Acting Out

  If there was anyone else in the clinic I know we would take the family into the Herriot Room so they would be alone when we gave them the bad news. But since the clinic is closed, Gran sits down with them in the waiting room. I look at Maggie, and she can tell by looking at our faces that Puff has died. She shakes her head and walks to the counter to grab some tissues as Gran begins to talk.

  “I am sorry that I don’t have good news. Puff was very sick,” Gran begins. I see the older boy sit up quickly and hear his mother take a quick inhale. The younger boy is confused, looking from Gran to his mother and siblings and back again.

  “I’m afraid I could not save her,” Gran continues. “Puff—”

  “She didn’t died, did she?” the little boy asks.

  “I’m so sorry, but yes, she did,” Gran replies. She kneels down so she is eye level with him.

  “But you can make her alive again, right? You have the special medicine, right? Mommy told us you had special medicine here,” the little boy says. His mother reaches her arm around his waist and pulls him to her. She strokes his hair with her other hand.

  “Puff was too sick to get better, unfortunately.” Gran looks around at the whole family as she says again, “I’m so sorry.”

  “But the special medicine…” the girl says.

  “There wasn’t time for special medicine,” Gran says. “She was a very sick kitten.”

  The younger boy is crying loudly into his mother’s sleeve. The older boy looks straight ahead and blinks fast. The mom hugs her kids, and I can tell by the way her shoulders shake that she is crying, too. I feel awful for them.

  Gran does not rush them. She sits quietly. Maggie hands out tissues to whomever looks like they need one. Maggie looks like she needs one, too. I know I do. I take the one she offers and squeeze her hand for a moment. I sit and watch all of this and seriously wonder why anyone would want to be a vet. Sure, Gran does amazing things—but this part of it is so hard.

  After Gran has taken the family in to see Puff and say good-bye, and after the family has gone home, Maggie and I go back to the house. Gran has some work to finish up before she rejoins us.

  My cousin and I sit at the kitchen table, moving cold food around our plates. I don’t even want to eat now. Maggie sips her water.

  “How can you want this?” I ask her.

  Maggie, startled, says, “Well, I was willing to try it, but I wouldn’t say I exactly wanted tofu.”

  “No, no, not the tofu. This life. How can you want to be a vet like Gran? How can you want to tell people such horrible things about their pets?”

  “Because, usually, their pets do get better. They do. You know that. Usually, we can make them better,” Maggie says, tears in her eyes. “Usually.”

  The phone rings. Maggie gets up to answer.

  “Hello? Oh, hi. Mm-hm. Okay, sounds good.” She hangs up and turns to me. “That was Gran. She’s going to be a while—probably very late. She has to do some tests to figure out why Puff died.”

  Maggie and I clear the table. I put the cranberry-apple chutney in the refrigerator and scrape most of the tofu into the trash. If my family didn’t want to eat this when it was fresh and piping hot, they definitely won’t want to eat it now.

  “What will Gran eat when she’s done?” I ask Maggie.

  “Probably cereal. You know how she loves a big bowl of Captain Krispies,” Maggie says, wiping the table with a cloth.

  I shudder. All that sugar and those artificial ingredients. Yuck. Maggie washes her hands and pulls out the popcorn pot.

  “You up for some?” she asks.

  “Always,” I answer.

  Maggie and I don’t always agree on everything, but we’ve never argued over the world’s best junk food: popcorn. There’s hardly any nutritional value in it, but at least it’s all-natural. Sometimes just the smell of popcorn can make you feel better. We could sure use that right now.

  I melt butter as Maggie shakes the pan. Soon, the kitchen smells like warm, buttery popcorn. Maggie grabs the overflowing bowl and some napkins. I fix a glass of ice water for myself and snag an orange soda for Maggie. I would never touch soda myself, but after the hard evening we’ve just had, Maggie deserves her sugary treat. We head to her room and snuggle up on the bed with the popcorn between us. I think it’s about time for a cousin catch-up session. Sherlock follows us in and flops down on the floor beside her bed. Soon he is snoring, and everything is starting to feel pretty cozy.

