Cat Running

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  FOUR

  CAT AND JANET HAD built Monopolis Village the summer before last when the receding creek had left a small circular pond near the large flat boulder. A deep, clear pond, like a miniature mountain lake. Together they’d planted tiny saplings around the pond on lawns of soft green moss and built twig fences beside sanded roads bordered by shiny white pebbles. The roads had wound through a tiny village where a lot of little green houses and red hotels surrounded a painted tin church. The church had once been a bank for Sunday school money and the houses and hotels were from a Monopoly game. The church, and a lot of the ideas for Monopolis Village, had been Janet’s, but Cat had contributed the houses and hotels. The village lasted all summer, until a sudden fall rain flooded the creek and washed everything away.

  Cat hadn’t been too much concerned about the loss of the houses and hotels. She hated playing Monopoly anyway, and besides, the game really belonged to Cliff, who happened to be the most heartless and greedy Monopoly player in the whole world. But Janet, who’d always had a kind of crush on Cliff, had worried about it a lot. Just the other day, during recess, she’d mentioned it again.

  They’d been playing on the bars and Janet was upside down at the time, hanging by her knees. “Hey,” she said suddenly. “Do you still play in the creek bed?” And when Cat said she did Janet said, “Do you suppose you’ll ever find any of Cliff’s Monopoly game?”

  Cat did a one-knee spin to a sitting position on the bar. “Not a chance,” she said. “They’re probably halfway across the ocean by now. But don’t worry about it. He still hasn’t found out they’re gone. Nobody ever played it with him except me, and now when he wants to play I just say I don’t want to.”

  Janet swung back and forth to build momentum and then spun up to sit beside Cat on the bar. “I sure do wish we could play there again,” she said. She glanced at Patty Burns, who was hanging from the next bar, leaned close, because Monopolis Village had always been their secret, and whispered, “I really miss playing Monopolis Village. Do you suppose your dad will ever let you come to my house again? Because I know my folks would let me visit you if your dad would let you visit me. Do you suppose he ever will?”

  “Not a chance,” Cat said again, and Janet made a tragic face, sighed dramatically, and threw herself over backward in a dangerous “dead man’s drop.”

  Cat really missed playing with Janet, too, even though she usually wasn’t as dramatic about it. Remembering all the good times they’d had she sighed, scooted forward on the boulder, and dangled her hand down into the cool water of the tiny lake. “Not a chance,” she said again, out loud, although there was no one there to hear. No chance she and Janet would be allowed to play together again—except, of course, at school, which hardly counted—because Charles Kinsey wasn’t ever going to forgive Janet’s father for siding with Reverend Booker.

  Cat and Janet’s fathers hadn’t always been enemies. In fact, a few years back, they’d both been elders at the Community Church. But that had been before Reverend Booker became the new pastor and started arguing with Father about things like having dances for teenagers in the church’s social hall.

  So then the Kinseys, all except Cliff, had stopped being Community Church members and had started going to the Holiness Church, where Reverend Hopkins felt the same way Father did about things like ballroom dancing and “females wearing men’s attire.” And because Mr. Kelly had been on Reverend Booker’s side, Cat had been forbidden to visit the Kellys anymore, or even to have Janet come to play.

  Cat missed having Janet visit, and she especially missed visiting the Kellys, who lived in one of the few new houses in Brownwood, a beautiful Spanish-style stucco with arched windows and a red tile roof. A stucco house with a tile roof—that had been Cat’s idea of absolute elegance ever since she could remember. And she also missed the beach cabin at Santa Cruz where, before the Reverend Booker feud, she’d sometimes been allowed to spend several days with the Kellys.

  She missed all the movies too. Cat’s family went to movies too, of course, when something “worthwhile” was playing, which only happened once or twice a year. But the Kellys went every weekend to the Brownwood theater or sometimes all the way to the new American Theater in Orangedale, where they saw all the latest films—even scary things like Frankenstein, and movies that starred actresses with bad reputations and plucked eyebrows. But trips to the movies and the beach were forbidden now. Just as wearing slacks on Play Day was forbidden to Cat Kinsey.

