Little Cat's Luck Read online

but,

  to be entirely honest,

  he was rather amused,

  too.

  He couldn’t think of a single thing to say

  to this impressive display

  from such a small cat

  until he remembered the mouseling’s advice.

  “Please,” he said,

  very politely.

  “Don’t eat me!”

  Please!

  Don’t eat him?

  Don’t eat this enormous

  smelly

  dog?

  Patches was so astonished

  that her back straightened,

  her tail unpuffed,

  and her

  curving

  claws

  slipped back inside their sheaths.

  She found herself looking

  straight

  into

  Gus’s

  eyes.

  She saw no meanness there,

  as everyone in town said.

  It wasn’t even selfishness.

  (“Mine.

  These kittens are mine!”)

  Pure and simple,

  Patches gazed

  into the brown eyes

  of a very

  lonely

  dog.

  That was all.

  Slowly,

  still holding Gus’s gaze,

  she lay down

  and wrapped herself around her kittens.

  Gradually,

  not looking away,

  she found the first put-put-puts

  of a purr.

  And then,

  at last,

  she said,

  “Hello, Gus.”

  “Hello, Patches,”

  Gus replied.

  And then he seemed to remember

  that he had not been

  the world’s best-behaved dog

  the last time

  they had been together.

  His

  tail

  drooped,

  his

  head

  drooped,

  and

  his

  long

  ears

  hung

  longer

  than

  ever.

  “I didn’t mean . . . ,”

  he said.

  “Well,

  I did mean,

  I guess,

  but . . .

  I just wanted . . .”

  His apology

  dribbled

  away.

  “You wanted

  somebody

  to love,”

  Patches said,

  understanding as mothers do.

  In reply,

  Gus lay down

  right there

  on the kitchen floor

  and wrapped his great gray body

  very tenderly

  around the cardboard box,

  around the little cat mother

  and around her three

  tiny

  babies.

  Is this it?

  Is this the happy ending

  we’ve been waiting for?

  Dog

  and cat

  and kittens

  together,

  at last?

  But what about the humans

  in this story?

  Humans have a way

  of complicating

  happy endings,

  especially

  those of the animal kind.

  And these humans,

  the man,

  the woman,

  the girl,

  weren’t quite prepared

  for an enormous dog,

  a smelly one at that,

  who seemed

  to have taken possession

  of their very own cat

  and their very own kittens.

  Not to mention their very own house.

  (You’ll note that they,

  too,

  looked at Patches

  and her babies

  and said “MINE.”)

  Given the dog’s size—

  and his long yellow teeth—

  they weren’t about

  to grab him by the collar

  and try to haul

  him out of their house.

  But this was a small town,

  and everyone knew

  who was attached to the green yard

  with the chain-link fence

  where Gus

  ran up and down

  and barked

  day and night.

  So,

  after a brief phone call,

  six humans

  stood in the kitchen,

  looking down

  at the box with the cat

  and kittens

  and at the great gray dog

  wrapped around

  them all.

  The boy spoke first.

  “Come on, Gus,”

  he said,

  and he reached

  for Gus’s collar.

  Gus growled.

  It wasn’t much of a growl.

  Just a small one,

  deep in his throat.

  But it was definitely a growl.

  The boy stepped back,

  astonished.

  His dog had never growled

  at him

  before!

  Never!

  “Gus!”

  the boy’s father scolded.

  And Gus ducked his head,

  ashamed.

  He hadn’t really meant . . .

  Well,

  he didn’t know what he had meant

  actually,

  except that now he’d found

  his cat family,

  he couldn’t let them

  take him

  away.

  The boy’s father stepped up.

  He took a firm hold

  on Gus’s collar

  and gave it a tug.

  Slowly,

  so slowly that the great dog seemed

  almost

  not to be moving,

  Gus

  began

  to

  rise.

  But that’s when Patches took over.

  Before Gus could get

  his enormous body

  more than two inches

  off the floor,

  she reached out a paw,

  claws delicately extended,

  laid it on Gus’s leg,

  and said,

  “MINE!”

  Everyone gasped.

  “He’s mine,”

  Patches repeated,

  more softly this time,

  but she didn’t remove her paw

  or retract the careful claws

  attached to Gus’s leg.

  Even humans

  with no understanding of cat language

  couldn’t possibly mistake

  Patches’s meaning.

  The boy’s dad

  released the collar,

  and Gus sighed

  and sank to the floor.

  Once more

  he curled himself

  around the cardboard box

  that held

  his cat family.

  The humans all began talking at once.

  What could they do?

