The Great Cat Caper

by Lauraine Snelling

  Beetle!

  Chapter 11

  Operation Catness

  It was crazy. The truck hits you, we scream. The mayor gets on the phone with 911.” Sunny was chattering as Vee sat with a blanket around her—sweating—and the paramedic shined a light in her eyes and asked her to follow his fingers. Frank had joined the bunch of people hovering around Vee. He was shaking his head. Vee knew what he was thinking: drama.

  “The curious kitten!” She threw off the blanket. Ouch. That hip was sore. I really raced a garbage truck. And lost. Unbelievable.

  Esther pushed her down gently. “That driver thought he’d mushed you. He didn’t see you dive into the Dumpster—” She leaned in and sniffed. “Yep. Pretty gross with it being a hot day and all.”

  Slimy. Vee’s word for the day. Something glued her armpit together. And sticky.

  Aneta finished the story. “We see nothing first. We do not know if you are, are … Then you put your arm up. The kitten is in it!” She reached forward and hugged Vee then ducked away with a face. “The kitten scratches you and runs away. You are safe. You smell bad.” She brushed something off her shirt.

  “You’re a hero,” Sunny said, flopping down next to her as the paramedic moved away to the mayor who was lacing and unlacing her hands. “And boy, can you run fast!”

  Vee glanced over at the mayor. Her Dumpster dive had ruined any chance of the girls returning to the senior center. Since the first day of school she’d been apologizing. Every plan that worked before wasn’t working now. Her eyes widened; she dropped the blanket and stood up, keeping the weight off her right hip.

  That crazy curious kitten was peeking at her from under the Dumpster the truck had just thudded down before it roared off. Right back into danger. Vee breathed out a pent-up breath. She approached the mayor.

  “I am so—,” she began, reaching up a damp hand—what was that drooling down her arm? It was green and not pretty. She sensed rather than saw the girls around her. “I want to save these Dumpster cats for my service-learning project. Give them a spot.”

  The mayor’s sister looked relieved. “That’s just fine. You do that.” An almost-smile crept across her face. “It will keep you out of my senior center.”

  “Yes! The S.A.V.E. Squad saving their catness. Operation Catness!” Sunny spun in circles with delight. Staggering a bit she continued, “We’ll all do it, won’t we!” She looked at Esther and Aneta, who nodded enthusiastically.

  “Squad bracelets united!” Esther stepped forward and put out her wrist with the leather string and beads the girls had created after their first adventure.

  “Yes! We’ll save the Dumpster cats and find homes for them all!” Sunny touched her wrist to Esther’s. Vee added her bracelet. Aneta followed suit.

  Vee scanned them with a thank-you look. How hard could it be to find homes for cats this cute? She’d save the curious kitten and more and still have time to study for the retest.

  “From what I count in and around that Dumpster, that’s six cats,” the mayor said, looking less than impressed. “That’s not much of a project for super-talented Junior Event Planners like you girls. I have an idea.”

  Uh-oh. Simple job. Just a simple service-learning project. Please.

  “Oh, girls! Sissy, I know you’re going to love it.” The mayor threw an arm around her larger sibling. Mrs. Sissy didn’t look like she was going to love anything her shorter, dynamic sister had to say.

  Everyone stepped back to the senior center steps.

  The mayor looked at her sister. “What is your primary goal between now and the end of October?”

  Her sister looked aggrieved. “You know as well as I do. Win the Helpful City Festival contest. Show Oakton has the best volunteers and helpful programs for its citizens.”

  “I envision our Helpful City Festival working toward the contest by connecting disparate populations, our youths and our seniors,” the mayor said.

  Vee made a note to look up disparate. It sounded scary. “I envision a lot of work,” she muttered. A giggle escaped Sunny. Vee stole another look toward the Dumpster. The curious kitten sat washing its face, watching Vee. Yes, she wanted to give the curious kitten a spot. She did not want to become an event in the mayor’s Helpful City Festival.

