Mallory and the Ghost Cat

  Mr. Craine opened the door. I took one look at the man standing there and felt like I was going to pass out. “Oh, my lord!” I said, under my breath.

  Margaret tugged at my hand. “He looks just like the man in the picture,” she whispered to me.

  She was right. This man was the spitting image of Kennedy Graham! Same white hair and rugged face. He even had a little scar under his eye, in exactly the same place as the man in the picture!

  I’m sure my mouth was hanging open. I must have looked like an idiot. But Mr. Craine didn’t seem to notice. He’d invited the man in, and the man had refused his offer, so now Mr. Craine asked me to get the cat.

  I ran to find Rasputin, and when I did, I carried him gently to the front door and put him into the man’s arms. “Thank you,” said the stranger. He handed me something. “And thank you, little girls, for taking such good care of my cat,” he added, handing something to each girl. Then he put Rasputin into the carrying case he’d brought, said good-bye, and left.

  I looked down at my hand and saw a five-dollar bill. Margaret held up another one, and Sophie and Katie examined theirs. “Wow!” I said, getting my breath back. “He sure was generous!”

  “He was,” said Mr. Craine. “And that reminds me, I’ve still got to pay you.” He headed back to the kitchen to find his wallet.

  The girls and I looked at each other. “Who was that?” asked Sophie.

  “I think he was a ghost!” said Margaret. “I think the cat and the man are both ghosts.”

  You know what? I couldn’t argue with her. But I didn’t want to scare her, either. “Well,” I said, “the main thing is that Rasputin seemed happy to see him. I think they belong together. The Ghost Cat mystery is over.”

  I sounded sure of myself. But I wasn’t. Not at all.

  It was a Sunday morning, and the Pike household was in an uproar. I know, I know. What else is new? The Pike household is always in an uproar. Or at least it seems that way.

  But there’s nothing like a family trip to make us completely crazy. By family trip, I mean all ten of us going to the same place and leaving at the same time. That doesn’t happen too often, and I think I know why. If we tried to do it on any regular basis, Mom and Dad would have more than a few gray hairs each by now.

  Where were we going? To visit Uncle Joe. We wanted to see how he was doing at Stoneybrook Manor. You know, a few weeks ago I wouldn’t have wanted to go on this outing. Or if I’d gone, it would have been because I felt guilty, or obligated. Visiting Uncle Joe would not have sounded like a fun thing to do. But thanks to Nicky, I’d gotten a glimpse of what Uncle Joe could be like, and I thought he might be a pretty neat person once I got to know him. So anyway, I was looking forward to the visit.

  Everybody else was, too. You’d think we were heading for the White House to meet the President. Everybody was in a panic over what to wear, how to wrap their presents, and what to bring to “show Uncle Joe.”

  “But I have to wear my Lucy dress!” wailed Claire. “I have to!” Claire has this favorite dress that we call the Lucy dress because it looks like something that Lucy in the Peanuts comic strip would wear. It has a flouncy skirt, and it’s striped in blue and black. Claire has worn it practically every day for the past six months. She even sleeps in it sometimes.

  “Honey,” said Mon, “I’m sorry, but it’s in the washing machine right now. You’re going to have to find something else to wear.”

  Claire stamped her foot and pouted, but she saw that she wasn’t going to get anywhere with Mom. “Okay, you silly-billy-goo-goo,” she said. (Claire calls people that all the time. We’re used to it.) “But I’m still going to wear my party shoes, no matter what!” Claire’s supposed to save her party shoes for special occasions, otherwise she puts them on every day and they wear out fast. I guess Mom was willing to call this visit a special occasion since she didn’t argue.

  “I bet Uncle Joe will think my picture is the best,” said Jordan, holding it up so I could see it.

  “No way, José,” said Adam. “Mine is much cooler.” He held up his picture.

  “You guys are both dreaming,” said Byron. “My picture is totally cool and Uncle Joe will definitely like it best.”

  “They’re all great,” I said, “and I’m sure he’ll like them all. But I don’t think the people who run Stoneybrook Manor are going to let you guys in dressed like that. You’d better put some clothes on, okay?”

