The Cat Lady
By Dylan Ducey
Mommy was sad after she lost her job, but then she said we could get a kitten. I was surprised. I’d asked her before for a kitten, like three hundred times, and she’d always said no. I ran to get Fleur.
“Fleur, we’re going to the animal shelter. We’re getting a kitten.”
Fleur ran to get her blanket. It was a Mother Goose blanket, with pictures of Little Bo Peep, and Pat-a-Cake, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Fleur took it everywhere.
We got in Daddy’s truck. The animal shelter was near our house, but Daddy passed it, and then he got on the freeway. Fleur fell asleep, and started drooling.
I watched the cars on the freeway for a while. Then I asked Mommy why she lost her job. “The market crashed,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
Mommy shook her head and covered her mouth with her hand. She looked like she was going to cry again. Daddy patted her leg and said it would be okay.
A market is the same thing as a store, right? But how could a store crash? I got a picture in my head of a truck crashing into a grocery store. Broken glass and people yelling and knocked-over grocery carts. Then I imagined an airplane crashing into a store. That was even more scary.
Daddy parked the truck. There were a few houses, but mostly big buildings like warehouses. I woke Fleur up. “Come on,” I said. “Our kitten is waiting.” Fleur made a big O with her mouth, and she rubbed her eyes and climbed down out of her seat. Her blanket trailed behind her on the dirty sidewalk, so I picked it up and put it around her shoulders. That thing was so big it was like a coat on her.
We followed Mommy to a green house, sort of dirty green, with some steps going up to a porch. She looked on a piece of paper and nodded to Daddy. “This is it,” she said. I started jumping up and down. I asked Mommy if the kitten would be fluffy, if it would have black fur, or grey, or orange. I asked her if it would be a boy or a girl. I asked her if it would love me. I asked her if the kitten would be lonely, and if maybe we could get two kittens. Mommy told me to hush. She knocked on the door. In a minute the door opened, and whoosh, I smelled a bad smell. It was the worst thing I ever smelled in my whole life. It was like pee and poop if you mixed them together in a big bucket.
An old lady stood in the doorway. She had on a pink bathrobe even though it was past lunchtime. She said hello, and Mommy stuck out her hand, and she made me and Fleur say hello, but Fleur didn’t. “Fleur is shy,” I told the lady. I didn’t want her to think Fleur was rude. She just couldn’t talk to strangers and she was only three years old. The lady looked at me for a second, and she opened her mouth but then she closed it. She seemed like one of those ladies who don’t know what to say to children because they don’t have any.
I remembered that after Fleur was born, Mommy didn’t get dressed for a long time. She wore a bathrobe too, only it was red. Sometimes she sat with her head in her hands and stared at the floor. Other times she slammed a door, or broke a dish.
We went inside the house and when the lady closed the door, the smell was even worse. It was like that awful smelled reached out and snatched away my breath. I looked around and there were cats on the couch, and cats on the chairs, and cats walking around on the floor. I decided I would count the cats, and that was when Fleur poked me and pointed at a cat sitting on top of a lamp. I wanted to pet him but I couldn’t reach up there, I thought maybe the lamp would fall over, but he was pretty good at balancing.
There was stuff under my feet on the floor, making a crunchy sound. It was kitty litter. Then I saw a cat box next to the couch. That was strange. Mommy saw it, too. She coughed. While the lady was talking to Mommy and Daddy, a bunch of kittens ran in. They were playing chase. Fleur got down on the floor and petted a tiny brown and black kitten and it climbed onto her lap, and Fleur started giggling. Maybe we would take that kitten home, I thought.
Mommy and Daddy followed the lady, and it looked like Fleur was okay, so I went, too. We were going to look at the other cats. There was a bedroom – four or five cats on the bed, plus two litter boxes on the floor. Then there were more cats in the kitchen, and two more litter boxes that needed to be scooped out. Maybe that lady didn’t have a scooper, or maybe she just didn’t notice. There was a desk, and cats were on there, too. I saw there was brown stuff on the walls, kind of low down. Then I looked closer and I realized it was poop. Cat poop. That was pretty disgusting. It was on the kitchen floor, too. Maybe that lady needed some help cleaning up. But it didn’t seem to bother her, she just kept talking to Mommy and Daddy like everything was fine, and laughing in this kind of high voice. I was glad I didn’t live in that house. I wondered why that lady had all those cats. Maybe she was sad like Mommy. Maybe something happened to her, too, like a store crash or a car crash. Maybe the cats made her feel better. I sort of wondered if Mommy could become like the cat lady, even though Mommy didn’t wear her robe all the time like before.
We went into the last room, where there was a back door. It was small, and there were like twenty cats all mashed in there, and some of them were quiet but some of them were mad at each other. Daddy asked the lady if the cats went outside, and she shook her head a lot. “Oh, no,” she said. “That wouldn’t work.” I went toward one cat, a fluffy black one. He was sitting in the corner. He looked nice, but when I held out my hand, he hissed at me and reached out his paw to slap me. I jumped back, and Mommy put her hand on my shoulder. The lady laughed again and shook her finger at the cat. “Horace,” she said. “How could you?” She looked at me sort of nervously. Her robe was coming loose, so she pulled the sash tight around her. Daddy sighed and looked at his watch. Mommy asked me if I wanted any of the cats in that room, and I said no. Then we heard a cry. It was Fleur. “Mommy,” she called, and her voice was shaking. I ran back to the living room and the grownups followed me. Fleur was standing there, holding her hands together and crying. Her Mother Goose blanket was on the floor, and a big mama cat was lying on top of it and licking her paws. For Fleur, this was like the worst thing that could happen.
Mommy went toward the cat right away, but the cat lady got there first. She laughed her annoying laugh again, and she picked up the mama cat. “Edna,” she said. “You bad kitty.” But she said it in a voice that made it sound like it was funny. It wasn’t funny. My little sister was crying. Daddy shook his head like he couldn’t believe it. The mama cat laid her ears back and looked angry. Fleur grabbed her blanket, and wiped her eyes with it and put it back around her neck. She held her arms up to Mommy, and Mommy picked her up and smoothed her hair.
Daddy told the cat lady we wanted Fleur’s kitten, the one who sat on her lap. The cat lady gave Daddy some papers. “The kitten was fixed last week,” she said. Daddy nodded. Did that mean that the kitten was broken before? I didn’t know how you could break a kitten and fix it, but okay. I felt exhausted from trying to figure everything out. Daddy gave the cat lady some money. She said she hoped we would come back and get another kitten, but that she might not be here. She said she might have to move. I imagined one thousand cats running around in a moving truck, with the cat lady driving.
We put the kitten in a cardboard carrier. We went out to the front porch and I was so happy I could breathe the fresh air. Mommy carried Fleur really fast down the steps, and Daddy was right behind her, carrying the cardboard carrier with the kitten inside. The kitten made tiny mewing sounds like she wondered where she was going. I was the last one on the porch. I looked up at the cat lady and said goodbye. I was going to ask her why she had all those cats. She said “Goodbye, little girl,” and her voice sort of trailed off. Then I saw the fluffy black cat sneaking up behind her. Horace, who hissed and tried to smack me. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to run away. I pointed, and the cat lady looked down and said, “Oh!” And she shut the door before he could escape.
THE END