Catboy - Eric Walters [24]
“Not until you brought it up. You’re creeping me out.”
“Sorry,” she said.
Of course it didn’t feel creepy to me anymore. The junkyard was like a second home, a second home that could be a scene from CSI Toronto.
“I’m just a little nervous. I really do want to see the cats, and I guess there’s no other way,” she said.
“It’s not like I can bring them around to the apartment.”
“You talk so much about them, I think I’ll even be able to pick them out, especially the ones like Miss Mittens and King and Hunter.”
“Hunter is the least likely to be here,” I said.
“That’s strange. You talk about him the most.”
“I do?”
“Definitely. I get the feeling he’s your favorite.”
“I guess he is,” I said.
“Oh my goodness!” My mother shrieked and skidded to a stop.
Right in front of us, directly in our path, was a raccoon. It was the same raccoon I’d first seen with Hunter in the alley. I had seen it in the junkyard a couple of times since then. He heard us, stopped, spun around and sat down, staring at us.
“Don’t worry, it’s just Rocky,” I said.
“Rocky?”
“I named him,” I said. “You know that song you listen to by that group, what is it called, the Beatles?”
“Oh, ‘Rocky Raccoon’!” she said and sang a couple of bars from the song. “I can’t believe how big it is.”
“He is big, but he never bothers me. I think he lives around here too,” I said. “But from what Mr. Singh has told me, he doesn’t live in the yard.”
“Raccoons can be dangerous,” she said. “Especially one that big. They have very sharp claws and can be vicious. I read somewhere they get rabies and—”
“Rocky doesn’t have rabies,” I said. “And he isn’t vicious. He’s pretty relaxed.”
It looked like Rocky had a smile on his face, like he had a secret or had just been told a joke.
“Actually,” my mother said and chuckled, “his expression—this is going to sound strange—it looks a bit like Mona Lisa’s smile. Well, if she was furry and wearing a black mask.”
“I can see that,” I said, “but he reminds me of somebody else. With that big belly, the way he’s sitting and that thoughtful look, I was thinking that he looked like a furry Buddha.”
“I can see that too!” she exclaimed. “He does look wise, like he’s sitting there contemplating life.”
“Thinking that wouldn’t offend anybody, would it?” I asked. “You know, comparing a raccoon to Buddha. That wouldn’t make people who believe in Buddha mad, would it?”
“I think Buddhists are a pretty understanding people,” she said. “Besides, they believe in reincarnation. For all we know, coming back as a raccoon may be a higher life form than a person.”
I laughed.
“Either way, he’s such a chubby guy, he seems to be doing fairly well for himself,” she said. “Maybe he just got a promotion too.”
Rocky tilted his head to the side as if he was trying to figure us out. He shook a paw at us, like he was waving goodbye, turned around and slowly waddled away.
“Any more surprise animals I should know about?” she asked.
“There is a family of skunks, a mother and a couple of kittens,” I said. “But I don’t think we’ll see them this early in the morning. They sleep during the day, so I’ve only seen them in the evenings. Mr. Singh thinks they live under an abandoned warehouse in the alley.”
“Good to know.”
I almost mentioned the rats but thought better of it. We weren’t going near where most of them lived.
“It’s not much farther. It’s just around this—”
There were three people standing there—a man and two women, one young and one older. They were tossing food to the cats. I’d never seen anybody else here except the mean bully boys from before. It was a little unnerving, but it was good to know my friends and I weren’t the only ones who cared about the cats.
Then I noticed the traps.
Fourteen
“Leave those cats alone!” I screamed and ran toward them.
“Taylor!” my mother yelled.
The three people looked shocked, stunned, as I raced forward.
“Get away from those cats, now!” I ordered them.
They stumbled backward, staring at me like I was insane. “It’s all right,” the man said.
“It’s not all right!” I yelled back. I