Claws! Read online

  But we both knew the truth.

  “I’m real sorry!” the truck driver called as he raced to the sidewalk. “I—I couldn’t stop in time.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Amanda said in a whisper. She covered her face with her hands. “This didn’t happen. No way.”

  The driver stopped a few feet in front of us, breathing hard. “The cat—it ran right under my tires,” he said. “I’m real sorry. There was nothing I could do. It happened so fast.”

  I tried to answer him, but the words caught in my throat. I was shaking so hard, I grabbed on to Amanda’s shoulder to keep from falling over.

  Her whole body trembled. She had her hands over her face. She kept repeating, “This didn’t happen. It didn’t. It didn’t happen.”

  I felt sick. Like I was going to puke. I kept swallowing, trying to force it down.

  “I really tried to stop,” the truck driver said softly. He bowed his head. “Sorry. I’m real sorry.”

  He turned and walked slowly back to his truck, keeping his head lowered.

  A few seconds later, he started the truck engine and rumbled off.

  “The C-Caplans,” I stammered. “What are we going to say to them?”

  Amanda finally lowered her hands. Her cheeks were wet from tears. She shook her head. “I don’t know, Mickey. How can we face them? We killed their cat.”

  “It—it was an accident,” I started. “We —”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Amanda said in a whisper. “We were arguing and we didn’t realize. We left the door wide open. It’s our fault. It wasn’t an accident.”

  Her shoulders shook.

  My stomach churned. A groan escaped my throat.

  “The body,” Amanda whispered.

  I stared at her. “What did you say?”

  “We have to get Bella’s body,” Amanda said. “We can’t just leave her in the middle of the street like—like roadkill.”

  Roadkill … The words repeated in my mind. Bella … roadkill.

  If only I could push a REWIND button. Make time go back just a few minutes. Just long enough to close that front door and save Bella’s life.

  “Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath. I started walking slowly to the street.

  “Wait up, Mickey,” Amanda said. Her voice trembled. “We’ll go together.”

  My legs were shaking as I stepped onto the curb. “We need a trash bag or something,” I said.

  “No, we don’t,” Amanda replied. “Look.” She pointed to the street.

  I squinted up and down. I gasped in shock.

  “Bella’s body—it’s gone.”

  5

  We stood together staring down at the street. The late afternoon sun was lowering behind the trees. I felt a cool breeze that made me shiver.

  “I think the truck driver took the body,” Amanda said finally.

  I nodded. “Yeah. He probably didn’t want us to see her squashed flat.”

  I checked the grass on the other side of the street. And squinted down the curb again. No sign of Bella’s body.

  I suddenly had the feeling I was about to cry. No way I wanted to do that in front of Amanda. I turned my head away, and the feeling slowly faded.

  I still felt sick. My stomach was churning, and I had a heavy feeling in my chest, as if I’d swallowed a rock.

  Amanda and I started walking toward my house. We didn’t say anything till we reached the front door.

  “My parents will be home soon,” I said. “We have to tell them what happened. Right away.”

  Amanda nodded. “I guess.” Her voice cracked on the words.

  I pulled out my phone. “Maybe I should call my mom,” I said. “Before she gets home.”

  “Why?” Amanda asked.

  I shrugged. “Guess I just feel like telling someone. I know it won’t make anything better. But …”

  I flipped open my phone.

  “Wait.” Amanda grabbed my arm.

  The phone fell out of my hand and bounced on the concrete stoop. “Hey—why’d you do that?” I cried. I picked up the phone. It was okay.

  “I have an idea,” Amanda said. Her blue eyes flashed. I could see she was thinking hard.

  I took a step away from her. “What kind of idea?” I asked.

  “Maybe I’m brilliant,” she said. “Maybe.”

  “What kind of idea?” I repeated. “I don’t like the look on your face. Whenever you get that look —”

  “Mickey, shut up and listen to me,” she said. “There are a million black cats in the world, right?”

  I stared at her. I didn’t answer.

