Great Escape

by Bill Wallace

  Friendly as always, Willy’s tail started to wag. He moved toward the man.

  “Wait, Willy,” I whispered. “Something’s wrong. Don’t come over here.”

  Suddenly the man people thrust the pole. The loop went around Willy's head. Then the man yanked! The rope drew tight around my friend’s throat. Willy’s eyes flashed as big around as my head. He tried to jump back. Run.

  “I can’t breathe,” he gasped. “He’s choking me. It’s killing me. Help!”

  The man people with the brown uniform laughed. He dragged Willy toward the back of his car thing. There were boxes there. Cages with bars and holes.

  “Help me, Chuck,” Willy pleaded.

  I poked my head from under the trash can.

  “What can I do, Willy? I’m just a kitty cat. All I know how to do is purr and meow. I only know how to chase mice and—”

  “Come on, big boy,” the man people groaned. “Soon as you’re locked up, I'll get your buddy over there.”

  Legs locked and paws plowing up the dirt, Willy tried to stop. He was big and strong, but no match for the man people.

  “Run, Chuck!” Willy gagged. “Don’t let him get you, too. There’s nothing you can do. Run!”

  Willy was right. Now was my chance!

  While the man was busy, fighting with Willy, I could make a break for it. I could get away. I could find some place safe to hide. Late at night, when there were not many cars on the busy street, I could get back to my home—to my family.

  I darted from my hiding place and ran.

  No matter how I wanted to help my friend, Willy was right. There was nothing I could do. I was just a kitty cat. All we’re good for is purring and meowing and chasing mice and . . .

  CHAPTER 14

  I had only bounded a few strides when my legs locked up. Still choking Willy with the rope, the man bent over. He put his free hand under my friend’s chest and began to lift him toward the cage. Before I even stopped sliding, I spun around and charged.

  Bent over with his back to me, the man people was the perfect target. He never saw me coming. I leaped.

  Claws out, I sailed through the air. I latched on to the man’s leg and started to climb.

  “YOWIEEEE!” he screamed.

  I kept climbing. The man people began jumping around. He flailed his arms. He danced about. He tried to grab me with his big paws. I went right up his leg, past his bottom, and up his back. He couldn’t reach me.

  “OUCH!”

  I kept climbing. I went clear to the very top. There, balled up on his head, I hung on for dear life.

  For a second or two he hopped and danced around in circles. He screamed and bounced. Then enormous paws wrapped about me and ripped me from my perch. Suddenly I was flying through the air. Tail and back spinning, I landed on my feet. I was on top of the car thing.

  In a flash I scurried across the box, slid down the windshield, and hopped to the ground. I hid underneath.

  Willy was there. His paws dug at the rope around his neck. Frightened eyes flashed at me. He was almost loose. Still, he needed more time.

  Before the man people could find me, I darted from the car thing and hid under the trash cans. There, I watched as he rubbed his leg with his paw. He touched it to his head, then stared down at it for a long time to see if there was any blood. Then his big paws made fists. He bent over to look under the car thing.

  It was too much to pass up.

  Well . . . Willy needed more time to get the rope loose. And . . . well . . . the man people was all bent over, trying to see under the car thing. And . . . well . . . the way his big, fat rump stuck up in the air, right in front of the trash can where I was hiding . . . well . . .

  “YOWIEEEEEE!”

  My sharp claws clung to his leg. My sharp teeth crunched as they sank through his brown pants and into his fat bottom.

  “OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!”

  A big paw clunked me upside the head. Another paw whacked me from the other direction. He started running around in circles. In less than a second he was spinning—whizzing faster and faster until I could hardly hold on. All four paws gripped as hard as I could. Suddenly my hind feet let go. Stretched out, I still clung to him with my front claws and my teeth.

  He whirled faster. The force was too much. I lost my grip with my front paws. Level with the ground, I hung on with nothing but my teeth. Round and round—tail and body stretched out straight—listening to him squeal as he spun faster and faster. At last my teeth finally slipped from their grip on his fat bottom.

  I felt myself sail through the air. I slammed against the fence and slid to the ground. Shaking my head, I blinked a couple of times. I scrambled to my feet. Blinked again and opened my eyes.

  Willy was beside me. He nudged me with his big snout.

  “I’m loose! Come on, let’s get out of here!”

  We flew down the alley. Behind us, I could hear the man people screaming and shouting nasty words at us. We ran harder.

  Through the alley, across a yard, up a street, and down another street. I was still running as hard as I could when we reached the busy road with all the cars. Still at full speed, I crouched to leap from the curb.