  Surely it wouldn’t be good

  to upset

  a new mother!

  By the time the humans were quiet again

  all was decided:

  Gus could stay

  as long as Patches

  needed him.

  The boy could come visit

  every day,

  take Gus out for walks

  or to chase balls in the park.

  Perhaps one day

  when the kittens were older,

  one of them

  might even come

  to live

  with Gus.

  Everyone was happy.

  But th
ere remained

  one small problem . . .

  or two,

  perhaps.

  First,

  the smell.

  But that was easier to solve

  than you might think.

  “I have a wading pool,”

  the girl said,

  “in the backyard.

  A little soap,

  a little help”—

  here she looked at the boy—

  “and Gus could smell like roses . . .

  or at least like a clean dog.”

  Everyone liked that idea.

  But then the boy’s father

  looked down at the pepper grinder

  and the place mats

  and the spilled sugar bowl

  on the kitchen floor

  and cleared his throat.

  “You may find,”

  he said,

  “that Gus

  is a bit,

  um,

  rambunctious

  for a house.”

  Gus snapped to attention.

  Rambunctious?

  He wasn’t sure what the word meant,

  but he knew enough to be offended.

  He scrambled

  to his feet,

  his long ears flapping,

  his long tail whacking the wall,

  ready to defend

  his honor.

  For the second time that morning,

  though,

  Patches took charge.

  Once more she laid a paw

  with its sharp little claws

  on Gus’s leg.

  “Lie down, Gus,”

  she commanded.

  Gus lay down.

  The humans stared at Patches.

  They stared at Gus.

  They stared at one another.

  Then they laughed.

  “I think,”

  the girl’s father said,

  “Patches has Gus

  under control.”

  And she did.

  The men,

  the women,

  the boy,

  the girl

  returned

  to the demands of their day,

  and Gus

  and Patches

  and the kittens

  stayed put,

  wrapped together

  in the warm silence

  of the kitchen.

  Several quiet moments passed

  before Gus opened his brown eyes

  and gazed

  into Patches’s golden ones.

  “Do you mind?”

  he whispered.

  “Is it all right

  that I’m here?”

  Patches’s purr

  rumbled to life.

  “How could I mind?”

  she asked,

  and for the second time

  she gave his great nose a lick.

  “I was searching,

  didn’t you know?

  And I was lucky enough

  to find you

  and your special place

  and your special heart.”

  Gus wagged his tail . . .

  very gently.

  And that,

  my dears,

  is a happy ending.

  At last!

  Oh . . . and the rest of the animals?

  The ones who had cared so much

  about mother

  and babies

  and Gus?

  They knew,

  in the way animals have

  of knowing,

  that Gus

  and Patches,

  Moonshadow

  and Little Thomas

  and Gustina,

  were home safe.

  So the grass,

  the trees,

  the sky,

  even a nearby attic

  rang with their joy.

  And just to add to the celebration,

  another

  golden

  leaf

  leaped from the tree

  in front of the house

  and

  fell,

  wafting

  this way

  and

  that!

  Marion Dane Bauer is the author of nearly one hundred books, ranging from board books and picture books to easy readers, both fiction and nonfiction, and middle-grade and young adult novels, including On My Honor, which won a Newbery Honor in 1987. She was one of the founders and the first faculty chair of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program. She lives with her partner in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Visit her online at mariondanebauer.com.

  Jennifer A. Bell is a greeting card and children’s book illustrator. Her previous books include Little Dog, Lost by Marion Dane Bauer and When a Dad Says “I Love You” and When a Grandpa Says “I Love You” by Douglas Wood. She lives with her husband and son. Visit her online at jenniferabell.com.

  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

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  Also by Marion Dane Bauer

  Little Dog, Lost

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Marion Dane Bauer

  Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Jennifer A. Bell

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  Jacket design by Chloë Foglia, based on a design by Lauren Rille

  Interior design by Hilary Zarycky

  The text for this book was set in Perpetua.

  The illustrations for this book were rendered in pencil and finished digitally.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bauer, Marion Dane.

  Little cat’s luck / Marion Dane Bauer ; illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell. — 1st edition.

  pages cm

  Summary: A little cat named Patches manages to push out a window screen and leave her house, chasing a falling leaf, and sets out to find a special place to call her own.

  ISBN 978-1-4814-2488-2 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4814-2490-5 (eBook) [1. Novels in verse. 2. Cats—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 4. Dogs—Fiction.

  5. Animals—Infancy—Fiction.] I. Bell, Jennifer (Jennifer A.), 1977– illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.5.B385Lg 2016

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014037635

  Luck