Ava and Taco Cat Read online

  I said, “You’re my sister, not my boss!” She looked a little mad and a little sad, and that made me feel a little bad (especially since she had illustrated my moon haiku), so I scribbled a quick K rhyme:

  K is for kissing gourami.

  The kissing gourami do just as they please.

  They kiss all day and don’t care who sees.

  When I handed it to Pip, she didn’t say anything, but I swear, she blushed a little.

  After dinner, I was struggling with my math homework and getting very distracted by Taco. He’d found a fly in the living room and was chasing it all around. It was as if he’d completely forgotten Dad and I were there. Dad and I gave each other a smile because Taco was finally making himself at home. But then Taco caught the fly with both paws, and we exchanged a frown because, well, it was disgusting that Taco ate a fly up as if it were a Raisinet!

  Oh, that reminds me: Dad told me a math joke.

  Question: What did the math teacher say when he was offered cake?

  Answer: “I prefer pi.”

  Get it? I-P-R-E-F-E-R-P-I.

  (H-O-H-O-H-O-H)

  Pi, according to Maybelle, is a special specific number that starts with 3.1415 and never stops. Maybelle’s family actually celebrates Pi Day each March 14. They make pie!

  Anyway, I told Dad a math joke too.

  Question: Why should you never argue with a ninety-degree angle?

  Answer: Because it’s always right.

  Maybelle was the one who told me that joke.

  Is she telling jokes to Zara now?

  Sometimes I wish I had a remote control for my brain so I could change the channel and not think about things I don’t want to think about. Is that one reason Pip likes books so much? Because she can just enter another universe and stay there as long as she wants?

  Ava, Who Likes Pie More Than Pi (and Sometimes Wants to Cry)

  1/6

  bedtime

  Dear Diary,

  Taco let me pet him! I was on the sofa, and he came and sat on the armrest under the lamp. I started petting him gently, and he didn’t make a run for it. He stayed there—for at least thirty seconds.

  I was so happy, I felt like purring!

  Taco still hasn’t purred, but Mom said he is “learning to trust us.”

  At dinner, which was drumsticks, Dad said that today Taco jumped onto his desk, stepped on his keyboard, and typed some pretend words.

  I said, “Maybe Taco wants to be a writer too!”

  Pip said, “He could go by T. C. Wren. And his books could be shelved next to E. B. White’s.”

  I said, “I wonder what the E in E. B. White stands for.”

  Dad said, “Elwyn.”

  Pip and I looked at each other, stupefied (which is a bonus spelling word that means shocked, not stupid). We said, “Elwyn?!” and then, “Jinx!” and then spent the rest of dinner trying to think of other kids’ book authors who use the initials of their first names. I came up with J. K. Rowling. Mom and Dad and Pip came up with:

  • J. M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan

  • A. A. Milne, who wrote Winnie-the-Pooh

  • J. R. R. Tolkien, who wrote The Hobbit

  • P. L. Travers, who wrote Mary Poppins

  • C. S. Lewis, who wrote The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

  • E. L. Konigsburg, who wrote From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

  • S. E. Hinton, who wrote The Outsiders

  Believe it or not, Pip has read all those books!

  When authors use initials instead of names, readers don’t know if a woman or a man wrote the book. But that shouldn’t matter anyway, as long as the book is good.

  I wonder if I really will be able to write kids’ books someday. I hope so!

  A. E. Wren

  P.S. Here are the first names, in order, of all those authors: Joanne, James, Alan, John, Pamela, Clive, Elaine, and Susan. (No offense to E. B. White, but Elwyn is the weirdest name in the bunch.)

  P.P.S. Zara is a weird name too.

  1/7

  after school

  Dear Diary,

  Today was a bad day.

  At lunch, I sat with Maybelle, and naturally Zara came rushing over with her red tray and grilled cheese. Maybelle asked about Taco, and Zara said, “I thought its name was Paco.” (She said “it” not “he,” and “Paco” not “Taco.” “His name is Taco Cat,” I said and explained that palindromes, like T-A-C-O-C-A-T, are spelled the same backward and forward. I also said that I’d gotten to pet him for almost a minute. Well, I could feel Zara looking at me as if I had a gnat on my nose, and I realized how lame that sounded—like my cat is an antisocial loser. And I’d even exaggerated!

