No Time for Hallie

by Catherine Hapka

  When Adam knocked on the door, a young woman with lots of dark curls and big brown eyes answered. Behind her, Zach could see a spacious living room. Two babies were playing with blocks on the rug. A large, fluffy collie was lying there watching them, but he jumped up and barked happily when he spotted Adam.

  “Hi there, Brody.” Adam rubbed the dog’s ears as it rushed over to greet him. “Mrs. Cooper, this is my friend Zach Goldman. He’s helping me today.”

  “Hi, Zach.” Mrs. Cooper smiled as she handed Adam a leash. “Goldman—are you related to Brody’s vet, Dr. Goldman?”

  “Yeah, that’s my mom,” Zach said. He was used to having people ask about his mother. Almost all the pets in town went to her veterinary practice.

  But he wasn’t really thinking about his mom. He was still thinking about Hall Cat. He stared at Brody as Adam clipped the leash onto the dog’s collar.

  “Hey, Mrs. Cooper,” Zach blurted out. “Did you think about making Brody live outside when you had your babies?”

  Mrs. Cooper looked startled. Then she smiled and shook her head.

  “No, not even for a second,” she said, bending over to rub her dog’s head. “Brody is part of the family. And in this family, that means living inside!”

  “But isn’t it a lot of work having a dog and twins?” Zach asked. “What if you trip over Brody or something?”

  “I suppose it’s a little extra work,” Mrs. Cooper said, glancing over at the twins. “We had to make sure to introduce Brody to the babies slowly, and we always watch carefully when he’s with them.” She shrugged. “Any extra work is worth it, though.”

  “Come on, Zach,” Adam said. “Brody is ready for his walk.”

  Zach kept thinking about what Mrs. Cooper had said as he wandered along after Adam and Brody. He was glad that Brody had such nice owners. But he was more worried than ever about Hall Cat. What could he and the rest of the Pet Rescue Club do to convince her owners to change their minds about keeping her outside?

  “Do you think Sunny joined a flock of wild birds or something?” Janey asked, peering at a bird perched on a branch overhead.

  She was in Leah’s backyard. The two of them had been searching for Sunny all afternoon. First they’d looked in the backyard. Then they’d checked the front yard, and then the empty lot across the street. Finally, they’d returned to the backyard, since that was the closest to Leah’s bedroom window.

  “I doubt it,” Leah said. “Male canaries are solitary. They like to have their own space.”

  “Really?” Janey pursed her lips. “Wait. Then why are you so sure he flew out the window?”

  Leah shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I haven’t heard him in the house since he disappeared. Or heard him singing, either.”

  “Okay,” Janey said. “But if you were a tiny bird, and you were loose in a house with a couple of cats and a loud little kid, wouldn’t you keep quiet?”

  Leah’s eyes widened. “You’re right! I barely searched inside at all. I was so sure he flew out the window, I didn’t even think about him being in the house.”

  Janey had been feeling discouraged. But now she was excited again. She might have just cracked the case of the missing canary!

  “Come on, Leah.” She headed for the back door. “Let’s go search inside now!”

  The Search Is On

  Soon Janey and Leah were searching inside Leah’s house. Leah’s little brother was taking a nap, and her mother was busy on the computer in the den, so the house was quiet. After a while, the gray tabby cat noticed what the two girls were doing and started following them.

  “Scat, Buddy,” Leah told the cat. “Trust me, Sunny doesn’t want to see you right now.”

  The cat ignored her, rubbing against Janey’s legs. Normally Janey loved cats just as much as she loved all animals. But right now seeing one of Leah’s cats made her feel uneasy. Cats liked to hunt smaller animals—including birds. What if Leah’s cats decided to hunt Sunny?

  “We need to find Sunny fast,” she said.

  Leah glanced at the cat. “I know. But how? If he’s scared and hiding, we might never find him!”

  Janey thought for a second. “I’ve got it,” she said. “You told us that Sunny likes it when you whistle to him, right?”

  “Right,” Leah replied. “It makes him happy, and he usually starts singing.” She gasped. “Janey, you’re a genius! Maybe if I whistle, Sunny will answer!”

