by Sally Warner
“But I’ve never really played with Hanni at school,” Alfie admitted. “Not just the two of us, Mom. She’s usually busy solving other kids’ problems or telling them what to do. And I’m usually running around playing.”
“You must have some things in common that you like to do,” her mom said.
“Not really,” Alfie replied, shaking her head. “And if Hanni gets bored here, she might not want to hang out with me by the time school begins,” she added, frowning. “She might tell the new kids I’m boring. And then second grade will get off to a terrible start. So my entire life depends on how things go today.”
Alfie had decided over the summer that the start of each new school year was like an imaginary whiteboard that had been wiped clean. True, there were still faint traces on it of things that had been written before, or that had happened before. But it was mostly blank.
And she was excited about the idea of starting out fresh. She could be anything!
“No it doesn’t, Miss Drama Queen,” her mom said, laughing. “Don’t go giving yourself stage fright for no reason. This is just another Monday morning, only you have a friend—a new friend, apparently—coming over to play. And then you girls will get to go shopping. Period. So stop making such a big deal out of this.”
Huh, Alfie thought, scowling some more as she finished her burrito. That was easy for her mom to say.
She didn’t really get it.
Mrs. Sobel walked Hanni over to the Jakeses’ house, even though the Sobels only lived a block away. “No walking alone,” the parents had decided.
“Hey,” Hanni said, sliding a glance toward Alfie when the front door opened. Alfie hoped her softly twisted pigtails looked as cute this morning as they usually did.
Hanni Sobel’s hair looked good. She had wavy dark hair, green eyes, and a narrow face that dimpled when she smiled. But—uh-oh, Alfie thought. Hanni did not look happy. What was up with that?
“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Louise,” Mrs. Sobel told Alfie’s mom, pretend-whispering. Mrs. Sobel was a comfortably rounded woman with a broad smile and a haircut that seemed to be all straight lines, Alfie noted. Maybe she used a ruler when she cut it.
“She got up on the wrong side of the bed” was an expression that meant Hanni was in a bad mood, Alfie knew.
Great.
“But I always get up on the same side,” Hanni pointed out. “I get up on the right side, Mom.”
Pure Hanni.
“I just meant you aren’t your usual sunny self, as you very well know,” Mrs. Sobel explained, laughing. “But you can just turn that frown upside-down, missy,” she added, refusing to be anything but cheerful as she prepared to leave. “It’s a beautiful day, and you’re going to have a wonderful time with Alfie.”
An okay day and a so-so time would be enough to hope for at this point, Alfie thought. Yesterday’s tummy flutters returned as she peeked at Hanni’s stony face.
“I’m sorry you got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Alfie said to Hanni once they were alone in Alfie’s room. “Is there any cure for that?”
“Nope,” Hanni said, looking around.
“Too bad,” Alfie said.
“So sad.”
And they laughed together for the first time. Hanni’s dimple appeared.
Alfie had hidden away a couple of toys she didn’t want to share, but she had scattered other fun things around the room in what she hoped was a tempting way.
Her metal box full of stickers.
The candy board game.
A basketful of small dolls wearing very cool clothes.
“Maybe I can trick myself out of my bad mood by doing stuff exactly the opposite?” Hanni said, coming up with the idea just like that. “Not cure getting out of bed, because that already happened,” she explained. “But everything else.”
“We should do stuff backwards today,” Alfie said, playing with the beaded end of one of her pigtails. “We could even try walking backwards, if we can do it without falling over.”
“Maybe not walking backwards down the stairs,” Hanni cautioned, her hair growing springier and more cheerful with each word. “But around the block? Everyone will think we’re so goofy and weird!”
“It’ll be absolutely great,” Alfie said, picturing her neighbors’ expressions—if anyone was outside on such a hot August day. “But we gotta put our clothes on backwards first,” she said, daring to make the suggestion. “Otherwise, the trick might not work.”
