Camille McPhee Fell Under the Bus (20 page)

“I don’t mean killer whales. I mean your cat.”

“Oh, Orca loves tuna fish,” she said, nodding.

“The first cat I ever had used to lick my face,” I said, trying to be tactful. I didn’t want to use the word
tears
, because I didn’t want to make Polly sad or embarrass her.

“Sometimes when my eyes watered, she would lick up the liquid around my eyes,” I said, trying to pitch it so it sounded like a question. “Maybe she liked the salt.”

“Orca is a great licker,” Polly said, bouncing around like a spring. “She is the best and kindest and most
thoughtful cat on the planet. Maybe after school you can hang out with us.”

Polly explained to me that Orca only had one and a half ears because she had been involved in a big fight with a raccoon. Her father had called the fight an unfortunate brouhaha. Now Orca was strictly an indoor cat. Polly wanted to make sure that I knew this, so I didn’t accidentally let Orca outside.

“The whole time I’ve had her, she’s never been outside,” Polly said.

That didn’t make total sense to me, because she’d just told me that her cat had fought a raccoon. But then I thought maybe the raccoon had gotten in Polly’s house or something. Maybe it had climbed inside through her chimney.

“I get it,” I said. “I won’t let your cat escape.”

Orca sounded like a perfectly good friend for Polly. Too bad about that chimney raccoon biting off her ear. I hated that unfair things could happen to cats, too.

When I got to school, my head felt disconnected from my body again. Today the results for the science fair were announced. I spent a lot of time looking down at my loafers. There were several people who I wanted to avoid making eye contact with. Mr. Hawk, Boone, Tony, Nina, Zoey, and the rest of my class were at the top of that list. No one had really gotten over the fish.

When I walked into the classroom, I noticed a blue
ribbon and first-place certificate on top of Tony’s desk. Nina’s desk had a certificate for an honorable mention. Both of our names were on it. I sighed. Then I spotted a wooden cross and some daisies on the floor right where the resurrected fish had died. Someone had even left a card with
FOR THE FISH
printed on the pink envelope.

I sat at my desk. There was a note on it. When I unfolded the note, I knew it was from Tony. It had a picture of a stick figure with a big head standing on top of a bucket. And it had an arrow and a picture of the stick figure landing on its head. I understood exactly what he was saying. I folded the note back up. And decided to eat an apple. So I opened up my cooler. After I took a big crunchy bite, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I figured it was Mr. Hawk, but when I turned around to look at him, I saw that it was actually Boone. I bit my apple a second time.

“I want you to know that there’s no hard feelings,” Boone said.

“That’s nice of you,” I mumbled. Because I’d been taught good manners, I decided not to take another bite of my apple just yet.

“Tony had no right to call you a fish killer,” he said.

“I didn’t exactly help it stay alive,” I answered.

“I guess. But what I mean to say is that our fish was going to die anyway. The other twenty fish we
resurrected all died within the hour. That’s why we wanted to go last. We could only bring it back to life temporarily.”

When Boone said this, my ears started to get hot. I couldn’t believe that they’d let me feel so rotten all weekend.

“That’s crazy!” I said.

“I know. We were planning on switching that fish with another fish. Our project involved some cheating,” he said.

I slapped my desk.

“Your project was all cheating!” I said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

But I didn’t think that was enough.

“You’ve got to tell the class!” I said, setting my apple down on my desk. “They’ve built a memorial. They think I’m a killer! Plus, I’m getting hate mail.” I showed him the note and tapped my finger by the picture of the stick figure landing on its head.

Boone looked like he was in pain. “I’m sorry, but I can’t,” he said. “I promised Tony.”

“Tony’s not the boss of your body,” I snapped. After I said this, I wished I’d said something more mature. I sounded like I was in second grade or something.

“Actually, Tony’s dad is the boss of my dad,” he said, putting his hand back on my shoulder. “He owns
the farm where my dad works. I don’t want to cause any problems for him. You see how mean Tony is. Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

I looked out the window. The sun pushed its light through the glass, warming my face even more.

“But that’s not fair,” I said, poking him in his chest. (Boone had a very hard chest. He must’ve spent a lot of time lifting things that were heavy.)