  Only, I didn’t go anywhere.

  Something stopped me. Something stomped on my tail!

  It hurt. It pinned my tail to the ground. Fact was, it almost yanked it clear out. I flinched from the pain. Claws out, I turned to attack whatever held me.

  It was Willy’s big paw.

  “The light,” he urged.

  A car thing whizzed past, just inches from my nose. The wind from it ruffled my fur.

  “The light,” Willy repeated. “Work the light. Quick! Before he finds us. It’s the only way we can get across.”

  In the blink of an eye I leaped to his back. I raced to his head and swatted the little black button as hard as I could.

  “There they are again, Loretta,” a voice called from one of the car things.

  “What?” a woman people squawked.

  “That crazy cat. The one over there on the dog’s head.”

  I leaped down. The cars began to stop.

  “What cat? Soon as we get home, I’m calling the doctor, Charlie. You’re losin’ your marbles. . . .”

  Once across the busy street, we raced down the sidewalk. We heard a car coming, so we hid beside a house. When it was gone, we took the alley to Willy’s. Once certain that no one was watching, we slipped through the gate and hid in Willy’s doghouse.

  Still panting and out of breath, we watched and listened for a long, long time. Finally certain that the man in the white car thing with the blue light hadn’t followed us, we began to relax.

  Willy nudged me with his nose.

  “That was the bravest thing I ever saw,” he said with a sigh. “You’re a regular hero.”

  My lip curled when I tilted my head to look at him.

  “Hero? Me?”

  “Hero!” He nodded so hard that his big, loose jowls flopped. “The way you jumped that guy so I could get loose . . . I still can’t believe it! He could have caught you. He could have locked you in a cage. You had the chance to get away, but you came back to help me. That’s what I call brave. A hero!”

  I crossed my paws and laid my head on them.

  “I’m no hero, Willy.” I sighed. “I was scared. I wanted to run away.”

  “But you didn’t. You came back. You saved me.”

  “I didn’t want him to get me,” I admitted. “But I didn’t want him to get you, either. But I’m no hero.”

  “You’re my hero.” Willy kissed me with his enormous, sloppy tongue. “How did you know what to do?”

  My whiskers twitched.

  “I don’t know. I was trying to think what I could do if I was big, like you. Maybe I could bite him or knock him down or something. But I’m not big like you. I’m just a little kitty cat. And . . . well . . . I kept trying to think what a little, puny, kitty cat could do. And . . .”

  “And?” h
e urged.

  I looked at my friend a moment and smiled.

  “What can kitty cats do?” I asked him.

  Willy frowned. He looked at me, and slowly a smile came to his big, ugly face.

  “Well, cats can meow. Cats can purr.” He kind of nibbled on his bottom lip. “They can smell funny—like a cat. They can hiss and spit. Some of them get all fuzzed up when you call them by their nickname. They can catch mice. And . . .” He stopped, kind of nibbling at the other side of his lip.

  “And?” I nudged him with my paw.

  A sly smile curled his lips.

  “And they can climb trees. Right?”

  I took a deep breath and sighed.

  “Right. I think it was the brown pants,” I confessed. “If the guy had on blue pants or shorts—I might never have thought of it. But brown pants . . . long legs . . . it kind of reminded me of a tree trunk. And when cats are scared—we climb a tree. It’s the first thing that comes to our mind.”

  “I’m glad you were there,” Willy said. “I’m glad you were there for me today. I’m glad you’re my friend, Chuck.”

  He kissed me again with that huge tongue.

  Getting kissed by a dog is kind of revolting. Dog kisses are wet and sloppy. Besides . . . well . . . dogs smell like dogs.

  His big head made a thud sound when he flopped it down to take a nap. I snuggled up close to him and nestled my head against his tummy.

  So he was a dog. So what?

  I peeked up at the gigantic beast beside me.

  “I’m glad you’re my friend, too, Willy.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BILL WALLACE was a principal and physical education teacher at an elementary school in Chickasha, Oklahoma, for ten years. Recently, he has spent much of his spare time assisting his wife in coaching a girls’ soccer team. When Bill’s not busy on the soccer field, he spends time with his family, cares for his five dogs, three cats, and two horses, lectures at schools around the country, answers mail from his readers, and of course, works on his books. Bill Wallace’s novels have won nineteen state awards and made the master lists in twenty-four states.

  Aladdin

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1998 by Bill Wallace

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  ISBN 978-0-6710-1936-5 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-6710-1937-2 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-3144-6 (eBook)