When we got home from the pet store, I went to my room, half expecting to see Crenshaw lounging on my bed. Instead, I found Aretha. Her nose was buried in my keepsakes bag, and she had a guilty expression on her face. She for sure had something in her mouth, but I couldn’t see what it was.
“Show me,” I said. I pulled the stolen dog cookie from my pocket. It was a little mushed on one side. I held it out so that Aretha would drop whatever was in her mouth and snatch the cookie. But she wasn’t interested.
Probably she didn’t want to eat stolen goods.
Aretha slunk toward my bedroom door, tail dragging, and I saw what she was holding. It was the clay statue I’d made of Crenshaw, clutched between her teeth.
“You don’t want that old thing,” I said, but she seemed to disagree. As soon as she was out of my bedroom, she galloped down the hall and scratched urgently at the front door.
“Want me to open it, baby?” Robin asked. She turned the knob and Aretha rocketed outside.
“Aretha! Stop!” I yelled. Usually she waited by the door for me, flopping her tail hopefully. Not today.
I grabbed her leash. She was heading straight for Marisol’s house, which was about half a block down the street. Aretha loved Marisol. She also loved Marisol’s seven cats, who enjoyed sunbathing on the screened-in back porch.
I found Aretha in Marisol’s old sandbox. Marisol didn’t use it anymore, but Aretha loved it. She was already digging a hole. Sand fanned skyward like sprinkler spray.
Aretha was an expert digger. She’d buried two water bowls, a TV remote control, a pizza box, a ziplock bag of Legos, three Frisbees, and two of my homework folders there. Not that my teachers had believed me.
Marisol was wearing flip-flops and her pajamas, which had snoring sheep on them. She loved pajamas. In first grade, she wore them to school every day until the principal told her she was setting a bad example.
In her left hand, Marisol had a large saw. Her hair was covered with sawdust. She almost always smelled like fresh-cut wood.
Marisol loved to build things, especially things for animals and birds and reptiles. She made birdhouses and bat shelters. Dog carriers and cat trees. Hamster habitats and ferret houses.
At the end of her fenced yard were planks, a sawhorse, and a big circular saw. A small house-looking thing was on the ground, half built. It was for one of her cats.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” she said. “You ready for the yard sale?”
“I guess.”
“Aretha brought me that,” Marisol said. She pointed to my Crenshaw statue, which was sitting on the picnic table. “Dropped it right at my feet.”
“I made it when I was little,” I said with a shrug. “It’s lame.”
“If you made it, it’s not lame,” Marisol said. She put down her saw and examined the statue.
Aretha stopped digging and looked up at us hopefully. Her face was covered in sand. Her tongue lolled sideways.
“It’s a cat,” Marisol said, brushing off a piece of grass stuck to the bottom. “A standing cat with a baseball cap. I like it. I like it very much.”
I shrugged, hands in my pockets.
“Was this for the yard sale?” Marisol asked. “How much is it?”
“It’s not for sale. Aretha got into a bag of my stuff is all.”
“I have three dollars.”
“For that?” I laughed. “It’s just, you know. A hunk of clay. Some school project.”
“I like it. It’s … intriguing.” Marisol reached into her pajama pocket. She handed me a wad of money that looked like it had been through the laundry.
“Keep it,” I said. “Think of it as a going-away present.”
Her eyes went wide. “What are you talking about, Jackson? You’re not—”
I waved a hand. “No. It’s probably nothing. My parents are just being their usual weird selves.”
It wasn’t the truth, not completely. But it wasn’t not the truth.
“You’d better not move. I’d miss you too much. Who would help me with See Spot Walk? And anyway, I love your weird parents.”
I didn’t respond.
“We’ve got the dachshunds tomorrow,” Marisol said.
“Yep.” I pointed to the miniature zigzag staircase she was building. “Where’s that going?”
“Antonio’s old room, when he heads off to college this fall. Or maybe Luis’s. His room is just full of boxes.”
“You’re like an only child,” I said.
“It’s kind of boring,” Marisol said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “There’s no one to fight with. It’s too quiet.”
“Sounds nice.”
“I like your apartment. There’s always something going on. Sometimes it’s just me and Paula for days on end.” She rolled her eyes.
Marisol’s dad was a salesman and her mom was a pilot. They traveled a lot, so Paula, an older woman, often stayed with Marisol. Marisol refused to call her a “nanny” or “babysitter” or “caregiver.” She was just “Paula.”
Marisol grabbed a tape measure to check the height of the staircase she was making. “I’m going to attach this staircase to the wall, see? Like so? And then put shelves way up high for the cats to climb to. It’ll be cat paradise.”
“Speaking of cats…” I bent down to fill in the hole Aretha had made. The sand was soft and dry. “Did I ever tell you…” I hesitated, then pushed on. “Did I ever tell you that I had an imaginary friend when I was little?”
“Really? Me too. Her name was Whoops. She had red hair and was extremely naughty. I blamed her for everything. Who was yours?”
“He was a cat. A big cat. I don’t remember much about him.”
“You should never forget your imaginary friend.”
“How come?”
“What if you need him someday?” Marisol reached for a piece of wood. “I remember everything about Whoops. She liked to eat brussels sprouts.”
“Why?” I pretended to gag.
“Probably because I like brussels sprouts.”
“You never told me that. I may have to reconsider our friendship.”
“Because of Whoops? Or the brussels sprouts?” She yanked a nail out of a plank with her hammer. “Hey, new bat fact. In Austin, Texas, they have the world’s largest urban bat colony. Like a million and a half of them. When they fly out at night, you can see them on the airport radar screens.”
“Very cool,” I said. “Ms. Malone would love seeing that.”
Marisol and I both had Ms. Malone for fourth grade. She taught all subjects, but she loved science best of all. Biology especially.
We chatted about bats while we watched Aretha dig another hole. Finally I said, “Well. Gotta go.”
I hooked Aretha to her leash. She licked my cheek with a sand-covered tongue. It felt like a cat’s.
“Did Whoops ever … you know?” I made myself ask the question. “Did she ever come back after you outgrew her?”
Marisol didn’t answer right away. Sometimes she just let a question sit for a while, like she needed some time to get acquainted with it.
“I wish she would come back,” Marisol said, gazing at me. “I think you’d like her.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I guess I could overlook the brussels sprouts thing.”
“Jackson?”
“Yep?”
“You’re not really moving, are you?”
I studied her question the way she’d studied mine. “Probably not,” I said, because it was easy, and easy was all I could manage.
Aretha and I were almost to the front yard when Marisol called, “It needs a name.”
“You mean the statue?”
“Yeah. Something unique.”
“What do you want its name to be?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away. She took her time.
Finally she said, “Crenshaw would be a good name for a cat, I think.”