Masks Read online

  “Mittens, sweetie, where are you?” I call.

  There’s no answer. That’s odd—Mittens always wants to be fed early in the morning, and I’m the only one who feeds her. I’m used to waking up to her purring in my ear and kneading her paws on my shoulder. I get up, get dressed, and start searching. Where could she be?

  Then I hear it, a faint meow coming from the back of my closet. I turn on the closet light and find Mittens in the back corner. She’s curled up in a tight ball, and I see several places where she has vomited. Her sides are heaving in and out as if she’s trying to vomit again, but it looks as if she can’t. She doesn’t even try to come to me.

  “Mom!” I cry. But there’s no answer. Mom must have already left for the hospital. And Daddy takes Harshil and Jasmine to the library on Saturday mornings.

  I scoop up Mittens, wrap her in a towel, and put her in the basket on the front of my bike. It has a lid that I close and fasten. “Hang on, sweetie. I’ll get you to Dr. Mac’s in no time.”

  Chapter Three

  Dr. Mac is searching for something in the supply closet. When she hears me racing into the clinic, she turns quickly. “What’s wrong, Sunita?”

  “It’s Mittens. She’s been vomiting, and she won’t even move.” My voice is shaking.

  “Come on,” she says, heading straight into the Herriot Room. I follow her with Mittens.

  When I unwrap my cat, she’s still curled into a tight ball. Dr. Mac carefully feels her all over. When she lightly presses my cat’s belly, Mittens lets out a loud moan and hisses.

  “I’m going to X-ray her,” Dr. Mac tells me. “But first, I’m going to give her a sedative. She’s too upset to let us get a good picture of her insides.”

  “What’s wrong with her, Dr. Mac?” I ask.

  “I hope the X-ray will tell us,” she says.

  I pick up Mittens and follow Dr. Mac into the X-ray room. She hands me a lead apron, gloves, and collar for protection against the harmful rays of the machine.

  “First, put the lead protectors over yourself,” Dr. Mac instructs. “Then lay Mittens down on her side with her legs stretched out. We’ll take a second view with her lying on her back.”

  I do as Dr. Mac asks. The sedative has relaxed Mittens enough that she lets me lay her on her side and gently stretch her out.

  Dr. Mac steps into the small room next to the X-ray machine. She hits some buttons and the machine X-rays Mittens. The whole procedure takes only a few moments.

  I remove my shields and return with Mittens to the Herriot Room while Dr. Mac develops the film. Brenna, David, and Maggie have come in to wait with me. “She’ll be OK, Sunita,” Brenna says. “You know Dr. Mac won’t let anything bad happen to Mittens.”

  I nod, knowing Mittens will get the best possible care. But I’m not as confident that nothing will go wrong. I’ve worked at the clinic long enough to know that animal injuries can be unpredictable.

  After a few minutes, Dr. Mac comes in to show us the X-rays. She places them on the lighted view box. “Everything looks fine except the intestines. They’re all bunched up, making what we call a ‘string sign’ on the X-ray. Could Mittens have eaten some string in the last few days?”

  “Yarn!” Tears spring to my eyes. “She must have eaten the yarn from my tiger mask! Is that what’s hurting her?” I ask.

  “Not exactly. Sometimes yarn can pass through a cat’s system without any pain or damage. In this case, the intestines are trying to move the yarn through Mittens’ system, but the yarn has gotten stuck. The pulling has caused her intestines to bunch up, and that’s why she’s in pain and vomiting. We’re going to have to operate right away, Sunita.”

  I feel so horribly, terribly guilty. I know cats shouldn’t be left alone with string or yarn. I know it! When that stray cat tipped over the garbage, I let myself be distracted and forgot all about Mittens. Even though I try to hold back, my lower lip quivers and a tear rolls down my cheek. It seems so babyish to cry in the middle of an emergency. Maggie puts her hand on my shoulder.

  Dr. Mac turns to me. “I know it’s scary, Sunita, but try to stay calm.”

  I can hardly believe what’s happening. I wish I could just wake up and discover this is all a bad nightmare. How could I have let this happen to an animal who trusts me so completely, who relies on me to take care of her?

  Dr. Mac pats my shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself. These things just happen sometimes.”

  Yes. They happen to careless, unthinking people who shouldn’t be allowed around animals.

  I feel a tingling in my nose and under my eyes, which is a warning that I’m about to cry. I turn away to get myself under control. When the tingling stops, I look back at my friends. The three of them wear serious, concerned expressions. Maggie forces a tight smile meant to be comforting.

  “I want to help with the operation,” I say.

  “Are you sure, Sunita? You don’t have to,” Dr. Mac says.

  “I’m sure.” I have to be there for Mittens. She depends on me, and I’ve already let her down once. I don’t want to do it twice. I go and change into scrubs.

