Catboy - Eric Walters [40]
The door opened, and a woman and her daughter, who was about my age, came out leading a gigantic dog, an Irish setter. It was bouncing and pulling at its leash, and it took the two of them to stop it from dragging them right out the front door.
Dr. Reynolds poked his head out of the examination room and saw me. “Taylor?” he called out. “What are you doing here?”
I got up. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“I’m sort of busy. Can it wait until tonight? You could call me.”
“I know you’re busy, but I really hoped I could talk to you in person. I can wait until you’re through with everybody,” I suggested. “It’s important.”
“Now you’ve got me interested. If you say it’s important, I’m sure it is. Come in.”
Every eye in the place was on me as I walked into his office. He closed the door behind us.
“Is this about Hunter?” he asked.
“It’s about all of the cats, the whole colony. They’re in danger.”
He took on a serious look. “Poison, disease, mange? What’s wrong?”
“They’re redeveloping the junkyard. It’s being turned into condominiums,” I explained.
“That’s awful. The cats that don’t die during construction will be put out on the streets. Most of them won’t survive.”
“I know. That’s why I want to talk to you. You said there were other colonies in the city, right?”
“There are spots all over the city, but none of them are close enough for the cats to migrate to,” he said. “Even if they knew where to go, the nearest site that could accommodate that many cats is too far away.”
“But it could fit that many cats?”
“The Leslie Spit could hold hundreds of feral cats, but there’s no point in thinking about it. It’s on the other side of the city. Even if they knew where they were going, I don’t think a cat could survive that trip. Plus, there’s no way a whole colony could make it. It’s not like you can herd cats.”
“But you could carry them,” I said.
Dr. Reynolds looked even more curious.
“We could trap them in cages and drive them over,” I explained.
“How would you even get that many traps and cages?” he asked.
“That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you about. You have traps. You have cages.”
“Not enough cages to hold fifty cats. That is about the size of the colony, isn’t it?”
I nodded in agreement.
“I don’t have that many cages or traps!”
“But I bet you know people who have some.”
“Yes, I know people who have cages and traps. We could probably find that many cages. But even if we could gather the cages, do you know how hard it would be to trap the entire colony?” he asked.
“Really hard.”
“More than hard, it would be close to impossible. It could take weeks and weeks to trap that many cats.”
“We don’t have weeks. We only have this weekend,” I said, looking at the floor.
“In that case, it is impossible.”
“Maybe it is. But if we don’t try, they’re all going to die. Or almost all of them, especially the little ones and probably the older ones. Maybe we can’t trap them all, but we can trap some of them. We could save some of them, couldn’t we?”
He didn’t answer right away. I took that as a good sign. He must be thinking about what I’d suggested. Either that or thinking of a nice way to turn me down without saying I was crazy.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “You want me to try to round up fifty or so cages and traps.”
“Fifty would do.”
“You then want me to go with you—”
“And other people,” I said. “We won’t be alone.”
“Fine, I’ll go with you and other people to the junkyard and try to trap the whole colony of cats, maybe fifty cats, in two days. Then we’re going to drive them across town and release them, so they can rebuild their colony in a whole new place. Is that what you’re suggesting?”
It was, but it made less sense when he put it all out there in front of us.
“I guess so.”
“Even though you know it’s basically impossible and it’s just going to be a waste of our time. Is that what you want me to be part of?” he asked. “Is that what you want me to spend my entire weekend doing?”
I nodded.
“Okay, as long as I understand the plan.” He paused, and then he smiled.