A black-and-white kitten is batting at a beetle. A dirty white cat with blue eyes is trying to clean its tail. A gray cat with a crooked tail hops out of the open door of the boxcar, then pauses to lick its shoulder. There is no sign of Socrates or the black cat he was chasing.
“What is this place?” Brenna asks.
“Cat Land!” David says dramatically, gesturing with his arm toward the boxcar.
He’s right. Someone has written CAT LAND on the boxcar door.
“I don’t know who wrote that,” Maggie says, “but if you ask me, we’re looking at a colony of stray cats.”
As I slowly step out of the weeds, the cats turn their heads to look at me. A few of them at the edges of the clearing vanish into the underbrush. The rest of them ignore me and go back to what they were doing, except for two cats with black-and-white patches who bound toward me.
“Meeeroww!” they call loudly.
“Sounds like they’re hungry,” Maggie says.
“I wish I had some treats to give them,” I say, crouching down to pet the friendly cats. They tilt their heads back as I scratch under their chins. “You sure are sweet,” I murmur. “How did you get here? Where are your owners?”
“I don’t think they have any,” Brenna says.
I look at my friends. This is no place for cats to live. Cats need a warm house, with people who have warm laps. They need food, clean water, a litter box, and a scratching post they can shred to bits. A windowsill so they can watch the world passing outside. Most of all, cats need friendly owners who will pet them and groom them and make a fuss.
The cats here have nothing. I wish I could take them all home.
“We have to do something,” I say. “Tell Dr. Mac, or Captain Thompson at the shelter. We have to find Socrates, too.”
Suddenly, a loud horn sounds, startling us and sending the rest of the cats dashing into the tall weeds. The train to Philadelphia roars down the tracks toward us.
It’s so loud I can barely hear myself think. Brenna is trying to say something, but I can’t hear her. She stands there moving her mouth and gesturing with her hands while the train rushes by, sending dry leaves and dust swirling through the air.
“What?” I shout.
The last train car whooshes by, and it’s quiet again.
“Someone is coming,” Brenna repeats, pointing.
On the other side of the tracks is a block of small houses, each with a tiny yard surrounded by a low fence. A boy wearing a green backpack cautiously walks across one of the yards toward us. He’s followed by a little girl carefully carrying a plastic bowl that has water sloshing over the side. The boy looks like a third-grader. The girl is younger, first grade maybe, or kindergarten.
They unlatch the fence gate, walk through the opening, and latch it behind them. The boy pauses and carefully checks the track in both directions, then nods to the girl. They cross.
As they step into the clearing, the cats reappear like magic, pouring out of the weeds, the trees, and the boxcar to greet them, meowing loudly. Some even walk up boldly to the newcomers and rub against their ankles. These kids are regulars.
“Hi,” I say as I walk toward them. “Looks like your friends are happy to see you.”
The little girl’s eyes grow wide. The boy glares at me. I must have startled them.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he demands.
Chapter Three
We’re looking for a lost cat named Socrates,” I say. “He’s big, kind of an orange color, and he has a little cut on his face and a big one on his leg. He was in a fight. Last time we saw him, he was chasing a black female with white paws and a big belly—a tuxedo cat. We really need to find him. He’s hurt.”
I stop as my stomach tightens. I’m afraid for Socrates. What if we can’t find him?
“He’s from the vet clinic,” David explains. “You know—Dr. Mac’s Place? We all work there.”
“You aren’t going to take the cats away?” the boy asks, his voice a little calmer now.
“No,” Brenna says. “We just want to find Socrates and go home.”
The boy walks over to the boxcar, keeping his eyes on us. He reaches in the open doorway and pulls two chipped ceramic bowls to the edge. Still watching us, he takes a small bag of cat food out of his backpack and empties it into the bowls. At the sound of food hitting the bowls, the cats run and leap into the boxcar to eat their meal.
The boy strokes the gray cat with the crooked tail. It looks like he is trying to make up his mind about something. He starts to speak, then stops. The little girl sets the water bowl on the ground and pets the cats that collect around it for a drink.