  The mayor turned to Frank, who was looking at his phone. She nudged him. “Frank, you’d be great to supervise the girls. Sissy,”—she hugged her sister—“you want to win this Helpful City Contest. I just gave you an easy way to be different.” She beamed at everyone, waggled her fingers again, and headed toward her car in the parking lot. “Vee, just zip me an e-mail when you come up with your ideas. I am totally supportive!”

  The girls traded looks. Vee and the curious kitten traded looks. It is no longer just finding you a spot. Vee sent the thoughts the kitten’s way. It’s turned into a beetling great cat caper.

  Chapter 12

  Oh No, You’re Not!

  School was pretty much a blur the rest of the week with the girls arguing over how to save the cats. Even language arts, which was usually unforgettable. On Friday, at lunch, the kids at the table waved their hands in front of Vee when she looked right through them. C. P. said she had cat fever. One of the kids wanted to know if it was contagious. She remembered that. Dumb.

  Soon, however, their saving cats would be complete. As she jogged toward the community center for Operation Catness, her backpack banged against her back. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. In her head, she recited the plan they’d finally agreed on:

  Operation Catness:

  1. Open the tuna cans.

  2. Catch the curious kitten first then the others.

  3. Give them to Frank and Nadine.

  4. Get home to tutoring.

  5. Make a sign-up sheet for people to adopt the cats.

  6. Be done.

  It would take about an hour and a half to catch the momma cat, the kittens, and the three other grown cats. After the handoff to Nadine and Frank, she would buzz on home and get the math tutoring over with. Then Mom would order pizza, and she, Bill, and Mom would watch a movie during dinner. Then Dad would pick her up for the weekend.

  Maybe on Sunday she could pop over and see the curious kitten at Frank and Nadine’s. Monday, the Squad would have to come up with the additional ideas the mayor would like. She remembered their first adventure. Four girls with nothing in common but their differences. Now they were fast friends, even if they still sometimes disagreed. Ideas would come quickly. End of trouble.

  As she approached the senior center and saw the girls streaming from different directions, converging toward the steps, she laughed. Operation Catness begins! Sunny rolled in on her knobby-tire bike with her messenger bag slung across her shoulders. Aneta lugged a canvas bag; Esther tipped off her blue backpack with her school’s name emblazoned across it.

  “Are we ready?” Vee reviewed the list with the girls. “Let’s start Operation Catness!”

  Aneta looked hesitant. “Do we need Frank to be here?” She glanced over at the Dumpster. So did Vee. Not a cat to be seen. That was okay.

  “Once we open the cans of tuna, they will come running. It happens in all the cat food commercials.” Vee hoped the curious kitten would pick her can first.

  Sunny shrugged. “I bet the mayor just wanted Frank to be in on the project so he could drive us if we need it. You know, because it’s a senior center project and all, and he’s the senior center driver.”

  “What about the Cat Woman?” Esther stuck her hands on her hips. “I think we’re moving too fast. I think we should have her here to help us. I mean, what do we know about Dumpster cats?”

  Vee felt her familiar impatience rising with Esther. That girl seemed to get going in the opposite direction every time Vee came up with a plan. Didn’t Esther remember Vee needed to study for this retest and couldn’t spend all day tracking down Frank? “What’s so hard about catching cats?” she asked. “I’ve watched the Cat Woman feed them a couple of times. She sets the food out and step
s aside. Only this time, when they’re eating, we’ll slowly move in and pick them up.”

  Unflapping her canvas messenger bag, Aneta withdrew several cans of tuna. Esther and Sunny did the same with their bags, giggling as the pile of canned tuna grew. Vee added hers to the pile.

  “Okay, I think we should open the cans here and then put them on the plates like the Cat Woman does,” Vee said, inspecting the pile of tuna with pride. There was enough tuna to feed two cities’ Dumpster cats. Operation Catness was a great plan.

  “Umm—” It was Sunny smothering a giggle.

  Vee raised her gaze. “What?”

  “Can opener? Pie plates?”

