Acting Out by Laurie Halse Anderson Page A

with black, gray, and white stripes is hanging out near the Dumpster behind our store again. I’ve seen him every day since we moved here a week ago. It’s getting late and I promised Mom I’d help with dinner, but I want to see if the cat’s okay. Yesterday, he had a tear in his left ear, but he was too jittery to let me look at it closely or to clean it.
    “Hey there, kitty,” I say. “How’s your ear? Still no tags or collar?”
    “Meow,” he says. He watches me, but keeps his distance, his ring-striped tail twitching from side to side. Aside from no collar or tag, and his ear, which looks like it’s healing okay, he doesn’t looklike a stray. His coat is short, thick, and shiny, and he looks well fed. In fact, he’s more chubby than sleek. Each day he comes a little closer to me and the water dish I set out for him, and twice he’s let me pet him. I’ve been changing the water daily. Maybe today he’ll let me pet him again and check his ear more closely.
    “Meow?” he says again, this time a question.
    “Yes, you can trust me,” I say.
    He tilts his head, and his green eyes stare right at me.
    My twin brother, Josh, says I have a sixth sense—Animal Sense.
    “I won’t hurt you.”
    The tabby is still skittish, but he’s so cute. I love his markings—gray, black, and white stripes, with two thicker black lines in his fur on the top of his head between his ears, forming what looks like a little M. He has more furry black V’s accenting his eyes, and lots of fuzzy whiteness around his chin and neck. According to a cat website I found, he’s a domestic shorthair brown mackerel tabby. But there is nothing common about him. His eyes and markings are so expressive. He’s beautiful.
    I kneel down a few feet behind the water dish and stay still. He finally approaches. He sniffs the water, laps at it, and then he walks closer to me.I slowly lean forward, pausing before my hand reaches him. He sniffs it, and then rubs his furry forehead against my fingers. His slightly wet white whiskers tickle me as he tilts his head one way then another against my hand.
    “Meow,” he says again as I pet him, first his back, then his head, around his ears, including the ear with the little notch in it, and finally the warm, soft spot under his white chin until I feel and hear the vibration of his purr. Cats like me.
    I miss petting the cats and kittens at the animal shelter back in Pittsburgh. This one reminds me of Moonshine, the orange tabby at the shelter. He was always a bit cautious, too. Before we moved here I volunteered there two days a week, helping clean up after the animals, washing their water and food dishes, petting and playing with the cats and kittens mostly, but sometimes the dogs and puppies, too. I helped get the animals socialized and friendly around people so they would have a better chance of being adopted.
    “Where do you live?” I ask the tabby. “Do you have a home?”
    He looks up at me as if he’s about to tell me something important.
    “Meow.”
    As soon as we get the hardware store Mom andDad bought all set up and open for business, I really want to volunteer at the shelter here in Ambler, too. I even got a recommendation letter from my supervisor back in Pittsburgh like Dad suggested. When the Ambler shelter sees my letter, I’m sure they’ll let me volunteer.
    The cat’s purr gets louder and louder.
    And I was excited to see that there’s a veterinary clinic two blocks down the street. Maybe I’ll make a copy of my letter to show the vets there, too. If I’m going to be a veterinarian someday, I have to get more experience, especially since we’ve never had any family pets of our own. Mom promised that we could finally get a pet once we’d settled in, but now she acts like it’s the last thing on her mind.
    Mom doesn’t understand how much I love animals, how good I am with them, and how being around animals makes me less nervous. But Dad gets it. He’s an animal lover,