Who Stole Halloween? (2 page)

I studied the paper for a few seconds. “Well, the wording is kind of weird,” I said. “What kind of kid says ‘beloved'? Oh—and it doesn't say ‘LOST.' Most flyers like this say ‘LOST' at the top in big letters.”

Yasmeen nodded. “Let's stop off at the address on the flyer—at Kyle's house,” she said. “It's not that far. Let's ask him if there was something strange about the cat's disappearance. I don't know why exactly, but I have this funny feeling.”

“What did you have for lunch?” I asked her.

“Ha-ha,” she said.

At Kyle's front door I shifted Luau on my shoulder and used my elbow to ring the bell. After a minute we heard footsteps inside, and then a boy older than Yasmeen and me answered. I recognized him from school, but Yasmeen asked, “Are you Kyle? From the flyer about the cat?”

The boy nodded. He was as tall and thin as Yasmeen, and he had brown eyes like hers, but his skin was as paper-pale as hers is cocoa-dark. He looked sad, and I wondered if he was sad about his cat or just sad in general.

“Halloween is a black cat,” he said, “not an orange tiger like this guy. But thanks for trying.”

It took a second before I realized Kyle thought we had found Luau and mistaken him for his own missing cat, Halloween. “We know this one's not yours,” I said, “because he's mine. But my friend here—her name's Yasmeen—wants to ask you a couple of questions.”

“We're detecting,” Yasmeen said.

“
She
is detecting,” I corrected. “I am holding the cat.”

“Don't you go to my school?” Kyle asked.

“I'm Alex,” I said, “in Mrs. Timmons' class. We live over on Chickadee.”

“What do you want to know?” Kyle asked.

Yasmeen got right to the point. “You didn't put ‘
LOST
' on the flyer. Was there a reason?”

Kyle nodded. “Halloween isn't lost. Someone stole her.”

“That's terrible!” Yasmeen said.

Without thinking, I clutched Luau tighter. Then I forgot I wasn't detecting, and I asked, “How do you know?”

Before Kyle could answer, a little girl came running down the stairs behind him, only stopping
when she crashed into his knees.
“Pow! Got you!”
she said to Kyle, then she looked up at us. “Who are . . . ? Hey, wait! I've seen you before. At school!”

“Not me,” I said, but Yasmeen was nodding.

“Yup, I know you, too,” she said. “You're Cammie. You go to preschool with my little brother.”

Cammie smiled. “His name is Jeremiah. He is really weird.”

Yasmeen nodded again. “Got that right.”

“Why are you here?” Cammie asked.

“About Kyle's cat,” Yasmeen said, “Halloween.”

Cammie scowled. “Kyle is an old foo-foo head. He was
so mean
—”

“Mom!”
Kyle hollered before Cammie could finish. When nobody answered, he said, “Excuse me a sec.” Then he scooped up Cammie, who was wiggling and yelling, and carried her away.

“I'm sorry,” he said when he came back. “She's, well . . . you know. Little kids.”

Yasmeen said, “I know,” but I didn't say anything because, actually, I don't know. Except for
Luau, I'm an only child, and cats never act crazy the way kids do. “Anyway,” Yasmeen returned to being a detective, “are you sure somebody stole Halloween?”

“I'm sure,” Kyle said, “because I saw it happen. It was late at night. Something woke me, and I looked out the window. I saw Halloween out here on the porch. There was a moon, but no other light. I couldn't see very well, but I definitely saw someone stroke Halloween and then grab her.”

“Did you run after him?” I asked.

Kyle shook his head. “I wish I had, but I was so surprised and—I guess—scared.”

“Was it a grown-up?” Yasmeen asked.

“I think so,” Kyle said. “But I don't know for sure if it was a man or a woman or . . .”

Like I said, Kyle was pale in the first place. But now—was it my imagination? Or did he get even paler?

“Or what?” I asked.

Kyle smiled, but it was a sick, embarrassed smile. “You'll think I'm crazy,” he said.

“Try us,” Yasmeen said.

Kyle took a breath. “Or a ghost,” he said.

Yasmeen and I looked at each other because, of course, we
did
think he was crazy. Kyle laughed a nervous laugh, then he shrugged and said, “It was dark.”

“Whatever it was,” Yasmeen said, “which way did, uh . . . 
it
run with your cat?”

“Toward the cemetery, but I don't know after that. He was fast. Even if I had tried, I couldn't have caught him.”

“Did you tell your parents?” Yasmeen asked.

Kyle nodded. “I woke them up, but they thought I was dreaming. They said, ‘You just wait, she'll be home in the morning.' ”

“Sounds like parents,” I said. “Did you call the police?”

“My parents did,” Kyle said. “A guy came. I don't remember his name exactly. Pickles or something.”

“Officer Krichels,” I said. I know all the police officers because my mom's one, too, a detective.

“That's it,” said Kyle. “He wrote everything down, but it's not like he expected it to do any good. You could tell.”

“That was Friday—yesterday?” Yasmeen said.

Kyle nodded. “Halloween's been missing since Thursday night.”

“Has anyone phoned you?” I asked. “Anyone who saw the flyer, I mean?”

“No.” Kyle looked sadder than ever. “Poor cat. She's a good one, too. She never hunts birds, only mice, and she always comes when I call. Plus she's funny. Her meow is all gruff and squeaky—like a rusty old hinge.”