  “You know we’re glad you’re back. Gran and I both are.” Maggie bounces her legs a little.

  “I’m glad to be back,” I say. I’m still not sure I really mean that, but it’s nice to know that she wants me here.

  Maggie slurps her soda. “Really? I wasn’t so sure. You didn’t seem too happy when you and Aunt Rose got off the plane.” Maggie looks out of the corner of her eye at me as she takes another sip of soda.

  I fidget with my water and grab another handful of popcorn.

  “Well, it’s hard to leave my mom sometimes. I worry…” I stop. I’m not sure I can really trust Maggie with the truth.

  “What do you worry about?” Maggie places her soda on her nightstand and swivels to look at me. I hesitate.

  “Come on,” she says. “Out with it.”

  “When Mom has an acting job…,” I begin—then wait. I don’t want Maggie to think badly about my mom. I don’t want her to think I’m a baby, either.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I suggest. “I like your new room color. Did Gran let you paint it yourself?”

  “Come on, Zoe,” Maggie says. “Don’t change the subject.” She looks me square in the eye, and I can see that I ought to just spill it.

  “When Mom has an acting job,” I begin again, “she gets all caught up in it. I think she kind of forgets she has a kid. Nothing in my life can compete with what’s going on in hers.”

  “Why is it a competition?” Maggie asks.

  “That’s not what I mean. I worry that…I worry that…I bore her a little.” I look to see what Maggie thinks about this.

  “Zoe, you couldn’t bore anybody.” She snatches a pillow and swats me with it. “You’re way too much drama, girl.”

  Maggie is smiling at me, so I take the pillow and whack her on the top of her head with it. Some popcorn falls on the floor. Sherlock wakes from his slumber, lumbers over to where the popcorn fell, and gobbles it down. Nothing like some extra human food to motivate a lazy dog!

  Once our mini pillow fight is over, we settle back down and finish off the popcorn. I think about everything that Maggie said. It all makes sense, and maybe Maggie’s right. But it still doesn’t change the way I feel.

  Chapter Four

  A few days later, Maggie takes me to Wrenches & Roses. That’s the name of Jules and Josh’s parents’ business. It’s a hardware and gardening store, and that’s where the Vet Volunteers are this morning. Well, they’re in the basement, specifically. Josh and Jules made it a great hangout space. It’s warmer than a basement usually is, and brighter. They put a big scrap of lime-green carpet on the floor and moved some giant bookcases together to partition off their space from the rest of the basement, which is used for storing supplies and hosting do-it-yourself workshops about gardening and home repairs. At one end of the basement is the rabbit corral and cage for their rabbit, Cuddles. Or Chewie. I’ve heard her called both names this morning.

  At the other end of the hangout space a Ping-Pong table is set up. David and Josh seem to have commandeered that. A low table the size of a sandbox is in the middle of the room, and lots of colorful beanbag chairs are grouped around it. There are bright lights above us, and somebody must love frogs because frog posters are everywhere. I could have done without those, but all in all, this is an awesome place and it’s ours. We could have quite the party down here. Maybe I’ll ask Jules if I can organize one for us soon.

  Brenna and Sunita play on the floor with Jules’s little lop-eared bunny. They’re trying to tempt t
he bunny with some cardboard tubes, but she seems to prefer the odd bit of striped fabric she’s carrying around in her mouth. It’s like a blankie, and this is weird, but it looks kind of familiar to me. I have no idea why though.

  Maggie talks to the boys as they play Ping-Pong. My ears perk up—I think David just said something about his brother. I casually tilt my head toward the boys and Maggie, trying to be cool about it. I definitely don’t want Maggie finding out that I kind of like Brian. There’d be no end to the teasing, or worse, the lecturing about him because he’s sixteen. I just want to find out more about him. I’d hardly noticed him when I’d lived in Ambler before. But now, well, Brian is interesting.

  “He’s working at the grocery store three shifts a week,” David says, thwacking the ball across the table toward Josh. “Bag Boy Brian. He hates it when I call him that.”

  Josh taps the ball back at David. “But you call him that anyway?”