“Tell me about it,” Boone said. He backed up so my finger couldn’t reach him. “Tony got really mad when I didn’t take his side about Gracie’s grizzly-bear picture. I’m sorry.”

“But Gracie’s grizzly-bear picture wasn’t even a big deal,” I said. “This is.”

“Don’t worry, Camille,” Boone said. “People will get over it.”

After Boone said this, he went to his desk. I made eye contact with him several times throughout the day, trying to encourage him to make a speech to the class. But he didn’t.

He just sat there and pretended to learn.

I knew he was wrong. Fourth graders didn’t get over things. They remembered every screwup and held it against you. I knew, because I was a fourth grader!

All day long, I kept looking out the window. I watched clouds wander across the sky. I felt their
shadows block the sun and creep over me. It was just like life. Because even a pretty sky has dark moments. I didn’t want this to be true. But it was. I sat at my desk. Sometimes soaking in sun. Sometimes feeling the chill of shade. I couldn’t believe that I was going to have to spend the rest of my life living in this gigantic unfair world.

During science, Mr. Hawk lectured on the bones of the body. After the fibula, tibia, femur, ribs, radius, ulna, scapula, clavicle, and vertebrae, he finally got to the head. When Mr. Hawk said the word
cranium
, Tony leaned forward and whispered, “Your cranium puts fish in mortal danger. Your cranium can’t stay balanced on a bucket.”

Knowing that Tony had killed twenty fish, and that I’d only killed one—and the one I killed was going to die anyway—made me furious. Soon, all the evil things I could do to Tony began to parade through my mind. I could put a dead trout on his doorstep every day for a year. No, I could slip a dead squid in his mailbox and let it rot. No, I could buy all sorts of fish guts and leave them out in the sun for a while and then hide them in his desk on a Friday. He’d be very surprised on Monday. But I realized that was actually a bad idea, because the stink would affect me too. And people I liked.

Before I knew it, school was over. When I got off the bus, Polly asked me if I wanted to come over to meet Orca.

“Okay,” I said.

“Shouldn’t you ask your mom?” Polly asked.

“She’s teaching an advanced ball class. She won’t be home for another thirty minutes.”

Polly stopped walking and spun around. She did this so quickly that her blond bob whipped around and slapped her in the face.

“Your mom teaches aerobics and juggles?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Ball work is a type of aerobics class. It involves an inflatable ball.”

Polly started laughing and then spun back around and continued walking home. Polly was funny. I sort of liked spending time with her. I also liked the idea of meeting her cat. Then I thought of a gift that I wanted to give her cat.

“I need to get something,” I said. “I’ll be right there!”

Chapter 29
Orca?

A
unt Stella told me that when a baby is born in a hospital, one of the first things that the nurses do is fasten a name bracelet around the baby’s leg. The nurses do this because they’ve birthed enough babies to know that when they’re born, a lot of babies look the same—blotchy, pudgy, and pink. Nobody wants the babies to get mixed up. It’s unusual, but sometimes one baby is mistaken for another baby and people take the wrong baby home. Sometimes it is fixed right away. But sometimes the people raise the wrong babies for a long
time. Sometimes they grow up and nobody ever figures it out.

When I went to Polly’s house, I wasn’t thinking about babies or hospitals or mix-ups. I was just looking forward to meeting her cat. Standing on Polly’s front steps, I noticed that her doorbell was broken. I knew this because right where I expected the doorbell to be, there were a red wire and a white wire sticking out of a hole.

Since there wasn’t a sign telling me what to do with the wires, I figured I was supposed to touch the white and red wires together to make a ringing sound. But when I carefully pressed the tips of the wires together, instead of making a chiming noise or a ding-dong sound, the two wires started sparking. I yelled. Polly came to the door. I thought that this was a very dangerous doorbell system, but it worked.

“Here’s a can of tuna fish,” I said, handing the round tin to Polly.

“That was very nice of you,” she said. Polly led me by the hand to her bedroom.

“Orca is in the closet,” she said. “She likes to nap on top of my sweaters.”

“My cat Checkers used to do that too,” I said. “She especially liked my cotton-wool blends.”

