The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook (12 page)

“Shh,” I say. “This is a hospital.” I try to smile maturely at Sparkly Earrings. “He's only five.”

“I understand,” she says kindly. “I have one of those five-year-olds at home.” She looks at my sweatshirt. “Go Raiders!”

Freddy sits up. “Is it visiting hours yet?” he asks her.

“There are no visiting hours, dear,” Sparkly Earrings says.

“Oona says there are.”

“There are no specific hours,” Sparkly Earrings says, and then to my great surprise, she adds, “but if Matilda is admitted you can visit him whenever you like. Within reason, of course.”

Turns out we could have visited Zook himself anytime we wanted to. I didn't need to invent a Matilda after all. Too bad. I was sort of getting to like him.

“We want to see Zook!” says Freddy, jumping up. “Right now!”

I explain who Zook is and that he's one of their patients,
getting all his toxins flushed out because of his kidney problems.

Dog/God narrows her eyes suspiciously, just like a cop. “My, my. Your family isn't having much luck with its pets lately,” she says.

I nod. “It's been a bad week.”

“Mom must be having trouble finding a parking place,” Dog/God continues.

“It's so hard to find parking in this city!” says Sparkly Earrings.

Dog/God is suspicious, but I think Sparkly Earrings believes my whoppers. It's hard to tell. I remember that there are usually two cops at interrogations, one nice and one not-so-nice.

But then Sparkly Earrings says, “I'm sure it's OK to visit Zook while you're waiting for your mother and Matilda.”

She gets up to open a door in the far corner of the waiting room and waves a hand for me and Freddy to follow her. We go down a bright hallway with doors on either side. Those doors lead to the examination rooms I'd been in a few times at Zook's regular visits. Photos of healthy-looking dogs, cats, and birds line the pink walls. They're all so happy, they actually look as if they're grinning into the camera. There are
also photos of ratlike creatures that are gerbils, hamsters, or guinea pigs, I'm not sure which. If I really owned a Matilda I could probably tell the difference. I start worrying that Sparkly Earrings will ask me some test questions about the differences between gerbils, hamsters, and guinea pigs, but she doesn't.

I don't know where those happy photographs came from, because next thing you know, we're in a large room filled with the gloomiest animals I've ever seen, mostly dogs and cats, each lying in its own lonely cage. There's a parrot in one cage with a bandage over its eye, looking perky and piratey, except that it's huddled in a corner, still as a statue. The air smells like a mixture of alcohol and something like bananas, a sweet smell which seems to be trying to hide all that sadness. A tall, skinny guy with spiked purple hair is counting pills at a counter.

Suddenly, I hear Zook. I'd know his Zook yowl anywhere! He knows we're here! I whirl around.

“Zook!” Freddy and I cry out at the same time.

We rush to his cage. Sparkly Earrings opens the cage door, reaches in for Zook, and hands him to me. “I'm going back to the front desk now. This is Boo. He'll help you if necessary.”

Boo with the spiked hair grins at us, a friendly gap between his two front teeth. “That old guy's sure glad to see you! Let me know when you're done hugging him and I'll put him back.”

We will never, ever be done hugging Zook. I bury my nose in his fur, smelling that alcohol-banana smell. Freddy strokes his nose. Right now there's no other sound in the room except for Zook's purr. It's like a song I love that I haven't heard in a while, even more beautiful than ever.

Boo is murmuring something to a little brown poodle in its cage. The dog's stumpy tail wags feebly. Now that I'm holding Zook, the other animals don't seem so sad anymore. Just tired and sick. There is a difference.

Actually, Zook looks much better. His eyes stare right into mine, bright and clear. His tail is high and happy. It feels like he's gained some weight around his middle.

Now Boo is leaning way down, giving that poodle an injection.

I've done this smuggling stuff before. I can do it again. Smuggle in, smuggle out; same thing. It'll only be for an hour or so, and then we'll bring him back.

Quickly, I stretch out the front of my Raiders sweatshirt
and cover Zook. I can almost hear my dad saying, “Atta girl! Go for that touchdown!” I knew there was an important reason for wearing his sweatshirt!

I put my finger to my lips. “Shh!” I whisper to Fred, who's got that bug-eyed look again.

Slowly, slowly, Fred and I do some sidling along the wall. Boo isn't paying attention to us. He has a lot going on. I have my hands over my sweatshirt. The door is partly open. I open it all the way with my shoulder and we step out into the hallway. How easy was that?

Except that Dog/God is waiting for us.

E-OW! EE-OWEY! EE-OW! EE-OWEY!”

I will never, ever forget Zook's wail, that long, long, sad and disappointed wail he made when Dog/God took him away from me and Boo put him back into his cage.

Mom came to pick us up at the vet. After she'd made us both apologize to the two receptionists, all she said was, “Let's go.”

Then …

SILENCE.

Here we are, me and Freddy, in the backseat of the car. We're holding hands. We're in big trouble. OK, it's mostly me who's in trouble, when you come right down to it. I am looking at the back of Mom's head as she drives. Even the back of
her head looks angry. Her orange curls seem coiled tighter than ever. The Villain's beside her, fiddling with the radio.

But I don't hear the music, or the traffic, or the air that always whistles through the back window on my side, the window that's stuck because Mom can't afford to fix it right now. All I can hear is Zook's wail, even though we're heading home and he's back at the vet's for more kidney flushing.

