Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen (5 page)

She sighs. “Look. If there are mice in the building, they're going to have to exterminate them anyway.”

“Oh! Eeeew!” Mom says again with her hands to her cheeks.

I've got Dorito's lips peeled back, but he's not giving up the mouse. His big yellow eyes are actually glaring at me. And Grams is still coaching me, saying, “Samantha, mice can carry salmonella or hantavirus or Lyme disease, not to mention fleas. They're not animals you want in your house!”

By now the tail has stopped twitching, but I pry Dorito's mouth open anyway. “Let go, Dorito!”

Grams grumbles, “You are so stubborn…,” and Dorito gives me a disgusted look, but finally he opens up and lets me have the mouse.

I hold it out, letting it dangle by its tail. It's so little. So cute.

So dead.

“Oh eeeew!” my mom says again. “You have
mice.”

“It's just a baby, Lana,” Grams says to her. “And it's the first one I've ever seen.”

“But…,” my mom says, giving her a panicked look, “a baby means there's an entire
litter
somewhere. It means—”

“Oh, Lana. Don't get yourself all worked up. It's just a mouse.”

“But you yourself said they can carry salmonella or hantavirus or Lyme disease. Not to mention”—she shudders, nose to toes—”fleas.”

So I'm dangling a tiny dead mouse by the tail, with a disgusted cat on one side and a flea-phobic mother on the other, when Grams says, “Just take it downstairs, would you?”

“Take it downstairs?” I ask. “And do what with it?”

“Throw it out!”

“But—”

“And don't use the trash chute. Millie in five-oh-two says it's plugged up again.”

“But—”

“Just go!” Grams whispers, eyeing my mother, who's looking like she's about to faint.

So okay. I sneak down the fire escape and over to the Dumpster. And maybe I should have just tossed the little flea-infested, hantavirus-carrying rodent in and forgotten about him, but he was so cute. And it just felt so … wrong.

So I wound up saying, “Sorry, little guy. I hope mousy heaven's a really nice place. With lots of crackers and cheese and… and whatever else you like.” And since one side of the Dumpster was open like it always is to catch trash from the chute, I was just reaching in to lay the mouse on something, you know, soft and not too smelly—like that made any sense, I know, but that's what I was doing—when I noticed the tip of something sticking out from underneath a grocery sack of trash.

It was orange. And furry.

I just stood there holding the mouse by its tail, thinking, It
can't
be. But when I pushed aside the grocery sack, there it was.

A big dead cat.

Not only was it a big dead cat, it was a big dead cat that looked like it had been hurled off the Empire State Building. Its eyes were glazed open, and its fur looked gelled out in spots. Like it had been electrocuted.

I thought about tracking down Officer Borsch but nipped that idea right in the bud. I sure didn't want to have to deal with nosy questions about why I was digging through the Highrise Dumpster.

But I didn't want to just leave the cat. For one thing, I could see a collar and a tag—this was somebody's pet. But I didn't really want to touch it, either. Something about it was really… creepy.

Finally I decided to zip over to the Pup Parlor and get Holly. So I lay the mouse in the Dumpster, ran across the Highrise lawn, jaywalked Broadway, and jingled through the Pup Parlor door. “Hey, Vera. Hi, Meg. Can I borrow Holly?”

“Again?” Meg asked.

Holly appeared from the back of the shop. “Hey, I thought you went home to change.”

“Yeah, but, well…” I decided to cut to the chase. “I found another dead cat.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“No. And it looks a lot like Snowball did.” I spazzed up my arms, stuck out my tongue, and cranked open my eyes.

“Where is it?”

“In the Highrise Dumpster.”

“Are you going to tell Officer Borsch?”

“I… don't know.”

Meg nodded. “That would open up a can of worms, wouldn't it?”

“Exactly. But the cat's got tags, so I want to at least check it out.”

“Okay,” Holly said. “Let me get some gloves and a plastic liner.”

So Holly and I dashed back to the Senior Highrise, and when she saw the cat, she said, “Wow. It looks like the same thing killed both cats.”

