Don't Tell Anyone (6 page)

“She showed me how to use a bag to clean up after Dinkle,” Kylie said. “All you do is—”

“Hush, Kylie!” Mrs. Perk repeated. She thanked Mrs. Faber and then instructed Kylie to put her bag in the garbage can.

Megan took Dinkle inside and fed him. He gobbled all the food and then put one paw in the empty bowl, to keep it from sliding across the floor while he licked it.

“Smart dog,” Megan said. Dinkle wagged his tail.

After the dishes were done and Kylie had gone to bed, Mrs. Perk said, “We need to discuss those cats, Megan. I thought you weren't going to feed them anymore.”

“We never finished talking about it,” Megan said, “because you had to answer the phone. I planned to talk to you again as soon as I got home today, but then I saw the accident and rescued Dinkle and everything got so confusing.”

Megan's eyes filled with tears. “The most terrible thing has happened, Mom. All the cats are going to be killed unless I can save them.”

“Calm down, Megan. Those cats are not going to be killed.”

“Yes, they are!” Megan told her mother about the apartment building. “I had just copied the information from the
sign when I saw the cars crash. The building is going to start next week.”

“You won't be able to stop construction of the apartments,” Mrs. Perk said. “The landowner has every right to build there.”

“Maybe I can delay it until the cats are caught and taken somewhere else to live.”

Mrs. Perk sighed. “Before you were born,” she said, “when I dreamed of a daughter, I thought of tea parties and storybooks. Instead I got the police, a frightened dog, and a bunch of homeless cats in danger.”

“We can't just let all those cats get bulldozed,” Megan said.

Mrs. Perk smiled at Megan. “No,” she said, “we can't. It isn't their fault they have no home.”

Megan let out her breath in relief. “What do you think I should do?” she asked.

“Call one of the groups who help animals, such as PAWS or the Humane Society. See if they will get involved. There's even one group called Feline Friends that does nothing but help homeless cats; I read an article about them recently. An organization will have a lot more clout than you will if you try to rescue the cats alone.”

“That's a great idea.”

“I'm afraid you're in for a big disappointment,” Mrs. Perk said. “Even with help, it may be too late. Still, I'm glad my daughter is a compassionate person who wants to solve problems instead of just looking the other way.”

“Is it okay if I keep feeding the cats until they're rescued?
One of them is going to have kittens any time. She needs good food.”

“All right. Just be careful. I don't want any more scratches.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

It wasn't until she was in bed that Megan remembered the man in the blue truck, who had offered to call the building department. She had forgotten to tell Mom about him. Well, it didn't matter. Mom's suggestion to call the groups who help animals was a better idea anyway. They would know the right way to catch the cats, and where to take them.

Dinkle howled in the night. Megan got up twice to quiet him, but each time she left him alone, he immediately began howling again. The third time that Megan went to the kitchen, Mrs. Perk got up, too.

“He's lonesome,” Megan said.

“Oh, all right,” Mrs. Perk said. “Let him sleep on the floor beside your bed. None of us will get any rest if we leave him in the kitchen.”

Dinkle did not stay on the floor. He curled up next to Megan, and she petted him until he fell asleep. After that, the only sound from Dinkle was a gentle snoring.

The next morning, Megan dressed quickly and brought in the
Daily Tribune.
She imagined the headline:
YOUNG HEROINE RESCUES SCARED DOG
. She wondered if it was too early to call Chelsea.

She flipped through the front section of the paper, looking for a picture of herself and Dinkle. It was not there. She went back through the paper more slowly and found the headline:
POLICE SEEK DRIVER IN FATAL HIT-AND-RUN ACCIDENT
.

The article said that a twelve-year-old girl who was feeding some feral cats in a nearby field had witnessed the accident, but it did not mention Megan's name. It didn't give the dead woman's name, either. Megan wondered if the woman's family knew yet. The article had a description of the tan car and a number to call if anyone had information about it. The artist's sketch was there, but it didn't look much like the driver Megan remembered. She wished she could have given a better description.

Disappointed not to find a picture of herself and Dinkle, Megan laid the paper on the table. She had expected to be a celebrity at school today. She had planned to cut her picture out of the paper and show it to all her friends.

The journalist, Amy somebody, had said she was going to use Megan's picture. Why had she changed her mind?

Megan fed Dinkle and took him for a walk. Afterward, while she ate her breakfast, she looked in the telephone directory. She wrote down the numbers of three agencies that help animals.

She tried Feline Friends first but got a message saying that the office opened at nine o'clock. It was too early. She got similar messages when she tried PAWS and the Humane Society.

She didn't want to explain the situation on voice mail, so she left no messages. She would call after school.

She hoped one of the agencies would be willing to help the cats. If they weren't, Megan wasn't sure what she would do.

Shane shifted in his chair at the county building department, waiting for his number to be called. He needed to be sure that nothing would hold up the construction of the apartment complex.