“The cats really like you,” I say.
He nods.
“My name’s Sunita,” I say. “If you like cats, then you understand why we’re worried. Socrates needs the veterinarian to look at his wounds. Can you help us find him?”
The boy hesitates for a moment. Then he looks me in the eye.
“All right. I’ll look for him. But if he’s back there”—he gestures toward the thick bushes that surround the clearing—“you’ll never find him, trust me. My name’s Jamie. Jamie Frazier.” He pauses to slap a flea on his arm. “Do you know how to take care of a cat that’s hurt?”
“Yes,” I say. “A little. Do you have a hurt cat?”
Jamie looks at the girl, as if he’s asking her permission for something. She nods her head slowly.
“Follow me,” he says. “I got to show you something.”
He leads us to an injured cat lying on a doll’s blanket behind one of the rusted barrels. The cat’s hind leg is swollen, and there’s blood on the fur.
“I saw him get hit by a car yesterday,” Jamie explains.
He pauses for a minute, like he’s seeing the accident again. It must have been awful.
“He won’t eat or drink anything. Don’t get too close!” he warns as I stretch out my hand to feel for the cat’s pulse. “He’s one of the wild cats. You can’t touch them, ever. They bite and scratch. The car knocked him out. I couldn’t have touched him if he was awake.”
“We have to get him to the clinic,” I say.
“I’ll call Gran,” Maggie says, getting to her feet. “My grandmother is the vet. She needs to come and get him. We can’t carry him back to the clinic, not in that shape.”
“You can use the phone in our house. Katie will take you.”
Katie takes Maggie’s hand.
“Back in a second,” Maggie calls as she and Katie cross the tracks and head for the Fraziers’ house.
“I don’t get it,” Brenna says. “Are these all your cats? What’s going on here?”
Jamie stands up and pulls his shoulders back with pride. “They aren’t really ours, but we take care of them,” he says.
“You feed them?” I ask.
Jamie nods. “We use our allowance money. Our parents won’t let us take them into the house, so we play with them out here. The tame ones, that is. The wild cats bite.”
“Look, Sunita,” Brenna interrupts. “We have to keep looking for Socrates. David and I will start knocking on doors to see if any of the neighbors have seen him. We’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes.”
“Good idea,” I reply.
As they leave, Jamie asks me to describe the tuxedo cat again.
“I’ve seen her. She’s around here all the time,” he says. “We call her Mittens.”
Before I can ask any more questions about Mittens, Maggie and Katie return, led by a short, angry woman wearing a smiley face T-shirt. The cats in the clearing scatter again, as they did when the train came through.
“Jamie Frazier, I told you to stay away from these cats,” the woman scolds. “And to keep your sister away from them, too. You know how dangerous they are.”
As she gets closer, I can see that she’s not angry, she’s afraid. She stops in front of us and stares at the injured cat as if it were a snake about to bite her. The look on her face k
ind of reminds me of my mother.
“Is Dr. Mac coming, Maggie?” I ask.
“Gran said she’d be here soon.” Maggie pauses, then speaks slowly and opens her eyes wide, like she’s trying to send me a message. “This is Mrs. Frazier, Jamie and Katie’s mother. Mrs. Frazier, this is my friend Sunita.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Frazier,” I say politely. “You have nice kids. They really care about animals.”
Mrs. Frazier doesn’t smile the way most mothers do when you compliment their children. Instead, she turns to her son. “Take Katie into the house, Jamie. We’ll talk about this later.”
The brother and sister head for their house with sad faces. I don’t understand any of this.
“They were just trying to help this cat.” I point to the cat, still panting on the baby blanket. “It was hit by a car. We need to take it to the vet.”
Mrs. Frazier waits until her kids have walked far enough away that they won’t hear her.
“I’m the head of the Chestnut Ridge Community Association,” she explains. “I started getting calls about these cats a few months ago. The people in the neighborhood are upset. They say the cats are using their gardens for a bathroom and digging in their garbage.”