  Cat sat up. Resting her chin on her knees, she began again to imagine going on down the creek bed. Past the waterfall and on and on until she reached the river and then maybe even farther, to where the river flowed into the sea. Going on forever, crossing oceans and strange foreign lands and never having to return to the boring little town of Brownwood, and Ellen’s mean smile, and Cliff’s everlasting teasing, and all of Father’s mean, stingy, old-fashioned rules.

  FIVE

  SHE’D IMAGINED RUNNING AWAY before. Now and then when she was especially angry at all of them, she would spend hours making up long, complicated stories about going down Coyote Creek to the Naranja River and then on down the river to the Pacific Ocean, where she would stow away on an ocean liner headed for wonderful faraway places. She was definitely in the mood to think up a new running-away chapter—if the sun hadn’t been quite so hot. But she’d hardly gotten started imagining when she realized that her dress was sticking to her back and beads of moisture were trickling down her forehead.

  Sliding down off the boulder she stood for a moment, looking first up the canyon toward home and then the other way, past the rapids and on toward the Naranja and the Pacific. Suddenly she squared her shoulders, clenched her teeth, and headed down canyon.

  But just below Monopolis Village was the waterfall. Not a real waterfall so much as a steep cascade, where the water tumbled down over sleek, polished boulders, splashed into a round, deep pond, and then continued on down the center of the widening canyon.

  Standing near the edge, Cat peered over, looking for a safe way down. In all the hundreds of times she had played up and down the creek bed she had gone on past the cascade only once, nearly two years before. A frightening experiment that she had not repeated since.

  She’d begun the descent that last time by climbing down the bank on the right side of the stream where a cleft between rocks formed a narrow, ladderlike passageway. Down the cleft and then on to the bottom of the steep slope by jumping from boulder to boulder. Going down had been fairly easy, but when she tried to return it had been a different story. Jumping from boulder to boulder, she discovered, was much harder when the jumps had to be made against the force of gravity. She had been bruised and scraped and pretty scared by the time she’d finally made it back to the top—and she hadn’t tried it since. But now ...

  She smiled suddenly—a mocking, bitter smile. What did it matter now if she couldn’t get back up? She might be coming back and she might not, and if she couldn’t climb the boulders it would just mean that she really ought to run away.

  The climb down went easily and before long Cat was on her way downstream again. In new, unexplored territory now, she stopped often to check out deep, quiet pools, gurgling shallows, and interesting rock formations along the cliff face. It was while she was inspecting a pool where some minnows had been trapped by the receding water that she noticed the rabbit.

  The creek bed was wider here and a clump of cottonwoods and heavy underbrush had grown up between the stream and the high, rocky cliff to the north. She had been sitting quietly watching the minnows when suddenly a rabbit hopped out from the underbrush, noticed Cat, and quickly darted back the way it had come. Cat went to explore.

  The thicket into which the rabbit had disappeared was, on closer inspection, made up not only of bushes and saplings but also of blackberry vines. Vicious, thorny vines that twisted in and out among the saplings, making an impassable barrier. Impassable except by way of the rabbit’s tunnel.

  The o
pening was small, not big enough for a human being, even a small-for-her-age eleven-year-old. But Cat was determined. It was definitely a path made by something alive—and the thought was intriguing. She got down on her hands and knees, but the top of the passageway was still much too low. Finally, flat on her stomach, she managed to slither forward into the thicket.

  It was slow and painful going. Every foot of the way she had to stop to clear the path, pushing aside sharp rocks and prickly vines. The blackberry vines were the worst problem. Making a tool from a small forked stick, she pushed each threatening tendril back into the underbrush only to have it come bouncing back like a living thing to snag her clothing or stab her arms and legs with its sharp thorns. But she went on crawling and slithering until the underbrush thinned, ended, and she managed to stand erect.