Kyle sighed, and for a second we stood there feeling sad together. Then out of nowhere Yasmeen said, “Don't worry, Kyle. We'll find your cat.”

Kyle looked at us. “You
will
?”

I looked at Yasmeen. “We
will
?”

“Why did you tell him that?”
I asked Yasmeen as soon as we were on the sidewalk.

“I couldn't help it, Alex,” she said. “He looked so miserable.”

“Not as miserable as he's gonna look when we don't find his cat!” I said.

“So we'll find his cat,” Yasmeen said. “How hard can it be? We have a witness.”

“Some witness,” I said. “He thinks he saw a ghost! Besides, by now, how do we know the poor cat's even”—I put a hand over Luau's ears so he couldn't hear—“
alive
?”

My shoulder was half-numb by the time I set Luau down at home. But did Luau even
mrrrf
his chauffeur a thank-you? He did not. Instead, tail in the air, he went to the kitchen to check out the action in his food dish.

Meanwhile, I could hear my parents upstairs. What were they laughing at, anyway?

“Hello?” I called.

More laughter. Then my dad answered, “Come on up, Alex. Get a load of your mom.”

Luau followed me up the stairs to their bedroom. When I saw them, I thought they both had
gone crazy. Mom was wearing what looked like black-and-white striped pajamas with a matching hat. Dad had on a police uniform that was too big for him. But the totally weirdest part was they were attached to each other with handcuffs.

“For once I'm the cop in the family,” Dad said. “And she's my prisoner. Get it?”

“It was his idea,” Mom said.

There is something freaky about seeing your parents in costume—like you want to ask, what happened to my
real
parents?

“You better go get ready, too,” Dad said.

“Ready for . . . ? Oh!” Then I remembered the party. It made me feel better to realize
why
they were dressed up.

“The world's first-ever costume baby shower.” Mom shook her head. “Leave it to Marjie Lee to come up with a harebrained idea—”

“Was it Marjie's idea?” Dad said. “I thought the hostess was that goofy friend of hers, the one that lives around the corner—what's her name?”

“You're probably right,” Mom said. “Everybody calls her ‘Miss' Deirdre because she
teaches preschool. She's eccentric, but she's supposed to be a wonderful teacher. Anita Popp told me there's a waiting list to get into that school.”

“I've never been to a baby shower,” I said.

“They used to be women-only,” Dad said. “But here in the new millennium, men and children have to go, too.”

“
Have
to?” Mom repeated.

“
Get
to,” Dad said quickly. “I meant
get
to.”

“You mean just like here in the new millennium, women
get
to have careers?” Mom said.

Dad looked surprised. “You love your career,” he said, “don't you?”

“Some days more than others,” Mom said, “same as you love being home some days more than others.”

“I had a good day,” Dad said. “I did the grocery shopping, made the ears for Alex's costume, and fixed the leaky toilet in the downstairs bathroom. I guess your day wasn't so hot, though?”

“No, it sure wasn't,” Mom said.

“What happened?” I asked her.

“Two missing cats,” she said.

“You're kidding,” I said, “because—”

Dad interrupted. “Is that all that went wrong?” he asked. “You seem pretty upset.”

Luau bumped Dad's leg, which meant,
What could be more upsetting than missing cats?

“It's not only the cats that got to me. It's where they were missing from.” Mom paused, remembering something unpleasant. “I'll spare you the details, but it was a real strange coincidence. Two houses, opposite sides of town, but in both cases the cat owners seemed to me to be . . . how do I put it delicately? Negligent?”

“What's
negligent
?” I asked.

“Irresponsible. Like they didn't take such good care of their cats, didn't feed them well. I guess the bottom line is that they didn't seem like very nice people. And, I don't know, seeing animals treated badly? It's upsetting.”

“How do you know they were bad cat owners?” I asked.

“There were other pets, too,” Mom said. “A dog at one of the houses was chained to a tree—you could see its ribs, poor guy. At the
other house there were some guinea pigs. . . .” Mom wrinkled up her nose. “Like I said, I'll spare you the details.”

Dad said it seemed odd that people would call the police about cats they didn't even bother to care for properly. Mom was nodding. “I thought so, too,” she said. “And if the cats had simply disappeared, neither owner would've bothered, I don't think. But the cats didn't just disappear. Both owners claim somebody sneaked onto their property at night, grabbed their cats, and ran.”

“That's just what happened to Kyle who lives over on Groundhog!” I said, and then I explained about the flyer and visiting Kyle's house.

“You say Fred Krichels was already out there to talk to them?” Mom said. “Then I'd better sit down with him and compare notes. I hope it's not that Halloween business starting up again. I thought that old ghost story was forgotten by now.”

“What old ghost story?” I asked, remembering what Kyle had said.

“Hey.”
Dad looked at his watch. “We don't have time for ghost stories—not if there's going to be any food left at the party. Alex, run along and get dressed.
Scoot!
”

All this time we'd been talking, Mom and Dad were still attached with the handcuffs. Now when Dad said “scoot,” he made a sweeping motion that yanked Mom's arm along for the ride.

“Ow!”
Mom said.

“Ow!”
Dad rubbed his shoulder. “Uh, sorry.”

“Give me the key,” Mom said. “I still have to do my makeup.”