I take that back. I can hear Mom's silence. Silence has a sound—ever notice? Mom's silence sounds like a drum. THUMPA-THUMPA-THUMPITY-THUMPA. You can really hear it if you're in big trouble in the backseat of her car.

We slink into our building behind Mom and the Villain. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpity-thumpa, even in the elevator going up. And also the sound of Zook's sad EE-OWEY in my head.

The Villain clears his throat. “Need a new lightbulb in here,” he says, looking up at the elevator ceiling.

He's right, but now isn't the time for a lightbulb discussion. My mother frowns and looks straight ahead. The Villain puts his hand on Freddy's head and Freddy smiles up at him.

“We saw Zook,” Freddy says. He's already forgotten he's in trouble.

“I know you did,” says the Villain, and lifts Freddy up. My mom and I don't say anything.

Inside, Mom herds me to the living room couch. The Villain and Freddy go into the kitchen. It's clear I'm the only one who has a problem here. I hear the Villain opening the fridge. Our fridge.

My mother sits in an armchair across the room, staring at me. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpity-thumpa. Finally, finally she speaks, but in a sad voice, not an angry one. All of a sudden I realize I like it better when my mom is angry.

“Oona, Oona,” she says. “What were you thinking?”

Well, that, ladies and gentlemen, is a big question. I was thinking lots of things! Dumb things, I guess. But right now I'm thinking about only three. Number one: Zook's wail. Number two: Zook's old collar.
Mud's
collar, that is. Number three: It's time. Time to tell my mom everything, no matter how happy she is with the Villain. She has to get over him! And she will when she learns the truth.

My mother leans toward me. “Do you realize how bad Mario feels?” she asks. “We spoke to him from the car on the way to pick you up. He trusted you, Oona. You told him you were going straight home.”

Mario.

“Oh,” I say.

“And that nice Evelyn, too.”

“Who's Evelyn?”

“The receptionist at the vet. She trusted you, too. I hope she doesn't get into trouble for this.”

“Oh,” I say. “Like lose her job?” If she's the trusting one, it was Sparkly Earrings.

My mother shrugs. I hear a kettle shrieking in the kitchen.

I'm thinking that Dog/God probably snitched on Sparkly Earrings. Probably told Mom about Matilda, too. And all of a sudden, I understand that T-shirt, D
OG
I
S
G
OD
S
PELLED
B
ACKWARD
. If God is so wonderful, like most people think God is, and if dog is God spelled backward, then dogs are pretty wonderful, too. So I'm wondering if Dog/God thinks dogs and other animals are more wonderful than people. That's why it's not a big deal for her to snitch on a friend. Or not trust two kids who miss their cat.

Of course, she had a reason not to trust us. But still.

“And then, miss, there's that little matter about the money,” says my mom, looking more deep-down sorrowful than ever.

“The money?” I'm stalling. “What money?” There could be a teeny chance she doesn't mean
that
money.

She does. “The money you got dancing outside O'Leary's.”

I hear the Villain talking on the telephone as if he lives here. I feel something like a hot balloon filling up my chest.

“Who told you?” I ask. “It was the Villain, right?”

Oh, I didn't mean to call him that! The hot balloon had suddenly burst inside of me, and out popped that name. But now that it's out, I can tell my mother everything.

She falls back against the armchair as if I'd thrown something across the room at her. “What did you say?” she asks. “
What
did you say?”

But she knows. She stares at me, understanding. “His name is Dylan, Oona. Dylan. And no, it was Freddy who told me, on the way to school this morning. The money you've hidden in your underwear drawer.”

I jump up and go over to her chair. Now is the time. The only question is whether to tell her about the Mud collar in private, or confront the Villain with it, too. I decide to do it now, privately. We can have a good cry about the whole thing together.

“I have to tell you something important,” I say. “Very important.”

My mother doesn't seem to hear what I'm saying. “I suppose it's my fault,” she says. She has this faraway look in her
eyes, and she's staring at the wall like she's watching a tear-jerking movie that only she can see. “I've been too lax.” She leans over and gently tugs the bottom of my Raiders sweatshirt. “It's time to talk about your fashion choices, too,” she says with a big sigh.

“No! We've already talked about that. I like my fashion choices,” I say, stepping back. No fair bringing my dad and his sweatshirt into any of this, as if any of it's his fault!

That's when Freddy and the Villain come into the room. The Villain puts a cup of tea on the little table beside Mom's chair. I can smell it. Mint. There's a slice of lemon on the saucer, sweet and sour, just the way my mom likes her tea. I don't know how he knows that, if they're out drinking coffee all the time. And there's Freddy drinking a can of apricot nectar through a straw, our favorite drink, which we are only allowed to have every now and then because of the empty calories and the fake apricot from chemicals. The Villain hands me a can with a straw in it, too. I almost refuse, but I'm so thirsty. I take a few fast slurps. It goes down easy. Empty calories taste so good when you're down in the dumps—ever notice?

Now the Villain is whispering something in my mother's
ear, lovey-dovey-like. My mother says, “Oh, I don't know if that's the right thing to do.”

“Do what?” I ask. I hate secrets, except, of course, if I'm the one keeping them. I know that sounds babyish, but that's the way I feel right now.

The Villain says, “Terri, I think it will be a good thing.”

“Let's talk about it in the car. I'll ask Dee to sit,” she says. Her mouth is a firm, straight line as she phones my gramma to come over.