Bono

Lydia didn’t answer, but her cheeks were flushed. A cat’s tail is a nursery of nerve endings. It contains up to twenty-three bones, which is impressive considering there are only seven in a giraffe’s neck. Pulling a tail, even to rescue its owner, almost certainly qualified as animal cruelty. On the other hand, it might save his life.

We heard a shifting sound from inside the chimney. It was followed by another plume of plaster billowing out of the fireplace. My hopes lifted. Maybe Bono had come to his senses and was trying to turn around and come back down.

To my dismay, the tail became shorter. We stood helpless as the cat clawed farther up the cavity until all we could see was the scruffy ball at the end of his tail.

It was incredible he’d managed to squeeze into such a narrow, vertical tunnel. But, to the regret of millions of mice, cats have famously “floating shoulders” that enable them to shimmy into any space wide enough to fit their whiskers.

Silence. It seemed Bono had encountered a blockage in the chimney and couldn’t move farther up, or for that matter, down. He was stuck. I could almost hear his brain whirring up there. Lydia was on the brink of tears again.

“He’ll be all right,” I assured her. “He’s a street cat.”

One good thing about a feline with an enigmatic past is you can invent any kind of history for him.

Crouched at the entrance to the chimney, I bristled with panic. These antics could bring down the entire building. If not, Bono was likely to endure a horrible end up there, squeezed between bricks and starving to death. We’d lie in bed at night listening to his pitiful meows . . . until they stopped.

There was a scrabbling sound. A fresh cascade of debris landed on my boots. I stepped back. The stones were getting larger. As a piece of broken brick crashed on the floor, the end of Bono’s tail moved sideways and then disappeared.

A nanosecond later in a hailstorm of rubble, a small animal tumbled down into the room. White with dust, eyes bulging and teeth bared, it resembled a mythical creature from an Indonesian carving. As it torpedoed though my legs, I grabbed it. Holding it in a wrestling grip, I carried it to the Bunker and shut it in.

Lydia swept the rubble and stuffed the chimney with plastic bags, while I opened a can of cat food. We had no chance of dispensing that crazed animal’s medication in the way Jon had demonstrated. I concealed a white tablet in the mush and tiptoed to the Bunker door. Not a sound came from inside. In a single movement, I wedged the door open, shoved the bowl into the darkness, and shut it.

All three of us needed a time out.

Chapter Eleven

SHOPPING WITH MOTHER

Inside every pussycat a tiger lurks.

Jon’s warning that Bono’s “transition phase” could be challenging was the understatement of the year. The cat had nearly demolished our building. As we stepped outside onto the street, my hands were still shaking. I quietly counted the hours until the weekend, the soonest Jon had suggested Bono’s “holiday” with us could end. I’d be needing a health retreat by then.

After months of wintry sleep, the city was shaking itself awake to spring. We stopped to admire boxes of tulips, their pink and yellow lips pouting at the sky.

Women unbuttoned their coats to flaunt brightly colored blouses. Even the handbag sellers on our corner were smiling. Though we’d barely had time to explore our neighborhood, we soon realized it was a microcosm of everything we needed.

“Oh look!” I cried. “A stationery shop.”

On the corner across from the handbag sellers, I could make out a window display of greetings cards for every imaginable life event.

“People email these days,” Lydia said, trailing after me as I bustled into the store.

“I know, but I still think there’s nothing like a carefully chosen card with a handwritten message.”

Oh dear. I was lecturing. We paused in the Sympathy section to examine an impressive range of cards for people who had lost pets. Not so long ago, a cat was just a cat. When it died, you were expected to get over it in 20 minutes. Now even Hallmark was acknowledging the importance of pets in people’s lives.

Toward the back of the store, an entire corner was dedicated to Frozen. Lydia rolled her eyes while I dived into a mountain of Elsa and Ana trinkets.

“The girls will love these!” I said, gathering up bunches of key rings and pencils.

“Are you sure the Frozen characters are good role models?” she asked.

I had no idea. All I could think of was Annie and Stella back home belting out “Let It Go!” until people begged for mercy.