Switching their clothes around was easy to do, since it was a shorts-and-T-shirt summer day. Two minutes later, their shorts pooched out in front where their bottoms used to be, and T-shirt labels tickled their throats instead of the backs of their necks. But they still looked cute. “Let’s go, Eifla,” Hanni said. “That’s ‘Alfie’ spelled backwards,” she explained. “It’ll be our secret code for Backwards Day.”
Hanni Sobel could spell backwards in her head.
“Um, okay, Innah,” Alfie replied, feeling proud of herself—and relieved that Hanni’s name was so short. “I gotta tell Mom we’re going out, but she’ll say yes. As long as we stick together and only walk one block.”
“And if we see your big brother,” Hanni-Innah said, “we’re calling him YarLle. You know, instead of EllRay,” she explained.
EllRay was going to be a sixth-grader at Oak Glen, so Hanni already knew him.
Hanni was amazing, figuring out his backwards name that fast.
“It makes him sound like an alien from Star Wars,” Alfie said, smiling. “It’s perfect.”
“I’m perfect,” Hanni said, probably half teasing, Alfie thought.
“Maybe you are, and maybe you aren’t,” she said with a matching smile.
“I are,” Hanni insisted, making a face.
“If you say so.”
“So let’s go, backwards girl,” Hanni said with a grin on her face that had, in fact, turned her frown upside-down. “And when we get home, maybe we can do other stuff backwards, too. Like un-make your bed, and switch all your dolls’ clothes around.”
“And eat our dessert first at lunch,” Alfie chimed in.
“So let’s get going, Eifla,” Hanni said again, whirling around to show off her backwards outfit. “This is gonna be a really fun day!”
And tomorrow would be another one, Alfie thought happily.
What a relief.
4
Surprise!
“C’mon in,” Hanni said to Alfie the next morning at nine A.M. sharp, opening her front door a tiny crack. “Only don’t let any of them out.”
“Any of who? Any of what?” Alfie asked. Hanni was still such a mystery that she could be talking about anything! For all Alfie knew, the Sobels were raising butterflies in their living room.
Or maybe they had a lizard ranch in there.
But this was a pretty cool way for a Tuesday in August to start.
“I’m in,” Alfie said, slipping through the door. She looked around, curious. Her own house was comfortable and pretty, with lots of bright colors, books, and beautiful rocks on display, since Alfie’s dad was a geology professor at a college in San Diego. But the Sobels’ house was modern, sleek, and shiny. There were no butterflies or lizards in sight.
“I like your house,” Alfie told Hanni, feeling shy.
“It’s okay,” Hanni said, looking around with a doubtful shrug. “Only we can’t make a mess, except in my room. That’s where I’m keeping the craft supplies.”
After a successful shopping trip the previous afternoon, the girls had divided their loot into two bags in the back of Mrs. Jakes’s car.
“Can I see your room?” Alfie asked.
“Yeah, but I wanna show you something else first,” Hanni said. “That’s my mom’s office,” she added, whispering the words as they passed a partly open door
.
“Hello, Alfie,” Mrs. Sobel sang out from behind the door.
“Hi, Mrs. Sobel,” Alfie called back. “Thanks for having me over.”
“No problem!”
Whenever somebody said “No problem,” Alfie always thought there probably was a problem, she just didn’t know what it was yet.
“Follow me,” Hanni said, nudging Alfie toward the big kitchen, separated from the living area only by a gleaming white island. The Sobels’ kitchen looked like a magazine picture, Alfie thought, but there wasn’t any food lying around other than a big bowl of lemons. Alfie’s mouth puckered up just thinking about them.
Why all the lemons?
Hanni was heading toward a sliding door at one side of the kitchen. “Surprise!” she said, pushing it open a little.
So Hanni had been teasing at the front door, Alfie thought, explaining it to herself. She could joke around! But here was the real surprise, in the laundry room. “Kittens,” she said, almost breathing out the word, she was so thrilled.