  The three of them looked at each other. Byron was wearing one sock and a pair of Bart Simpson surfer shorts. Jordan was wearing a pair of Mets sweatpants — and that was all. Adam was still in his He-Man pajamas.

  “I think we look great!” said Adam, grinning at me. “Better than you, you dweeb.”

  I silently counted to ten. We didn’t need any squabbles that morning. “At least I’m a fully dressed dweeb,” I said, giving Adam a noogie on the top of his head. “And it’s time for my dweeby brothers to get dressed, too.”

  They just stood there, as if they were daring me to get mad at them. “Come on, you guys,” I said. They didn’t move. Then Vanessa drifted down the hall.

  “Want to hear the poem I wrote for Uncle Joe?” she asked. “It’s five pages long.”

  The triplets were out of there before I could blink an eye.

  I smiled at Vanessa. She’d gotten them moving, even if it was an accident. “I’d love to hear it sometime,” I said, “but not right now.” I started to edge around her. “I’m sure it’s a very nice poem,” I said. As soon as I got past her, I rolled my eyes and heaved a sigh of relief. Vanessa’s poems are sometimes a little hard to sit through.

  She followed me down the hall. “Let me just read you the first part,” she said. “It begins like this: O, Uncle Joe, we miss you so, we were so sad to see you go —”

  “Nice, Vanessa,” I called, as I hurried away.

  Half an hour later, our family was finally piled into the car. Nicky was carrying the picture he’d drawn during our coloring contest. Adam had helped him make a frame for it out of old model airplane parts. Margo was carrying a pencil jar she’d made at school — an orange juice can covered with construction paper. I wasn’t sure if Uncle Joe needed a pencil jar, but I figured he’d appreciate the thought that went into making the gift.

  “All set?” asked Dad, as he backed down the driveway.

  “No!” I cried. Dad screeched to a halt.

  “What is it, Mallory?” he asked, sounding kind of impatient.

  “I forgot the cookies I made,” I said. “I’ll just be a second, really.” I jumped out of the car and ran back into the house. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been so busy making sure my brothers and sisters were ready that I’d blanked out on my own plans. I grabbed the tin of cookies from the kitchen counter and ran back to the car. Finally, we were on our way.

  The drive to Stoneybrook Manor isn’t a long one, but it took us a while. Why? Well, one of the things you should know about Margo is that she has a very, very weak stomach. She gets carsick if she thinks about taking a trip. We had to pull over twice before we’d even left the neighborhood. Luckily, Margo had been too excited to eat very much that morning. But Dad’s so used to her stomach that he doesn’t hesitate to pull over the second he hears her voice saying, “Um, Daddy?”

  We pulled up to the nursing home and Dad let us out on the sidewalk before he parked the car. I stood there looking at the building and remembering the last time I’d been there, when the BSC was in the midst of another mystery. We came to visit an old man who was the only living person who could tell us the truth about this house we thought might be haunted. Come to think of it, we never did learn the whole truth about that house.

  Stoneybrook Manor is a nice-looking place — kind of homey, even though it’s obviously an institution of some kind. It’s all one story, with lots of big windows. There are flowers planted up and down the walkways, and places where people can sit outside and enjoy the sun. That day an old woman was taking a stroll in her walker,
with a nurse by her side. She seemed to be enjoying the flowers.

  We waited for Dad, and then we entered the lobby. The boys started to play in the revolving door, but I made them quit before they got too wild. Dad went to the reception desk and told the man there that we’d come to visit Joe Pike.

  “Oh, yes,” said the man, smiling. “He’s expecting you. His room is just down the hall there, second one on the left.”

  We followed Dad down the hall. Suddenly I felt nervous about seeing Uncle Joe. What if he was in one of his crankier moods? I could see that some of the younger kids were beginning to feel uneasy, too. They were suddenly very, very quiet.

  I walked along, trying not to look into the rooms that we passed. It must be really hard to have any privacy when you’re in a nursing home. A lot of the people who were sitting around in wheelchairs weren’t really even dressed — they were just in these pajama-like things. They looked at us as we walked by, and the sight of our huge family made a lot of them smile. I had a feeling that some of those people were pretty lonely. I smiled back at a couple of them, and I saw Claire waving at one old man. Was Uncle Joe feeling lonely? I started to feel better about seeing him.

