by Nick Pirog
They aren’t Jerry.
But maybe they know Jerry!
I meow.
Take me to Jerry.
“Grab him, dude,” one of the non-Jerrys says.
“I got a meeting.”
“Me too.”
“We can’t just leave a kitten out here. He’s gonna get mangled by a car.”
“Go for it, Rick.”
The non-Jerry, Rick, drops a black square bag (the other two non-Jerrys have the same thing draped over their shoulders), then leans down. His hair is black, shiny, and smelly. Rick fiddles with my collar then says, “Cheese,” with a light laugh.
How does he know my name?
He picks me up and carries me across the street and to a large fountain near where the tall buildings begin. He sets me down on the edge of the fountain. The water is light blue and a bunch of shiny things lay on the bottom. I remember a fountain just like it. Is this the same one? If so, then I must be close to Jerry.
But then why are these buildings so much taller than the buildings I’m used to seeing? Or do all the buildings look so big because I’m so small?
Rick takes out his phone, then he picks me up and squints at my neck. I give him a lick on the nose, well, because it’s right there and I like a good nose lick.
He laughs, then does something to his phone. I know humans can talk to each other through these phones.
“Hi,” Rick says. “I found your kitten.”
Jerry?
Is he talking to Jerry?
“On the corner of 2nd and Mission…I work three blocks away at the Chronicle, can you meet me there?…Ten minutes?…Okay.”
Rick puts his phone away, then picks me up.
I claw at his leg.
Was that Jerry?
Were you talking to Jerry?
Is Jerry coming to get me?
He picks me up and we walk a few more blocks. We pass lots and lots of people. Rick stops a few times to let she-humans pet me. I let them. What do I care? I’m going to see Jerry soon.
We stop in front of a large, gray building. It isn’t as tall as the other buildings. There’s a bench out front and Rick and I sit down. Rick plays with his phone and I sit on his lap and wait for Jerry.
A few minutes later, I see her.
Mom.
And she isn’t happy.
~
Lockdown.
That’s what Sara called it.
The weird box with the sand and my water and food bowl have been moved to Sara’s bathroom and I’m not allowed out of Sara’s room.
I guess I’m something called a “flight risk.”
It’s been a week since my first escape attempt. A week since Mom drove me back to New Home and handed me to Sara. A week since Sara cried and asked, “Why did you run away, Cheese?”
Because my name isn’t Cheese, I wanted to tell her.
Because I belong with Jerry and Cassie.
Because I can’t be locked in a house all day.
Because I’m a dog.
I crawl up Sara’s bedspread and onto her bed. There’s a window next to her bed and I jump on the windowsill. I do this every day. Sit on the windowsill and watch Outside. Watch the cars go by. Watch the people walk down their steps and get their newspapers. Watch Sara and Mom come and go. Watch the squirrels run around in the tree next to the house.
Sara’s window is different than the windows downstairs. There is a black thing with lots of holes behind the glass. It looks like the thing Jerry uses to catch the fish—a “net.”
Usually, I can’t touch the net because it’s behind the glass, but today is different. Today, the glass is gone. The window is open. I can feel Outside coming through the black net. I can push against this net with my paw. It’s spongy and it moves when I touch it.
That’s when I realize the only thing between me and Outside is this black net. There’s been a development with my nails in the last week—I can retract them into my paw—and I snap out my claws. Then I do something I’ve never done before (something I will later learn is called “whapping”). I whap at the net and one of my claws makes a tiny cut.
I feel my whiskers twitch.
Whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap, whap.
I whap until there’s a small hole. I stick my paw through. I whap some more until I can wiggle my little baby cat head through the hole. I wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, and then I’m Outside!
I’m standing on something black and warm. It angles down. I walk to the edge of the black and glance down. The ground seems really far away.
How do I get down to the ground?
Jump?
Even though every time I jump off something, I land softly (I don’t fully understand this quite yet), I chicken out.
It’s too high.
The tree!
I pitter-patter to where the tree is. There’s a branch not far from where the black stops. It isn’t very thick, but I saw a squirrel out on the branch a few days earlier. If a squirrel can do it, then shouldn’t I be able to? (Cats and squirrels are basically the same thing, right?)
I rock back and jump. I land on the branch softly. I scamper down the branch, then jump to a lower branch. My paws slide on a couple of leaves and I fall.
Then I’m on the ground.
And I’m fine.
I look up.
I just fell half a house and it didn’t even hurt.
Are cats indestructible?
I run to the sidewalk. I think about going back down the hill, but that didn’t work out very well last time and I decide to go up the hill. I run, run, run, run, then finally I get to the top of the hill. That’s when I see it. It’s far off in the distance, big and blue.
The Lake!
I run down the hill as fast as I can. I cross a bunch of streets. The hill evens out and I can’t see the Lake anymore. It’s just houses and buildings and cars. So many cars.
I cross another street and that’s when I see the biggest car I’ve ever seen. It’s right in the middle of the road. There are a bunch of humans crammed into the car, then a bunch of humans hanging off the side of it. It’s coming right at me fast and I don’t know which way to go.