  “What are you waiting for?” Janey smiled. She liked being called a genius! “Start whistling!”

  They walked around the house slowly, with Leah whistling a merry tune the whole way. Janey listened as hard as she could. Would Sunny answer?

  “There!” she cried as they passed an open doorway leading into a bedroom. “I heard something—a whistle!”

  “It’s Sunny!” Leah exclaimed. She stepped into the room and whistled. Once again, there was a whistle in return!

  Janey looked down at Buddy. The cat was still following the girls. He’d stopped and sat down in the bedroom doorway. But he pricked up his ears toward the room and twitched his tail.

  Leah stepped into the room and looked around. “I don’t see him,” she said. “He must be hiding.”

  There were lots of places to hide in the room. It seemed to be the place where Leah’s family put everything that didn’t have another place to go. There were a couple of bookshelves packed full of books and other stuff, a bed with tons of pillows, and lots of other odds and ends of furniture. Several cardboard boxes were stacked in one corner, and the half-open closet door barely contained all the clothes and other things inside. How were they ever going to find a tiny bird in there?

  Once again, Janey started thinking hard. She looked around the room and spotted another door.

  “Does that door open into your bedroom?” she asked Leah.

  “Actually, it opens into the bathroom,” Leah said. “I share it with this room—this is just a guest room, so the bathroom is mostly mine.”

  Janey nodded. Then she bent down and gently shoved Buddy into the hall. “Sorry, Buddy,” she said as she shut the door in the cat’s face. “But we don’t need your help with this.”

  “What are you doing?” Leah asked. “Do you have an idea for how to get Sunny to come out? I’m still not sure he’ll let me catch him, though.” She looked worried. “He must be awfully scared if this is the first time he’s sung in two days!”

  “Don’t worry, I have a plan.” Janey hurried over and opened the door into the bathroom. She continued through the small room into Leah’s bedroom. When she entered, Buddy was just strolling in from the hall. “Eh, eh, eh!” Janey scolded the cat gently. She scooped him up and deposited him back in the hallway. “Like I just told you, we don’t need your help right now.”

  She closed the bedroom door, shutting the cat out. But she left the doors between the bathroom and the two bedrooms wide open.

  “Okay,” she said to Leah, who had followed her into her bedroom. “Now we need to put all of Sunny’s favorite foods in his cage, and leave the door open. We’ll sit very still, and you’ll whistle to try to call him in.”

  Leah nodded. “I get it! We can lure him into his cage. It could work!”

  They set Janey’s plan into motion right away. Leah filled Sunny’s food dishes with lots of tasty treats. Then she and Janey crouched down near the cage.

  “Okay,” Janey said. “Now, whistle!”

  Leah took a deep breath and whistled her song. At first nothing happened. Janey started to feel worried. What if Sunny couldn’t hear them from the other room?

  She shifted her weight. Sitting still and being quiet weren’t Janey’s favorite things. But she knew that if she moved at the wrong time, she might scare Sunny. So she did her best to act like a statue.

  “I don’t know if this is going to work,” Leah whispered. “I don’t hear any—wait! There he is!”

  Janey heard it, too. Sunny was singing again! And he sounded closer!

  “
Keep whistling,” she whispered. “I think he’s in the bathroom now!”

  Leah nodded and whistled her song again. Sunny didn’t answer this time. But a moment later Janey saw a flash of bright yellow zip in through the bathroom door. It was Sunny! The little canary flew over and perched on top of his cage.

  Janey held her breath. Beside her, Leah stopped whistling. Janey could see that the other girl’s fingers were crossed, and she guessed that they were both thinking the same thing. Would Sunny go back into his cage?

  The next few minutes seemed to last about forty-two days, at least to Janey. But finally, Sunny hopped down onto the top of his cage door. He perched there for another few seconds, then flew right into the cage!

  “Oh, Sunny!” Leah cried as she leaped up and snapped the door shut. “It’s so good to have you home!”

  The little bird pecked at his food. Then he let out a trill before going back to eating.

  Janey grinned. “We did it!”