  The stellar leaked out of her plan like air out of a balloon that had the misfortune to fall into the Twin Terrors’ hands. How could she forget to put those on her list? Lists were her specialty. She thought in lists. They were what got her into the accelerated class. She chewed the inside of her lip. Tutoring three times a week along with everything else was messing up her brain.

  “There’s an opener in the senior center kitchen.” Aneta shoved her hands into her skirt pockets. “But I do not want to go in there.”

  The girls looked at one another.

  Finally Vee sighed. “Okay, I’ll go in and ask.” On the way in, she could feel the girls’ eyes boring into her and tried to make her steps jaunty, like she wasn’t afraid of (1) Mrs. Sissy, (2) the cook Aneta helped on the day of the fire, or (3) Hermann, if he found out the girls had cut short his plan to get rid of the cats.

  Once inside, Vee blinked to adjust from the brightness. As she passed a tired-looking brown-and-gray-haired woman, the woman ducked away from her like Vee had reached out and bit her. A medicine-y mouthwash smell about blew Vee over as the woman passed, hugging the wall.

  Whew.

  In the kitchen she found a friendly face. “That’s a hard task you’ve given yourselves, and I don’t mean maybe,” the woman said. Vee smiled and took the proffered can opener, promising to bring it right back. She also accepted four pie pans and headed out the door with a light heart. Operation Catness was again proving stellar!

  Two more steps, then WHAM. She ran smack into the Cat Woman. Since they were the same height, their foreheads banged. That kind of smacked. Vee shoved out her arms to keep the woman from falling but ended up pushing her down with the pie pans. They clattered loudly on the corridor, along with the can opener at the same moment as Mrs. Sissy walked out the door across the way. Hermann was with her.

  Mrs. Sissy leaped forward to help the Cat Woman, pushing away Vee’s assistance. “What are you up to now?” she cried. “Pushing down helpless old women?”

  Vee remembered Sunny telling her they were not allowed to call the seniors “old.” It did not, however, seem a good time to remind Mrs. Sissy.

  Hermann set the Cat Woman on her feet. Then the two turned and regarded Vee. Hermann’s face set in hard lines. Vee’s face flamed like a bad sunburn. She knelt and picked up the can opener and pans.

  “I forgot the can opener and pie pans,” she said, her words jerking a bit over her madly beating heart. Honestly, you’d think she’d knocked over Cat Woman on purpose.

  Hermann grunted. “Kots und kids. Bah! You tink you got und easy job. Yah! My way is better. You vill see.”

  If people would just leave them alone, they would get this project finished and get those cats into good spots. Hermann would see. She shifted impatiently, sneaking a look at her watch. No way was she going to be late a second time for Math Man.

  “You!” Cat Woman huffed and straightened her velour running jacket, which, Vee noticed, was covered in cat hair. She suddenly remembered where she’d first seen the woman. During the girls’ first adventure, she’d been the woman who wouldn’t stop talking about her cats when they stopped at her door with an important mission. She opened her mouth to say more when Frank joined the group.

  His gaze took in the can opener and the pie pans then went up to Vee. His eyebrows slanted together. She remembered Aneta’s comment, “Do we need Frank here?” From the indignant expression on his face, yes.

  “What happened to including the project supervisor in your little project?” he asked, folding long, skinny arms over an equally skinny chest.

  “Hey, you!” It was the friendliest voice so far. Nadine walked up to her husband and slid an arm around his waist. She smiled at Vee.

  “Whatcha up to?”

  “Our project,” Vee stammered. “We’re going to catch the cats to start our project.”

  A heavy silence sucked the oxygen out of the corridor before four voices chorused, “Oh no, you’re not!”

  An hour later Vee and the girls stood shaking their heads.

  “Who knew?” Sunny said.

  “Not us,” Aneta said.

  “We messed up big-time,” Esther said.

  Nothing is going right, Vee agreed.

  Chapter 13

  Caught in a Trap

  They listened to the unhappy cats in the sheet-covered traps.

  “I am so glad I smacked into the Cat Woman,” Vee said.

  The girls gave her the stink eye.

  “I mean, in a good way. She had the traps in the senior center closet. Weird.”

