Speed Demon by ERIN LYNN Page A

would run away before she had to go so far as to take him to the vet and get him a license.
    “Come here, kitty, kitty,” Levi said.
    The cat hissed.
    Levi reached for it and got a swat on the hand.
    “Come on, I’m serious.”
    The cat made a coughing sound, then threw up right in front of Levi.
    Levi turned his head and wrinkled his nose. “Sick, Otis.”
    “Who’s Otis?” Zoe asked, leaning over Levi to check out the vomit.
    “It’s my nickname for the cat. He looks like an Otis to me.”
    “Well, he won’t come to you unless you call him by his real name, Marshmallow Pants,” Zoe said with authority.
    “Right. Marshmallow Pants, this ground is cold and your puke smells. So come out. Now.” Levi grabbed the cat and dragged and wrestled and pulled him out from under the van.
    I was clipping the vacuum attachment back on and watching in amusement when we all heard my mother scream from the house. It sounded like something had ripped its face off in front of her, there was so much fear in her voice.
    Abandoning the vacuum, I ran, as did Levi, who was still struggling to hold the cat, and Zoe.
    Inside the kitchen my mother was white-faced and pointing to the floor. “Levi,” she said in a shaky voice, “I hope you weren’t attached to your gym shoes.”
    “What?”
    We all followed her finger and I reared back. “Oh, nasty!” There was a dead mouse—actually, just a mouse head—bloody and gruesome, sticking up out of Levi’s shoe.
    “I think Marshmallow Pants left you a present,” my mom added, swallowing hard. “Oh, that’s so gross.”
    Zoe screamed.
    The cat jumped down out of Levi’s grip and ran, though he paused at the edge of the family room and gave one glance back at us before tearing off for parts unknown.
    “We have mice ?” I asked, horrified.
    “Not if I have anything to say about it,” my mom announced. “I’m calling the exterminator in the morning.” Then she yelled, “Bill! I need you in the kitchen. Bill!”
    “I can get it, Mrs. S.” Levi grimaced, but he picked up his shoe and headed for the garage, presumably to dump the head in the trash can.
    When he got back, he actually went and put his gym shoe in the washing machine.
    “You’re keeping that?” Eew. Double eew. Triple eew.
    “There’s just a little blood and fur on it. It will wash right off. These shoes cost ninety bucks.”
    A budget-conscious demon. He was taking the whole thing really well, given that his face looked like he’d lost a battle with a pricker bush and he’d had his shoe turned into a burial ground for a rodent.
    It wasn’t until after ten that night when I caught Levi trying to throw Marshmallow Pants out onto the back deck that I realized he might be more annoyed than he was letting on.
    “What are you doing?” I asked him, even though it was obvious.
    He jumped, clearly clueless that anyone was around. “Um, nothing.”
    “You just stuck that cat outside. It’s November. It’s forty degrees out there.”
    “So? He has a lot of fur. And I think he’s actually an outdoor cat,” Levi said, crossing his arms over his chest and shutting the sliding door to the deck closed on Marshmallow Pants. “I think he wants to run around and kill mice outside.”
    “He’s standing on the deck by the door, staring into the house and meowing,” I pointed out. The cat looked like he had been betrayed. He was just sitting there, his mewling faint but obvious.
    So the Nice Guy Demon didn’t like cats any more than I did. I went over and opened the door, watching the cat dart back in.
    “What did you do that for?” Levi asked, annoyed.
    I wasn’t sure, but it seemed mean to leave it out there when it wanted in. “Because I’m saving Zoe’s hero worship of you. She would be destroyed if she knew you tortured her cat.”
    “I wasn’t torturing it! I just sent it outside to hunt at will. Where it can drop dead mice in the grass, instead of my shoe.”
    “Well, it’s back in the house