  “You did it.” Leah spun around and hugged her. “Thank you so much! I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “It was nothing,” Janey said modestly. “Just another successful case for the Pet Rescue Club.”

  Zach’s Mission

  “A toast to Janey!” Lolli cried, lifting her bottle of juice.

  “And the Pet Rescue Club!” Adam added.

  “And the Pet Rescue Club,” Lolli agreed.

  “Thanks, guys,” Janey said with a smile. It was the next day at lunchtime. The four members of the Pet Rescue Club were sitting together in the school cafeteria. Actually, Janey, Lolli, and Adam had been sitting together since the beginning of the year. Zach had usually sat at a different table. Now he sat with them every day.

  Usually there was no forgetting that, since he never stopped talking and joking around. But today he was being very quiet.

  “What’s wrong, Zach?” Janey asked, giving him a poke on the arm. “Aren’t you excited that we helped another pet?”

  Zach looked up. “Hip hip hooray,” he said with a shrug. “I’m glad you found Leah’s bird. But we haven’t done anything to help Hall Cat yet.”

  Adam sipped his chocolate milk. “Yeah, it’s too bad her owners weren’t home yesterday when we went there.”

  “We’d better try again today,” Zach said. “Let’s meet up and go over there right after school.”

  “Veto,” Janey said. “You guys can go without me. I have to stay after school today for my flute lesson.”

  “Sorry, Zach, but I can’t make it today, either,” Lolli said. “I promised Brooke I’d take Roscoe to visit her grandma.”

  “Oh, right,” Janey said. Lolli had told the whole group about her talk with Brooke. When Lolli had offered to help, Brooke had explained that her grandmother was a lifelong animal lover. Since Lolli was a member of the Pet Rescue Club, Brooke had asked if she knew any animals who could visit the old lady to cheer her up. Lolli had immediately volunteered to take her own dog, who was super friendly and loved going to new places.

  Adam smiled. “The Pet Rescue Club is already expanding,” he said. “We started off as people helping animals. Now we’re also animals helping people!”

  Janey giggled. Adam didn’t joke around nearly as much as Zach did, but the jokes he made were usually really funny.

  “I guess that’s true,” Janey said. “After all, Roscoe is an honorary member, since he’s one of our mascots. Maybe next time Mulberry can go for a visit!”

  She glanced at Zach to see what he thought of that. But he didn’t even seem to be listening.

  He was looking at Adam. “I guess you can’t come to Hall Cat’s house right after school, either, right?” he said. “You probably have to take care of your clients.”

  “Right,” Adam said. “I can come meet you when I’m finished, though.”

  Lolli nodded. “I probably won’t be at Brooke’s grandma’s house for that long,” she said. “I’ll come help with Hall Cat after I’m done, too.”

  “Me, three,” Janey said. “I’ll get my mom to drop me off there after my lesson.”

  “Okay.” Zach looked a little happier. He reached for Janey’s last carrot stick and popped it into his mouth. “You weren’t going to eat that, were you?” he mumbled.

  Zach stared out the living room window. He could see Hall Cat’s house from there. He could also see Hall Cat. She was sleeping in her owners’ driveway. Zach winced every time a car drove by, even though the cat wasn’t that close to the road at the moment. But what if she decided to take a nap in the middle of the road next time?

  Zach wondered how much longer it would be before his friends showed up. He’d lost his watch weeks ago, so he jumped up and hurried into the kitchen to check the clock on the microwave.

  “No way!” he said out loud. He glanced at his oldest brother, who was fixing a sandwich. “Is that clock right?”

  Josh glanced at him. “Why? Do you have an important business meeting?” Snorting with laughter, Josh picked up his sandwich and loped out of the kitchen.

  Zach gritted his teeth. The clock had to be wrong! It was impossible that he’d only been home from school for half an hour. That meant his friends probably wouldn’t be there for almost another hour!

  He hurried back into the living room and looked outside. Hall Cat had woken up. She was sitting up and washing her paw.

  “I can’t wait any longer,” Zach muttered. Yelling to his father that he was going out, he hurried across the street.