  There was no sign of the rabbit but there right in front of her, scooped into the cliff wall, was a wide, shallow cave. A beautiful, mysterious grotto. Her own private, secret hiding place.

  SIX

  CAT STOOD ABSOLUTELY STILL for a long time, frozen with amazement and delight. It was such an unbelievably mysterious and secret place, and from that first moment she felt that it was meant just for her. As if her decision to go on past the cascade, and to stop at the minnow pond, and the arrival of the rabbit were all part of some deep and meaningful plan.

  The cave was wide but not deep. A kind of long, shallow grotto that no doubt had been carved into the cliff face by some long-ago flood. Beneath an overhanging roof of rough gray stone the back of the indentation had eroded unevenly, leaving a number of rocky ledges. The largest, near the deepest part of the cave, was wide and flat, and just the right height to be a kind of bench or bed. The other ledges were smaller and higher up—like shelves. Like nice safe shelves for the storage of the kind of important objects that one would need to keep in a secret hideaway.

  She was already beginning to decide which of her most precious belongings she would keep in the grotto. It would be perfectly safe, she felt sure, to keep all sorts of valuable things here. No one would ever find her special treasures in such a well-hidden place. Or find Cat herself, for that matter. No one would ever find her in such a wonderfully secret hideaway.

  Tiptoeing slowly and reverently, she entered the grotto. Above her head the rocky gray wall curved up majestically into an arching overhang. She moved on—into shadowed depths where the wide ledge waited invitingly. Scooting up onto the wide, flat surface, she hugged her knees up against her chest. Beyond the wide opening the breeze breathed softly through the thick green wall of trees and saplings. Leaf-filtered light, falling down between the thicket and the cliff wall, spattered the grotto floor with spangles of sunshine. The overhang protected the cave’s interior from view if anyone should look down from the cliff above, and the dense thicket of blackberry vines hid it from anyone on the canyon floor.

  To find the grotto a person would have to be curious, rather small, and also brave. Brave because it took courage to crawl into a tunnel made by who knows what leading who knows where. And brave, also, to endure the vicious scratches and stabs of the blackberry’s thorns.

  Cat extended her arms and then her legs, noting the many small bloody scratches and punctures. It had been difficult and painful, and because she had endured bravely, it meant that she had earned the grotto. It was hers now—hers alone—and no one else would ever know about it. Not even the rest of the Kinseys. Especially not the rest of the Kinseys. She hugged her knees harder, and her shoulders twitched with a strange, unfamiliar kind of excitement.

  It was the excitement, perhaps, that made her forget about her decision to run away. She wasn’t sure she’d really meant it anyway. She’d started to run away before and had changed her mind. Running away could come later. For now there was this marvelous, secret place. After a few more minutes of exploring, thinking, and planning, she slithered back through the tunnel and headed for home.

  The climb back up past the rapids was much easier than it had been two years earlier, and once she was back on familiar ground, she began to run. By running most of the way there was time, that same Saturday afternoon, to make a second trip to the grotto and begin the first of a long series of changes and improvements.

  The first important improvement was to make entering the grotto a little less painful. When Cat arrived back at the blackberry thicket later that day she was armed with some heavy gloves and a pair of garden shears. Before the afternoon was over she had enlarged the tunnel enough to make crawling rather than stomach-slithering possible.

  The next step was to transport—in her gathered-up skirt —enough sand to carpet the floor of the passageway to make a more comfortable crawling surface. It was getting late by then but a final project had become necessary, to make the enlarged tunnel entrance a little less noticeable. But that problem was soon solved by bending a bushy young sapling across the opening.

  When Cat finally left the grotto the sun was very low. Heading back up the canyon for the second time that day, Cat again ran most of the way.

  Mama was awake when Cat got home—and worried.

  “Where on earth have you been?” she said when Cat dashed up the back stairs, through the laundry room, and burst into the kitchen. “I’ve been so worried.”

  “Just playing,” Cat said. “Just playing down by the creek, like always.”

