Fool's Moon Page 2

  Not the scary ocean that lived beyond the high stone wall and past the broad ribbon of hot sand. That water was a steely gray, and most mornings it roared and crashed on the rippled sand like an angry wolf in search of prey. That water frightened her, the way it tried to sweep away humans and birds and cats, alike. She didn’t like that water.

  No, the water she loved lived in the big rectangular pond safely inside the walled yard of their home. It was a nice, quiet water—still as a mouse, except at one end. There, a broad curtain of clear liquid spilled from a flat rock and joined the other water, splattering a little and sending out wet sparkles that turned colors in the sun.

  In her dream, she reached out a paw to tap its cool surface. It was a wonderful pond, indeed, with a broad ledge on all four sides so that she and Brandon could race around the water without getting wet. As long as one didn’t actually jump in, the water was friendly and welcoming. The pond itself was pretty, too, with lots of small rocks arranged in funny patterns just above the water’s surface.

  The only thing bad about the pond was the giant fish with the long nose, like a pointed stick, that lurked at its bottom. The giant fish never moved, just waited down there for things to fall in.

  And, lots of things fell.

  When that happened, the water was still pretty, but wasn’t quite so nice. In the year that Ophelia and her brother had lived with the old woman, they’d spied any number of mice and lizards—even one time, a long black snake!—floating in that large clear body of water. Sometimes, the creatures were still alive, paddling frantically to stay afloat and away from the scary fish at the bottom. That was the fun part, watching them splash about.

  Ophelia mewed in amusement, remembering. Her brother, Brandon, would crouch on one side of the pool and she on the other. They would paw at the water, each trying to snare the swimming creature first, before Luciana the housekeeper appeared with her big net. If they could pull out the lizard or mouse, themselves, they’d have a fun toy to bat about for a time.

  But, clever human that she was, Luciana usually won their game. Wide red lips tight as the long black braid that dangled enticingly over her thin shoulder, she would gingerly scoop out the mouse or lizard before the cats could retrieve it. Then, while they mewed in disappointment, she would unceremoniously dump the rescued creature into the tangle of vines and palm trees at the pool’s far end. That way, it could dry off out of reach of feline paws and then run away.

  But some floating creatures were not so lucky as to be snared by Luciana’s big net in time. Instead, tiring of the struggle, they would take a final breath and slowly sink to the pool’s bottom. When that happened, the two cats would wait at the pool’s edge to see if the scary fish would swim over and eat the dead thing.

  But the housekeeper was always faster than the scary fish, too. Tsk’ing, Luciana would scrape the big net along the pool’s bottom, snatching up the corpse and dumping it into a plastic sack. That sack, in turn, she would hide in a giant plastic box near the place where the cars lived. And that would be that, until the next creature lost its battle with the water.

  Usually, it was the mice that died, but once it was one of the big white birds with a long, curved beak.

  An ibis, Luciana had called it. She sighed as she stood there with the cats watching the pretty winged creature on the bottom of the pond beneath the curtain of falling water. Birds were amusing only when they flapped and dashed about, and Ophelia had been sad to see it lying so close to the scary fish. Still, the water’s motion made the bird’s wings slowly drift up and down, so that Ophelia wasn’t quite convinced it was dead, until Luciana scooped it out.

  The old woman had looked much like that ibis on a morning not too long ago, when Ophelia and Brandon had found her lying at the bottom of the pond.

  In her dreams, Ophelia once again saw that terrible sight. The old woman’s sparse white fur, usually curled tight like a pug dog’s tail, floated gently away from her head. The long white clothes that she wore—a nightgown, the old woman always called it—drifted about her, the fabric slowly flapping just like the dead ibis’s wings. And Ophelia had known that something was very wrong.

  Frantic, she and Brandon had pawed at the water, trying to make the old woman swim up to the top again. Ophelia knew the old woman could swim. She’d seen her glide across the water’s surface many times, wrinkled white arms and legs moving but barely splashing at all. Indeed, Ophelia had always been impressed by this strange human talent.