  Finally I decided to just go ahead and admit that it’s hard because I’d wanted a cat and now that I have one, it’s not like we hang out.

  Zara said, “In my old school, I’d wanted a boyfriend, and when I got one, we didn’t hang out either.”

  Maybelle laughed, but I didn’t see what that had to do with anything.

  Sometimes Zara says zany things. Maybe that was her way of saying boys notice her. Which they do. Because she’s new. And prettyish. And a little flirty.

  When boys talk to her, she sometimes lights up and laughs. They sometimes do too! (Even Chuck!)

  I don’t understand flirting. How to do it or why you’d want to.

  Question: Am I a tomboy with a tomcat?

  “Your mom’s a vet, right?” Zara asked.

  “She manages the practice of a vet named Dr. Gross,” I answered. “She does bookkeeping and deals with clients.” Zara didn’t say anything, and it was strange, feeling as if I had to defend my mom. “Sometimes she comes home with sad stories,” I said and started babbling. “Like, about dogs who eat rocks or socks. Or lunatic bunnies who don’t like being cooped up. Last month, a lady dropped her dog off for a shot and she didn’t come back to pick him up! She abandoned him!”

  I expected Zara to ask what happened because that’s what people do when I tell pet stories. But Zara said, “Oh, so she’s not actually a vet.”

  That bugged me, and when Zara switched from pets back to boys, things got worse. She said Pip and Ben make a “cute couple” and asked if they’d kissed. Pip hadn’t liked when I’d asked that, and I knew she’d hate that other people were talking about them.

  Zara even asked who I like. I said I didn’t have a crush (because I don’t) but added that I have friends who are guys (because I do). To give an example, I added, “Like Chuck.” I might have smiled a tiny bit because I was remembering three dumb jokes he’d recently told me:

  Question: How do you make a hot dog stand?

  Answer: Take away his chair.

  Question: What’s brown and sticky?

  Answer: A stick.

  Question: What did the dog on the roof say?

  Answer: “Roof!”

  Well, Zara said, “I can find out if he likes you.”

  “Of course he likes me,” I said. Then I added, “But not that way!” Suddenly Zara was standing up, and I realized that she was going to talk to Chuck—and ruin everything! “Wait, no, no, don’t ask him!” I blurted. “He and I are friends, just friends, and that’s all we want to be!”

  I looked at Maybelle for backup, but she was talking to Emily Jenkins, who had just put down her tray.

  “Ava, relax,” Zara said, “I’m just trying to help.”

  I sat there, frozen, while Zara bounded over to Chuck. I wanted to go after her, but it was like I was stuck to my chair. And the thing is, I wasn’t even 100 percent sure if Zara was butting into my life to cause trouble, or if she was, as she put it, “trying to help.” Does she meddle on purpose, or does she just not think about things? (Do I think too much about things?)

  When Zara reached Ch
uck, he looked surprised. He was sitting with Aidan, Jamal, and Ethan (who are all good at sports), and she leaned in and started talking to him. Suddenly he turned and stared at me, wide-eyed. I wanted to disappear! Moments later, she bounded back. “He says he has to think about it,” she reported and smiled as if she’d done me a favor!

  Next Zara lowered her voice and asked, “Do either of you have a pad?”

  I was about to say, “No!” but Maybelle said, “Let me check.” And then (you won’t believe this!) Maybelle dug into her backpack and unzipped a cosmetic case and handed Zara what I guessed was a little wrapped-up pad.

  “Thanks,” Zara said. “I’ll be right back.”

  When she was gone, I said to Maybelle, “You got your period?!” She said no but that she and her mom had had a big talk, and her mom said that Maybelle might want to start carrying pads in case she or a friend ever needed them. Which I guess Zara did. (!!!)