She glances at the injured cat.
“There was an old man who used to live a few houses down from me. He’d leave out food for the cats. Well, he sold his house and moved, but the cats stayed around. At first I thought they were real cute, like you do.”
She shakes her head. “Let me tell you something. One cat is cute. Two cats are fun. But you get a whole jungle of cats living in your backyard howling all night, and all of a sudden, it’s trouble.”
“Did you call the animal shelter?” Maggie asks.
“I tried calling everybody,” Mrs. Frazier says, throwing her hands in the air. “I called the mayor, the city council, the county commissioners. With all the work they have to do, it takes a lot more than a few cats to get their attention. Meanwhile, these cats keep having kittens. Used to be a dozen or so back here, and now there have to be more than forty, maybe fifty.”
“We could help you find homes for them,” I say. “Get them adopted.”
Mrs. Frazier smiles sympathetically. “Nobody is going to want these cats, honey, I promise you. They’re wild. They’re not pets. They bite, they scratch, and they have fleas. They’re as bad as the raccoons that live back here. I bet they all have rabies and heaven knows what other diseases. That’s why I want them out of here.”
Her face softens for a minute. “I know my kids like them, but they’re not safe. And we can’t get a cat of our own, not with these mangy critters living at our back door.” She sighs.
“We still have to take care of this one,” I say. I crouch down to check on him. He’s panting faster. I hope Dr. Mac gets here soon.
“You’re foolish if you do,” she says. “The county is coming tomorrow to take them away. All those months of phone calls have finally paid off.”
The county is going to take them away?
“What are they going to do with them?” I ask.
Jamie steps out onto the back porch of his house.
“Mom!” he calls. “Telephone!”
“I have to go,” Mrs. Frazier says.
She walks away, then looks back at us over her shoulder. “I’m sorry you’ve lost your cat. I’ll keep an eye out for him. But you better find him soon. Animal Control promised they’d be here first thing in the morning.”
Chapter Four
Where’s our patient?” Dr. Mac booms as she crosses the railroad tracks carrying a big first aid box and an empty cage.
“Over here!” Maggie calls.
“Dr. Mac, we can’t find Socrates. And there’s a huge colony of strays living here,” I say as she walks over to us. “Some of the neighborhood kids have been feeding them and the parents are upset and think the cats are bad and Animal Control is going to take them away and—”
“One thing at a time, Sunita,” Dr. Mac says patiently. “Why don’t we take care of this guy first, and you can tell me the rest back at the clinic.”
I nod. She’s right.
I’m not sure how old Dr. Mac is. Fifty-five, or maybe sixty. It wouldn’t be polite to ask. Except for her white hair, it’s hard to believe she’s a grandmother. She runs marathons and wears blue jeans and T-shirts from The Gap. Along with running the clinic, she writes a newspaper column about pets and travels all over the world giving lectures. But what really matters, I guess, is that she has lots of energy, she’s smart, and she’s great with animals and kids. And she’s the best person to have around in an emergency.
Dr. Mac kneels in the dirt about a foot away from the injured cat. “Do you know how this happened?” she asks.
We crouch down next to her. “He was hit by a car yesterday,” I explain. “A boy saw it happen. He said the cat won’t eat or drink anything.”
“That’s not good,” Dr. Mac says as she looks the cat over from head to paws. Why isn’t she touching him? I’ve never seen her examine any animal without at least checking its pulse.
“Do you want me to hold him?” I ask. That’s one of my favorite jobs at the clinic, holding cats during examinations.
“Sorry, Sunita,” Dr. Mac replies. “You can’t help with this one. Matter of fact, I want both of you to back up a little, well out of the reach of this critter.”
“Why?” Maggie asks. “It’s just a stray cat.”