  So why was the old woman down there with the scary fish instead?

  Luciana had heard their splashing and rushed to see what was the matter. When she saw the old woman, she screamed and screamed, scaring both cats off the ledge. They’d crouched in the nearby bushes, waiting to see what she would do with the old woman now.

  But unlike with the mice and the lizard—and even with the ibis—the housekeeper didn’t get the net. Instead, she rushed back into the house. Not very long after, other humans had arrived. They’d carried the old woman out of the water and laid her on the hard ground. One of the humans had breathed into the old woman’s slack mouth, making her chest go up and down, like they were pretending that she was breathing. But by then, Ophelia could have told them that it was no use.

  Like the ibis, the old woman was dead.

  Two

  “Ophelia, wake up! I heard the door open. Humans are coming.”

  The yowl came from the orange tabby in the cage beside her. Uncurling herself from the threadbare towel that served as her bed, Ophelia stretched one thin black forearm, then the other.

  She was back in that place called the shelter—the same place where the old woman had found her and Brandon when they were just kittens and taken them home. Except Brandon wasn’t with her this time. The human that had found her in the box had taken her away from the street before he could return. She was here, and he was still out there somewhere … alone.

  She’d almost forgotten what it was like in the shelter. The cramped, cold metal box that held her; the harsh smell of something the humans called bleach; the terrified yowls of the other cats locked in their own metal boxes.

  Wearing bright shirts covered with pictures of smiling dogs and cats, the humans tried their best to be nice to them. They gave frequent head-scratches with the litter box changes, and handed out the occasional little toys.

  Only temporary, they would assure each new feline that arrived there. You’ll have a forever home soon.

  And, in the few days she’d been there, she’d seen excited humans come into the room and take away one of the felines—usually, a kitten, just like she and Brandon had once been—to live with them. All the remaining cats would cheer, for it meant there was a chance that a human might pick them, too.

  But she’d also seen sick cats and injured cats taken away by one the humans who worked there. They’d go to another room … the room the cats who’d been there awhile called the PTS room, though they didn’t really know what that meant. The shelter worker would come back later, looking sad as she gave out more head-scratches than usual.

  The cats, however, never came back.

  “Quick,” the tabby urged Ophelia, who had yet to uncurl her sleek black length. “If we want to get out of here, we have to make a human like us. They want cats who purr and bat their paws, not cats that lie about like dead mice.”

  “Oh, for kibbles’ sake,” Ophelia mewed back—this being the only epithet that her brother (being the elder by two minutes, and thus arbiter of such things) approved of her using. Still, she condescended to move to the front of the cage, though she complained, “What’s the use? They want kittens, not full-grown felines. And no one wants black cats.”

  It was true. The humans who worked there talked about that all the time. And so they’d put pretty collars on the black felines, hoping to make them more appealing to finicky human eyes. That was why Ophelia was wearing a pink c
ollar with a tiny pink bell. She hated the way the collar felt around her neck and the constant tinkling sound the bell made, but the humans put it back on her every time she pulled it off. So, for now, she deigned to wear it.

  Now she could hear footsteps and the sound of human voices. It was a signal to the other caged felines—at least, the newer residents—to stick their paws through the bars and start meowing, Me, Me, Me!

  Sometimes, the ploy worked. But most times …

  Ophelia sighed to herself. Black cats didn’t have all the bad luck. The felines who’d been there longer knew the drill. They didn’t bother with the pawing and meowing. Like her, they knew that humans looked for pretty cats first, ones whose pictures would look good on that thing they called the internet. And they liked cats who meowed just a little, but not too much.

  The footsteps drew closer. This shelter human was Ophelia’s favorite, the one named Shanice. She was tall and thin, with long hands made even longer by the bright blue claws that she sported. Best of all, she wore her long black fur in a mass of tiny braids that Ophelia couldn’t resist batting at when Shanice bent to give her fresh food and water. Ophelia was careful never to use her claws, so that the human female always laughed and gave her an extra scratch.