  “Whoa.” I couldn’t imagine ever having a conversation with my mom about that stuff—though maybe someday Pip will explain it all to me. Right now, whenever Mom and Pip talk about growing up, I just walk away.

  I was also surprised Maybelle hadn’t told me her mom had given her pads. We usually tell each other everything—even though some things take longer to come out than others.

  “You and Zara are becoming pretty good friends,” I mumbled because I couldn’t bring myself to say, “Don’t let her come between us!” or “I liked things the way they were!” or “You and I were friends first!” or “Why are you so nice to someone who keeps minding everybody else’s business?”

  Maybelle shrugged, and Zara came back, and we headed toward class. I had to stop at my locker to get the rolled-up poster, and instead of waiting, they kept going, which made me feel even worse than before. I watched them walk away, and they were so close to each other that the sides of their backpacks bumped together.

  Seconds later, I walked in and handed Mrs. Lemons the poster. I’d written the haiku in big, neat letters, and Pip had made the trees look like hands and the moon look like a shimmering golden ball.

  Mrs. Lemons said she wanted to share my haiku with Mr. Ramirez and Mrs. White, the school librarian and the town librarian. I always think of Mrs. White as Mrs. (Bright) White, since she was Miss Bright before she married Mr. White. Mr. Ramirez, by the way, just got engaged to his boyfriend who teaches history at a private school. When he told us, everyone said, “Invite us to the wedding!!!” and he said he wished he could but it was going to be just family.

  Anyway, Mrs. Lemons said that Mr. Ramirez and Mrs. (Bright) White had arranged for our fifth-grade classes to have a two-day writing workshop. She said that on January 26 and 29, Jerry Valentino, the children’s author who had judged the library contest, was going to come with “writing tips and hands-on exercises.”

  I said, “Cool,” even though that was the library contest that had gotten me into so much trouble.

  Meanwhile, I had to find a seat. I looked around, but Maybelle and Zara were sitting together in front of Riley and the three Emilys, and there were only two empty seats left. One was next to Chuck. Usually that would be fine, but he glanced at me then quickly looked away, which he never does. So I decided to sit by myself in the back.

  I felt like I was in Siberia (wherever that is).

  For a second, I wished we were all still in fourth grade, when we had assigned seats and rotating jobs like snack helper and line leader, and our teachers walked us everywhere, and we were the oldest in the school, and math wasn’t hard, and friendships weren’t fragile, and nobody ever tried to elbow her way into my life without an invitation.

  Ava, All Alone

  P.S. I looked up Siberia. It’s a freezing cold place on top of Russia. (Well, in northern Russia.)

  1/7

  after dinner

  Dear Diary,

  Pip and I just finished “L is for lionfish.” Lionfish are beautiful but poisonous.

  Zara is pretty and poisonous.

  I was going to confront call Maybelle, but I thought, “What if she’s with Zara?” so I didn’t. (I changed “confront” to “call” because “confront” sounds unfriendly, and Maybelle is my friend.)

  Mom brought home cat treats, a cat brush, and yellow tulips. Problem: When no one was looking, Taco nibbled at the tops of the tulips, so now all the petals have tiny bite marks.

  (I thought it was cute, but Mom didn’t.)

  Taco let me brush him with the new brush and Mom kept me company and said that it’s not easy training cats.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Most dogs can be bribed, but most cats can’t,” she said. “Can you picture a cat shaking or rolling over or playing dead?”

  “I guess not,” I admitted, but then told her the Aesop fable “The Thief and the Housedog,” which goes something like this:

  In the middle of the night, a thief came to break into a house. The housedog started barking and barking, so the thief tossed him two big, juicy steaks. But the dog was no fool. He said, “You can’t bribe me! You’re not my master and this is not my dinnertime. In fact, I’m going to bark louder than ever.”

  Mom smiled. “What’s the moral?”

  “If someone tries to bribe you, beware,” I said.