  “Well, what if we go to a pet store or the pound or something? And we find a black cat that looks like Bella.”

  My mouth dropped open. “I c-can’t believe you’re thinking this,” I stammered.

  “We find another black cat,” Amanda continued. “And we substitute it. We bring it to the Caplans’ house. And when they come home, we act like it’s Bella. Like nothing bad ever happened.”

  I stared at her. I couldn’t speak.

  “It could work,” she said softly.

  “Amanda, it’s crazy,” I said. “It’s totally insane.”

  “Let’s try it,” she said.

  6

  I tried to stop her. I had a hundred questions. But she had an answer for all of them.

  “What makes you think we can find a cat that looks just like Bella?”

  “Mickey, we won’t know unless we look.”

  “What if it has a completely different personality?”

  “Cats are cats.”

  “Let’s say we get a new cat. And the Caplans come home and see right away it’s not Bella. What do we tell them?”

  “Let’s worry about that when the time comes,” Amanda said.

  I couldn’t win. I couldn’t stop her.

  She sat down in front of my laptop and started to search.

  It was hard for me to sit still. I had to keep pacing back and forth. It was like my legs had a life of their own.

  I kept hearing the scrape of the truck tires, the squeal of the brakes. Again and again, I saw that big truck skidding into the little cat.

  The cat Amanda and I were responsible for.

  And now Amanda had this crazy plan that I knew would only get us into deeper trouble.

  She leaned over the keyboard and typed quickly. The glow of the screen made her face look bluish green. Like she had turned into some kind of monster.

  Calm down, Mickey.

  My thoughts were getting out of control. If only I could shut my eyes and make the whole day disappear.

  “Here it is!” Amanda cried. “Perfect. Come over here and check this out.”

  I sighed and stepped up behind her. I leaned forward to study the screen.

  “It’s a store called Cat Heaven,” Amanda said. “See the map? I know how to get there.”

  “What makes you think they have black cats?” I said.

  She scrolled down. “Look.”

  I saw row after row of photographs. Cats of every color and size. Lots of black cats, too.

  “These are all for sale?” I said.

  Amanda nodded. “Stop wasting time. Let’s go.” She jumped up and pushed me out of the way. “Do you have your bus pass?”

  I glanced at my SpongeBob wall clock. Almost five. Mom and Dad would be home soon.

  “Wait one second,” I said. I scribbled a note to my parents. I told them I was working on a project with Amanda. I wasn’t lying—right? I said I’d be home in time for dinner.

  A few minutes later, we were on the North Central bus on our way to Cat Heaven. I stared out the window and tried not to think about poor Bella. I tried to force her horrifying last screech from my mind.

  I didn’t even realize I had pressed my hands over my ears to shut out the sound.

  Amanda pulled my hands down. “Mickey, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  And then I opened my mouth in a sc
ream as a HUGE yellow-eyed cat—its mouth open, fangs bared—rose up in the bus window.

  7

  “Mickey—stop!” Amanda cried. “You’ve got to calm down. It’s just a sign.”

  “Huh?” I was breathing hard. “Sign?”

  Amanda pointed. “It’s a big billboard for Cat Heaven.” She laughed. “You didn’t really think it was a giant cat—did you?”

  “Of course not,” I said. I could feel my face turning hot. I knew I was blushing.

  We climbed off the bus at the next stop. The sky was gray. The sun had disappeared behind the trees. The cool breeze felt good against my hot cheeks.

  Another giant billboard showed a grinning orange cartoon cat. Amanda and I crossed the wide asphalt parking lot heading to the store. I saw only four or five cars parked in the lot.

  The store towered over us, all glass and dark metal. CAT HEAVEN. A blue neon sign—at least two stories high—blinked on and off above the glass entrance doors.

  “Wow,” I muttered. “This place is enormous.”

  “It’s as big as a Walmart.” Amanda agreed with me for once. “And all they sell is cats.”

