Free The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook by Joanne Rocklin Page B

into our apartment today but didn’t want to admit. It’s this: My mother looks happy. Happiness is all over her. Her fingers are happy, holding the fork to her happy mouth. Her elbows on the table are happy. Her shiny orange hair is shooting off happiness sparks, pulled up in a new happy hairstyle. And her eyes; her eyes are happy. I’m sad because I realize her eyes haven’t looked like that for a long time. And it’s the Villain who’s making her feel that way.
    All of a sudden my imagination revs up something awful. I start imagining that he and my mother actually do get married. There we all are at the same table, slurping liquid through a gigantic Family Straw. The only one not using the straw is the baby banging a spoon in its high chair, because, of course, if the Villain and my mom got married, they’d have one of those. An adorable baby with skin the color of taffy, a multi-culty baby, a hope-of-the-world baby, whom my mother may love a bit more than Freddy and me for that exact reason.

ometimes a revved-up imagination is useful. I did come up with one great idea last night, even though I realize that it’s a crime:
    I will cat-nap Zook from the vet.
    I didn’t really have a plan at first. In fact, I wasn’t even thinking about smuggling
out
. I was thinking about that time Zook was smuggled
in
. In to the hospital to visit my dad, Zook all covered up by a green-and-white napkin with tiny red strawberries stitched around the edges, one of the special-occasion napkins that belonged to my mother’s great-aunt Rose.
    â€œThis picnic for your father is a special occasion,” my mother had said.
    My father had lifted up one corner of that napkin, and when he saw Zook inside, he said, “What’s this? A furry taco?” We cracked up at my father’s joke, my mom and I, giggling like goofballs.
    Of course, his joke wasn’t
that
funny. My dad was capable of much more hilarious jokes, believe you me. It’s just that he hadn’t made a joke for a while, and it really felt like old times, good times, again. I guess that’s why I keep thinking about that morning in the hospital over and over.
    Anyway, today I’m dancing at O’Leary’s while planning and remembering all of this. The song playing on Mario’s boom box is “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” sung by Marvin Gaye. I like that song, and all of a sudden, it has personal meaning for me, like some sort of sign that my cat-napping plan is a good one. My mother says that the best songs have personal meaning for you. In this song, a guy is complaining because someone tells him that his love prefers someone else, someone she used to love before.
    Don’tcha know that I heard it through the grapevine,
Not much longer would you be mine!
    I start imagining the Villain singing those words. The Villain sounds like Marvin Gaye when he sings, in my mother’s opinion. But it won’t be the grapevine telling my mom the truth about the Villain. And it won’t be me taking away her happiness. It will be Zook himself. Actually, the Villain himself, confessing all when confronted with Zook in my arms.
    THE VILLAIN (reeling backward in total shock): Why—why—it’s my old cat, Mud!
    ME: Yes, it’s him all right, you cat-shooter, you!
    THE VILLAIN (beginning to tremble and sweat): How—how do you know all that?
    ME: I have my ways! I know everything!
    MY MOM (forehead wrinkled with confusion): I don’t understand! How could he be your old cat? Why are you trembling and sweating? Oona, what do you mean by “cat-shooter”? And our cat’s name is Zook!
    ME (looking at the Villain and narrowing my eyes): Go ahead. ’Fess up!
    I’m not sure if the Villain will confess everything or not. Time will tell. But his behavior will alert my mother to hisreal character. She’ll know something is fishy. They’ll part ways, and then I’ll