The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook (4 page)

“No,” I say firmly. The Villain shrugs. He and his braid roar off on that motorcycle, and Freddy and I head to O'Leary's.

hen we walk into O'Leary's Pizzeria, Fred asks everyone about the Cats-Have-Nine-Lives Theory. He asks Manic Moe the dough-maker and dough-tosser, Salvatore the dishwasher, and Vicki the server. He asks most of the Saturday lunch crowd, whose names I don't know. He also asks My Secret Love, hunched over his cell phone, eating a double slice. (
His
name I know, but I'm not saying.) And because Fred is little and cute, they don't think he's crazy when he asks his question. They all give the right answer, too: nine.

Except for Mario and Maria, the owners. By the way, nobody knows who O'Leary was, but Mario and Maria have no plans to change the sign. Mario was born in Italy
and Maria was born in Mexico. People are curious about Irish pizza, and then they come in and eat the best Italian or Mexican pizza of their lives. Not to mention the famous fried zucchini. The Mexican-style pizza comes with an optional topping of crazy-hot chilis—“Only for the brave of heart and stomach,” according to a sign on the wall.

“I say seven,” says Mario. “Seven lives.”

And I say, “What do you mean, seven?” I toss my head in Fred's direction and wiggle my nose nine times to get Mario to play along.

But Mario doesn't notice. “Seven. We even have a saying in Italy.
I gatti hanno sette vite.
Cats have seven lives. RIGHT, MARIA?” Mario shouts to his wife, who is in the back room.

“WHAT?” she shouts back.

“CATS HAVE SEVEN LIVES!”

Maria pokes her head out, sees me and Fred, and waves. “That's what they say in Italy,” she says. “In Mexico, I've heard it's eight and a half.”

“Well,” I say, “Zook lives in the United States. Here, cats have nine.”

Mario serves us one Daily Slice each, which is always the same, served every day: three-cheese with parsley flecks and fried zook. Fred picks off the parsley because it's green.
“What have you got against green?” we always ask. Fred never knows. You would think brown food or fuchsia food or blue food would be a no-no if the color of food was important to you. Things people like and don't like don't always make sense—ever notice? Vicki brings us some extra zucchini. Of course zucchini is also green, but these are covered in batter, then fried. Fred doesn't eat much of his pizza, but he does eat the zucchini because covered-up green is OK, according to him.

We get free food and are treated well at O'Leary's Pizzeria because Fred and I, we're employees of this establishment. Our job is dressing up in a cardboard triangle of pizza and a little pointed hat (me) and a brown cardboard zucchini circle (Fred). Fred might look like an olive if you didn't know about O'Leary's famous fried zucchini, but that doesn't really matter. Both of our cardboards say O'L
EARY'S
P
IZZERIA
on them. We're supposed to dance around to attract business right outside the door so the other O'Leary's employees can see us.

It's a good feeling to walk in and hear Mario shout, “Hey, serve these kids anything they want! Anything at all! They are employees of this establishment!”

Of course, there's not much you can choose from except
pizza and fried zook, but who cares? We love our job. Mario and Maria used to serve us teeny cups of espresso with lots of milk and sugar in it, but my mother put a stop to that. They also used to pay us two dollars each per week, but my mother put a stop to that, too. She said Mario and Maria didn't need to pay us for doing something that was fun. Does that make sense? Lots of people get paid for doing something fun! Circus workers and astronauts, for instance. I even offered to contribute most of it to household expenses, because my mom has a furlough from her job at Sears, which means her hours were cut back.

“We're not in dire straits yet,” my mother said. “Payment with pizza is good enough.”

When we finish our pizza, we start working. Maria hands us a boom box and some water bottles. Then out the door we go.

We turn up the music real loud. Today Maria and Mario have chosen the Rolling Stones for their future customers' listening pleasure.

Then Freddy and I dance. Well, I dance. Fred jumps around a lot and kicks his little legs out in front of him.

“Don't forget to point,” I remind him, because that's the
real reason for our job. We are supposed to point up at the big O'Leary's Pizzeria sign on top of the restaurant to remind people that a slice would really hit the spot right about now.

It's hard to remember to point when you're dancing, but we are doing our best.

People wave at us from cars and honk their horns. We wave back. A young man goes into O'Leary's, probably because of Freddy and me. And all of a sudden I realize I haven't thought about Zook in a while. It's hard to be worried and sad when you're dancing and doing a favor for good friends.

My Secret Love comes out. I call his name. He pulls the earplugs from his ears and raises his eyebrows.

“IT'S ME! OONA!” I shout above the music of the boom box. I want to really make sure he remembers my name. I take off my little pointed hat in case he doesn't recognize me.

“Oh, hi,” he says. “I'm not used to talking to a slice of pizza, but, hey, why not?”

Why not! That is SO wise. So many things would be possible in this world if you thought
Why not?
all day long.

“NICE DAY, HUH?” I shout. I am hoping he'll walk over and continue our conversation.

“Sure is. Have a good one!” he says, and keeps on walking.
Maybe “Nice day” isn't the greatest conversation starter because it can lead to “Have a good one,” which is pretty much a conversation ender. I really don't know how to talk to a boy in junior high who has his own smartphone.