I freeze.
I feel a rush of wind as the huge car passes.
Then I feel hands around me.
“That trolley just missed you, buddy,” the she-human says, pulling me to her chest. “What are doing out here anyhow—” she fiddles with my collar, “—Cheese?”
How does she know my name?
She pulls out her phone, then talks to someone.
Five minutes later, I’m back at New Home and Mom is mad and Sara is crying.
~
Total Lockdown.
That’s what Sara called it.
Total Lockdown is a cage.
A cage!
The cage is on the floor in Sara’s room. My water and food bowls are in one corner, the box of weird sand in another. The cage is about the same size as the cardboard box I lived in when I was just a tiny baby cat. That seemed like plenty of space back then but I’m bigger now and I can feel the walls of the cage closing in on me.
I’ve never been in a cage before, but Cassie had. When she was at something called Shelter, she lived in one for many months. She said it wasn’t that bad. She said it was better than living on the Street.
I disagree. It’s terrible. It’s the worst. I have to get out.
But how?
Even if I get out of the cage, how am I supposed to get out of Sara’s room? There’s still a big hole in the black “net,” but the window is closed in front of it. And if I do somehow get back Outside, how do I not get caught by any humans and brought back to Sara and Mom?
I’ve given this last part a lot of thought. About how the humans somehow know my name and how they keep bringing me back to Mom and Sara. There’s something on my collar. Something the humans keep looking at after they pick me up. I’m not su
re how this all works, but I know I have to get rid of my collar if I want to make it back to Jerry and Cassie.
Speaking of Cassie, I wish she were here. She’s so smart. She would figure out a way. Just like she figured out how to get the carrots out of the fridge without Jerry knowing. Most dogs, like me, would eat the entire bag of carrots (or the big block of cheddar) but not Cassie. She would only eat two or three so that Jerry wouldn’t notice.
What would Cassie do in this situation?
“Have they ever taken the collar off of you?” Cassie would ask.
Sara had. Once. Right before she gave me a bath.
“And why did she give you a bath?” Cassie would ask.
Because I was “gross.” Because I rolled around in the weird sand after I took a poop.
I feel my whiskers twitch.
Poop.
That was the answer.
I walk to the weird sand, then think better of it. The weird sand stuck to the poop, so it didn’t spread very much. I poop directly on the floor of the cage. Then I roll around in it until my entire body is covered.
I’m pretty sure I’m gross.
~
Two hours later, the door to Sara’s room opens.
“Chee—Ugh—what’s that smell?”
Sara leans down and looks at me.
I wag my tail.
Hi.
“Oh, my God. You’re, you’re…MOM!!!...Cheese is covered in poop!”
Yep.
Mom comes into the room and looks at me. She shakes her head and says, “Well, clean him off, Sara.” She waves her hand in front of her nose, then goes over to the window and pushes up the glass.
I hadn’t planned on this, but it works in my favor.
“I don’t want to touch him,” Sara says.
“He’s your cat,” Mom says. “This is what you signed up for.”
“I signed up for a nice cat that plays with the toys I buy him, doesn’t constantly run away, and DOESN’T roll around in his poop!”
“There are kitchen gloves under the sink,” Mom says on her way out. I think she’s smiling.
A few minutes later, Sara picks me up and carries me into the bathroom. She’s wearing yellow gloves. She holds me far away from her body, her arms stretched out straight.
“Ugh…You are so gross,” she says.
Mission accomplished.
She sets me in the bathtub, then starts the water.
“You even got poop on your collar,” Sara says, taking off my collar and throwing it into the water in front of me.
I force my whiskers not to twitch.
I let Sara scrub me for a few minutes until I’m clean. She turns her back for a second and I make my move. I jump out of the tub—which takes me three tries because it’s so slippery—then zoom past Sara and out of the bathroom.
“Cheese!” Sara screams.
I jump onto the bed, onto the windowsill, then wiggle through the hole in the black net. Once I’m Outside, I turn and look back.
Sara is standing next to her bed. Her hands are at her sides and she’s staring at me. “You are the worst cat,” she says.
That’s because I’m a dog.
~
I avoid people. I avoid cars. I even try to avoid streets.
It takes me a long time, but eventually, I make it to the water. To the Lake. The sun is starting to set and I can see the water lapping at the sand and rocks. I know if I stay by the Lake long enough that Jerry and Cassie will come.
I pitter-patter down to the water and jump in.
Immediately, I know something is wrong. The water feels different. It tastes different. This is not my water. This is not my Lake.
A few minutes later, it starts to rain.
I find some rocks to hunker down in. I’m wet, I’m cold, I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, and I’m lost.
The cage doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
Chapter 8
“TINDER”
Cassie
I don’t want to wake up Jerry. But I have to. I have to go outside. I scratch the bed softly a few times.
Jerry.
Jerry.
Jerry.
He doesn’t wake up.