I snapped the gloves on. “I know. But why would someone put one here, and one over there?”

“So maybe they're not connected.”

“But what are the odds that there's a dead cat in
my
trash can and another in
yours?”

“So what are you saying?”

I hopped up and leaned into the Dumpster. “I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.”

I had a little trouble reaching the cat, and since I didn't want to actually climb into the Dumpster, I wound up pulling the cat toward me by its tail. I felt a little bad about doing it, which was stupid—it was way beyond feeling a thing.

But then all of a sudden Holly cried, “Look! There's a dead
mouse
, too!”

I pushed off of the rim, saying, “I put him there. Dorito caught it—which is how I found the cat.”

“Oh! For a second there I thought … well, I don't know what I thought!”

I read the cat's tags. “His name's Mr. T.”

“Phone number?”

“Yup.” I scooped him into the bag and tied it closed. “Something about this is just too weird.” My spine was tingling, which, believe me, is never a good sign. It means I'm either in serious trouble, or about to put
myself there. But I couldn't ignore what I was thinking, so finally I just said it: “Holly, what if these aren't the only cats?”

“Huh?”

“What if there are
more
of them? What if there are cats in trash cans all up and down the block?”

“But…why?”

“What if the Psycho Kitty Queen's right? What if there's someone in town who
hates
cats? What if they're going around killing them?”

“Sammy! Who in their right mind would do that?”

I pulled a face at her. “We live in Santa Martina, remember? This town is full of wackos.”

“Good point.”

“So what if someone's killing cats and putting them around town in different people's trash cans?”

She shrugged. “Well, why not just put them all in one Dumpster?”

“Because if someone happens to notice one cat in a trash can, that's one thing. It's no reason to call the police, right? But if there are two, or three,
or four
, you're going to think, Whoa now! Something weird is going on.”

“But—”

“Is your trash pickup on Mondays?”

“Yeah.”

“Ours, too. Which means we've got today and tomorrow to check around. And tomorrow… well, tomorrow's out for me.”

“So you're saying you want to go snooping through trash cans?”

I nodded. “That's what I'm saying.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Isn't that ironic.”

I grinned at her and said, “Yeah, it's ironic,” because back before Meg and her mother, Vera, took her in, Holly was a foster-home runaway. She lived her life digging through trash, and even after she wasn't homeless any more, she
still
did it. I finally had to yell at her to stop, because it was so embarrassing walking around with someone who snooped through everyone's garbage.

She laughed. “So when do you want to start?”

“Well, my mom's here—”

“Your
mom'shere
?”

“Yeah. And I should get back up there, but I already need a shower so… “

“So you want to go now?”

“Just for a little while. Why don't we start behind your building and take a quick check around the block?”

“Sounds good to me.” She nodded at the plastic sack. “What about Mr. T?”

“Can we leave him behind the Pup Parlor for now?”

She shrugged. “Don't see why not.”

So we raced back across the lawn, jaywalked Broadway
again
, and after we'd shown Meg and Vera the Unfortunate Mr. T, we grabbed a couple of plastic liners and some clean gloves and got to work.

There was nothing in Slammin' Dave's trash. Nothing in any of the trash cans on Wesler. Nothing down the next street or in the alley or the Heavenly Hotel's Dumpster. We ran from can to can, got barked at by a lot
of dogs, and got some pretty strange looks from people, but we didn't find any cats.

Well, not dead ones anyway

When we got to Main Street, I sighed and said, “It sure
felt like
we were on to something.”

“We've still got the whole Maynard's area and down that way,” Holly said.

“Yeah, but I've got to get back home.” I handed her my gloves and sacks. “Thanks for doing this with me.”

“Sure,” she said as I took off running. “I'll call you later!”

“Bye!”

When I got home, my mom said, “There you are!”

“Sorry!” I said. “I found another dead cat down in the Dumpster—”

“Another dead cat?” My mother's face crinkled up. “What on earth…?”

“I know. So I went over to Holly's ‘cause—”

“Enough talk of dead things,” Grams said. “Why don't you take a quick shower and I'll make us some lunch. We've got lots we need to talk about.” Then she looked over at my mother and said, “Right?”