  This time the baby’s father opened the door again. His wife was sitting in a chair right behind him, trying to squeeze the baby’s chubby foot into a tiny sock.

  When the father saw Zach standing there holding Hall Cat, he sighed. “Hello again,” he said. “Is Hall Cat getting into trouble?”

  “Not yet,” Zach said. “But she might if you keep putting her outside.” He took a deep breath, trying to remember all the stuff Janey and the others had said, along with everything his mother had told him about outdoor cats when he’d tried to convince her that Mulberry wanted to go outside and chase mice. “She probably won’t live as long being an outdoor cat. She could get hit by a car, or eat something poisonous, or get attacked by mean dogs or wild animals, or—”

  “All right, all right,” the father said. He sounded a little worried. “I know it’s not ideal. But this is a safe neighborhood, and we’re just trying to come up with a solution that works for everybody.”

  Zach took a step inside and set Hall Cat down on the floor. She wandered toward the baby and sniffed at his foot, which was dangling off the side of the chair.

  “Careful, Hall Cat,” the mother said. “Don’t scare the baby.” She glanced at her husband. “Put the cat back out, will you, honey?”

  Zach didn’t think the baby looked scared at all. He wondered if the woman had heard anything he’d just said. Zach’s older brothers ignored him all the time, and Zach hated it. He was getting the same feeling now.

  “Hall Cat’s not scary, but I am!” he blurted out. Putting his thumbs in his ears, he waggled his fingers and made a funny face at the baby. “Ooga booga!”

  He was only joking around, but the baby’s face scrunched up. A second later he let out a loud wail.

  “Oh, no!” the baby’s mother exclaimed, grabbing him and hugging him close. “It’s okay, sweetie. Don’t cry! Please, don’t start crying again!”

  “I’m sorry.” Zach immediately felt guilty. “I was just kidding around. I didn’t think that would actually scare him.”

  The father put a hand on his shoulder. “I know, kiddo. You couldn’t know that the baby was up all night with an earache. We’re all a little touchy right now, that’s all.”

  “Sorry,” Zach muttered again, feeling his face go red. “I guess I’ll go.”

  The mother glanced up at him. “Yes, maybe you’d better,” she said with a sigh. “Please take Hall Cat back outside on your way, all right?”

  Roscoe Helps Out

  Lo
lli was having a great time at Brooke’s grandmother’s house. Her father had met her in the car with Roscoe right after school. He’d dropped Lolli, Brooke, and Roscoe off at a tidy two-story house just a few blocks from Zach’s place.

  “Grandma’s expecting us,” Brooke had told Lolli as Mr. Simpson drove off. “She can’t wait to meet Roscoe. She hasn’t had a dog in a few years, but she loves them.”

  Brooke was right. Brooke’s grandmother had been thrilled to see them—especially Roscoe.

  “Oh, aren’t you a big lug of a fellow?” she’d cooed, walking out onto the front stoop to rub Roscoe all over. The dog had enjoyed every second of the attention, wiggling from head to foot with his tail wagging nonstop.

  Finally the old woman had glanced up with a smile. She looked like an older version of Brooke, with friendly brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.

  “I’m sorry, where are my manners?” she’d exclaimed, ushering Lolli, Roscoe, and Brooke into her house. It was nice and cool inside, with lots of framed family photos decorating the walls and the scents of lavender and lemon in the air. “You must be Lolli. It’s lovely to meet you. You can call me Grandma Madge if you like.”

  “Okay.” Lolli smiled back, liking the woman already. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Grandma Madge. This is Roscoe.”

  “Oh, I know.” Grandma Madge rubbed the dog’s ears. “Brookie told me all about both of you. Is it true you live on a farm?”

  “Yes,” Lolli said. “It’s not a very big farm, but it’s big enough for the three of us. My parents grow all kinds of organic vegetables, and sometimes they make cheese from our goats’ and sheep’s milk.”

  “Wonderful! Roscoe must love having a whole farm to patrol,” Grandma Madge said.

  Brooke flopped onto a comfortable-looking sofa. “Grandma loves big dogs,” she told Lolli. “Isn’t that right, Grandma?”