Lending a Paw(64)

An odd noise came from inside the bookmobile, but I ignored it in favor of holding out my hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m Minnie and this is Thessie. You’re Audry?”

“Audry Brant. I help Gayle a couple days a week.” She smiled. “Helping out until I have to move in here myself. Thessie, could you be a big help and take those into the dining room? In through the double doors, then straight on until morning. The readers are ready and waiting. Well, those who aren’t waiting for your cat.”

The odd noise grew odder. I started to turn to look, but Audry laid a hand on my arm.

“Minnie, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” I prepared myself for the standard bookmobile inquiries. What kind of gas mileage does it get? (Awful.) Did you have to get a commercial driver’s license to drive it? (No, but I did take a truck driver’s course.) How do you plan the route? (With difficulty.)

“I hear,” she said, “that you’re—”

She stopped because this time the odd noise was too loud to ignore. Eddie was making enough noise scratching at the window and yowling that people in the next county could have heard.

“Excuse me,” I said to Audry, and hurried into the bookmobile. By the time I’d climbed up the steps, Eddie was perched on the headrest of the passenger’s seat, moving his head around to peer out the side window at who knew what.

“What is the matter with you?”

All cats are masters of the evil eye, but the frozen glare Eddie sent me was in a class by itself. I shook off the foot-thick ice with which he’d tried to cover me. “Will you cut it out? There are a bunch of nice elderly people inside. For some bizarre reason they want to see you, but I can’t take you in if you don’t stop acting like you have ants in your pants.”

He jumped down to the seat and banged his head against the console.

Bonk! Bonk!

“Eddie!” I picked him up. “What is with you?”

He pulled back to look me in the eye. “Mrr!”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know what that means. I don’t talk cat.”

“MRR!!”

I sighed and stroked his fur. “You know, sometimes I really think you’re trying to tell me something and I’m just too stupid to . . . Oh, sure, now you start purring, you silly cat.” I kissed the top of his head. “Are you ready to make some new friends?”

He snuggled into my arms. “Mrr,” he said.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Mrr.”

• • •

The rest of the day went smoothly enough. Polly and a number of the other residents got to pet the kitty, Thessie picked cat hair off her clothes and wondered out loud if it could be spun and knitted, and Brynn—who’d bounded aboard the bookmobile at the next stop wearing a headband with fuzzy cat ears attached—got her Eddie fix while her mother watched with moist eyes. The little girl’s blood count numbers were all where they should be, I was told, and having a regular visit from Eddie was doing wonders for keeping her cheerful.

I drove us back to Chilson. “Eddie’s getting to be more of a draw than the books.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Thessie put another collection of Eddie hair into the plastic bag that had formerly housed her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Did you see the stacks of books those kids checked out?”

I was thinking about that when I took an evening walk. Could we manage to secretly market Eddie as an attraction for the bookmobile? Eddie as an inducement to reading. The mind boggled. My brain was whirring away as I walked through downtown, which was probably why I didn’t see that I was on track for a collision until I ran smack into someone.

“Oh! Sorry about—” I shook myself out of boggle mode and looked up at the woman I’d almost run over. “Aunt Frances! I didn’t see you.” I started to laugh at myself, but then remembered her abrupt departure on Saturday morning. The phone messages I’d left that she hadn’t returned.

The pause hanging between us grew bigger and fatter and wider. “How are you?” I finally asked.

“Fine,” she said.

The pause, which had shrunk slightly, started ballooning again. I felt it grow larger and larger, wondered if it would pop or just keep expanding forever.

A cane tap-tapped along the sidewalk. “Miz Pixley,” Lloyd Goodwin said, nodding. “Miz Minnie. How are you two lovely ladies this lovely summer evening?”

“Fine,” we chorused. And for some reason, that made us both start laughing. The balloon shrank to nothing and suddenly everything was okay.

“Come on,” Aunt Frances said, taking my arm. “I need to visit someone.”