  We reached his room, and even though the door was open Dad knocked on it just to let Uncle Joe know we were there. He was sitting in the middle of the room, across a table from another old man. They were playing Scrabble. Uncle Joe looked up, and when he saw us he actually smiled!

  “Well,” he said. “Come in, come in. Don’t just stand there!” Despite the smile, he could still sound cranky.

  We drifted in and arranged ourselves around the room. I perched on the radiator with Claire on my lap. Uncle Joe put some tiles on the board. “Jolt,” he said. “And the ‘J’ is on a triple letter square. That’s twenty-seven points for me!” He rubbed his hands together. “I’m going to have to stop now, though,” he said, “since my family is here.”

  His family! I felt honored that he thought of us that way.

  “Let me introduce my roommate,” he said to Dad. “This is Mr. Connor.”

  Mr. Connor nodded and smiled.

  Dad jumped up and introduced all of us, probably so that Uncle Joe wouldn’t have to try to remember our names. “You really don’t have to stop your game, though,” he said to Uncle Joe. “We can wait for you to finish, if you’d like.”

  Uncle Joe had already gotten up from the table. “That’s all right,” he said. Then he lowered his voice to a not-very quiet whisper. “He cheats, anyway,” he added.

  Mom and I exchanged a look. We were both trying not to laugh. Poor Mr. Connor. I’m sure he heard what Uncle Joe said! “Well,” said Mom brightly, and I knew she was going to try to change the subject. “Would you like to show us around before dinner?”

  We had arranged with the staff to stay for Sunday dinner. Residents of Stoneybrook Manor are allowed to invite family or friends to eat with them, as long as they reserve space ahead of time.

  “Certainly,” said Uncle Joe. “Now, where are my encyclopedias?”

  What was he talking about? I didn’t see any encyclopedias.

  Fortunately, Dad noticed that Uncle Joe was patting the pockets of his suit-jacket. “Are you looking for your glasses, Uncle Joe?” he asked gently.

  “Yes,” replied Uncle Joe. “Didn’t I just say so?” He reached into one last pocket and found them. “Here they are,” he said. “Now, shall we go?”

  As we followed Uncle Joe down the hall, Mom whispered to me that forgetting the names of things — or substituting other words that don’t necessarily make sense — is another symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. Weird.

  Uncle Joe showed us around Stoneybrook Manor, and we ended up in the piano room with a few minutes to kill before dinner. There was a hubbub in one corner of the room, and I decided to see what was going on. Some young people were there, holding cats and dogs — and one adorable black puppy — so that the old people could pat them. “What’s going on?” I asked one of the girls, who was trying to chase down a kitten.

  “We’re volunteers from the Humane Society,” she said. “We bring animals from the pound every week. The people here love it.”

  Uncle Joe joined us. “I spent some time with that puppy last week,” he said. “It’s been a long, long time since I held a puppy on my lap!”

  I thought that program sounded like a really neat idea. Maybe I could be a volunteer for it some day.

  “Time for dinner,” said a nurse, poking her head into the room. “Oh, hello, Mr. Pike.” She smiled at us. “He’s a dear,” she said to me. “On his good days, anyway.”

  I guess we’d come on one of his best days. Uncle Joe seemed to be happier here at Stoneybrook Manor. The nursing home was a lot calmer than our house, and it was probably easier for him to be around other old people.

  The visit went surprisingly well, I thought. But at dinner there was one last surprise. After we’d all been served our platefuls of turkey and stuffing, Uncle Joe whipped out a small red bottle and shook it all over his food. I was the only one who saw him do it, and he caught me looking. He leaned over and put his face next to mine. “Hot sauce,” he whispered to me. “I had one of the nurses bring it in for me. Can’t stand boring food!”

  I couldn’t wait to tell Mom.

  “Hi, Mallory,” said the young woman who answered the Craines’ door. She smiled at me.

