Scarborough Fair and Other Stories by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Read Free Book Online Page A

keeps saying those mean things. I miss you and Blackie. I want to come too.”
    â€œThat’s just what you mustn’t do,” Mustard said. “My—er—illness, was long and very painful and far too much for a mite like yourself to bear. Or even a battleaxe like the old girl. About Blackie I can’t tell you anything else. But we need to make the neighborhood safe for our kind again. Especially our yard. Have you noticed anything different?”
    â€œNo, nothing. And everyone has been looking out for us. Susan, Diane, Drew, Debbie and Dennis, Janice and Theresa, Mary and Michael Ann. Even Steinway barks very fiercely if he sees anything suspcious.”
    She was referring to Mary’s and Michael Ann’s dog next door. “Steinway must have a really suspicious mind then,” Mustard said. “He barks at everything all the time.”
    â€œNo, I think he’s trying very hard to help. Merlin is very scared.” Merlin was the black feline in charge of Mary and Michael Ann and Steinway and Chopin, the junior cat of the house.
    â€œHmm. Merlin never struck me as a scaredycat. Maybe I should go have a word with him.”
    â€œYeah, okay. I gotta jump now. The old girl is coming.”
    â€œWho is it?” the old girl’s voice demanded in a growl. “Who’s out there and who were you talking to, you little ...”
    â€œLay off her and pick on someone your own size,” Mustard growled back through the door.
    â€œWhat the...?
Mud Turd?
Is that
you
? You’re dead, ashes, gone, kaput and you can’t have the warm place on the video back. It’s mine forever now.”
    The thump of paws came from inside and he could see through the lace curtain across the glass door panel that she had hopped up on a high shelf so she could, as usual, look down on him. He glared back up at her and shouted, “Yeah, sure, until you eat the wrong thing and end up with the grandfather of all belly aches and writhe in agony till you’re a ghost too, just like me and good old Blackie.”
    â€œA ghost?” she leaned so far forward she fell off the shelf. He heard the kitten titter from somewhere high and the sound of a cat giving herself a brisk shake before coming to the closed catflap to sniff. “There’s no such thing as cat ghosts.”
    â€œOh, that’s rich. A cat who doesn’t believe in ghosts. Well, there are, and I’ve seen them. I R them in fact. And like it or not, you too can be in the same situation if you don’t stop bullying and try to help out here. Do you know what killed me? How I died? Or what got Blackie?”
    â€œOf course not. Can I help it if the dumb beasts around here eat any poison thing they come across? I survived loose in the neighborhood for two years on my own after those
people
went off and left me when I was only a little kitten, no bigger than Miss Burnt Poptart, here...”
    â€œYeah, yeah, we all know how tough it was for you out in the neighborhood, taking handouts...”
    â€œHey, smart guy. You asked. I’m trying to tell you. The point is, in my two years I made the rounds of all the neighbors and I tell you, there’s not one of them, not even one of the kids, who would hurt a cat. In this neighborhood, kids and dogs are brought up to have the proper adoration for our sort. I could have had a real home any time I wanted but I didn’t want any of them. I wanted my house back and the minute I asked Susan, she displaced all of you who came with her from her old house and invited me in. She
knew
this was
my
home.”
    â€œSure it was, old girl,” Mustard said with a comforting purr this time. She was right of course. The only people who had changed houses since the time the old girl was on the streets were the renters in the back, and they had been there a good year and a half and were wonderful people who loved cats. “Thanks. But listen, I know you want to be top