“Take this,” he says, pressing it into my hand. “And tonight, take out the penny and read what it says on it. We’ll talk about it on Wednesday, yes?”
I nod, wrapping my fingers around Ben’s new gift.
On the drive home, I tell Mrs. Chandler about the letter and everything about Mama I can remember. She doesn’t stop me or jump in to add things. She just listens, nodding and looking thoughtful every few sentences.
“Sounds like you and Ben had a great visit,” she finally says when no more words will come out of me.
I nod and then stare through the magnifying glass at my hand.
“What do you see?” Mrs. Chandler asks right as we pull into our driveway.
“Lines. Lots of lines. Just like in a dream catcher,” I answer.
And she smiles.
That night, I sound out some of the words on the penny. “In . . . God . . . we . . . trust.”
In God we trust!
I did it. I read the words all by myself!
CHAPTER 26
LIVING SO CLOSE TO LEXIE is almost like having a sister. It also means that Sneaker lives close by, and I can see her every day.
Even though Lexie isn’t my sister, she can talk about things in a way that Anna can’t. In full sentences, even. Ben said that I’d make a great friend to someone, but sometimes being friends with Lexie feels like I’m being unfair to Anna. It doesn’t seem fair that she can’t be with us and have Lexie as her friend too.
She’s not you, Anna. Nobody could ever be you. It’s something I say every time I head for Lexie’s house. Somehow, just saying it makes me feel better.
“What will happen when all the kids find out I can’t read?” I ask Lexie on the way to school.
“You can read, Sara, just not fast. That’s why you’re in that special reading class. There’s nothing bad about being in there.”
“Easy for you to say. You can read.”
“I’ll read with you every day after school, if you want,” Lexie says. “I’ll help if you want me to.”
“Kevin can read better than I can. If I could read, I’d be able to write better too.”
Lexie stares at me and I have to look away. “I miss Anna.”
Lexie squeezes my shoulder. “Me too, and I don’t even know her. If you learn to read and write, you can write Anna letters and tell her about all the stuff that we do. It will be like having her here, in a way.”
I shake my head. “Nothing will be like having her here except really having her here. Everything else is pretending, and I’m tired of pretending.”
Lexie nods and gives my shoulder another squeeze.
* * *
Friday, a week later, Lexie and I are walking home from school. We stuck together like glue all week.
As we near our homes, a car swerves and honks its horn at a stray racing across the road.
“There are too many homeless cats!” I say to Lexie. “Can’t we do something?”
“Like what?” Lexie looks up suddenly, and Skeeter whizzes past us on his Rollerblades, waving a net in the air, trying to catch something for his growing bug collection. In his other hand he holds a plastic jar.
Lexie watches him for a minute, her eyes narrowing. When Skeeter opens the jar and puts a bug in, she comes unglued.
“Why do you have to kill them?” she shouts.
Skeeter gives her a pained look. “It’s a bit hard to pin a moving bug to a chart,” he answers, skidding to a stop.
“Why do you have to pin them and label them in the first place? Can’t you just learn what they are and let them live? What if someone came and caught you in a net and pinned you to a stupid piece of cardboard and wrote ‘Skeeter’ underneath? How would you feel?”
Skeeter rolls his eyes. “I guess I’d feel fine, as long as they wrote ‘Chip Culicidae Anderson’ under me.” Culicidae, he explains to me, is the scientific name for mosquito. “Got any better ideas for collecting bugs?” he snaps, glaring at Lexie.
“As a matter of fact, I do. Don’t put alcohol in the jar. After you catch them, I’ll draw them. You can label the drawing, then let them go.”
Skeeter makes a face. “I’ll think about it.” But I notice he makes no move to set the bug he’s already caught free.
“Course, Dad might not be so happy with you,” he calls over his shoulder before heading up their driveway.
“What’s Dad got to do with this?”
“You want me to set free the very bug that’s killing our pine trees?” He seems pleased that he’s figured out something that we don’t know anything about. “A spittlebug, to be exact,” he adds, examining the newest prisoner.
