

  “Is that a real thing?!” I asked.

  “No,” she replied. “I was just joking.”

  “Oh.”

  I forked over a twenty-dollar bill and
waited for my change. I would have to be really careful if I didn’t want to run out of cash.

  Within minutes, we were sitting on a bench outside the store with supplies in hand. I patched up my feet while Penny pried open a small can of cat food and poured a cup of water.

  “Thanks, I’m super thirsty!” I said, guzzling it down.

  “Babymouse! That’s for Pizza Kitty!” Penny laughed, filling another cup.

  We both laughed. It had been a long morning, and we hadn’t even hit the first address yet.

  I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven a.m.

  “We better hurry if we don’t want to get lost in the city forever!” I warned.

  “Hey, look!” Penny said. “There’s a subway entrance! We should be able to find a map of the city there.”

  “Good plan,” I agreed. “Let’s get a photo before we go.”

  I slipped the camera out of its packaging and snapped a quick picture of the three of us on the bench.

  Then we gathered our things and headed down into the subway.

  The search had begun!

  In the subway station, we found a map of the city, but unfortunately, it only listed the streets on the train routes. We couldn’t find Peach Street anywhere.

  I stared at the map until my eyes zoned out. The routes were outlined in different bright colors that zigzagged crazily across the city. Oddly enough, it reminded me of a modern painting of squiggly lines.

  “Have you ever taken the subway before?” Penny asked.

  I shook my head. “How hard can it be?”

  We bought subway cards and swiped them at the entryway. Then we went down a bunch of steps and onto a platform. There were train tracks on both sides.

  “Which way should we go?” Penny asked.

  I looked for a long time down the dark, empty tunnel. No clues there. Then I looked at the people waiting, to see which side looked more like cat people.

  “Let’s just get on whichever one comes first,” Penny suggested.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, sitting on a bench. I was tired from all the walking.

  Just then, a train came.

  “Let’s go, Babymouse,” she said.

  As I stood up, I felt something sticky. I looked at the bench.

  “Babymouse!” Penny shouted.

  I sprinted toward the train. (My soccer coach would have been proud.)

  “Stand clear of the closing doors, please,” a voice boomed over a loudspeaker.

  But before I was all the way in, the doors shut, catching the back of my shirt. This was worse than my stupid locker!

  Finally, I tugged my shirt and was free.

  Penny and I were able to find seats together near a window. I looked through the glass and saw something surprising—the mime we had seen earlier was on a train passing in the opposite direction!

  “Look,” Penny whispered, pointing.

  “The mime? I know! I saw him, too,” I replied. “He sure gets around!”

  Penny shook her head and pointed toward a sign on the wall.

  “Uh-oh.” I swallowed hard.

  Pizza Kitty, who had been pretty quiet all day, immediately began to purr. Typical.

  We stayed on the train for a long time.

  “When should we get off? Penny asked.

  Suddenly, the brakes lurched to a grinding halt.

  “Last stop on the train,” the loudspeaker bellowed. “Please exit the train car.”

  We got off the train and followed the dark platform to the exit. When we finally stepped outside, our eyes blinked in the bright sun. I couldn’t believe it! It looked like we were at the beach!

  “I don’t think we’re in the city anymore, Pizza Kitty,” I said slowly.

  Le lost sigh.

  * * *

  After asking about one hundred people—all of whom seemed to tell us to go in opposite directions—we finally made it to one of the streets on our list: Peacock Street.

  We arrived at a house that had “1026 Peacock” spray-painted on the garage. I shivered.

  Nothing about the place seemed welcoming, or peacock-like.

  “Are you sure we should be doing this?” Penny asked nervously.

  “Not really,” I answered honestly, “but we’ve come too far to turn back now.”

  Literally.

  We cautiously walked through a gate in a chain-link fence, then up to the front door. I knocked and stepped back. Nothing happened.

  There was a sign that read “Deliveries” next to a doorbell. I pressed the buzzer.

  Loud growling noises came from inside. Pizza Kitty yelped and hid as far down in my basket as she could go.