  Walking beside Shanice was another human female who was shorter and plumper than Shanice was. This one wore a short black dress that matched narrow black eye things—spectacles, the old woman always called them—that perched on her short nose. She looked young enough to be the old woman’s granddaughter, if she’d had one. But while Shanice’s smooth skin was almost as dark as Ophelia’s fur, this new female was even paler than the old woman. More strangely, her light brown fur that barely reached her shoulders was streaked on one side with blue, almost like she’d rolled in berries.

  But that didn’t matter. When she spoke, Ophelia immediately recognized her voice. She was the human who had freed her from the terrible box!

  “I had to know that she’s okay,” the female said, sounding apologetic. “Poor thing, she was so hot I thought she’d die of heat stroke before I got her here. I poured my bottle of water on her to cool her off, but she never moved once I put her in my car.”

  “You did just fine, Ruby,” Shanice assured her. “If you hadn’t of brought her here so fast, she might not of made it. But it’s been almost a week now, and she don’t seem to have any permanent issues. We’ve already got her up for adoption.”

  “So you didn’t find her owner?”

  “Actually, we did.”

  By now, the humans were standing in front of their cage. Ophelia flicked her ears in alarm. If the shelter found out about the old woman’s son, they might send her back to him. And what he’d do to her this time, when the box trick hadn’t worked, she didn’t want to guess!

  “We scanned her, and she had a chip,” Shanice went on, her brow crinkling like a Shar-pei’s. “Turns out this little girl originally came from our shelter as a kitten. I checked her records and she had a brother who looked just like her, except he had this funny little half tail. They were adopted out together about a year ago, to an elderly lady by the name of Hilda Givens out on Palm Beach. According to the paperwork, she named this little girl Ophelia and named her brother Brandon.”

  She paused and made a noise like she was eating some particularly tasting tuna. “Mm, mm, mm. Talk about rich. That Mrs. Givens, she was one of those Society ladies. You know, with her picture always in that weekly section of the Palm Beach Herald where they talk about coming out balls and fundraisers and such. Girl, I wish she could have adopted me!”

  The two humans exchanged grins, though Ophelia wasn’t sure what was so funny. She’d never heard of a full-grown human being given away to a different family, even though it happened with felines and canines all the time. Then Shanice’s expression turned serious again.

  “Anyhow, I called to let her know Ophelia had been found, and her son answered the phone. Turns out Mrs. Givens passed away a few weeks ago. Mr. Givens was under the impression that the housekeeper was still taking care of his mother’s cats. He had no idea they’d gone missing until I told him we had Ophelia. And when I told him she’d been found in the box, well, he was pretty upset. He thought maybe someone in the lawn crew did it for a sick joke or something.”

  “Wrong!” Ophelia meowed in outrage, though she knew the humans couldn’t understand her.

  The ones who took care of the old woman’s lawn were scary, with their loud cutting and blowing machines, but they weren’t bad humans. When they stopped making all that noise and sat in the grass to eat their food when the sun was high, they would always toss a crust or two her and Brandon’s way. No, the son had done this all on his own.

  “Wait,” the girl who Shanice had called Ruby interrupted, her bright red lips puckering like she’d taken a lick of lemon. “So the other cat—the one name Brandon—is missing, too? Do you think maybe he was in the box with his sister? It had a hole in it big enough for a cat to squeeze out, so maybe he escaped and he’s still on the street somewhere.”

  “Maybe. All I know is that he hasn’t shown up here yet. Which could be a good thing … or a bad one.”

  Ophelia felt a shiver run through her straight from nose to tail. She knew all about bad things that happened to felines. But just because Brandon hadn’t come back before the Ruby human had taken her away didn’t mean something had happened to him. And what must he be thinking, wondering what happened to her? He had to be frantic with worry. But how would they ever find each other again, with her caged up like this?

  “So when is that Givens guy going to pick up this little girl and take her back home?” Ruby asked.

