Love Saves the Day Read Free Page A

rolls or crumpled-up balls of paper, leaping on them and rehearsing my fighting techniques so that when a mouse does come in, I’m ready. If I work hard, I hope that Sarah and I can be a real family one day, instead of just roommates.
    It’s as I’m thinking this that I see, from my perch on the windowsill, Laura across the street. She’s getting out of a car with a man I don’t recognize. Laura and the man are carrying a bunch of big empty boxes.
    And I couldn’t tell you how I know it. Maybe it’s because Laura so rarely comes over even when Sarah
is
here. I get a tight feeling in my belly that spreads up to my back and makes my fur stand up higher than it usually does. My whiskers pull back flat against mycheeks, and the dark centers of my eyes must be bigger because everything suddenly looks too-bright and startling in its clarity.
    Even before Laura gets to the front door of our building, every part of my body knows already that something terrible has happened.

2

Prudence
    L AURA AND THE STRANGE MAN BRING THE SMELL OF OUTSIDE IN WITH them. They also smell like each other. Not
exactly
like each other, because male humans smell different from female humans, but enough so I can tell they live together.
    If Laura had come in by herself, I would greet her at the door with a loud demand for explanations. Although humans aren’t as good at understanding cat language as I am at understanding human language, a firm and direct
meow
usually prompts a response. For example, if Sarah hasn’t remembered to give me a cat treat, I’ll stand next to the kitchen counter and meow pointedly. This always makes Sarah either give me a treat or explain why she hasn’t by saying something like,
Oh no! We’re out of treats! Let me run across the street and buy you some more
. Sarah says this means I have her “trained.” Training is what humans have to do to dogs, because a dog doesn’t even know when to sit or lie down unlessa human tells it to first. (The humans who keep dogs must be
very
patient and kind to burden themselves with such simple-minded creatures.) That’s not how I think of Sarah at all. It’s not that I
train
her, it’s just that sometimes I have to
gently remind
her.
    But Laura is here with a man I don’t know, so I decide to wait under the couch until I’m sure coming out will be completely safe. Humans can be unpredictable. Sometimes they lunge at me and rub my fur the wrong way, or even (this is so demeaning)
pick me up off the ground
! So all I can do is watch and wait while Laura props the front door open with her foot to allow the man to enter in front of her, then kicks it shut behind her and turns the three locks.
    A long time ago Sarah gave me a red collar with a little tag attached to it that Sarah says spells PRUDENCE in word-writing. Sometimes, if I move too quickly, the tag makes a jingly sound. So I creep very slowly to the edge of under-the-couch, where I can get a better look at the strange man with Laura.
    He’s taller than she is, with light brown hair and dark blue eyes, and he’s skinnier than a lot of humans. What I can see most easily, though, are his feet and ankles. He’s wearing the kind of feet-shoes called “sneakers” (because they help humans sneak quietly, the way cats do), and they must be old because they’re covered in black smudges and dried mud, and there’s a little hole he probably hasn’t noticed yet just under his left big toe. He hasn’t been around any cats lately, because there isn’t any fur or cat-smell on his ankles—which is the first place a cat would rub her head to mark him with her scent. One of the laces from his sneakers dangles over the side of his foot. As I watch it wave in a tantalizing way while he walks, the temptation to attack it is almost irresistible. But I force myself to remain still, crouching so low that the fur of my belly brushes the floor and tickles my skin uncomfortably.
    Laura is also wearing sneakers, except hers are