Who Stole Halloween?

by Martha Freeman

  The mop was in the closet at the top of the basement stairs. “You don’t have to help,” I told Yasmeen. “It’s not your basement.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said.

  “How come there aren’t any lights on down here?” Dragging the mop behind me, I felt my way down the stairs. “Dad?” I called. “How come there aren’t any—”

  “Oh, you want lights!” Dad said, and with that they flashed on, illuminating our totally clean basement, which contained all our neighbors on Chickadee Court, plus Kyle and Cammie and Officer Krichels and a bunch more people I couldn’t even take in at once—all under a big banner that read, CONGRATULATIONS, SUPERSLEUTHS!

  It is lucky that even though I am not the world’s toughest kid, my heart is pretty strong. Otherwise it would have stopped cold. That’s how shocked I was.

  With everyone watching and smiling and making thumbs-up signs, I looked over at my best friend who happens to be a girl. “Yasmeen?” I said.

  She was grinning. “What do you know?” she said. “They do care after all.”

  It was a good party. There was a big cake with a picture of a black cat on it in frosting. My dad was wearing his new glasses, which my mom said made him look distinguished, but he said made him look old. I met Boopsie. She had drool all over her face and her eyes kept crossing. Mr. Lee was holding her, and seeing him reminded me that for a while I had thought he might be the catnapper—mostly because some instinct told me he was suspicious. It was instinct that had made Yasmeen mistrust Kyle, too, I remembered. It seemed like maybe sometimes instinct steered you pretty far wrong.

  Anyway, Mr. Lee offered to let me hold Boopsie, but I said, no thanks, I couldn’t hold a new baby and a mop at the same time. “Did you name her yet?” I asked.

  Mr. Lee smiled. “Yes, we did, and I hope you’re pleased.”

  “Me? Why would I be pleased? I mean, I’m sure you picked a good name and—”

  “Alex,” Mr. Lee said.

  “Yes?” I said.

  Mr. Lee laughed. “No, I mean Alex is what we’ve named her.”

  “How sweet!” Yasmeen said.

  “Sweet,” I echoed, and I tried to smile, but really I didn’t think the neighborhood needed another Alex, especially a drooling girl Alex who couldn’t even keep her eyes pointed the same direction.

  “Don’t worry.” Bub had been standing behind me, and now he spoke so Mr. Lee couldn’t hear. “I don’t think anybody’s gonna get the two of you confused.”

  Sophie was at the party, too, of course. Everybody was congratulating her on being so clever and brave, which she deserved I guess. But it didn’t make her any less obnoxious. She had brought the baby monitor with her, closed up in its original box again. She said we could take it back to Best Buy-Buy now.

  “You mean it works like it used to?” I asked. “That is so great. I thought I was going to have to pay for it.”

  “Oh, yeah, it works,” Sophie said, “better than ever.”

  “What do you mean ‘better than ever’?” Yasmeen asked.

  Sophie reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a handful of metal pieces. “I couldn’t figure out where these ones were supposed to go, so I left them out,” she said. “Probably they weren’t that important. Only now besides cell phone conversations, the receiver picks up TV, too—soap operas and talk shows and junk. That makes it better than a plain old baby monitor, my mom says. My mom says the company ought to pay me for improving it. I wonder how much they’ll pay me? My mom says she’ll write a letter—”

  Yasmeen and I left her and went to get punch. I don’t think she cared that we were gone. She turned to poor Mrs. Blanco, who happened to be standing there, and kept right on talking.

  “I’ll help you pay for the baby monitor,” Yasmeen said.

  “Thanks,” I said. Then I dipped her a Styrofoam cup of punch, and she dipped me one, and we held our cups up and touched them together. It was a toast except we didn’t say anything. We didn’t have to. I was going to take a drink when I felt something brush between my legs. Something that was furry and had a tail.

  “Oh, sorry, Luau. Didn’t mean to leave you out,” I said.

  “Does he even like punch?” Yasmeen asked me.

  “He likes tuna juice.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” Yasmeen said.

  “Either way, we should toast him, too,” I said. “I guess now you’ll admit that cats can be pretty good explainers.”

  “What do you mean?” Yasmeen asked.

  “I mean it was Luau who told us where Halloween was,” I said.

  “Get out!” she said. “It was dumb feline luck!”

  I tried being calm and reasonable. “Think about it, Yasmeen. Why were we hearing Arnold’s wheel in the first place? Luau went over by the hamster cage on purpose. He knew somebody would recognize that noise.”

  Yasmeen gave me a look.

  “You don’t believe me? Let’s ask him,” I said. “Luau, did you lead us to Miss Deirdre on purpose?”

  Luau sat down, swiped a paw over his right ear, and swished his tail.

  I shrugged. “There you have it.”

  “Have what?” Yasmeen said.

  “He says he did it on purpose. He says he knew Jeremiah was trick-or-treating with us, and he knew Jeremiah would recognize that noise.”

  Yasmeen rolled her eyes. “Ask him if it was on purpose that he picked such a totally wacko owner who thinks he can talk to cats!” she said.

  “Okay,” I said. “Luau, was it on purpose that you picked such a totally wacko owner who thinks he can talk to cats?”

  But Luau was too impatient to continue the conversation. He just looked at me and blinked, which was Luau’s way of saying ha-ha.