It was love at first sight.
Alfie Jakes had wanted a kitten for as long as she could remember. But her mom was convinced that Alfie was allergic to animal fur.
And that meant “No Pets.”
It was an official family rule.
“I had a stuffy nose when I was two, Mom,” Alfie had tried to argue more than once. “And yes, maybe I was around somebody’s cat or dog when it happened. But that doesn’t mean I’m allergic.”
“You’re healthy when you’re not around cats and dogs,” Mrs. Jakes always pointed out.
“But I’d probably be healthy anyway,” Alfie argued. “I’m a healthy kid!”
“Kittens,” Alfie said again now, feeling as though she had walked into some wonderful cartoon.
5
Free to a Good Home
The black mama cat—Domino—had white spots on her chest and tummy. She sprawled in a splash of sunshine in a blanket-lined basket. There was a sleepy, pleased look on her face as she watched her three kittens play.
The kittens were the cutest things Alfie had ever seen, not counting videos of baby goats on the Internet. “They’re beautiful, Hanni,” Alfie said, sinking to her knees on the shiny laundry room floor.
“Thought you’d like them,” Hanni said in a satisfied way, sliding the door shut behind them. She sat down next to Alfie and twiddled her fingers on the floor to get the kittens’ attention.
“I thought kitties’ eyes were always shut,” Alfie said, staring at the little animals in a hungry way.
She wanted a kitten—big-time.
And she especially wanted the gray kitty who looked like it was wearing a little white vest.
Love on top of love at first sight.
“Yeah. Their eyes are shut when they’re first born,” Hanni informed her. “And their ears are kind of pasted down, too. But these guys are almost eight weeks old. They’ve already had their shots. They’re gonna leave pretty soon. Two of them, anyway.”
Leave? But where would they go? Alfie pictured two kittens packing tiny suitcases or duffel bags and tottering out the Sobels’ wide front door.
She knew that wasn’t what really happened, but it was fun to imagine it.
“Domino had these kittens by accident,” Hanni was explaining. “See, we never had a girl cat before, and my mom didn’t know Domino could have kittens before she was one year old, even. But all of a sudden, kittens. Mom says that’s never happening again,” she added, sounding a little sad.
“Huh,” Alfie said. The Jakes family had never had a pet, so Alfie wasn’t really sure what Hanni was talking about. But she didn’t want Hanni to know that.
Two of the kitties were sitting up very straight, as if they’d been told to pay attention in class. The third kitten, Alfie’s favorite—the one who looked like it was wearing striped socks and a white vest—had puffed itself up and was hopping sideways toward the other two. It was probably pretending to be scary, Alfie thought, smiling again. Then the hopping kitten saw Hanni’s moving fingers. It crouched, its waggling rear end in the air, preparing to pounce.
Adorable.
And Alfie’s nose wasn’t running the tiniest little bit!
See? She wasn’t allergic to animal fur. Especially not to this animal’s fur.
“Hold it,” Hanni urged, and so Alfie scooped up the crouching kitten as if she’d done it every day of her life.
The kitten nestled against Alfie’s T-shirt and started to purr. “It likes me,” Alfie said, thrilled. She could almost see sparkles in the air and hear pink and blue cartoon birds start to sing.
“That’s the kitty who doesn’t have a home,” Hanni said, shaking her head. “Poor little thing.”
“You’re really not gonna keep it?” Alfie asked, amazed. If they were her kittens, she’d keep them all!
“Mom says no,” Hanni said. “I already asked.”
“So, someone else will get to take it home,” Alfie said, thinking aloud.
“I guess,” Hanni said, shrugging. “In a week. And it’s a girl kitty, by the way.”
“Are kittens expensive?” Alfie asked. Her mind was starting to whir. She had fourteen dollars saved up for emergency spending. The money was hidden in her ballerina jewelry box.
