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Nikki crooned to the cat and put her hand against the front of the stainless steel cage. The kitty cheek rubbed and clutched her hand through the bars. "Let's get you a clean spot, okay?" She'd already spread fresh newspaper in the adjacent cage, and quickly opened the door to move the patient away from its soiled temporary home. "Don't be embarrassed, kitty. It's the anesthesia makes you wet the bed, it's not your fault. And your mommy will come pick you up soon, so you can go home."
She briefly cuddled the cat, but carefully avoided the spay stitches on the sore tummy. Nikki loved volunteering at the clinic on weekends, and had learned bunches from Doc Eugene. Mostly she kept the kennels and cages clean, walked the dogs and played with the cats.
Ever since Daddy came home from deployment right on time for Christmas, Mommy smiled more and Nikki and her older brother Hank got to do more stuff on their own. Hank wasn't so bossy anymore, either. After all, she'd finally turned ten years old, a very responsible age. Daddy said so.
For Christmas, she got to keep her rescued kitty, Hope, even though Mommy got sneeze-attacks around cats. And for her birthday a week later, Doc Eugene invited her to come learn how to take care of Hope and other animals on weekends. Today school closed for teacher business or something, so she got the day off and extra time at the clinic. For the first time ever, she got to watch a surgery.
Mommy thought it'd be gross and didn't want to let her. But Daddy called her his "littlest hero" because of how brave she'd been during the fire. He told Mommy that if she wanted to be an animal doctor, they had better find out now.
Turned out, it wasn't near as ooky as she expected. Blue paper covered up the prepped pets, with a little open spot for the surgical site. The opening centered on the tummy for the girls, or what Doc Eugene called "nether regions" for the boys. She loved seeing their upside-down kitty faces, so cute under the paper. Doc Eugene showed how to put ointment in the eyes, to help protect them.
Nikki gathered up urine-soaked paper, wrinkling her nose as she dumped it into the trash. Then she sprayed the cage with a cleaner, wiped it out good, and added more clean newspaper to the bottom.
"All set in here?" Doc Eugene stuck his head in the door. "Any problems? Everybody waking up okay?"
"Just finished. Tuxie sure is a stinker, though."
He walked down the bank of cages, checking each of the five recovering felines. "Remember what I told you about boy cat urine?"
"Yep. The girl cats think it's kitty cologne." She walked to the sink and used a bunch of liquid soap to get rid of the smell. "But when they get neutered, the smell goes away."
"Well, it's not as pungent anyway. Cat pee still smells like cat pee." The black and white Tuxie reached out and hooked Doc Eugene's sleeve with his claws, until he stopped and gave the cat some attention. "What did you think of the surgery?"
"Kind of neat. Hank said I'd pass out from all the blood. But there wasn't hardly any." She'd had worse nosebleeds.
"I sure didn't want you to pass out."
"It's way more complicated than I thought." Nikki smoothed her special veterinary assistant smock, powder blue with cartoon cats, dogs and bunnies on it. "You got to weigh them, figure out how much sedation to put in the shot, then get them ready."
"What else?"
"Put on a heart monitor and...put that tube thingy down their neck."
"Intubate, right. And?"
"Hook up the gas anesthesia. Put them on a heating pad. Then you got to scrub in." She ticked each item off on her fingers. "Can I do that sometime? Wash really good and put on gloves and gown and mask and all?"
"You think you'd like that? Help with surgeries someday?"
"Not only help. I want to DO the surgeries and be a vet."
Doc Eugene walked to the door. "You keep that focus, Nikki, and it'll happen."
She fairly glowed. Nikki pulled her tablet out and activated her favorite app, and quickly posted an update to the private Show And Tell group of a bunch of kids from all over. Somehow, it was easier showing and telling stuff to strangers than people you saw every day. Nikki shared everything with the group, especially happy stuff. Almost immediately she got several "likes" and started to post a picture of Tuxie when Robin stuck her head in the door.
"Nikki, stop messing around and go walk the dogs." Robin spoke with a broad West Texas drawl that got on Nikki's nerves.
"I just got finished." Nikki hunched her shoulders and stuck the device back in her backpack. She liked the dogs well enough, but Robin always made sure Nikki got the truly nasty kennels to clean. As much as she admired Doc Eugene, she disliked the new office manager he'd hired. She was all cotton candy sweet in front of the veterinarian, batting her heavily made up eyes and swinging her hips, but morphed into a tyrant dishing out scut jobs as soon as he turned his back. Nikki ducked past the big woman who nearly blocked the doorway, and turned toward the dog kennels on the other side of the building.
Nikki nearly reached the far door before Robin stopped her again. "Have you soaked the instruments? I showed you how to get them ready for the autoclave. If I have to tell you every single thing, I might as well do it myself."
Then why don't you? But Nikki didn't dare voice the words. She suspected Robin tried to get Nikki fired. She didn’t know why Robin hated her. "Do you want me to walk dogs, clean kennels, or do instruments?" She tried to make her voice soothing the way she talked to her skittish cat Hope.
"Don't take that tone with me, young lady." Robin’s eyebrow piercing bobbed up and down. "You smart mouth me, and I don't care how much Eugene likes you, your narrow little butt is gone, charity case and all."
"What do you mean? I'm a volunteer. I just want to learn stuff."
"I just want to learn stuff." Robin mimicked her with baby talk. "Give me a break. I work my butt off, and take any overtime I can get to cover rent and make car payments, buy groceries, pay off loans. You waltz in here, spend a couple hours a week petting puppies and kitties—”
"Well duh. I’m a kid. My parents don't make me pay for food, except special snacks I get from my allowance." Nikki covered her mouth, tickled at the thought. "And I can't drive, so why would I want a car?" She couldn't help rolling her eyes.
“I wanted tickets to that sold out musical, but you whined and cajoled and Eugene gave his tickets to you. It’s your day to volunteer, but I have to work." She stomped down the hallway toward her, and it was all Nikki could do to hold her ground. Robin stuck her face close, and her fierce whispers smelled of beef jerky and Dr. Pepper. "When you work for free he doesn’t have to pay me overtime. And on top of that, he gives you all your cat food and meds and even the spay surgery for free. For free."
Nikki started to deny it. She'd seen Daddy give Doc Eugene money for Hope's care. But she also remembered her parents argued over the cost. Was it true? Had she embarrassed Daddy? But that meant she needed to work even harder to pay and make it up to Doc Eugene, never mind what Robin-the-Rat said. She drew up her chest and stood tall and proud, the way Daddy said soldiers stood, and never took any guff. "We're not a charity case either."
"Just go clean up the dog poop. That's all you're good for." Robin stalked away, opened the door to the front reception area, and closed the door.
Blinking furiously, Nikki whirled and banged through the door to the dog room. A Chihuahua yelped in surprise, and a big black mutt recovering from anesthesia lifted his head, tried to stagger to his feet, and instead banged his tail against the floor.
Nikki retrieved her tablet and let the hurt flow in an impetuous burst of misspelled words to the Show And Tell group. Nobody knew who Nikki-Kitty was anyway, so what could it hurt?
Before she could stow it away and begin to muck out the poopy kennels, the "bing" announced a message reply. Her eyes widened. She got more than a simple "like" this time. It came from Kid Kewl himself, the owner of the whole super-secret group.
"Hush little Nikki, don't be mad.
I'm gonna fix, turn your sad to glad."