  Shanice got the furrowed look again. “He said he travels a lot for business, plus he’s allergic to cats. So he said it would be better if someone else adopted her. But he did promise to mail a big check in his mother’s name to us.”

  “I guess that’s decent enough of him,” Ruby said as she leaned toward the cage and slid in blunt fingers as if to pet Ophelia. “Hi, pretty kitty. Remember me?”

  “Decent?” Ophelia yowled, ignoring the human female. “The son was the one who tried to murder us! Shanice, the son is the bad man. You should go after him!”

  “Wow, she’s talky,” Ruby observed, her thin dark eyebrows raising at the sound of Ophelia’s rant. “I wonder if she’s part Siamese.”

  “Maybe. I’ve always heard that the most likely result when you breed one of them with a regular old domestic short-hair is a black cat.”

  “Part Siamese or not, she sure is pretty. And a black cat would be perfect for where I work. But if she’s always going to be this noisy, I’m not so sure. I mean, with the customers and all, well, she can’t be running around disturbing things.”

  “Quick,” the orange cat hissed in Ophelia’s direction. “This human is talking about adopting you, but she won’t take you if you keep yowling. Shut up and do something to make her like you.”

  “But what if I don’t want her to adopt me?” she meowed back, skittering to the rear of the cage and out of human fingers’ reach. “I need to stay here, in case my brother shows up. I don’t want to go off with this Ruby person.”

  The tabby gave a disgusted snort. “Don’t be dumb as a mouse. If she adopts you, all you have to do is wait for her to hold a door open too long, and then you can run away and go looking for your brother. But if you stay here, there’s no guarantee he’ll show up. And even if he does, what if they already took you to the PTS room?”

  Ophelia opened her green eyes wide. What the tabby said made sense. The only way to find Brandon was to break out of the shelter. And if it took pretending to be quiet and sweet so this human would take her away, then so be it.

  With a nod of thanks for the other cat, she went to the front of her cage again, only to see that the two humans were headed back toward the door … away from her!

 
“I mean, I’d have liked to take her,” Ruby was saying, “but I live in my sister’s place. If—when—she ever comes back to town … well, she’d probably be okay with a quiet cat, but not one like that.”

  The shelter worker gave her a comforting pat on her arm. “I understand. And it would be worse if you took her now and then had to bring her back in a few months. I’m sure we can find another home for this little girl, and maybe another more docile cat for you, so don’t you worry.”

  Ruby was leaving, Ophelia realized in shock. And taking with her Ophelia’s best chance at escape!

  “Wait!”

  With that piercing yowl, she stuck a forearm through the bars of her cage. “Wait, human, come back! Take me with you!”

  But by now, the other felines in the room had joined in the chorus, their combined meows loud enough to drown out hers. She shoved her other forearm through the bars and frantically shook both paws.

  “Wait, human!” she yowled again. “Don’t leave! Please come back for me.”

  “It’s no good,” the tabby said with a philosophical sigh and flopped down on his side. “They can’t hear you over—”

  “Well, I’ll be.”

  The tabby halted in mid-protest as the human words drifted to them over the cacophony of cat cries. Shanice had turned and was staring back at them.

  “Check that out, Ruby,” she said, pointing her blue claw. “The little girl kitty is calling you.”

  Ruby turned, too, and then gave her head a vigorous shake. “Oh, no. Surely not.”

  “Uh-huh. Yes, she is.”

  With those no-nonsense words, Shanice caught the other woman by the arm and marched her back in their direction. Ophelia stared at them, wide-eyed. Had she been given another chance?

  “Time to be quiet,” the orange tabby hissed at her. “You’ve got to show her you would make a good house feline.”

  Nodding, Ophelia pulled her arms back into the cage and settled into a seated position, spine straight and tail wrapped neatly around her paws. Still as she was on the outside, however, she could feel herself quivering inside, as if she were poised to pounce upon a wayward mouse. The other cats in the room seemed to realize that something important was about to happen, for they subsided as well, save for an occasional random mew.