I look at him, amazed.
“The Internet and bug books,” Lexie says, reading my mind. “Hundreds and hundreds of bug books. He lives for bugs—and the longer he lives, the more bugs die.”
She looks at Skeeter. “Pine tree or no pine tree, I still don’t think you should kill them.”
“Whatever.” He disappears into the house, jar and all.
“Brothers!” she grumbles. “Okay, now, what were you saying about the strays?”
“That we should do something . . . maybe we could start a club. You know, like a . . .” I think for a minute. “What about a foster care club for cats?”
Lexie’s face breaks into a huge smile. “Sara! That’s great! We could make flyers and posters, and we could dress up like cats for Halloween and go door-to-door collecting money for the Humane Society or something!”
Lexie is talking so fast that I almost can’t understand her, but then she stops. “We’re going to need a name for our club.”
“How about Paws?” I ask, looking at her to see her reaction.
She grins. “Paws! Purr-fect!”
We laugh. “A Cause for Paws,” she adds, buzzing around me like she’s a big mosquito herself.
“Okay, now we have a name, but how will this work? If we catch the strays, then what?” We reach the steps to her porch, and I watch a calico kitten slip under a hole in a board.
Inside, Lexie heads straight for the kitchen, where her mom is pulling out a sheet of fresh-baked cookies. I breathe in the smell, hold it, and let it out slowly.
“Help yourself,” Mrs. Anderson says, smiling. Unlike Lexie, her hair is blond and her eyes a catlike green. Her smile is quick and warm. “Are you by any chance talking about the stray kittens?”
Lexie and I both nod.
“The real problem is that people let their cats have all those kittens in the first place, don’t you think?” She lifts the fresh-baked cookies off the cooled sheet with a spatula and pushes a plate of warm cookies toward us. We each grab two at a time. The chocolate chips melt over my tongue.
“Yeah,” Lexie mumbles, breaking a Chandler rule by talking with food in her mouth.
I swallow a bite of cookie. “We thought maybe we could start a sort of foster program for animals. You know—help find homes for them.”
Lexie’s mom’s eyebrows rise. “That’s a nice idea.”
Skeeter appears out of nowhere and creeps up on a cricket that has come into the kitchen. His hands close gently around it.
“Don’t kill it,” Lexie reminds him.
Skeeter grins and puts the cricket in a jar. “I won’t. See? No alcohol. Just leaves for it to munch on.”
Lexie relaxes in the chair. “Brothers are trainable. Who knew?” she whispers when he leaves.
* * *
For two days, Lexie and I take up the kitchen table at her house, figuring out how a foster program for stray kittens might work. Posters we’ve made to hang in store windows and at 7-Eleven flank the walls. Bits of colored paper, glue, glitter, staples, tape, and ribbon decorate the table and floor as we try to put together a flyer explaining our mission.
“You could write, ‘Who, what, where, when, and why,’ ” I suggest. We’d just learned about this in my reading class.
“Yeah. The ‘who’ could be who gets the strays,” she answers, pencil po
ised. Skeeter walks in.
“How about old people?” he says, answering Lexie’s question. We both laugh. Skeeter frowns but keeps talking.
“Remember how Gramma used to hug that old teddy bear like it was real?” He stuffs a gummy worm in his mouth and holds the bag out to me. I take one.
“She thought it was real.” Lexie reaches for a worm.
“Maybe kids in special places like Anna’s could have kittens too.” I bite into the candy.
“Who decides those kinds of things?” Skeeter asks. Lexie and I shrug.
“I’ll ask Dad.” Lexie starts making a list. “He’s an investigative reporter. He knows stuff like that.”
“Your dad’s a spy?” Goose bumps chase up my arm. I stop gluing cat prints to the flyer and stare at her.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Lexie holds up a Wanted poster she made that has a photo of a kitten on it.
