The Aldens had their own alarm clock to wake them up every day. With the first ray of light, Watch stood by Jessie’s bed and pushed her with his nose. Then he visited Henry and Violet and did the same thing.
Benny needed something different to wake up. Watch tugged at the blankets until Benny opened his eyes.
“It’s still dark out,” Benny told the dog. He pulled the covers over his head.
Watch pulled them down again.
“Okay, boy, okay. I’ll get up. But that doesn’t mean I’ll wake up.”
Benny was wrong. Suddenly he remembered what was special about today. Wide awake now, he ran downstairs and rushed out to the porch. Too late. Violet, Jessie, and Henry were already there, feeding Patches bits of scrambled eggs.
“Is that my breakfast?” Benny cried.
Henry laughed. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty left in the kitchen.”
“Boy, for such a small cat, she sure eats a lot,” Benny told the housekeeper, Mrs. McGregor, when he got to the kitchen.
Mrs. McGregor couldn’t help laughing. “And for such a small boy, you sure eat a lot!”
Benny helped himself to a heap of scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, and two pieces of toast with peanut butter. He had to make a second trip back to the kitchen to fill his pink cup with fresh-squeezed orange juice.
After breakfast, Henry and Benny helped Mrs. McGregor clean up. “There’s not even a crumb left on your plate to scrape into the garbage, Benny!” Henry said. “Here’s a dishtowel so you can dry these plates. I’m going to see how Jessie and Violet are doing on the cat carrier they’re making in the garage. We want to bring the cat along when we help Jessie with her paper route. Maybe someone along the way will know who her owner is.”
Benny was having a great time teasing Patches with a thread hanging from the dishtowel. “I wish she could belong to us,” he said.
“She belongs to us for now, at least until we find her owner,” Henry said. “I’m going out to the garage. See you in a few minutes.”
Thanks to fourteen-year-old Henry’s part-time summer job at Seed’s Hardware Store, the Aldens now had a well-equipped workshop in their grandfather’s garage. Henry had stacked up scrap lumber, jars of shiny nails and tacks, and the excellent tools Mr. Seed had lent him. The Aldens loved to fix things that were broken and build whatever they needed.
Today they needed a cat carrier, and Jessie was busy making one when Henry came into the garage. “The extra screening you brought back from the hardware store fits just right over this wooden fruit-box carrier, Henry,” Jessie told her brother.
“Good job, Jessie,” Henry said when he saw the cat carrier. “Now, what’re you up to, Violet?”
Violet was bent over some drawings at the end of the workbench. She held up a handful of FOUND CAT posters she had made. “Do you think anyone will recognize Patches?” she asked.
“I don’t think there’s another cat in Greenfield with a triangle on her nose like this one,” Henry answered.
Benny, too, had something to add when he came out to the garage. “Here’s my blanket,”he said. He folded the blanket so it fit into the carrier. “She’s all set.”
Henry looked around the garage, then out in the backyard. “Now all we need is the cat,” he said.
That was the hard part. Patches had just discovered Grandfather Alden’s vegetable garden. She was running in and out of the poles he had set up to grow his pea vines.
Jessie went into the house and came out again. “Here’s a spoonful of Mrs. McGregor’s tuna fish. Maybe Patches will come over to eat it, and we can catch her that way.”
Benny laughed. “No one can turn down Mrs. McGregor’s good tuna fish, especially a cat.”
When Patches smelled the fish, she ran to Jessie. She quickly licked the spoon, then cleaned her face and paws carefully. This gave Jessie a chance to get the cat into the carrier.
“It’s a great box, Jessie, but I don’t think she much likes it,” Henry told his sister.
Patches wasn’t just meowing now. She was howling mad.
In between the howls, the Aldens heard the thud of Jessie’s newspapers hitting the curb. “My papers are here,” Jessie said. “Let’s fold them up quickly so we have plenty of time to talk to people along the way.”
When all the papers were folded, everyone set out to deliver them just the way Jessie did. Even Benny was careful to place each newspaper on the porch mat and not just toss it across the yard.
“No one’s up this early on our street,” Henry said when he came back for another armload of papers. “I’ll do the next street. Maybe more people will be out. I’ll ask them about the cat.”
But there was no one to ask. People in Greenfield were still asleep. The Aldens didn’t see anyone until they reached Acorn Street.
“There’s Mr. Clover delivering milk and eggs,” Benny said. “Mr. Clover! Mr. Clover! Do you know this cat?”
Mr. Clover put down his milk crate and looked into the cat carrier. Patches sniffed at Mr. Clover’s hand.
“I sure do,” Mr. Clover said. “Belongs to one of my customers, Miss Newcombe, over on Fox Den Road. How did you folks happen to get her?”
The Aldens all talked at once.
“Whoa.” Mr. Clover smiled. “How about you, Benny? You’re always full of good stories.”
Benny took a deep breath and told Mr. Clover all about how Patches had showed up thumping at the window the night before.
Everyone expected Mr. Clover to smile when Benny got to the part about reading the note all by himself. But Mr. Clover wasn’t smiling at all.
“You say the note wasn’t signed?” He looked upset. “That’s pretty odd, I must say. Up until I ran into you, I thought Miss Newcombe had gone on a trip and forgotten to cancel her weekly order for milk and eggs. Went there today, and the gate was locked up tight. Got a box of stuff to bring back to the dairy,” he said. He pointed into his truck.
“Why don’t you head over to Miss Newcombe’s while I finish my route? She lives at 264 Fox Den Road. Maybe she’s there by now. Tell her I’ll make another run by at the end of my route if she’ll just give me a call. I like to check on my older customers when I don’t see them around. Miss Newcombe is old and has no family left, so I keep an eye on her when I can. She’s very private, though, so I try not to meddle.”
After Mr. Clover’s bright blue truck pulled away, the Aldens finished the rest of the route quickly. Even Jessie tossed the last few papers up to the porches instead of delivering them by hand. Everyone wanted to get to Fox Den Road as soon as they could.
“What Mr. Clover said doesn’t make sense,” Henry said when he delivered the last of the newspapers. “Miss Newcombe might have left town too quickly to cancel her order with Mr. Clover. But why did she take the time to write a note and deliver her cat to our house?”
Jessie was puzzled. “And why didn’t she sign the note?”
“Oh, where, oh, where is your owner, little cat?” Violet asked.
Patches whined in answer to Violet’s question.
|