Ms. K. herself opened the door. I just stood there. Seymour was right. What was I going to say?
“Hi!” I said.
“Hello, TJ. Hello, Seymour,” said Ms. K.
“Nice evening,” I said.
“It is,” said Ms. K.
“Might rain,” I said.
“It might,” said Ms. K.
“Might not,” I said.
“Then again it might not,” said Ms. K.
She wasn’t making it easy for me. I took a deep breath.
“I’ve come because I was hoping you could find Cleo for me,” I said. “She’s my Gran’s cat. She’s got green eyes and fluffy fur and she’s gray and white and salmon-colored and I thought maybe you’d know where she was or could figure it out. If you didn’t mind trying. Please.”
Ms. K. frowned.
“Why are you asking me, TJ?” she asked. “Are you knocking on everyone’s door?”
“No,” I said.
“Then why me?”
I could have said it was because I knew her. I could have said it was because Seymour told me to. I could have said it was because I’d gone totally insane. Instead I told her the truth. Well, not exactly. I told her as close to the truth as I dared admit. Even I know not to tell a teacher she’s a witch.
“Because you know things,” I said.
Ms. K. looked even more puzzled.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Things,” I said. “Like when Seymour and I haven’t practiced our recorders.”
Ms. K. smiled.
“You and Seymour always make faces at each other at the start of music class if you haven’t practiced,” she said.
“We do?” asked Seymour.
“And the way you knew about us wanting to bring the cats to class,” I said.
“I heard you talking about it all the way down the hall,” said Ms. K. “Seymour’s voice gets pretty loud when he’s excited.”
“It does?” asked Seymour.
“But what about when you wrote on my math homework about four feline friends?” I said.
“There were cat hairs all over the pages — long ones, short ones, black ones, white ones…” said Ms. K. “I figured about four cats for that many different types of hair.”
“Then…” I could feel my heart sinking down to my toes. Ms. K. had been my last hope. “Then you can’t tell me where Cleo is?”
“That’s the strange part of all this,” said Ms. K. “I can’t figure out how you thought to come here. Maybe you’re the one who knows things, TJ.”
Ms. K. opened the door. She led us through a hallway. There was a big cat sitting in the middle of her kitchen, a gray and black striped tabby with a wonderfully white chest.
“That’s not Cleo,” said Seymour. “Not by a long shot.”
“That’s Sid,” said Ms. K. “He belongs to me, and this morning he snuck out when I went for the paper. He knows he’s not supposed to. He wasn’t very sorry when he returned either. I believe he made a new acquaintance.”
She moved the kitchen curtain aside. We looked out. Sitting on the back fence, cleaning her soft calico coat and looking very pleased with herself, was the most beautiful cat in the world.
And that’s why, when Gran came back from Hawaii, all four of her cats were safely at home to greet her.
Kink. Max. Killer. And Cleo.
Chapter 15
Of course that isn’t the end of the story. I should have guessed what happened next, but I didn’t. I didn’t know then that stories about cats don’t ever end.
Life went back to normal for a while. Actually it was better than normal. Our hardware store now carries pet supplies. I am in charge of them. Fridays after school and Saturday afternoons I choose what to order, count what comes in and stock the shelves. Seymour helps out when he can. And the rest of the week, even though I miss Mom and Dad because they are at the store so much, at least I know they miss me too.
About two months later Gran invited Seymour and me to her house.
Max was there. He was sitting in a flowerpot.
Kink was there. He was playing with a dancing spot of sunlight on the wall.
Killer was there. She was watching us from beneath the heavy fronds of a fern.
Cleo was there. She was nestled in a beautiful basket with two new kittens.
“Kittens!” said Seymour. “Cleo’s got kittens!”
“When did it happen?” I asked.
“I read lots about kittens,” said Seymour. “Their eyes are open so they must be a week old at least.”
“Just a little more than a week,” said Gran. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away, but I wanted to give Cleo a chance to learn to be a good mother before she had visitors.”
“They’re so little!” I said.
They were two little fluff balls. One was striped black and gray with two white front mittens. The other was calico — not the muted colors of gray and salmon like Cleo, but bright orange, pure black and lots of white. Cleo looked very proud of them.
“That’s why she ran away!” I said.
“When a female cat wants to find a father for a batch of kittens, there isn’t much that can be done to stop her,” said Gran. She reached down to pat Cleo. “But these will be her only kittens. This time we really are going to visit the vet.”