My mom smiled politely, then looked away.

Lots to talk about? As I went to Grams' dresser and got a change of clothes, my whole body started feeling disconnected. Like my ligaments weren't holding my bones together right. Had the day finally come that my mom was going to tell me who my father was? Did she finally think I was old enough?

I was going to be fourteen! Of course I was old
enough—I'd been old enough for years! I just hadn't had any luck convincing
her
of that. And Grams had always insisted on staying out of it. “It's not my place to tell you, Samantha.” How many times had I heard
that
?

But now…well, there was obviously
something
, and what else could it be? So as I took my shower, I started getting nervous. Almost panicky. Why had my father been such a secret all these years? Was he a criminal? A jerk? Slimy?
Dead?
I mean, what was taking so long for her to tell me if there
wasn't
something weird about him? She wouldn't be keeping it from me if he was just some normal guy, right?

But then maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe she was just going to share how… oh no! What if she wanted me to come live with her! No! It had to be my dad. It just had to be.

I got out of the shower and got dressed quick. And I'd worked myself into such a state that I just barged into the kitchen, where Grams and Mom were putting together sandwiches, and said, “Are you here to tell me who my father is?”

“Your”—Mom's face turned white as she looked at Grams—”father?”

“Mom! I'm going to be fourteen—I can handle it!”

My mom gave me a quivery smile. “Well… no. That's not why I'm here.”

“It's not?”

“No! I'm here because it's your birthday, sweetheart.”

All of a sudden my mind flashed with an idea. “Okay, then, for my birthday I want my birth certificate.”

“Your what?”

“My birth certificate.”

“But… it doesn't say who your father is.”

“You wrote Unknown?” I blinked at her like mad, then said, “
Is
he unknown?”

Grams had been trying to stay out of it, but when she heard that, she scolded, “Samantha!”

“Well?” I asked. “What else am I supposed to think?”

“You're supposed to think… you're supposed to think…” Grams looked to my mom for help.

I shook my head. “Mom, in a few hours I'll be fourteen.
Fourteen.
Why is this such a big secret? Do you have any idea what kids my age talk about? Believe me, talking about who my dad is, is not going to shock me.” Then, since she was just standing there like a fish out of water, I said, “And even if it doesn't tell me anything, I still want my birth certificate.”

“But… but why?” she stammered.

“Because I have a friend who's an astrologer and she needs it to do my birth chart.”

“Your birth chart? What's that?”

“It's a way astrologers map out… you know, things about you. She usually gets a lot of money to do them because they're really complicated, but she's going to do mine for free.”

“Why?”

“Because I helped her get her watch back.”

“Her watch?”

“Never mind, Mom. The point is, I want my birth certificate.”

“But I thought you didn't believe in the zodiac.” I studied her a minute. “That's not the point.” “Then what
is
the point?” “For my birthday, I want my birth certificate.” Finally Grams steps forward and says, “I think we can work that out, Samantha, but first, there's something else your mother wants to talk to you about.” She picks up a tray of sandwiches and heads into the living room, whispering to my mother, “It's time, Lana.”

My mom fidgets. She flutters. She blinks and she sputters. Then she sits in the armchair, picks up a sandwich, looks at me, and says, “Funny you should ask about your birth certificate.” “Why's it funny?”

“Because I have a little confession to make.” My head starts racing with the craziest ideas. If it wasn't about my father, then what could it possibly be? Wait! Maybe I wasn't really hers. Hey, why hadn't I thought of that before? It made perfect sense to me! It explained everything. But why would she adopt me when, let's face it, she didn't really
want
me. So maybe I was stolen? Maybe… but why would she steal something she didn't want? Or maybe they found me in a Dumpster. Yeah! Maybe they found me in a Dumpster and couldn't figure out what to do with me so they kept me. Or… Grams eyes my mother and prompts, “Lana…” “Don't push me, Mother,” my mom says back. Then she turns and gives me a quivery smile and I can tell— this is it.