“There has been no opposition to the project,” the clerk said, when it was finally Shane's turn. “Unless there's a last-minute problem, you can pick up the building permit tomorrow.”

A last-minute problem, Shane thought, such as a bunch of wild cats with no place to go.

Shane hurried out to his truck. There would be no last-minute problem, no reason for Brice to delay clearing the field. Shane would see to that.

On Friday morning, Shane would drive to Elmwood and cash the forged check and close out his savings account.

With luck, he would sell his truck by Friday, too. His
ad was already running in
Auto Trader
, and two people had called about it.

He would fly the Colby hot-air balloon and stage the crash-and-burn “accident” Friday night, then head for New Mexico.

Once the apartment project was started, the money Shane had stolen would not be missed until the end of June, when the bookkeeper figured the quarterly business taxes. Maybe not even then.

If the theft was discovered, Brice would never accuse Shane because by then Brice would think Shane was dead.

Everything was working out exactly as Shane had hoped. All he had to do was keep the kid quiet about the cats. That should be a piece of cake.

That afternoon, Megan hurried home from school. She planned to walk Dinkle, feed the cats, and then start telephoning the animal agencies.

As she approached her house, she heard her sister's song coming from the end of the block.

Good, Megan thought. Kylie's taking care of Dinkle. That will save me some time.

She took her homework out of her backpack and put the cat food and the jar of fresh water in. Then she wrote
a quick note to her mother, got on her bike, and took off before Kylie could see her and beg to go along.

The smashed van was gone. Megan did not go to the place where it had been. It gave her a strange feeling to know that yesterday at this time, a woman had died there. Although she had never met the woman, Megan felt sad.

She walked quietly toward the tree where she had left the dish of cat food yesterday. She looked from side to side as she walked, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mommacat.

At the base of the tree, Megan saw a package the size of a shoe box, wrapped in plain brown paper. Someone had written on the paper with a red marker:
CAT FOOD
.

That's odd, Megan thought. Had someone seen her feeding the cats and wanted to help? But why do it this way? Why not just put the cat food in the dish?

She picked up the package; it was too light to be full of cat food. She removed the wrapping paper and opened the box. Inside was a sheet of white paper, with a message written in the same red marker.

There was a P.S. at the bottom of the page. It said:
Do not show
anyone
this note.

Megan read the message a second time.
If you want the cats to live, don't tell anyone.

Don't tell anyone what? About the accident?

She put the note in her pocket, then stuffed the box and the wrapping paper in her backpack.

She poured fresh water in the cats' bowl and filled the pie plate with cat food.

She took out the paper and read the message again.

The note must be from the driver of the tan car, Megan thought. He thinks I can identify him and wants to scare me so I won't do it. He knows from the newspaper article that I come here to feed the cats, so he knew where to leave his message.

She had already told the police everything she remembered about the driver. It was too late for anyone to warn her not to tell. Of course, the driver didn't know that.

Her hands trembled as she folded the note and put it in her pocket. The driver must be desperate to write such a threatening note. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe the crash had not been an accident.

A new idea exploded in Megan's mind. If the crash was on purpose, she thought, then I am the only witness to a murder! Now the murderer is threatening to kill all the cats if I tell the police about him, or about this note.

Megan swallowed hard. She remembered that Officer Rupp had told her not to talk about what she had seen.

She wondered if the police had feared some sort of threat. Maybe that was why her picture wasn't in the paper. Maybe the police had told the newspaper not to use Megan's name because she was the only one who had seen the tan car, and they didn't want the driver to know who she was.

The driver had found her anyway, even without knowing her name.

Megan debated what to do. Should she call Officer Rupp and tell him about the note?

How would the person who left the note know whether Megan told anyone about it or not? Was someone watching her?

Megan looked quickly around. Two cars headed up the freeway on-ramp; neither was tan. There was no car parked near the field, and no one was walking nearby.

“Mew.” The soft sound broke in to Megan's thoughts. “Mew, mew.” It came from the drainpipe.

Megan knelt in the grass and looked inside the drainpipe. She couldn't tell for sure how many kittens there were, but several tiny bodies squirmed and mewed next to Mommacat. They were so small, they looked more like mice than kittens.

Megan longed to pick up one of the kittens, but she knew better than to reach inside the drainpipe. Mommacat would surely try to protect her babies. The scratch on Megan's hand had finally begun to heal, and she didn't want another one.

Megan brought the pan of food and the bowl of water closer, leaving them just outside the drainpipe.

The kittens helped Megan decide what to do about the note. Taking it to the police would not help the woman who had died. Even if Megan could identify the driver of the tan car, which she could not, it wouldn't bring back Dinkle's owner.

But it was not too late to help the cats. These new little
kittens could be caught and tamed. They could be adopted by people who would love them and care for them. They wouldn't have to grow up hungry and fearful and wild, as Mommacat and the others had.