Homeless Read Free Page B

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
    W here’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