True Colors by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock Read Free Book Online Page B

Waldorf salad lunch was bad enough. I knew I was going to dream up a good excuse as to why I couldn’t come to supper.
    That night, I carried a saucer of milk out to the cat. She was waiting by the barn. I took a step toward her, but she ducked behind the hay rake and wouldn’t come out until I set the saucer down and backed away. I could tell she didn’t like me being there, but hunger made her brave (or intrepid, as I’d learned from “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power”). She crept toward the bowl.
    “Just be glad it’s not sweetbreads,” I told her, though when I thought about it, it made sense to feed sweetbreads to cats. Or dogs.
    Just not humans.
    I squatted down beside the cat, as close as she’d let me, and tried out my other new words on her while she ate. If she already knew that
contumacious
meant “rebellious,” or that
anserous
was “being silly like a goose,” she didn’t let on.
    When I stood up, a crinkly sound in my pocket reminded me of the piece of newspaper I’d stuffed there. I pulled it from my pocket and smoothed it out.
    It was just the corner of one page, only part of the story, about a camel and monkey missing from the small traveling circus that had come through town.
    I remembered that circus—I was five when Hannah had taken me (that’s where I’d seen the woman doing acrobatic tricks on a horse)—and I remembered seeing a monkey and the trapeze artist, but I didn’t remember hearing anything about any missing animals.
    I slipped the piece of paper back into my pocket.

chapter 9

    I didn’t get to try my new words on Nadine the next day because the rain stopped and Hannah and I cut more hay. Hannah let me do the mowing. I was nervous at first, but Dolly knew what to do, and we went round and round the upper field until my backside was numb from being bounced on the hard iron seat of the mower. My hands were stiff from holding the reins all afternoon, too, but milking helped work the soreness out of them.
    “Move over, Daisy,” I said, slapping her on the rump. I’d named the cows after flowers in Hannah’s garden. Besides Daisy, there was Rose, Iris, Peony, Tulip, Daffodil, and Chrysanthemum (the way her hair swirled in the middle of her forehead reminded me of a chrysanthemum). So far, Miss Paisley hadn’t given us
chrysanthemum
on one of our spelling tests, but I was sure she would. I’d be in trouble,too, when she did, because I didn’t have any idea how to spell it. But I thought it made a nice name.
    For a cow.
    Sitting there milking, my head resting against the cow, listening to the sound of the milk hitting the pail, I almost fell asleep, but then I felt a prickly sensation come over me, a feeling that I was being watched. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the cat in the open doorway. I stood up, and she turned and ran. I poured some milk into a bowl and set it by the doorway, just in case she came back later.
    By the time I’d finished milking Chrysanthemum, the sun was setting, and Hannah and I were so tired we had just crackers and milk for supper. I knew Mrs. Tilton would never serve crackers and milk for supper, and Nadine said it was something only
prisoners
would eat, but I liked it. All you had to do was crush up saltine crackers in a bowl and pour milk on them. I carried my bowl out to the porch and sat on the steps to eat.
    Across the yard, I could see the cat lapping milk (no crackers) out of the bowl I’d left for her. She picked her head up and stared at me. I could see drops of milk on her whiskers.
    “You know, I was left, too,” I told her.
    Hannah came out and stood behind me.
    “She’s awfully skinny, poor thing,” she said. “Looks like she had kittens recently, too.”
    I wondered how Hannah could tell that.
    “I haven’t seen any kittens,” I said.
    “She’s probably hidden them,” Hannah said.
    I went and got the flashlight and searched every inch of the barn, but I didn’t find any kittens. I searched the tool-shed and