The Painted Ponies of Partequineus and The Summer of the Kittens by Peter H. Riddle Page A

donating the hair to this place in Toronto that makes wigs for kids who don’t have any, so people won’t look at them funny or feel sorry for them. You know how Jimmy hates it when people feel sorry for him . Lots of people are donating money to the Cancer Society, too, just to see all of them get bald.”
    â€œJust the boys?” Mom asked.
    â€œUh, uh. Girls too. It’ll be in the newspaper and everything.”
    â€œWhy would they want to do that?”
    â€œI told you, to help other kids who have cancer.”
    Mom just shook her head. “Well, I guess it’s for a good cause. But I wouldn’t want you to look like that. You have such beautiful hair.”
    â€œI’m gonna do it when I’m in ninth grade,” I told her.
    â€œWe’ll see.”
    When Mom says “We’ll see” like that, it always means she won’t let me, only when the time comes I just won’t tell her about it until it’s all over. Anyway, I bet it would be kind of neat to have all my hair cut off. Maybe then I’d really know what it was like to have cancer and lose all my hair so that people would look at me like they look at Jimmy in his wheelchair.
    I wish I knew what it’s like to be Jimmy.
    I went back to my cereal and finished half of it. I waited until Mom’s back was turned, and then I slipped out of the chair and took the bowl with me. I held it really close in front of me so she wouldn’t see it and hurried out of the room and ran upstairs as fast as I could. The cat was still there, and I put the bowl down on the floor and she came over right away and started to eat.
    Cats like Rice Krispies too, just like me.
    It was almost time to leave for school, and I closed the window so the bugs wouldn’t get in and picked up my backpack and went out, shutting the door after me. I thought about asking Mom to stay out of my room, but that wasn’t a good idea, ’cause she’d just wonder why and maybe go snooping, and today wasn’t one of her cleaning days, so I just left the door closed and went downstairs and said goodbye and went to school.
    When I came home for lunch, the first thing I did was go upstairs and look for the cat, and when I went into my room she was asleep on the bed, only there was this funny kind of smell. I hunted around and found a yellow puddle in one corner.
    Cat pee really stinks!
    I got a towel and wiped it up, and then I scrubbed the floor with a washcloth and some soap until the smell disappeared - well, most of it, anyway - and then I washed the towel out in the bathroom sink and hung it up. Finally I opened the window and picked the cat up and carried her to the windowsill, but she didn’t want to go out, so I had to leave the window open and hoped she wouldn’t pee on the floor again, or something worse. After lunch I checked on her again, only she wasn’t there, so I shut the window and went back to school.
    Over the next few days we sort of developed a system that worked pretty well. I sneaked food up to my room after breakfast and after supper, and I left the window open while she ate. She seemed to know that I wanted her to go out after that, and most times she jumped up on the windowsill and ran down the tree. You should see her do that. She hangs on with her claws and goes down backwards, just like I do in my elm tree, only I haven’t got any claws, of course, which is why I have boards nailed into the trunk to hang on to.
    Once when she didn’t want to go out and I had to leave for school, I had to sneak downstairs with her and put her out the front door when Mom was in the kitchen. She hasn’t peed on the floor again, and I’m really glad about that.
    Oh, yeah, and I gave her a name. She’s Maggie now.
    So today when I came home Maggie was outside the window as usual, waiting for me to let her in, and I did. I stayed up there and did my homework, and after supper - Dad was home for a