  “Well … maybe they will have a Bella look-alike,” I said.

  Amanda slapped me hard on the back. “Good attitude,” she said, smiling. “Keep it up, Tomato Brain.”

  Tomato Brain?

  The glass doors slid open and we stepped into the store. I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the bright light.

  A strange odor greeted us. It was sweet but lemony. Like air freshener. I guessed they pumped it through the store to cover the cat smell. It definitely didn’t smell like a pet store.

  We took a few steps into the store, still blinking and trying to focus. I saw row after row of wire cat cages. The aisles seemed to stretch for miles.

  The walls were covered with huge posters of cats. The cats in the posters were all grinning. And they were all resting on puffy white clouds—like they were in heaven. Each cat had a gold halo floating over its head.

  Soft, tinkly music played. I could barely hear it over the meows and yowls of the caged cats. The cat cries were deafening.

  I suddenly remembered being on a camping trip deep in the woods with my parents. And crickets started to chirp all at once. Thousands of crickets all around us. All chirping and chirping until you couldn’t hear yourself think.

  The cats in this store were even louder than that.

  All down the aisles, I could see them pacing in their cages. Prowling. Pawing the cage walls. Trying to set themselves free.

  “This is way weird,” I muttered to Amanda. “It—it’s like a horror movie.”

  She pushed me away. “No, it isn’t,” she said. “It’s just cats in cages. How scary is that?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want her to think I was a total wimp. And I didn’t want to argue with her.

  What I really wanted was to get out of this store and go home.

  I didn’t know why they called it Cat Heaven. The cats didn’t seem happy at all. They all seemed restless and totally stressed out.

  “Let’s start at the first aisle,” Amanda said.

  The first aisle was far in the distance. I saw that the aisles were numbered with white signs. We were standing at Aisle 38.

  We were halfway to Aisle 1 when a smiling young woman in a gray uniform hurried up to us. She had short, curly blond hair, dark eyes, and a sparkly diamond stud on one side of her nose.

  The name tag on her uniform shirt was shaped like a cat. It read: LUCY. She gave us a friendly wave with one hand. I was surprised to see she was wearing gloves.

  “Hi,” she said. “Welcome to Cat Heaven. Can I help you?”

  “Why are you wearing gloves?” I blurted out.

  Her smile grew wider. “Sometimes they bite,” she said.

  “Is there a special black cat section?” Amanda asked.

  Lucy shook her head. “No. They are all mixed in everywhere,” she said. “We tried to organize the cats once. But we couldn’t do it. Just too many cats. And more come in every day.”

  “Do you have a lot of black cats?” I asked.

  “A lot,” Lucy replied. “Like maybe a hundred or two?”

  “Awesome,” Amanda said. “Could we just look around?”

  “No problem,” Lucy replied. She handed Amanda a red plastic figure of a cat with a button in the middle. “Push the button if you find a cat you like,” she said. “It’s a beeper. Push it and I’ll be able to come find you.” She giggled. “Don’t get lost. If you get stranded somewhere deep in the aisles, it could be weeks before anyone finds you. You’ll have to live on cat food.”

  Nice thought.

  Lucy walked away chuckling about her little joke.

  I gazed down a long row of cats prowling and pawing and clawing at their cages. Some batted at little balls that were hanging from the cage roofs. Others slept, curled up tightly.

  “Aisle one?” Amanda said.

  “Aisle one,” I said. We had to shout over the cat yowls.

  Our shoes tapped the brown linoleum floor as we trotted to the far wall. The first cage in Aisle 1 held two sleek cats, tan with dark fur on their faces. One of them slept. The other one stared out at us with narrow, slitted eyes.

  A sign under the cage door read: siamese, scrawled in black marker.

  We started down the aisle, walking side by side. We peered into each cage.

  No black cats in Aisle 1. Amanda and I reached the back wall of the store. It was mirrored, which made the rows of cages look even longer than they were.