  “Sure, he calls me names, too. I’m just evening the score.” David slaps at the ball and it sails off, way above Josh’s head. “If only I was evening the score with you. But no. Too bad. You win. Want to play again?”

  Josh laughs. “Maybe, if I can find the ball!” He starts looking for it behind the bookcases. Brenna and Sunita settle into beanbag chairs, and Jules cuddles Cuddles on her lap. I’m leaning awkwardly against one of the bookcases, still not feeling 100 percent at home with the group.

  But Brenna reaches up and tugs the hem of my jeans, motioning for me to sit in the beanbag chair next to her.

  “Hey, Zoe, Maggie—did Dr. Mac find out what happened to that kitten?” she asks.

  “She did,” I say. “According to Gran, Puff ingested poison.”

  “Poison! What kind of poison?” Josh asks worriedly.

  “Gran isn’t sure yet. The final lab results aren’t in,” Maggie answers.

  “That’s horrible! Does she know how Puff was poisoned?” Sunita asks, leaning forward in her beanbag chair.

  “Gran will talk to the family again,” I say, “after she finds out what the poison was—”

  “But she thinks it’s an accidental poisoning, right?” Sunita interrupts. She looks like she might cry.

  I’m about to answer, but Brenna stops me.

  “I’ve heard about animals being intentionally poisoned. It was in the news last winter. Do you remember, Sunita?”

  “Around here?” Sunita asks.

  “No, down in Philly,” Brenna says. “But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen here. I remember that they caught the guy. He thought it was up to him to fix his neighborhood’s stray dog problem. Said he felt justified. The creep.”

  Then everyone is talking at once. It’s possible that someone is poisoning animals. Why are some people cruel to animals? Still, it’s more likely that the kitten accidentally got into something she shouldn’t have.

  I turn to David and ask, “Do you let Rover outside? Maybe you should keep him in until we know whether this was an accident or if someone in town is poisoning cats.”

  “Rover goes out with me. I don’t let him wander,” David says.

  “It’s hard to keep an outdoor cat from wandering,” Sunita warns. “Maybe impossible.”

  “And Rover was a stray to begin with, don’t forget,” Jules murmurs.

  David looks over at Jules. She smiles tentatively at him. Things seem okay between them, but clearly Jules is worried about Rover.

  “I’m going to go get us a snack,” Jules says, handing Cuddles to Brenna. “Josh, want to help?” He nods and follows her up the stairs.

  But the Rover discussion isn’t over. Sunita asks David, “So, how is your little fetching cat?”

  David tosses the Ping-Pong ball up in the air and then catches it. Up, down, catch. Up, down, catch. “Well, Rover isn’t as much fun as he was at first,” he says casually. Up, down, and then David misses the ball and it rolls beneath Cuddles’s cage.

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Sunita retorts. She’s usually the kindest and sweetest girl in the world, but she sure does get sensitive about cats!

  David crawls behind the cage. “Well, it’s true. He sleeps a lot, and he hardly wants to fetch.” Still on his knees, David comes out with the ball and tosses it once more. Up, down, catch. “Maybe I should have gotten a dog instead.”

  “What?” Jules cries as she comes down the stairs, followed by Josh. “How can you say that? Rover is a great cat!”

  “I was just telling them that Rover hasn’t been as frisky these last few days.” David jumps to his feet. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Jules looks shocked. Sunita looks angry.

  “David, you are so fickle!” Sunita says. She’s standing now, too.

  “Fickle, what’s that? Some kind of fried pickle?” David jokes.

  “That’s not funny,” Sunita says.

  “Maybe Rover is sick,” Brenna says from her beanbag chair. We all look down at her. Her brow is furrowed, and she looks like she’s been thinking hard. She continues, “Maybe Rover got into whatever that cat Puff got into. Or maybe someone is deliberately poisoning Ambler’s cats. Whatever the reason, I think you’d better take Rover to see Dr. Mac.”

  “Yeah, maybe I better,” David says. “But right now I have to babysit Ashley. See you guys later.” David takes a handful of cookies from the plate Josh is holding and heads upstairs. He doesn’t look at Jules as he goes by.

