Hiding in Plain Sight Read Free Page B

nothing…”
    I felt alarm rise in me as his voice trailed off. I demanded to know what he’d been about to say.
    â€œOh, it’s just silly,” Dad said. “Nothing really to worry about at all.”
    â€œOf course there isn’t,” my mother added sternly. She still hadn’t glanced at Ernie. Not once.
    â€œWell, unless there was, you know, a fire or something. But, as I said, that’s not likely at all. Really, what are the odds?”
    â€œA fire!” I gasped. “What if there
was
one! What if Ernie couldn’t get out?”
    â€œOh, for goodness’ sake,” Mom said, giving her head a shake. For the first time, she took a quick peek at the cat.
    â€œIt
could
happen,” I cried. “How would I ever tell Mr. Stanley? He
trusted
me to take care of Ernie.”
    â€œThis Mr. Stanley,” Mom frowned, as if the poor old guy had deliberately fallen and hurt himself just to cause her this trouble, “how long is he supposed to be in the hospital?”
    â€œI don’t know, not for sure,” I admitted. “Probably a few weeks or so.”
    â€œAnd then he’ll be back home and able to take care of his cat by himself?”
    â€œYes.”
    Mom sighed. She looked at Ernie again, a bit longer. She frowned some more. I was barely breathing.
    â€œI suppose,” she said at last, “that if it’s only going to be a few weeks, we could put up with the inconvenience.”
    I opened my mouth, all overjoyed and everything, to tell her thanks. Before I could get so much as a syllable out, she held her hand up and went on.
    â€œHowever,” she said, “this is
entirely
your responsibility, Shelby. Feeding, brushing, cleaning the litter box, extra vacuuming to keep the house from being overrun with floating black hair. All of it. You do it, and I mean
without
being told, or the cat goes.”
    â€œI will,” I promised. Even though she was trying to sound kind of mean, I threw my arms around her.
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw my dad kind of nod and smile the way you do when you have a secret. Isuddenly realized that he’d set the whole thing up. I also knew that if I ever brought it up to him, he’d act like he didn’t know what I was talking about. My folks have this rule about always backing each other up when it comes to making parenting decisions. It’s a real pain sometimes.
    But that didn’t matter at the moment. Ernie was staying, even if it was only for a few weeks. I could hardly wait to let him out of the carrier.
    On this particular subject, I wasn’t the only eager one. The second I began to free him, Ernie flew from the dreadful trap. Leaving captivity behind, he formed a black streak that disappeared from the room before I even had the carrier’s door fully open.
    â€œHe’s probably shy,” I said, forcing a smile. Mom seemed far from pleased.
    â€œYou’d better find him,” she said sternly. “I don’t want him doing goodness knows what goodness knows where.”
    I thought of the mad chase he’d taken me on in the apartment earlier in the day, and that was in a place that had only a few small rooms. As I headed down the hallway calling his name, I began to wonder if he was worth all the bother he’d been already.
    I found him over an hour later, hidden behind the ironing board in the laundry room. He was crouched there, looking a bit wild and scared. His blue eyes blinked in what seemed like confusion.
    I reached a hand out to pat him and was rewarded with a swat, claws out, that made a tiny red path across a couple of my fingers. Nice.
    Determined, I reached out again, but by the time my hand got there this time, he’d burst out of his hiding spot. I had no doubt that escape was uppermost in his furry little head, but I’d outsmarted him (for the first time) and closed the door when I’d entered the room, just in case.
    Even so, it