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“She didn’t come in with a collar,” she says. “Or tags.”
I laugh uneasily, caught. “She’s always catching it on something.”
“Kid, that cat was a stray living in a barn. It came in only a couple of hours ago, and if someone was feeding it, they weren’t feeding it much or for long.”
“She was living in a barn,” I say. “But now she lives with me.”
The woman shakes her head. “I don’t know what happened, but I can guess. You didn’t get permission to bring that cat home and your parents sent it to a shelter. Irresponsible—”
“That’s not what happened.” I wonder what she’d do if I told her what I thought had happened. I almost laugh.
The bell in the front jingles as a couple with a kid walk in the door. The schnauzer-shirted woman turns toward them with a smile.
“We’re here to get a puppy!” shouts the little girl. All around her mouth looks sticky. Her gloves are smeared with brown stains.
“Wait,” I say desperately. “Please.”
The woman gives me a quick, pitying look. “Come back when you convince one of your parents to give you permission. Like this kid.”
I take a deep breath. “Are you working here tomorrow?” I ask her.
She puts a hand on her hip, annoyed now, probably more angry because she briefly felt sorry for me, but I don’t care. “No, but the guy on tomorrow is gonna tell you the same thing. Get a parent.”
I nod, but I’m not really listening anymore, because my head is full of the sound of Lila shrieking from behind bars. Crying and crying with no one coming.
* * *
My dad taught me this trick to calm down. Like, before I was going into a house to steal something or if the police were questioning me. He said to imagine that I was on a beach and concentrate on the sounds of clear blue water lapping at my feet. The feel of the sand beneath toes. Take deep breaths of sea air.
It doesn’t work.
* * *
Sam picks up on the second ring. “I’m at play practice,” he says in a near-whisper. “Stavrakis is giving me the stink eye. Talk fast.”
I have very little to offer Sam. I’m trusting him despite myself, and I know trust isn’t worth much. I don’t even know if he’ll want it. “I really need your help.”
“Are you okay? You sound serious.”
I make myself laugh. “I have to spring a cat out of the Rumelt Animal Shelter. Think of it as a prison break.”
It does the trick. He laughs. “Whose cat?”
“My cat. What do you think? That I break out the cats of strangers?”
“Let me guess, she was framed. She’s innocent.”
“Just like everybody else in prison.” I think of Mom. The laugh bubbles up my throat all wrong: sarcastic, harsh. “Good, so tomorrow?” I say, once I’ve managed to stop.
“Yeah, it’s him,” I hear Sam say, but his voice is smothered, like maybe his hand is over the phone. “You want to come?” He says something else, too, but I can’t hear it.
“Sam!” I say, hitting my hand on the dashboard.
“Hey, Cassel.” It’s Daneca, talking softly. Daneca with her hemp and her causes and her never noticing that I avoid her. “What’s all this about a cat? Sam says you need some help.”
“I just need one person,” I tell her. The last thing I want is to have to pull this off with Daneca looking over my shoulder.
“Sam says he could use a ride.”