  1. You need special traps to trap Dumpster cats.

  2. You might not catch them all (one got away).

  3. Dumpster cats do NOT think you are helping them.

  4. Dumpster cats make scary monster noises when they are not happy.

  5. Sheets are required.

  6. When Frank gets mad, his face gets blotchy.

  Sunny started to giggle. “The Cat Woman told us to cover the traps with sheets so the cats can begin to de-stress. Maybe we need to put a sheet over Frank.”

  Frank had his head tipped back as though speaking to God. “I survived the first time with these four. Wasn’t that enough? Like I need the drama again?”

  Vee wished the parking lot would swallow her up. How was she supposed to know that there was training involved to do this project?

  Sunny swallowed her giggles and walked up to Frank. “Oh, Frank, I’m sorry. I think—” She paused and looked at Vee, who had a suspicious feeling Sunny was thinking Vee should be saying what she said next. “We didn’t think this through.”

  Frank stomped into the senior center, passing Hermann who made a disgusted face at the traps, climbed into his car, and drove off.

  “Frank is mad at us,” Aneta observed. “Hermann thinks our plan is terrible.”

  Nadine finished inspecting the covered traps and approached the group. She blew out a breath. “I’m thinking you girls got carried away by your success in your first adventure.”

  A rush of anger surged up from deep within Vee. She’d gotten her want-to ramped up to volunteer to save Dumpster cats nobody wanted. Hadn’t she offered her time when everybody—well, maybe not Nadine and Frank and Cat Woman and Hermann or Mrs. Sissy—but everyone else knew she was hitting the math books so hard they were hitting back. Not only that, she and the Squad—and her lists—were going to come up with ideas for the mayor’s beetle-y Helpful City Festival. The lists would be stellar, um, when she made some. Wasn’t that enough?

  “We sure did,” Esther said. She shot a look at Vee. “I said we were rushing catching the cats.”

  Cat Woman, standing like her spine was made of steel, snapped, “You got that right, and you still don’t have it right. You don’t catch community and stray cats. You have to trap them. What were you planning to do, sneak up on them while they were eating and invite them to jump into your pocket?”

  Nadine held up her hands like a referee. “Okay, let’s get some perspective here. Would you girls agree that it would have helped the cats if you had thought this out better?”

  Even while her mind was saying yeah, but, she heard her voice say yes along with the others. Her time to help was up for today. A piteous meow sounded from the curious kitten’s trap. She did want the curious kitten to find a spot. With me. The ne
w, tiny thought jabbed her so hard she jumped.

  Cat Woman humphed. “I’ve seen what do-gooders do. They don’t want to learn. They just want to do something fast and have people tell them they’re wonderful for helping the animals.”

  Vee’s face warmed. “I have to go home now to meet the tutor. Then my dad’s picking me up for the weekend.”

  Nadine appeared lost in thought, then as the girls started their good-byes, picking up messenger bags and backpacks, she began to walk toward her Toyota. “Sure, Vee. Good luck with your tutoring. Great job, girls. Be sure to keep Frank in the loop for the next step!” she called.

  “Next step?” Sunny whipped her head to stare at Vee, mouth wide open. “Vee! She’s leaving.”

  Aneta murmured something that sounded like, “Okay, God, now what do we do?”

  Esther ran after Nadine. “Nadine! You forgot the cats!”

  Nadine turned around and walked backward, her tanned face still smiling. “No, you’ve got all the plans.”

  Yes, and that plan was to give the cats to Nadine and get home to Math Man on time. “Wait! Wait!” Vee chased after the two women. She had fifteen minutes to get home before Math Man showed up. “You can’t just leave them here with us.“

  Chapter 14

  Panic Time

  Frank walked out the senior center door, glanced at the cat carriers and then at the girls. Esther stood, hands on hips. Aneta crouched by the traps, murmuring. Sunny bounced up and down, first looking at Nadine and Gladys, then at Frank and the girls. Frank watched his wife’s back. Suddenly he looked much more cheerful. Vee could not think why. This was serious.