  “But you’ve been gone so long and”—Mama paused, and then went on—”and, my goodness, what happened to you, Cathy? You’re all scratched up and, look, you’ve torn your dress. Here, and here too.”

  “It was a berry vine,” Cat said. “I kind of got tangled up with a berry vine.” Which was the truth, after all. A kind of truth anyway. Just not a very complete one.

  But Mama was satisfied with the explanation. She actually seemed quite cheerful as she went back to the sink to finish opening a can of Campbell’s tomato soup.

  “Look,” she said. “Your favorite soup. Just the two of us for supper tonight. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Where’s Cliff?” Cat asked. Father and Ellen would be eating at the store as usual. On Saturday night, when all the farmers and other out-of-town people came in to shop, it was too busy for them to get away. Too busy for Cliff to get away, too, according to Ellen, but sometimes he did anyway, and now and then he made it home for Saturday-night supper.

  “Off to Orangedale with some friends, I think.” Mama struck a match, lit a burner on the old gas stove, and began to stir, humming happily.

  Cat was puzzled. What was Mama so happy about? And then suddenly she knew. Mama was relieved. Relieved because Cat had been so angry when she ran away. And usually, when Cat Kinsey got that mad she stayed mad for a while. And she would have today, too, if it hadn’t been for finding the secret grotto.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t angry anymore about the slacks and Father. Because she was. Right now she was too excited about—about other things, but she hadn’t forgiven Father, or Mama either. She’d think again later about not being allowed to wear slacks on Play Day. And then she would decide what she had to do about it. Because whatever it was, it was going to be terrible.

  But in the meantime there was the grotto. Almost every day, at least every day that she could manage a free hour or two, Cat went to the grotto to work on making it even more her own private, secret place. Many times on weekends and in the late afternoon on school days, while Mama was reading or mending or napping and the rest of the family was still at the store, Cat made the trip down the canyon. She ran most of the way, except when she was carrying an especially heavy load. And she always ran all the way home.

  Among the first objects that found a new home on the shelflike ledges along the rear wall of the grotto were some of Cat’s favorite possessions, like the tiny bronze elephant that had been sent to her by a great-uncle who was a missionary in India. There was also a small white china vase decorated with purple pansies, a very elegant old perfume bottle, a wooden cigar box full of special keepsakes, a collection
of fourteen glass, plaster, or celluloid horses, and a few favorite books.

  Many of the grotto’s larger items came from the Kinsey attic. The attic of the big old house was large, dimly lit, and crammed with old furniture and dozens of trunks and cartons. Rummaging in boxes and ragbags Cat found many useful things, including some discarded quilts and rag rugs that could be used to pad stone ledges and carpet the grotto floor. Among the other items that went to furnish and decorate the grotto were a small round end-table, two folding chairs, a hand-painted kerosene lamp—and Marianne.

  Marianne was a big, beautiful doll that had been Cat’s present from the family just last Christmas. She was a very elegant and expensive doll with eyes that closed and opened, bristly brown eyelashes, and a head full of stiff, starchy Shirley Temple curls. She was probably the most expensive gift Cat had gotten for a long time and if she’d appeared on the scene three years earlier Cat might have been delighted.

  But the thing was, Cat hadn’t asked for a doll. She’d mentioned several times that what she really wanted was the pink-and-blue plaid skirt and matching sweater in the window of Emily’s Dress Shop. But Ellen had overstocked the expensive dolls at Kinsey’s Hardware, and the wholesaler refused to take back the one that didn’t sell. Cat knew that was what happened because she’d overheard Father complaining about it.

  So Cat got an expensive doll she didn’t want from Father and Ellen, and a doll crib that he’d made himself from Cliff, and some handmade doll clothes from Mama. Right after Christmas she had played with Marianne a few times, but she was really much too old for dolls. After a month or two she moved Marianne, her crib, and all her other equipment to the attic. So it was as another attic outcast that the elegant, expensive Marianne went off to beautify the grotto.