Runaway Ralph - Beverly Cleary [29]
Why, here’s my chance after all, thought Ralph in wonder, as a plan, simple but dangerous, sprang into his mind.
After noticing that Catso was sitting expectantly by the kitchen door waiting to be fed, Ralph leaped to the ground and found the watch under the bamboo leaves. Seizing it by the buckle on the leather strap, he began the labor of dragging the watch toward Karen’s sleeping bag.
The watch was heavier than Ralph had remembered. He pulled and strained and managed to tug it across the gritty path to the craft shop and into the shelter of the grass. The watch slid more easily through the grass, and Ralph soon learned to choose the smoothest way, avoiding clods of dirt and prickly weeds.
The campers finished breakfast and came bursting out of the dining hall. Ralph toiled on, pulling the watch toward Karen’s sleeping bag a fraction of an inch at a time, knowing that Garf must be searching for him by the bamboo. Ralph began a long hard detour around a fallen walnut and hoped that sometime Garf would at least know he had tried even if he might not succeed.
Suddenly the fur along Ralph’s spine began to prickle, and he froze in his tracks. Catso! The hunter’s eyes of the cat had caught the movement of the grass. Ralph crouched motionless beside the watch.
Catso slunk close to the ground, moving so quietly he seemed to flow through the grass. Only the tip of his tail twitched. Ralph knew that trying to run was useless. Running would only make the hunt more interesting for Catso and prolong the misery for Ralph. Catso stopped and waggled his hindquarters experimentally, as if he were trying to find the most efficient position for pouncing.
Where was Lana? Ralph’s life passed before his eyes—his family mouse nest back at the Mountain View Inn, his mother and Uncle Lester and all his brothers and sisters and cousins, the boy who had given him the motorcycle that had changed his life, the cage in the craft shop, Chum, Garf—
Catso crouched even lower and waggled his hindquarters once more in preparation for the pounce.
Ralph’s eyes were distracted from Catso by Sam, who trotted purposefully across the grass. If one doesn’t get me, the other will, thought Ralph, as he tried to shrink even smaller beside the watch. Surely a dog would not want to crunch a watch between his teeth.
Sam growled deep in his throat. Distracted, Catso stopped waggling and glared at Sam.
“Get me in trouble, will you?” growled Sam to the cat.
Catso stood up, arched his back, and appeared to double in size. “See here, Sam,” he hissed. “I’m supposed to exterminate pesky mice.”
“Not this one,” growled Sam, advancing. “He belongs here, and you got me in trouble by letting him escape.”
“Is that so?” Catso hissed back, as he swiped at Sam’s nose with an evil clawed paw. “What about me? I’m unjustly accused of eating him.”
“And what are you up to now?” demanded Sam, and with that question he snapped at Catso, who turned his back and with his tail proudly erect stalked off toward the craft shop, before he suddenly remembered he had not washed lately.
While Catso sat grooming his toes, Sam eyed Ralph with interest. “You’re a busy little fellow,” he remarked, not unkindly. “First a motorcycle. Now a wristwatch.” He thought a moment before he said, “Say, where did you get that watch? You didn’t happen to steal it, did you? No. You couldn’t. You’re too little.”
“That’s right. I’m too little,” agreed Ralph. “But Catso stole it, and I’m trying to return it to its rightful owner.” He told Sam the whole story, explaining why Garf could not return the watch.
Sam glanced at Catso and growled, but Catso merely paused in washing his left hind foot to look disdainfully at Sam, who then said to Ralph, “You’re pretty little to be pulling that watch over this rough ground. Maybe I can help you out. Here, let me take it for you.”
Ralph trembled to see that great snout coming close. He crept away from the watch and stared fascinated as Sam delicately picked up the leather