I know I shouldn’t bark. That it’s too late to be barking. But this is an emergency. I have to go outside.
I bark.
Just once.
Jerry rolls over. One of his eyes squints open. He groans, then asks, “What are you barking at?”
I trot toward the back door and give it a scratch.
I hear Jerry blow out a long breath of air, then hear his feet hit the carpet.
“What’s wrong?” Jerry asks, his eyes and mouth doing their weird wake up dance. “Do you have to go pee?”
No, I don’t have to pee, Jerry. I know how to schedule my pees so I don’t have to go in the middle of the night.
I scratch the door a few more times.
“Are you gonna be sick?”
I can’t blame Jerry for thinking this. The last time I woke Jerry up in the middle of the night to go outside, I was “sick.” I think it was from the little red berries that grow on one of the trees in the yard. They give me the poops, but boy do they taste good.
No, Jerry, I’m not sick.
Jerry opens the door and I scamper onto the back porch and to the small blue pool. I can see well at night—better than Jerry, who is always squinting when it’s dark outside—and I gaze into the water. I see a few of the tadpoles—some of them have tiny legs now—zipping around in the water. That’s the thing about night, that’s when the tadpoles come alive.
“You woke me up to come check on the tadpoles?” Jerry asks, leaning down behind me. I can hear him shaking his head.
Yes.
Yes, I did.
Ever since I ate the magic brown squares, I’ve been thinking a lot about the tadpoles—and Hugo. I think the two are connected, Hugo and the tadpoles. And something in the magic brownies connected them. (And I’ve been thinking a lot about blueberries that grow as big as my head. But I don’t think these super blueberries are connected to Hugo and the tadpoles.) All I know is that after I ate those magic brown squares, I realized something: I should have protected Hugo. I should have taught him to be more careful. Taught him never to run into the street. But Hugo is gone. I can’t save him now. I can’t protect him.
But I can protect the tadpoles.
A frog, a Chosen one, sits on the edge of the baby pool. I lean down and give him a sniff. He jumps into the water and swims across the pool, his little legs fluttering together, then he climbs out on the edge of the pool farthest from me.
“The water in the pool is getting kind of low,” Jerry says. “Maybe we should fill it up a little bit.”
I follow Jerry to the hose. He turns it on so it’s just above a trickle. Then he gingerly sets the hose in the pool. The water churns slightly and I’m sure some of the tadpoles go for a little ride, but they will be fine. And they will have more room to play.
After a long minute, Jerry pulls out the hose and turns it off. “You’re so silly,” he tells me, then he ruffles my ears and gives me a kiss on my nose. “I’ll leave the door open for you.”
Then he goes inside.
I protect the tadpoles for a long time. I’m not sure exactly what I’m protecting them from, but whatever it is, it has to get past me first.
Finally, when the sky begins to lighten, my eyes grow heavy. I give the backyard one last scan, searching for tadpole predators both big and small, but see none. Then I nose the door open and climb into bed next to Jerry.
My watch is over.
Jerry
“You scrapped it? What do you mean you scrapped it?” Chuck shouts loud enough that Cassie lifts her head off my legs. After her all-night tadpole vigil, Cassie is understandably tired. I give her head a reassuring pat, turn the volume down on the phone, then say, “Exactly that. I’m not gonna write it.”
> Chuck sighs somewhere in Manhattan, then says, “Do I need to remind you that you signed a contract for five books? Alison was already breathing down my neck because you didn’t deliver on time, now I have to tell her that you scraped the entire project.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Chuck. I can’t finish it. I’m done with Pluto.”
“Is this because of Hugo? Because I can buy you some more time if you need it.”
“No, this isn’t about Hugo.” Cassie lifts her head at the sound of Hugo’s name. I scratch the fur above her nose with my free hand and she slowly sets her head back down. I take a deep breath, then say, “This is about a series that should have only been one book.”
Pluto Three had initially been a standalone novel, but Chuck convinced me we needed to market the book as a series if we really wanted to cash in.
I say, “The second and third books sucked because I forced a story that wasn’t there.”
I wait for Chuck to tell me the second and third books did, in fact, not suck, but he’s silent.
“Well,” he finally says, “What do you want me to tell Alison?”
“Tell her I’m working on something new?”
“Are you?” Chuck asks, a slight perk in his voice.
“Yeah.”
“Sci-fi?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’m playing with a few ideas right now. Maybe fantasy. Maybe YA.”
“YA is always hot.”
Young Adult is a huge market. Not only did the books sell like hotcakes, but movie studios are always looking to option the next Hunger Games. And they have deep pockets.
“Anything you can tell me about?” Chucks asks.
“Not yet. Soon though.”
“Alright, buddy,” Chuck says, his spirits apparently lifted. “Keep me posted. I’ll talk to Alison and try to spin this.”
“Sounds good.”
We hang up.
I set the phone on the bed and lean my head back against the cushioned headboard. I’d been dreading talking to Chuck for the past week and it feels good to be done with it. But now that it is, I actually have to come up with a book idea.