Skeeter holds up a finished flyer. “You should put these around the neighborhood, reminding people to get their cats fixed.”
“That’s the plan.” Lexie takes it from him. “Or to remind them to keep closer track of their cats so no unwanted kittens are born,” she adds.
“Who says they’re unwanted?” I bristle. “Maybe lots of people want them, but they just don’t have a way to get them. We can have them, you know, come to the house so we can see if they’ll be good to the kittens. If they pass our test, they can get one. If not, then they don’t.” I look to see their reaction. After all, I know the foster system well.
Lexie finishes her list and draws a new line down the page. “That plan might work for all the stray kittens in our own neighborhood, but we’d have to catch them, cage them, and feed them. That could cost big bucks. I think we should try to get most of them into places like old people’s homes.” She writes To Do at the top of the new column.
I’m secretly proud that I can read what she has written—upside down, even.
“And therapeutic foster homes,” I remind her, remembering the words Mrs. Chandler used to explain where Anna might have to go after leaving the residential center. The key word was “might.”
“Foster cats for foster homes. Hey, I like it!” Lexie punches me in the arm.
Later that afternoon, after we’ve gathered all our supplies, piled up the posters, and stacked the flyers, Skeeter lets me borrow his bike so that Lexie and I can ride over to the Humane Society office to see if they already have programs like ours. We’re out of breath when we get there. They don’t have a similar program. We leave a stack of the flyers we made for them to distribute, which they seem happy to do. In exchange, they give us a tour of the shelter.
“Oh, isn’t he cute? Don’t you just want to scoop them all up and take them home?” Lexie sticks her finger in a cage and lets a puppy lick it. She looks at me. “Hey, did I say something wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that I haven’t thought about Anna in days.”
“So, let me get this straight. You’re supposed to live only half a life because the other half isn’t there?”
I stare at her. “I don’t know, okay? I don’t know what to do or what to think or what to be. All I know is that I have a family, a friend, a home, a pet, even. But my sister is locked up somewhere with nothing and nobody.”
“You don’t know that,” Lexie snaps. “She might have friends. She might feel at home where she is.”
I put up my hand to stop her. Dogs yip, bark, and claw at their cages trying to get our attention. “You’re right. I don’t know, Lex, but neither do you.”
“You know what? Your mind’s somewhere else. Let’s just go.” Lexie races past the dogs, through the cat section, and out of the animal shelter with me close behind.
“Fine.” I stomp after her, not knowing why I feel so mad. But I do. Lexie’s mad too, probably at me, but who cares?
We barely talk on the bike ride home. I give Skeeter his bike back, and he looks from one of us to the other. Something seems to tell him not to ask questions.
I turn to leave.
“Do you want to meet after school tomorrow? We can make more flyers.” Lexie looks and sounds like nothing’s happened.
“Sure. I guess.” I back away. “Unless you want to come over and make some now.”
“I’ll ask.”
I wait. Less than a minute later, Lexie and I are walking home.
As we walk in the front door, the phone rings, and I motion for her to wait. “Hang on, Lex.” Please be Anna. Please be Anna. I pick up the phone.
“Hello?” I say. I’m suddenly so nervous, my hands start to sweat. What if she doesn’t recognize my voice and hangs up?
“Hello?” The voice answering isn’t Anna’s. “May I speak to Sara, please?”
“This is Sara.” I sigh and motion for Lexie to come listen, mouthing that it isn’t Anna after all. We press our heads together trying to hear.
The woman’s voice says, “Hi, Sara. This is Heather White from KUNV radio. We’re doing a special show on strays in our community. Elmer Wiley from the Humane Society gave me your name. He said you have a club that’s involved with bringing attention to animals in need?”
I grin at Lexie. “Yes. It’s called A Cause for Paws, and right now we’re trying to do something about the stray kittens in our neighborhood.”
“That’s wonderful. Do you think you could come to the radio station for an interview? We’d really like to hear what your plans are.”
