CHAPTER
nine

First thing on Saturday morning I took my cup of coffee to the living room to sit in my comfortable chair by the window and read the book Albert had gotten me for Christmas. It was a shame that I’d had it for half a year and hadn’t yet gotten around to it.

I’d wondered if I could like a book with a cover that had little girls riding around on the back of a lion as if he was a horse. But I found that I enjoyed it very much.

So much, in fact, that I finished the whole book in a matter of hours without getting up from my chair. Not even for a second cup of coffee.

Closing the cover, I smiled down at the title. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I contemplated starting over from the beginning right away, not yet ready to leave the world of Narnia.

But something caught my eye out the window, making me sit up a little straighter in my chair.

Walking down the sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder, were Nick and Dick, pulling a wagon behind them. Identical in every way but in what color of shirt they usually wore—Nick was blue and Dick was red—they confounded most everybody who tried to tell them apart.

I, however, had little difficulty. All I had to do was look at them when they were doing something they knew they shouldn’t. Dick would get shifty-eyed and Nick’s mouth turned up on the left-hand side.

Fortunately for me, they were usually up to something on the naughty side. Poor Marvel.

Squinting out the window, I tried to read their expressions, but they were too far away yet. But from the careful way they navigated the wagon over a bump in the sidewalk, I knew they were up to something.

“Now, what are those two doing?” I mumbled, standing and putting the book on my chair. “And what is that on the wagon?”

I made my way to the porch just as they steered their haul up my driveway. Their bright red Radio Flyer had Marvel’s lidded wicker basket in it, three decent-sized rocks placed on the top as if they wanted to keep it from opening.

I was more than a little concerned as visions of coiled snakes, ready to spring, played in my head.

“Good morning, boys,” I called out to them. “Did you come to pay me a visit?”

“Hi, Aunt Betty,” Nick said. “We got a present for you.”

“You did?” I eyed the basket. “How come I feel a little nervous about that present?”

“It was Dick’s idea.” Nick nodded his head toward his twin. “But I helped.”

Dick nodded. “Wanna see what it is?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” I fingered the pearls around my neck. “Did your mother say it was all right?”

The twins looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes as if they wanted to get their stories straight.

“Does your mother even know you’re here?”

Dick—who could never lie if his life depended on it—squirmed and let his eyes drop to his feet. Nick, on the other hand, gave me his very best Eddie Haskell grin.

Just then, from within the basket, I heard a meow and I felt my eyes grow wide.

“Oh, boys,” I said. “What is in the basket?”

Another mew.

“You better get that inside.” I rushed down the steps and helped them lift the basket from the wagon. “What am I going to do with you two?”

“Make us some chocolate milk?” Nick asked.

Oh. That boy.

We set the basket down on the living room floor and the boys lifted the lid slowly. All of my nerves were on edge, worried that the creature inside would pounce just as soon as it was free.

Instead, the calico cat lifted its head from where it lay curled in a ball in one corner. It meowed again, standing and sniffing the air.

“Where did you get it?” I asked, whispering so as not to alarm the cat.

“Our neighbor,” Dick answered. “Do you know Mrs. Lamb?”

“I do.”

“She’s old,” Nick said.

“Elderly,” Dick corrected him.

“Boys, please don’t tell me that you stole Mrs. Lamb’s cat,” I said, grimacing.

“We didn’t, cross my heart and hope to die,” Nick said. “She told Dick she needed a new home for Flannery.”

“It’s true,” Dick said. “She said if she didn’t find a place for the cat to live, she’d have to take it to the pound.”

“They make glue out of cats at the pound, Aunt Betty.” Nick squinted his eyes.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. “What’s the cat’s name?”

“Flannery O’Calico.” Dick shook his head. “Mrs. Lamb thought it was funny. I don’t get it.”

“It’s after an author,” I said. “Anyway, you took Flannery from Mrs. Lamb?”

“Uh-huh,” Nick said. “Dick said you could have her.”

“Well, how about that.”

“So you won’t be lonely anymore,” Dick said.

I couldn’t help but put my hand on his cheek at his sweetness. Of course, he still had something sticky on his face, presumably left over from breakfast. Syrup. I was sure that was it.

Flannery hopped out of the basket, shaking her front paw as if rejecting it completely, before looking up at me.

“Hello there,” I said, feeling absolutely ridiculous for greeting a cat.

She walked near me, rubbing her face against my leg. I reached down and pet her.

“Oh, she’s soft.” She turned her head so I’d scratch behind her ear.

“Can you keep her?” Nick asked, putting his hands together as if begging for his life. “Please, Aunt Betty.”

“But I haven’t got any food for her or litter,” I said. “And she’ll need some shots, won’t she?”

The boys both shrugged.

The cat looked up at me, as if on cue, and blinked slowly at me. I could feel the gentle vibration of her purr through her side.

“Oh, I suppose she can stay.” I reached for the boys, and they came to me, letting me hug them each in one of my arms. “It’s very kind of you to want me to have a companion. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Aunt Betty,” the boys both said.

Just then Flannery zipped under the couch and ran right back out, batting a dust bunny with her paw and yowling her heart out.

What exactly had I gotten myself into?

I spent the afternoon and evening fretting over that cat. She’d wander the house, snooping in closets and under beds and jumping up on the kitchen counter to see what was up there. I followed her, my hands outstretched in front of me like more sane women do with toddlers rather than felines.

Every once in a while I’d pick her up and carry her downstairs to where I’d put the litter box I’d bought, showing it to her the way the man at the pet store had told me to. The very last thing I wanted was for her to forget where I’d put it and do her business elsewhere.

I wondered if I needed to put down newspapers like we’d done when we had our puppy Mitzi.

By late in the evening, I was exhausted from worrying over that cat all day. I finally gave up and let her be. When I checked the litter box one last time for the night, I noticed that she had made a deposit there after all.

When I finally settled down enough to have a piece of toast and a sunny-side-up egg for my supper, I turned the radio on in the kitchen to hear Johnny Cash singing about a burnin’ ring of fire with that deeper than deep voice of his. I couldn’t help but bob my head along with the horns and guitar. Sitting at the table, I dipped the corner of my toast in the bright yellow yolk and read through the LaFontaine newspaper, noting that the Five and Dime was running a sale on cosmetics and that there was a Little League baseball game the next weekend.

Down in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper, so out of the way that I nearly didn’t see it, was an advertisement for Lazy Morning Bakery, announcing its grand opening in the town just half a mile outside of LaFontaine. By my count, that was one Lazy Morning in all the towns within a dozen mile radius.

I sighed, hoping Pop hadn’t read the paper.

I yelped when the cat jumped up on my lap. I’d forgotten she was even there.

“Now, I shouldn’t let you sit with me at the table, should I?” I asked her, rubbing between her shoulders, surprised at how unafraid I was of her. “Well, no one is around to see it, I suppose.”

I put the paper away, choosing instead to eat my dinner. The song had changed, and I sang “da-do-ron-ron” between bites.

What a good day it had been.