This was definitely an emergency. But would fourteen dollars be enough?
“Some of ’em are expensive,” Hanni said. “But this kitty is ‘free to a good home,’ my mom says.”
Wow, Alfie thought, amazed. Free. Free was the perfect price!
Wait a minute, she told herself suddenly, her eyes wide. What was she thinking? She didn’t have permission to bring a kitten home.
It wasn’t fair!
6
The Decision
Two days later, on Thursday, Oak Glen was in the middle of a real heat wave. When it started to cool down that evening, Alfie and EllRay went outside after dinner to play. A yellow plastic water slide stretched across the back lawn in the fading light. A hose dribbled nearby on the soggy grass.
Alfie Jakes was famous in her family for not being able to keep a secret. Even when someone was opening a present, she often blurted out what was inside.
“It’s hiking boots!”
“It’s a sweater!”
“It’s a new skateboard!”
She liked being an expert on something, even if she was only seven. And spilling the beans about a gift was almost as good as buying the present herself, in Alfie’s opinion. So it was hard keeping a secret about an actual kitten that she was desperately hoping would come to live in their very own house, if Alfie’s wish came true. She shivered in anticipation as she got ready for her first slippery turn on the water slide.
You had to be careful with water slides, Alfie reminded herself as she crouched, getting ready to make her run. If there was a dry spot on the plastic, you might screech to a halt on it, and that stung like crazy.
“Is the slide totally wet?” Alfie called out to her brother, waggling her bottom a little as she prepared to make her dash.
“Of course it is,” he shouted back. “Just go.”
“You better not be kidding me, EllRay, or you’ll be sorry,” Alfie said.
She crouched again, stalling.
The kitty would have to be kept a secret at first. That was her new plan.
But she was right about not being allergic, Alfie thought, doing a couple of improvised pre-slide stretches. And having a new kitty would make her feel better about starting school with a boy teacher. Feel better about everything. She’d be the girl with the cute gray kitten at home.
That would be the first mark on her imaginary second grade whiteboard.
When the kitten was ready, Alfie thought, her heart pounding, she would sneak it home from Hanni’s house and straight to her room. Maybe even next week! And by the tim
e her family found out, she—still sniffle-free—would be able to prove she wasn’t allergic to animal fur.
Yes, she would be breaking a family rule.
Yes, she might get in trouble.
Okay, she’d for sure get in trouble.
But the rule was wrong!
The actual kitty-sneaking wouldn’t be too hard, if she really did it, Alfie assured herself. The gray kitten was tiny, not much bigger than a cupcake. Alfie would tuck her under a baggy T-shirt and just do it.
Alfie could picture the whole thing. She would hurry the kitten upstairs once she got home. She’d shut the door to her room—after hanging up the glittery Privacy, Please! sign she had made at Hanni’s house during a lively craft afternoon.
Earlier that summer, she and her mother had made a deal that if Alfie could keep her room clean, her mom wouldn’t keep inspecting it all the time.
But how long would she be able to keep the kitten a secret from the rest of her family? A couple of weeks, probably, Alfie assured herself. At least until school got started at the end of August. By then, she would be the proud owner of a perfectly trained kitten—who might even be able to do tricks!
Could kittens learn how to do tricks?
“Hey, it’s almost dark. I’m falling asleep over here,” EllRay yelled, sounding just about fed up. “I want a turn, too, you know. Are you going to slide, or are you just gonna stand there like a statue?” he asked, his hands on his hips.
“You’re the statue,” Alfie replied.
“No. You are,” EllRay said.
“No, you,” Alfie said. “I’m going to slide so far that I’ll shoot off the end and just keep flying,” she announced, backing up for the best head start ever.
And she did fly off the water slide! In fact, Alfie’s wet skin ended up coated with so many tiny grass clippings that her brother couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re totally covered, Alf,” he finally said, gasping. “It was worth the wait. Porcupine,” he added, pointing.