I look at Lexie, my eyes wide. “Just a sec,” I say, and I press the phone to my chest so I can talk to her. “Do you want to go?”
Lexie nods.
“Can my friend Lexie Anderson come? She’s the president of the club and has lots of great ideas.”
“President?” Lexie whispers. I grin and wave for her to be quiet, then turn my attention back to the phone.
“Sure. What time do you girls get out of school?”
“Three o’clock.”
“Would tomorrow afternoon at four be a good time?”
I cup my hand over the receiver. “Tomorrow after school at four?”
Lexie shrugs and nods.
“Do you know how to get here?” Heather asks.
I cup my hand over the phone again. “Get a piece of paper and a pencil. Out of that drawer. No, not that one, the one beside it.”
“What for?”
“Directions.”
“Dad knows how to get there.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, Sara.”
“That’s okay. We know how to get there,” I practically shout. After I say good-bye and hang up, Lexie and I jump up and down, screaming.
“We’re famous!” she shouts.
“I’ll be right back. I want to go tell Edi—I mean Mrs.—”
Lexie’s look is sympathetic. “It must be weird not knowing what to call your parents.”
I nod. “Very weird,” I say as I leave the room.
When I come back, I’m all out of breath from running. “They want to go with us, but Mrs. Chandler has to take Kevin to the dentist, and Mr. Chandler said he has to be in court. They said to see if your dad can take us and to remember to say all that please-and-thank-you stuff before, during, and after the interview.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lexie grins. “We will!”
* * *
That night, when my head hits the pillow, I know sleep is going to be impossible. I’ve never been on the radio before. Maybe Anna will hear me! And what about Daddy?
I picture Daddy’s face when he turns on the radio and hears me talking.
Will he call the station? Or maybe come and get me?
Tomorrow can’t come fast enough.
CHAPTER 27
LEXIE AND I CAN’T STOP talking on the ride to the radio station. “I think we should mention about getting the old people’s home to adopt kittens. What do you think?” She looks across the seat at me.
“Do we have to go through Congress or something to get it okayed or to get a l
aw passed?”
Lexie gets a thinking look on her face. She knows I have a point. Everyone has rules. The question is, who rules old people?
“I don’t know,” she admits. “Let’s ask Dad.” She leans over and taps his shoulder. Mr. Anderson turns down the radio and looks at her in the rearview mirror.
“You tapped?”
“Dad. Are old people’s homes owned by the old people?”
“They can be, but they generally aren’t. They’re usually privately owned businesses. Why?”
“Because we want to plan something that involves people in old people’s homes, and we were wondering if we needed to have Congress pass a law or something.”
Her dad smiles. “No. But you would have to get permission from the individual facilities.”
“How many old people’s homes are there in Oakview?”
“First of all, ladies, the more politically correct name for old people is either ‘seniors’ or ‘elderly,’ ” he explains. “And the places they live are more commonly called ‘senior residence centers’ or ‘convalescent homes.’ As for how many of them there are in Oakview, I don’t really know. Probably a dozen. Maybe even two.” He rounds a curve, and I lean hard toward Lexie. The seat belt tightens against me.
Both of us groan. “This is going to be a lot more work than we thought.”
I shift my weight, trying to get comfortable, just as Mr. Anderson turns into the radio station’s parking lot.
I look across the car at Lexie. “If it means someone has a kitten and a kitten has a home, I think it’s worth it. Don’t you?”
“Depends.”
She never says what it depends on, and my thoughts turn to the interview. How can something that makes so much sense—helping kittens and lonely people—turn into something so hard to do?
* * *
Heather White helps us relax by giving us cookies and milk. Then she shows us some of the questions she’s going to ask. I just nod a lot, not wanting anyone to realize I can’t read fast enough to know the questions she’s showing us. Before long, it’s time to go on the air.
“Good luck, girls,” Mr. Anderson whispers, hugging Lexie and giving me a big smile. “Just be yourselves. You’ll do great.”
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