  We started down Aisle 2. We were about halfway down this aisle when a man’s voice rang out: “Hey, you two. Here is the cat you’re looking for!”

  8

  A tall store clerk in a gray uniform stood several cages down from us. As we walked closer, I saw that he had slicked-back black hair, a long nose that jutted down from two tiny, round black eyes, and a pointed chin. He looked like he was half bird or something.

  He smiled at us. His smile was crooked. It made his mouth tilt up on one side. “I’ve got the one you’re looking for,” he repeated. His voice was hoarse and high.

  He pointed into a cage at an orange-and-white cat. The cat sat on its haunches, calmly watching us, its tail wrapped under it.

  Amanda and I both let out sighs of disappointment.

  Did we think the man was a mind reader?

  The cat-shaped tag on his shirt read: LOU.

  “Sorry,” Amanda said. “That’s not the cat we’re looking for.”

  Lou blinked his little bird eyes. “This guy is on special today. You can name your price. Take him for a dollar. Look what a sweetheart he is. Best cat in the store.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “We’re looking —”

  “I’ll give him to you for free,” Lou said. “Here.” He started to open the cage door. “Totally free if you buy a twenty-pound bag of cat food.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “We —”

  “Too old? You’re looking for a kitten?” Lou asked.

  “No. We’re looking for a black cat,” Amanda said.

  “Oh. A little bit of good luck, huh? Most people don’t know that black cats are lucky.”

  “Not too lucky today,” I muttered. Again, I heard the squeal of brakes in my head.

  Lou’s phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and flipped it to his ear. He waved us away. “Go browse. Browse,” he said. “Catch you later.” He started to talk into his phone.

  We hurried away from him. He wasn’t going to be of any help.

  We stopped at a cage halfway down the aisle. There it was—our first black cat! It was batting a ball around and didn’t look out at us.

  “Too big,” Amanda said.

  We trotted down the long row. At the very end—another black cat. This one was the right size.

  “Wrong color eyes,” Amanda said.

  We moved on.

  The next black cat was also about Bella’s size
. And it had yellow eyes.

  “Its fur is a little shaggier than Bella’s,” I said.

  “No. The fur is okay,” Amanda said, bringing her face right up to the cat’s cage. “But look.”

  It took me a while to figure out the problem. The cat had no tail. Just a short stump on its back end.

  I groaned. “Are you sure you want to keep going?”

  “Of course,” Amanda said, trotting on ahead of me. “We just started, Clam Face.”

  “But don’t you see how crazy this is?” I demanded.

  She ignored my question. I had no choice but to catch up to her.

  We explored row after row. We looked at maybe thirty black cats. None of them matched Bella.

  There was always something wrong with them. Too tall. Too fat. Eyes not the same. Teeth different. Paws too big. Too young. Too old. Face just didn’t match.

  Finally, I lost it.

  We were at the back wall, somewhere around Aisle 20. I was standing in front of a wooden door with large red letters stenciled on the front: KEEP OUT.

  “ENOUGH!” I screamed.

  Amanda spun around to stare at me.

  “Enough! I want to get out of here!” I yelled. I balled my hands into tight fists.

  “Mickey —” Amanda motioned with both hands for me to cool down.

  “This isn’t going to work!” I cried. “We’re not going to find a match, Amanda. This is totally insane. You’re crazy! CRAZY!”

  Okay. I admit it. I already said I lost it.

  But the cats were driving me crazy. Hundreds of cats meowing and yowling and pawing and clawing.

  “Don’t call me crazy, Prune Head!” Amanda screamed back at me. I think she lost it, too.

  She shot out both arms and gave me a hard shove in the chest.

  I was used to being shoved around by her. But this was harder than usual.

  I stumbled back—into the door marked

  KEEP OUT.

  I hit the door, and it swung open. I fell into a back room. I felt myself swallowed in darkness. A deep darkness, silent and cold.

  I fell onto my butt, blinking, my heart pounding.

  “Hey —” I choked out. “Where am I? What is this room?”

  9