  It took me a second to remember who she was. Then it came to me. “Aunt Bu — I mean Ellen!” I said. “Hi!” I looked down at her leg. “You got your cast off!” I exclaimed.

  “Yup,” she said. “What a relief! Now the doctor just wants me take it easy for about a week. After that, I’ll be back on my motorcycle.”

  “And you’ll be ready to sit for the girls, too, I bet,” I said. I followed Ellen into the kitchen, feeling kind of let down. I’d known that this was a temporary job, but I felt sad about it ending.

  “I will,” she said. “But I’m sure there’s no way they’re going to say good-bye to you just because I’m back. They’ve let me know they want you to sit for them once in a while.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” I said. ”I mean, if it’s okay with you.”

  “It’s fine with me. As soon as the weather gets nicer I’m going to want to be out riding a lot anyway.”

  I tried to imagine how it would feel to ride a motorcycle. Probably really fun, but also scary. I thought it was pretty cool that Ellen could do it. I also knew that Mom would never in a million years let me get a motorcycle, even if I was twenty-nine years old and living on my own!

  I was just about to ask Ellen how she learned to ride a motorcycle when Margaret burst into the room. “Mallory!” she said. “Guess what!”

  “Um,” I said, “let’s see. There’s an elephant in the kitchen?”

  “Mallory,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. Ellen stifled a giggle.

  “Well, if that’s not it, then I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t guess. Tell me.”

  “We got a cat!” yelled Sophie, who had followed Margaret into the kitchen.

  “Sophie!” cried Margaret, furious. “I was going to tell.”

  “Wow!” I said quickly. “When did you get it?”

  “The other day. After that man came to pick up Ghost Ca — I mean, Rasputin. Right after you left, we got it.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  Margaret nodded. “Daddy took me and Sophie and Katie to the animal shelter, and he said we could pick out a cat.”

  “Tell Mallory who saw the cat first,” said Ellen.

  “Katie did,” said Margaret. “We were all looking at these other cats, but she walked right up to this one cage and said, ‘dost tat!’ So we came over to look.”

  “Dost tat!” echoed Katie, rubbing her eyes. She had just woken up from a nap.

  “Was it really Ghost Cat?” I asked. I knew that the man had just picked Ghost Cat up, but the cat stuff had been so weird. I was ready to believe anything.

  “Of course not,”
said Margaret. “But she does look a little like him. Come see!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the laundry room. “We decided to make her a bed in here, since Ghost Cat liked it so much.” She opened the door and I peeked in. A beautiful white cat was curled up on the dryer, where Ghost Cat used to sleep. She woke up when the door opened, and looked at me.

  “Wow!” I said. “She’s got blue eyes, just like you and your sisters. I never saw a cat with blue eyes before. She’s beautiful!”

  “I know,” said Margaret. “That’s what we thought. Katie found the most beautiful cat in the whole animal shelter.”

  “Here, kittykittykitty,” I said. I was dying to pick her up and feel her soft-looking fur. But the cat ignored me.

  “She can’t hear you,” said Margaret.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Wasn’t I calling her loudly enough?”

  “She couldn’t hear you no matter how loudly you called,” said Ellen from behind me. “She’s deaf.”

  “A deaf cat?” I asked. “I never heard of that before.”

  “It’s funny,” said Ellen. “Lots of white cats with blue eyes are deaf. Nobody knows why.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Does she need a lot of special care?”

  “Nope!” said Margaret. “She just has to be an indoor cat, since she can’t hear cars.”

  “The people at the shelter were really glad to find a good home for her,” said Ellen. “Not everybody wants a deaf cat, even one that’s as beautiful as this one.”

  “She is pretty,” I said. I stroked her fur. “She’s so soft!”

  “Hey, girls,” said Ellen. “I’ve got to go. How about some special good-bye hugs?” She bent down and gave each girl a big hug. “My brother will be home by five,” she said to me.

  Her brother? For a minute I didn’t know who she was talking about. Then I realized she meant Mr. Craine. “Oh, right!” I said. “Okay!”

  Ellen left, but the girls and I stayed in the laundry room, talking about their new cat.