The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

a year or so now. They really shouldn’t stay in one place more than a couple months – after that, they start drawing people to them. So I was on my way to dig them up. But the forest has its own ideas, especially at night. I should have remembered that. The ground shrugged, the roots turned under my feet. Or maybe I was too drunk. Anyway I fell. The last thing I recall is the crunching sound my shoulder made as it met the earth.

My face is scratched and my arm has black flowers all over it. It won’t straighten. I made a sling out of an old T-shirt. I don’t think it’s broken. Getting hurt makes the body and brain weird, even if you don’t feel the pain. My thoughts are everywhere right now.

When I went downstairs earlier Olivia couldn’t leave me alone. Curious I guess. She licked my face. She has a real taste for blood, that cat.

Olivia

‘Here, kitten.’ Ted leans in the doorway, black against the light. Something is wrong with the way he’s standing. He kind of falls into the house then turns to lock the door, hands shaking. It takes him a few tries to get all the locks.

‘I had a weird one, kitten,’ he says. His arm is bent at the wrong angle. He coughs and a little fleck of blood dances through the air. It lands on the orange carpet and rests, a dark globe.

‘Got to sleep,’ he says and goes upstairs.

I lick the dark spot on the carpet, taking in the faint taste of blood. Oooooeeeeeeeeee, ooooooeee. The whine is back.

Today when I leap up to my viewing spot, the tabby is already there, sitting on the unkempt verge by the sidewalk. The sight of her makes my heart burn. I purr and bat the glass with a paw. Her coat is all fluffed up with the cold. She looks twice her size. She pays me no mind, sniffs delicately around the oak tree in the front yard, at a patch of ice on the sidewalk. And then, finally, she looks straight at me. Our eyes hold. It’s glorious; I could drown in her. I think she’s waiting for me to break the silence. Of course, now I can’t think of a single thing to say. So she turns away and it’s agony but then it gets worse. That white cat comes strolling along the sidewalk. That big one with the bell on his collar. He speaks to her and tries to rub her cheek with his. I am hissing so hard that I sound like a kettle.

He’s trying to get his scent on her, but my tabby knows better. Her back goes up into an arch and she retreats delicately out of sight. I could weep with relief, which quickly turns to sadness because she’s gone. Each time the pain is sharp and penny-bright.

Let me tell you a couple of things about white cats. They are sneaky, they are mean, and they are below average intelligence. I am aware that you are not supposed to say stuff like that, that it is not POLITICALLY CORRECT but it’s gd true and everyone knows.

I remember being born, of course, I have said that. But my real birth happened later. Do you want to know THE LORD? He wants to know you. Haha, just kidding, he probably doesn’t. The LORD is quite choosy, actually. He doesn’t show himself to everyone. When He picks you, wow, do you know about it.

It was the day I learned my purpose. All cats have one, just like all cats can turn invisible and read minds (we are particularly good at the last one).

I wasn’t always grateful to Ted for rescuing me. For a while, I really didn’t want to be an indoor cat. After Ted brought me home I was lonely, and I cried a lot. I missed my little kit sisters who had died at my side in the rain. I missed Mamacat, her big grinding purr and warm sides. We barely had a chance to know one another. I understood that they were dead, because I saw it happen, and it left a sadness in me like a heavy stone. But at the same time, I knew that they were not dead. I was convinced that if I could just get outside I could find them.

I looked and looked for ways to escape, but there weren’t any. A couple of times I just ran straight at the door when it opened. I am not a natural planner. Ted scooped me back up in a friendly sort of way. Then we went to the couch and he stroked me or we played with a piece of yarn, until I stopped rowing and crying. ‘There are bad people who would hurt you or try to take you away from me,’ he said. ‘Don’t you want to stay here with me, kitten?’ And I did. So I would forget about it for a while. But the happiness always passed, and then I was mad at myself for giving in to Ted, and sorrow consumed me once more.

So I had decided that this was the day, it really was. I had it all planned out; but the timing would have to be just right. It all depended on all the teds behaving exactly as they had behaved in the past. I had come to notice that they usually do.

The thing is, I know a lot about what goes on outside, even if it doesn’t happen in front of my peephole. I can’t see but I can hear and smell. So I know that at a certain time of day, a ted who smells like leather and clean skin goes along the street with his big brouhaha. He usually stops to pet it near our house. I don’t know what they look like as I haven’t actually seen them with my eyes, but judging by the