“So does Orca!” Polly cheered. “But she absolutely avoids polyester.”

I nodded and smiled. Checkers felt that way about polyester too. Polly tossed a feather that was attached to a string into her closet. She slowly dragged the feather toward her.

“This always gets her,” she said, kneeling down.

I thought it was too bad that Checkers had disappeared, because she and Orca liked the exact same things. I was sure that our two cats could have been best friends.

“She’s wiggling her butt,” Polly said. “She’s getting ready to pounce.”

I understood what Polly was saying. All three of my cats liked wiggling their butts before they pounced. When Orca leapt out of the closet, it was almost like I was watching Checkers. Their methods for lunging were very similar and they made the exact same thumping noise when they hit the carpet. While attacking the feather, Orca arched her back and bared her claws exactly how Checker used to. And the yin-yang pattern of black and white that decorated Orca’s face looked identical to Checker’s yin-yang pattern. Even their eyes were the same shade of green. They meowed the same and licked the same. Except for Checkers having two perfect pointy ears, and Orca only one and a half, they looked like twins. I thought this was quite a coincidence.

“How long have you had her?” I asked.

“About three years,” she said, rubbing Orca’s soft white belly.

I began to pet Orca too. And when I did, when I felt how she felt exactly like Checkers, a lightbulb went off in my head.

“Where did you buy her?” I asked, scratching behind her good ear.

“We didn’t. We found her up a tree.”

When Polly said this, it made me remember that Checkers had been an excellent climber. A lot of times, she’d scamper up a tree so high that we were afraid we’d have to call the fire department. Luckily, Checkers was good at sizing up limbs, and she always figured a way back down.

“Actually,” Polly said, “my dad found her. Remember what I told you about her ear? Well, he was driving home from work and he ran over a raccoon. When he stopped to see if there was anything he could do, he noticed Orca stuck in a tree. My dad thought that the raccoon and Orca had been in a big fight. He thought that by running over the raccoon, he’d saved Orca’s life.”

I gathered Orca up in my arms and listened to her purr. She sounded a lot like my mother’s Chevy. This was not Orca. Even though this cat smelled like Polly’s sweaters, I still knew that underneath the smell, this was Checkers. I was absolutely sure.

“She was all scraped up. We took her to our vet.”

“What if Orca belonged to somebody?” I asked. “Wasn’t she wearing a collar?”

I couldn’t believe this. My first very good friend had run off to Japan and never written me and now my second very good friend had stolen my cat.

“Actually, she did have an owner,” Polly said, frowning. “My dad was planning to call the owner, but then he was in the accident.”

When Polly said the word
accident
, I could see her eyes beginning to water. She took a deep breath and continued.

“A couple of weeks after his funeral, my mom finally called the owner. But I guess they didn’t really like the cat. Because my mom said that the owner said we could keep her.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound right,” I said. “Maybe your mom just said that so you wouldn’t feel bad about stealing somebody else’s cat.” After I said this, I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have. But sometimes my mouth moved faster than the part of my brain that thought about what my mouth would say.

“That’s an awful thing to say, Camille. You’re calling my mom a liar. And a thief.”

“I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.” I picked up my cooler and ran out of her room and out of her house. She stood on her porch cradling Checkers/Orca
in her arms and watching me run. When I got halfway down her driveway I turned around and yelled, “Polly, you stole my cat!”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Your cat Orca is really my cat Checkers,” I said.

“You’re wrong,” she said.

“No, I’m not. And I didn’t think you were the kind of person who would steal my cat.”

Polly went inside and slammed her door. I wished I could have slammed a door too. But I was surrounded completely by air. This was all very terrible. I thought about how sad I was when Checkers disappeared. Then I thought of all those wasted minutes I’d spent looking for her. It was just like my calling card. Because nobody was going to be able to give me back those minutes either. I felt very mad. Before I went inside my house, I stopped for a moment in the garage. I peeled a banana and ate it, hoping it would make me feel better. I wondered if what Polly said was true. Would my mother or father have told Polly’s mom that she could keep my cat? It seemed impossible. Life couldn’t be that unfair. Could it?