  Jules stares at Josh. Josh shrugs.

  “Well, we’ve got lemonade, too. Help yourselves,” he says, putting the plate and the cups on the low table. Jules sets the lemonade and the napkins down.

  Brenna takes a cookie and looks at Jules. “David says stuff like that all the time. He doesn’t think when he opens his mouth.”

  “Sure,” Jules says. But she doesn’t really look at Brenna. I hardly know Jules, but I can tell she’s upset. I check out the lemonade. It looks homemade, so I pour myself some and take a sip. David really needs a pause button on his mouth sometimes.

  And Jules isn’t the only one who is mad—Sunita is still steaming. Her hands are on her hips, and her mouth is tight. Everyone else in the room is looking down at the ground awkwardly, including me. It seems like we all ought to be going. I think this gathering is over.

  Brenna breaks the silence. “Listen, I’ll research what I can on that poisoning in Philadelphia and get back to everyone,” she says.

  “I’ll help,” I pipe up.

  Maggie and I put in a long afternoon cleaning cages in the clinic. I forgot how much I hate doing this. It’s so gross! Maggie doesn’t seem to mind at all, whistling as she goes. Gran is nowhere to be seen, but that’s okay because there’s plenty for us to do. By the time we’re done cleaning cages, it’s time to feed the kittens again. They all look better, stronger, and even cuter.

  It’s after nine at night when Gran comes into the clinic to call us to the dinner table. She must be pretty distracted—usually she would never let us go that long without a meal. Maggie and I follow her to the kitchen, where Gran picks up a wooden spoon and starts stirring something in a pot on the stove. She looks concerned, but I have something on my mind, too.

  “Gran, did Mom call for me?” I ask, trying to keep the hope in my voice from being too obvious.

  “Haven’t heard from her. But, Zoe, remember the time difference. Your mother is probably just finishing up work. It’s early evening in California.”

  “Vancouver. She’s filming in Vancouver,” I say.

  “You’re right. But it’s the same time zone, Zoe,” Gran says gently.

  I look at the clock. It’s nine-twenty here. Six-twenty on the West Coast. Mom’s had plenty of time to consider calling her daughter. I’ve only talked to her once since she left, and that was only for a minute before she got called on set.

  Gran taps the spoon on the side of the pot. I get a whiff of its contents. Oh no, canned tomato soup. I need to start cooking again.

  Maggie reaches into her backpack and pull
s out a bag of gummy bears. “Want some?” she asks me. I shake my head no.

  “The lab called tonight. They gave me Puff’s results,” Gran sighs.

  Maggie straightens up and stops chewing her candy.

  “Ethylene glycol was in Puff’s system. It’s what killed her.” Gran rubs her forehead. “Such a shame, so preventable.” She stirs the soup again.

  Maggie lets out a breath. “Ethylene glycol, like Mr. Garcia’s dog last December?”

  Gran nods.

  I have no idea what this ethel whatever stuff is. I want to ask Gran, but she looks a little bit angry. Instead, I look over at Maggie. Maggie looks mad, too. So I just wait it out.

  Gran stirs. Maggie scowls. Finally, I stand.

  “Okay,” I say, “let me at least take over the soup.”

  Gran concedes and allows me to take the spoon from her. I go to the spice cabinet and find thyme and black pepper and sprinkle them in. Maggie gets bowls and napkins from the cupboard, and she and Gran sit at the table.

  I rummage through the refrigerator for the Havarti cheese that I know is in there somewhere. I grab an apple and slice it thin. First the apple slices go on whole-wheat crackers and then the cheese tops them both. I arrange everything on a baking sheet, turn on the broiler, and pop the tray in for a minute. We’ll at least have some fruit, protein, and whole grains to go with this canned soup.

  I ladle out the soup and put the crackers on a plate on the table. Maggie and Gran eat without saying anything at all. I know them well. They’ll talk when they get it all figured out in their heads. I pick up a cracker and take a big bite. Yum, at least something is good tonight. It’s warm, sweet, and savory—healthy comfort food. This has to make Gran and Maggie feel a little bit better.