Free Cat Found by Ingrid Lee Page B

body of the white cat inside the dark interior. She could sense the tiny shape huddled close.
    It was dying.
    Conga jumped the fence surely. She took her third kitten to the coal cellar and tucked it between the others. As soon as it was safely stowed, she headed up the chute and streaked back across the yard.
    There was no time to lose.
    She was a mother.
    And there was one more baby out there.

TWENTY
    L uke found Snowflake in a pool of blood. By the time Billy arrived, he was holding the white cat in his arms.
    “Shot dead,” Luke said. “Her little ones never saw the light of day.”
    Billy looked down at the quiet cat tucked into Luke’s arms. He swung his eyes up to the door in the chapel loft. It was wide open.
    “Conga!” he cried. He clambered up to the stable roof. One of the old rafters split under the pounding and the raw edge clawed his leg, but he pulled himself free and up to the balcony. The loft was empty and so was the rest of the church. Billy ran back out to the landing. “Luke, she’s gone! Conga’s gone. And the kittens, too.”
    The two boys stood there staring at each other across the quiet churchyard.
    The sun shone brightly. Waves of heat shimmered inthe August air. The gray tom crawled out of a crate and lumbered up to the top of his castle. The other cats slipped from their nests. Scat sat up in the manger. As soon as the tom started yowling, every cat joined the chorus. They lifted their clear eyes and their wild hearts to the blue sky and the shiny sun. They cried, too.
    It made a woeful noise.
    “I’ll get a shovel,” said Luke. “And bury this one. You go look for your cat.”
    Billy ran down every alleyway along Main Street. “Conga,” he pleaded. “Here, girl, where are you?” He looked for a flash of white behind the trash cans, or a twist of bronze and black among the weeds. “Conga!” he cried. Wherever he went, cats spilled out of shrubs and sheds. They dropped from branches and sills. But Conga wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. Down the alley next to the Lebanese restaurant, Billy climbed through the gap in the boards onto Haven Street. He checked the yards of the houses along the fence line, and zigzagged through the parking lot of the supermarket. He even peered under the veranda of the house behind the chapel. “Conga!” he called. “Conga, are you there?”
    Deep in the earth, Conga nudged her kittens close. She pricked up her ears. She thought she heard a familiar voiceon the wind. But the old coal chute turned around the sound.
    And the cellar was full of the smell of coal.
    By the time Billy got to the apartment, his dad was slumped over a plate of dinner. “It’s about time you got home,” his dad said. He shoved the food back and forth. “Your mother went to the library in a huff. It doesn’t take much to set her off these days. At least that fool course is over this week.” He scratched his head.
    There was leftover steak-and-kidney pie on the table. The look of it made Billy feel sick.
    Maybe his father felt the same way. He pushed his plate away. “Roundup of the strays starts the day after tomorrow,” he went on. “I aim to trap that gray tom. You can help me. Maybe I’ll finally get a decent night’s sleep.”
    Billy opened his mouth. “I’m not killing any cats!” he yelled.
    Too bad he yelled the words inside his head. His father never heard a sound.
    When his mom came home, his dad went out to the pub. Billy waited until his mom shut her bedroom door. Then he snuck down the back stairs and ran to the chapel yard.
    Luke was waiting. “No sign of your cat,” he said toBilly. “I put food up there on the balcony.” He gave his friend a shrug. “No sense in fretting. Conga’s a smart one. She’ll be all right. I say she’s just holing out till she’s sure her kittens are safe. We can look again in the morning, first light. We’ll find her.”
    Billy swallowed hard.
    On the way home, Billy saw his dad. He was outside the pub