The New Girl by Meg Cabot Page B

bedroom, and then into her huge bedroom closet.
    “Now, Lady Serena lets me near her babies, of course,” Mrs. Hauser said as she pushed back a lot of dresses and skirts so we could see where Lady Serena was hiding with her kittens. “But I don’t know how she’ll feel about strangers. Not that you’re a stranger, of course she loves you,Allie, but she’s very protective of her little boys and girls. Let’s see how she’s feeling today.”
    And then Mrs. Hauser sank down on her knees and indicated that I should do the same, so I did. And she started sorting through a lot of shoe boxes that were lying on the carpeted floor, and saying in a soft voice, “Here, puss, here, baby…”
    And then, my heart thudding softly in anticipation, finally, I saw her…beautiful Lady Serena Archibald, with her long silky gray fur and her funny, smushed-in face, lying in a big box on top of a pair of suede boots, with six tiny squirming little bodies on top of her.
    “Oh!” I cried. Because the little bodies didn’t look like hairless pink newts at all but were all different colors, black, white, smoky gray like their mother, and one—yes, I could see one, peeping in and out as it crawled all over the place—that was gray with black smudges like stripes and white smudges on its feet like little socks.
    “What’s THAT one?” I wanted to know, pointing.
    “What one, honey?” Mrs. Hauser asked. It was kind of hard to tell one kitten from the other because they were allscrambling over one another and making the faintest little mewing sounds. Over it all, you could hear Lady Serena Archibald purring like a vacuum cleaner. She didn’t seem to mind us visiting her at all.
    “The little one with the stripes,” I said.
    “Oh, isn’t that one a little sweetheart?” Mrs. Hauser asked. “I know. Brittany calls that one Stripey.”
    I didn’t want to hear about what Mrs. Hauser’s daughter, Brittany, was calling MY kitten. Stripey was a totally unimaginative name for a striped cat, anyway.
    “Is Stripey a boy kitten,” I asked, “or a girl kitten? I really want a girl kitten.”
    “Well, let me see,” Mrs. Hauser said. And she reached into the boot box and picked up the tiny kitten.
    “Excuse me, Mama,” she said to Lady Serena, who just purred harder. Then she tilted up the striped kitten and looked beneath its tail.
    Please, I prayed. Let it be a girl. After my rotten, rotten day—my rotten year—let it be a girl.
    “You’re in luck,” Mrs. Hauser said. “Stripey’s a girl!”
    I let out a weird, squeaking sound I was so happy and threw a look at my mom, sitting on the bed a few feet away. She smiled back at me.
    “Can I hold her?” I asked Mrs. Hauser.
    “Of course you can,” Mrs. Hauser said, and passed the tiny kitten to me. “But be careful. Her eyes have only been open for a few days. Everything is very new to her.”
    “I will be,” I said, and held out my hands for Mrs. Hauser to put Mewsette into them for the very first time.
    I couldn’t believe how little she was! Smaller than one of my hands! And she weighed practically nothing. She was light as a feather. And as soft as one, too. She had a white belly and throat, and a gray back and tail with black stripes, and white feet, and a pink nose and bright blue eyes that looked into mine with a wide-eyed, confused gaze, as if to say, “Are you my mom? Hey, no, you’re not. Where’s my mom?”
    She was completely perfect in every way. I wanted to take her home right then and there, but I knew she wasn’t ready, and neither was I. I didn’t have her food or food bowls orlitter box. I didn’t have her pink rhinestone collar or her pink feathered canopy cat bed. I had a lot of stuff to do to get ready for her!
    Looking at me looking down at her, Mewsette opened her mouth and went, “Aarh?”
    Mrs. Hauser laughed. “She likes you!”
    “I love her,” I said simply. Because it was true.
    “Are you sure?” Mom asked from the bed. “You