  Mom said that I could think of cat treats and dog biscuits as “rewards” and “incentives” and ways to “show love” and “encourage behavior modification”—and not just “bribes,” since real bribes are bad and illegal. She also said that Dr. Gross’s technicians often give pets treats after they squirt goo in their eyes or shove pills in their mouths or do procedures that are no fun.

  It was nice talking to Mom, and inspiring too. In fact, I could feel myself coming up with a plan.

  At dinner, we talked more about cat treats. Pip said she’d heard about a cat that got trained to use a toilet bowl instead of a litter box. Mom said toilet-training cats is challenging. Dad said potty-training us wasn’t “a piece of cake” either. I said, “Can we change the subject?”

  Dad laughed and taught us all a new word: ailurophobia. It means “fear of cats.”

  Ava, Who is Not Ailurophobic

  1/8

  before school

  Dear Diary,

  Last night right before bed, I put my new plan into action. Even though cats are not easy to train, I thought Taco might be easy to tempt. I decided to try to lure him into my room using treats as bait. I was tired of Taco playing hard-to-get!

  Remember how Dad used our paper mice to make a beeline—a mouse line!—from my bedroom to his office? Well, after everyone had gone to bed, I opened the new bag of treats, spilled some into my hand, and placed them one by one in a line from the top of our stairs to the foot of my bed.

  After I turned out my light, I tried to stay awake to see if Taco would come into my room. I even made believe I was on a safari in Africa. I pretended my bed was a jeep, and it was a moonlit night, and I was staying up late to spy a lion or leopard (or maybe a pride of lions or leap of leopards).

  I kept my eyes peeled for as long as I could…but I must have fallen asleep.

  I just woke up and guess what? Taco Cat is not in my room, and neither is the trail of treats! When no one was looking, he must have snuck in and eaten them all up, one by one!

  Believe it or not, I consider this progress.

  Ava the Astute

  P.S. It’s cool that cats can see in the dark—well, unless it’s totally pitch black.

  1/8

  Friday night

  Dear Diary,

  The bonus words on today’s spelling test were catastrophe and cataclysmic. Both start with cat and mean when something truly terrible happens.

  Chuck used to tease me about all my 100s on spelling tests, but we haven’t talked to each other since Zara talked to him about liking me. I know that’s not a cataclysmic catas
trophe, but it feels like one!

  I miss our little looks. Like, whenever something funny happened, we used to look at each other. Today, when Riley said something about her horse, I wanted to sneak a peek at Chuck, but I knew I might feel dumb if he saw me looking at him. And what if he didn’t see me looking because he wasn’t looking back? That might feel even worse!

  It didn’t help that Maybelle and Zara were both wearing their string necklaces today and also matching sky-blue nail polish. I tried not to care, but I couldn’t help but care, especially when I heard them giggle together. I started feeling sorry for myself, and then I started getting mad at myself for feeling sorry for myself.

  It is not easy being eleven!

  After school, I asked Maybelle if she wanted to sleep over. She said she had “plans.” I mumbled, “Okay,” but felt as if I’d swallowed an ice chip. I mean, if she had mathletes or a dentist appointment, she would have just said so. We stood there for an awkward moment and it was as if Zara were standing right between us.

  I said “Bye” and walked home with Pip, and she made me work on Alphabet Fish. M was supposed to be for “minnow,” but Pip wanted to change it to “mudskipper” because mudskippers have eyes that stick out on the top of their heads, like aliens, and she said they’d be more fun to draw. I said, “Whatever,” because I didn’t care whether M was for minnow, mudskipper, or…Moby Dick.

  After a few minutes, I handed her a mudskipper rhyme and also:

  N is for nurse shark.

  If you were sick and this shark called nurse

  Took care of you…you might get worse!

  Confession: I was thinking of Zara when I wrote that. If Zara had never moved to Misty Oaks, she would never have moved in on my friendships with Maybelle and Chuck!

  Is Taco my new friend? Maybe. But he could be a lot friendlier!

  Ava, Alienated (That’s how it can feel when your friends aren’t being friendly.)

  1/8

  10:01 p.m.