“Good plan,” said Seymour. “In five years, two cats can turn into sixty-five thousand cats.”
“Sixty-five thousand. Are you sure, Seymour?” asked Gran.
“I didn’t check the math myself,” said Seymour, “but that’s what the books said.”
“My goodness,” said Gran.
Killer walked over and sat protectively by the kitten basket. Cleo began to lick the kittens.
“Speaking of big numbers,” said Gran. “Six cats are going to make quite a house-full around here. I was wondering, I was hoping, I wanted to ask…”
I looked at Gran. She didn’t usually beat around the bush.
“TJ, I know you didn’t really like cats when you agreed to cat-sit for me,” said Gran.
“You knew?” I asked. “You knew all along?”
“I knew,” said Gran. “But you always treat animals kindly, which is why I could ask you. And you had time to spend with them. That’s important. And I was wondering if somewhere along the line you might have, that is, maybe they kind of…”
Gran took a deep breath.
“TJ, would you be interested in cat-sitting these kittens when they get a little older — permanently?”
Cat-sit the kittens? Permanently! Even when they’re cats!
“I don’t know,” I said. “Mom and Dad…”
“I’ve talked to them,” said Gran. “They said they don’t dislike cats as much as they used to. They’ll let you have the kittens if that’s what you’d really like.”
Was that what I’d really like?
“You could call the striped one T-Rex,” said Seymour. “T-Rex with little white mittens.”
“And I could name this one…” I began. “I could name this one…”
It was crazy, but I didn’t feel I had a right to take them unless I could think of a name. It was a test. Seymour had already passed it. Even though he couldn’t have the cats at his house, he’d thought of a really neat name.
But I couldn’t think of one. My mind was blank. I had to think of something!
Suddenly I remembered the phone bill. It had arrived a few weeks ago and my mom had almost fainted.
“Alaska,” I said.
Even as I said it, the name seemed to fit. There was a lot of white on this littlest of kittens — I was pretty sure there was a lot of white snow in Alaska. And the name had an adventurous ring to it.
“I could name this one Alaska,” I said. “And I’d love to take them both.”
It’s hard to say no to the world’s greatest grandmother — but that’s not why I adopted the kittens.
I adopted T-Rex and Alaska be-cause maybe, just maybe,
I like cats after all.
The following books provided the facts for:
THE AMAZING CAT REPORT
by TJ and Seymour
(They received a mark of 10 out of 10 — the exact same mark as Amanda.)
Eric Allan and Lynda Bonning, Everycat, Allen & Unwin, Australia, 1985
Lynn Allison, How To Talk To Your Cat, Globe Communications, New York, 1993
Gladys Baker Bons, Album of Cats, Rand McNally, New York, 1971
Roger A. Caras, A Cat is Watching, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1989
Bruce Fogle, 101 Questions Your Cat Would Ask Its Vet, Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, 1993
Gail Gibbons, Cats, Holiday House, New York, 1996
Barbara Shook Hazen, The Dell Encyclopedia of Cats, Delacort Press, New York, 1974
Barbara Hehner, Let’s Find Out About Cats, Random House, Toronto, 1990
Michael Homan, Cats, Franklin Watts, London, 1976
Fernand Mery, The Life, History and Magic of The Cat, Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1968
Desmond Morris, Catlore, Jonathan Cape, London, 1987
Desmond Morris, Catwatching, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986
Alice Philomena Rutherford, The Reader’s Digest Illustrated Book of Cats, Reader’s Digest Association (Canada), Montreal, 1992
Millicent E. Selsam, How Kittens Grow, Four Winds Press, New York, 1973
David Taylor, The Ultimate Cat Book, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1989
Michael Wright and Sally Walters, The Book of The Cat, Pan Books, London, 1980
Hazel Hutchins is one of those rare writers whose stories breathe laughter and tears together. Her characters are real, their predicaments funny and tough. She is the author of many beloved books for children, including chapter books Within a Painted Past and The Three and Many Wishes of Jason Reid, and picture books One Dark Night and Tess. Hazel lives in Canmore, Alberta, with her husband and her cats.
More titles about TJ include:
TJ and the Haunted House
TJ and the Quiz Kids
TJ and the Rockets
TJ and the Sports Fanatic
For more titles in the Orca Young Readers series, please click here.
Tj and The Cats Page 5