  That’s when we turned around and realized the growling noises weren’t coming from inside.

  They were coming from…OUTSIDE.

  The whole yard was full of big, scary guard dogs with sharp teeth.

  “I think we should go,” Penny whispered. “Don’t make any sudden movements.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  As if the sound was a starter pistol, the snarling dogs chased after us, barking and growling angrily. Penny, Pizza Kitty, and I lunged through the gate just in time, shutting it hard behind us.

  The dogs snapped at me as I quickly put the latch back.

  Penny and I nearly collapsed with relief. Pizza Kitty looked terrified.

  After a minute, we finally caught our breath, at which point I saw a huge sign on the gate.

  We crossed “Peacock Street” off our list.

  The only thing to do was reverse our steps and go back the way we came. We hopped on the subway and headed toward the city.

  After about thirty minutes of starting and stopping, my stomach was growling louder than the Peacock Street dogs.

  “Hungry?” Penny asked.

  “Really hungry,” I replied. “Let’s get off at the next stop to eat.”

  The next stop was Chinatown. We jumped off (avoiding the closing doors this time!) and exited the station.

  Penny and I plopped down onto a street curb. I reached into my bag and realized I had left my lunch on the bus!

  “I guess the bus is going to stink on the way home, too,” I said with a facepalm.

  As it turned out, Penny had planned on buying lunch from the food trucks, so she had extra money. We decided to pool our cash to see how much we had left. I emptied my pockets, and Penny did the same. It didn’t look very good.

  “What did we even BUY?” I asked.

  I totaled the leftover money.

  “Nine dollars and fourteen cents,” I announced.

  Right then, a teenage girl walked by and dropped a dollar into Pizza Kitty’s basket.

  “What a cute kitten!” she said.

  Penny and I looked at each other, surprised. Then she shrugged and announced, “Ten dollars and fourteen cents!”

  My mind immediately went to Felicia. She, Melinda, Belinda, and Berry were probably in the middle of a glamorous sushi lunch.

  Well, no matter. We would just have to find our own fabulous lunch.

  Penny had the same idea.

  A delicious smell wafted through the air.

  “Hey, do you smell that?” I asked.

  “Yum! I think it must be from that dumpling place,” she said, pointing.

  “Let’s check it out!” I said.

  The outside of the place looked plain, but the inside was absolutely magical! Near the counter were trays and trays of plump, juicy dumplings!

  “Excuse me, how many dumplings can we get for ten dollars and fourteen cents?” I asked the man behind the counter.

  Penny dumped all our money out.

  The man smiled and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He led us to a cozy table near the front window.

  Within minutes, he brought us a pot of tea and steaming baskets of hot golden
dumplings. Penny and I marveled at their perfect presentation—they looked almost too good to eat! (“Almost” being the key word—we were starving!)

  They were the most delicious dumplings I had ever tasted!

  “This guy is the Wizard of Dumplings!” I said.

  Penny nodded enthusiastically. Her mouth was too full to say anything.

  When the bill came at the end of the meal, it was exactly $10.14, including tax and tip. I couldn’t believe it, because we had had sooo much food. (I think he gave us a break just to be nice.)

  “What a cute kitten!” he said as we paid the bill. “Wait here a second.”

  In a moment, he returned with a takeout bag.

  “A doggy bag for your furry friend,” he said with a smile.

  “Thank you so much!” Penny and I said in unison.

  “Though maybe in this case, we should call it a kitty bag!” I added.

  We all laughed and waved good-bye.

  “I’m so stuffed!” I said, back on the street again.

  “Me too,” Penny replied. “Glad we’re going to do more walking!”

  We wandered through neighborhood after neighborhood. Soon, we stumbled upon a long line of people that stretched around multiple city blocks. There was no end in sight!

  “What do you think they’re waiting for?” Penny asked.

  “Only one way to find out!” I replied, walking over.

  The last person on line was a woman with a baby carriage.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “What are you all waiting for?”

  The woman smiled and showed me a picture on her phone of a funny-looking circular thing.