I watch My Secret Love stroll away. I'm still holding my little pointed hat in front of me. A woman walking by stops and says, “Maybe this will help a bit, dear.” Then she drops a five-dollar bill into my hat!

Right after that,
plink! plink!
A man drops in two quarters. Fred is still jumping and pointing and doesn't notice. He's young. Five-year-olds mostly notice what's close up to their noses. Experienced noticers notice the details as well as the big picture. I lean my hat against the boom box just to see what will happen, and I start dancing again. Next thing you know, my hat is halfway filled up with coins and a couple of bills. Soon Fred notices the money and stops dancing.

“Wow,” he says.

“Let's take a break,” I say.

We take all our stuff and go to the back alley that connects O'Leary's with our apartment building. The O'Leary's kitchen opens to the alley, and when Salvatore sees us sitting there, he gets us another plate of zook to share.

Freddy and I love this alley, and not only because we found Zook here that sunny Saturday, singing his heart out in a pot of geraniums. One of my dreams in life is to have a real backyard, and this alley is a good substitute, even though it's all concrete. When I take off my glasses to wipe them on my sweatshirt, things look even prettier, in a dreamy sort of way. The branches from a backyard camellia tree hang over the fence, so part of the alley is always shady and cool. Other spots are sunny and great for growing things in pots.

Like I said before, there used to be lavender and geraniums out here in big blue pots. My dad had planted them. He also planted yarrow and catmint in the wide cracks of the concrete for the stray cats to enjoy. He had big plans to put pink paving stones on top of the concrete. Big plans. But then life got in the way. Now yellow and purple flowers are bursting through those cracks, and it's almost as nice as having pavers.

Of course, it used to be much prettier back here when the big blue pots had lavender plants and geraniums in them. They all dried up, so someone threw them away. There's only dirt in there now. Maybe the plants would have grown back if they'd had a chance. We could plant more, but my mom says we would need to buy fresh soil and fertilizer
and water them regularly, which is hard to remember to do when life gets in the way. I clean out the cigarette butts every now and then.

My mom and dad and Maria and Mario and I used to hang out here a lot. Freddy was little then, sitting on my mother's lap. Freddy doesn't really remember those times, not even the day we found Zook. But I tell him all about those special times, so he thinks he remembers. That's why he loves it back here as much as I do.

Anyway, cats still love it back here, too, because of that catmint, just like my dad said they would. Of course, they also like the mice at night and the O'Leary's trash bins. The alley smells of cat pee, but we don't mind. Cat pee isn't a bad smell if you have a cat that you love.

We lean our cardboard costumes against the wall, where someone has painted E
LVIS
L
IVES
in giant blue and red caps. Elvis Presley was a rock-and-roll star who died a long time ago. I've seen him on YouTube. Some people are convinced Elvis Presley is still alive, roaming around somewhere. They love him so much, they just can't bear to say good-bye, my gramma tells us. Gramma Dee herself used to scream with joy when she heard him sing his famous songs about blue suede shoes and hound dogs. Riya thinks those are weird
topics to sing about. But Riya has never had a pet she's loved with all her heart.

“Elvis lives!”
reads Freddy.

Freddy is so proud that he can read that all by himself, without a “rhymes with” or any other help from me. We sit down, leaning against the wall, me against the
E
, Fred against the
L
. We take long drinks from our water bottles. Then I pour all the money out of my hat. Ten quarters, eight dimes, three one-dollar bills, and the five-dollar bill that started it all.

“Eleven dollars and thirty cents,” I say. I want to keep the money so much, even though I got it with the help of a yellow whopper. It just feels so good to have extra money in your pocket—ever notice?

“That's a lot of money,” says Freddy.

“Let's keep it a secret awhile, OK?” I say. “Promise?” I hunch over the money and turn my back so Salvatore and Manic Moe can't see it.

“Sure, I promise,” Freddy says. “I love secrets!”

Then Fred asks a question I had a feeling he'd ask sooner or later. Except I guess I thought it would be later.

“Oona, how many lives do human beans have?”

“Only one. But don't worry. It's a long, long one.”

My heart hurts, because that's a whopper, too. A white one, but a big one for sure. Our dad did not have a long life. He died of cancer when he was thirty-one. Freddy blinks like he knows I've told a lie, but the dots aren't all connected for him yet.

And now I don't feel like hearing more questions from Freddy. I just feel like telling him other whoppers, so he'll feel better. Before he connects the dots and thinks about our dad.

Because that's my fourth job: telling stories to Freddy. My father's stories.

A wise, wise person (OK, our dad, the Great Rebus-Maker and Whopper-Teller) once told me that stories are whoppers, but in a good way. My father said there aren't too many stories in the world, and he'd told me practically all of them. But you can tell the same stories over and over by making them different all the time. All you have to do is take pieces of the real world, then string them up in new ways to make a whole other world. My dad told me to do that. He told me to make the stories my own. That's why stories are green whoppers, because they're alive and growing and changing all the time.

The whopper-teller feels good telling the stories. When
my mom makes me wash my Raiders sweatshirt, I lose a little bit more of the smell of my dad. But I still have his stories.

The whopper-getter feels good, too. And eats food of many colors and shapes. And doesn't get real skinny and cry all the time, like he did when the Great Whopper-Teller disappeared forever.