Dr. Mac shakes her head. “This isn’t an ordinary stray. This looks like a feral cat. Strays are cats that have been raised around humans, so they’re used to being touched. Feral cats are born and raised in the wild. Some people call them wild cats, though they are obviously different from true wild cats like cougars or panthers. The proper word for them is feral. They hate being touched by people. They think of us as predators, something that will hurt them.”
Maggie and I exchange surprised looks. Can this be true? I know that some cats have to live outside, but I can’t imagine a cat that wouldn’t like Dr. Mac. Or me.
Dr. Mac opens the equipment box and takes out what looks like a giant pair of oven mitts. “This guy could be infected with any number of diseases. I guarantee he’ll try to scratch or bite me,” she says, putting on the mitts. “I’m going to need these just to get him in the cage.”
As she picks up the blanket the cat is lying on, he jerks his neck and sinks his teeth into the nearest mitt.
“See?” she says. “The best thing to do is to get him into the clinic as soon as possible. Once we’re there, I’ll give him a sedative to calm him down. Then I’ll be able to examine him. Safely.” She puts the feral cat in the cage, closes the door, then quickly drapes a big towel over the cage.
“Why did you cover it?” I ask.
“So he’ll feel more secure,” Dr. Mac says, taking off the protective mitts. “You didn’t find Socrates?”
“No,” I say sadly. “And he’s hurt, Dr. Mac. You should have seen the cut on his leg.”
“Zoe told me what happened.” She sighs heavily. “I’ve seen him chase cats out of the yard before, but he always comes right back.”
She looks like she’s about to say more, but she stops herself. She’s probably thinking about all the dangerous things a cat can run into: cars, dogs, poisonous plants. No—I can’t let myself think about it. We’ll find him. We have to.
“David and Brenna are asking around to see if anyone has seen him. We know he came this way,” Maggie explains.
Dr. Mac looks around, then checks her watch. “If he doesn’t show up by tomorrow, you kids can make up some flyers with his picture and hand them out. We have to get back to the clinic now. Go find Brenna and David, and meet me at the van.”
She picks up the cage, and the cat inside it meows.
“We’re leaving? What about the other cats around here?” I ask. “Mrs. Frazier said the Animal Control people were going to round them up tomorrow. She made it sound like they were all goi
ng to be put to sleep! What if they capture Socrates, too?”
“We’ll talk about it at the clinic, Sunita,” Dr. Mac says. “I promise.”
When we get to the clinic, the other kids head to the kitchen for a snack. I follow Dr. Mac into the exam room.
Dr. Mac sets the cage with the feral cat in it on the metal exam table, then she prepares a sedative. She takes a small glass vial out of the refrigerator and sets it on the counter. Next, she takes a syringe out of a drawer. She sticks the needle of the syringe through the rubber cap of the vial and draws out a little of the liquid sedative.
“This will relax him and take the edge off the pain he’s suffering. Then we’ll be able to see what’s going on.”
“Aren’t you going to take him out of the cage first?” I ask.
Dr. Mac shakes her head. “Not until he’s medicated. I can’t examine him wearing those protective mitts, and I don’t like being bitten.”
She walks around the table until she’s standing behind the caged cat.
“I want you to stand where he can see you, but stay far away. I don’t want him to stick his paw out between the bars and scratch you. Call to him. Distract him so I can get this done.”
The cat’s ears are flicking forward and backward as he tries to hear what is going on around him and keep track of where we both are.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” I call, making a squeaking noise. “Over here, sweetie. Look at me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Dr. Mac ready to stick the needle through the bars of the cat carrier. The cat turns his head and looks at Dr. Mac. He struggles to his feet.
“No, no, over here,” I say in a high-pitched voice. “Kitty, stay still.”
Dr. Mac raises the needle.
“Kitty, kitty!”
His eyes are on me. Dr. Mac sticks the needle in the cat’s rump.
“Fssst!” the cat turns, and fast as lightning shoots a paw through the bars.
“Ouch!” cries Dr. Mac. “He got me!” She drops the syringe on the floor and holds her hand. Already a thick line of blood is oozing from the long scratch.