  When I step into the surgery room and see Mittens stretched out limply on the surgery table, I take in a quick, sharp breath. My hands shake and I hold them together tightly to stop the quivering. Mittens looks…dead. The room starts spinning. I stagger and grip the edge of a stool.

  Dr. Mac looks up. “Steady,” she says. “She’s only anesthetized. Sit and put your head down.”

  I do as she suggests. After a minute, the room stops spinning. When I look up, Mittens’ belly is shaved and Dr. Mac is swabbing it with orange iodine.

  “Maybe you should let Maggie and me handle this,” Dr. Mac suggests as Maggie comes in.

  “I’m OK,” I say. “I want to help.”

  Dr. Mac nods.

  I set the surgical instruments out on a tray, as I’ve done so many times before. Dr. Mac inserts an I.V. into Mittens’ foreleg. “She’ll need fluids during surgery,” Dr. Mac says, “and we’ll start her on high levels of antibiotics, too.”

  Maggie monitors the anesthetic as well as Mittens’ vital signs. Then Dr. Mac reaches out to me with her right hand. “Scalpel.”

  I place the instrument firmly in her outstretched hand the way she’s taught us. At least I try, but my hand shakes slightly. Dr. Mac notices and looks at me sharply, with concerned eyes. For a moment I think she’ll tell me to leave, but she turns back to Mittens.

  Maggie adjusts a small, intense lamp on Mittens as Dr. Mac makes a precise slit up my cat’s belly. I’ve seen her do this on other animals before, but this time I have to turn away.

  I try not to look at Mittens, but sometimes I just have to peek. Dr. Mac makes small cuts along the intestine with the scalpel, then tugs out the yarn a little at a time. The process of snipping the intestine and pulling out the yarn takes forty-five minutes. It takes her another half hour to stitch Mittens’ intestines and belly back up. Finally Dr. Mac flushes out Mittens’ abdomen with saline before closing.

  “Done,” she announces. On a white towel beside Mittens are inch-long pieces of orange yarn. “I’ve removed all the yarn, but I’m afraid she’s not out of the woods yet, Sunita,” Dr. Mac tells me.

  “What could go wrong?” I ask.

  “Mittens had a small tear in her intestines. That happens sometimes as the yarn pulls—it causes the intestines to rupture. When bacteria from the intestines leak out into the abdomen, we have to be concerned about an infection called peritonitis,” she tells me. “All we can do now is wait and watch.”

  When I saw all that yarn laying there beside Mittens, I’d thought the danger had passed. Now I’m scared all over again. “This peritonitis,” I say. “Is it…I mean, could it…”

  “In a severe case it could be fatal.” Dr. Mac answers my unasked question.

  I blink back tears.

  Dr. Mac turns to me. “Sunita, try not to worry. Everything probably will be fine. I just have to be honest with you abo
ut the possibilities.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “Mittens will sleep for a few hours now,” Dr. Mac explains. “You can leave if you need to.”

  “Thanks,” I say as I change out of my scrubs, “but I want to be here when Mittens wakes up.”

  David and Brenna are still there when Maggie and I walk out into the waiting room. “Mittens came through surgery OK, but there’s danger of infection,” I tell them. “There’s nothing more to do for her right now, but I’m going to stay here until she wakes up.”

  “We’ll wait with you, then,” says David.

  We try to go back to our mask making, but none of us has the heart for it anymore. After a while I go to the front desk and start putting all the loose papers in order and filing them away. Brenna and David clean the kennels, and Maggie tackles the supply closet.

  After what seems like forever, Dr. Mac tells me that Mittens is starting to wake up. “She came through surgery well, Sunita,” Dr. Mac says.

  I walk back to the recovery room and enter quietly, so that I won’t startle Mittens. She’s lying on her side, and she’s looking at me with dull, glazed eyes. She’s still groggy from the anesthetic. She opens her mouth to meow, but no sound comes out. I open her cage and stroke gently behind her ears, in her favorite spot.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Tears roll down my cheek. “The last thing in the world I wanted to do was hurt you. Dr. Mac’s going to take great care of you, and I’ll come here to visit you every day.”

  I kiss her furry forehead, and she starts to purr softly. “You get some rest now. That’s what you need most to get better,” I say as I close the cage door.

  When I come back out into the waiting room, my friends all look at me anxiously. “Mittens is awake and OK so far. I’m going to go home.”

  “Are you all right?” Brenna asks. “Do you want us to come with you?”

  “No, but thanks,” I reply. “I’ll be OK.”

  I bike down the road, pedaling slowly as I ride by the renovated barn the new woman in town has moved into. I remember an article I once read on witches. It claimed that witches were simply women who knew a lot about folk cures for sickness. They worked mostly with plants and herbs, using cures that had been handed down from woman to woman through time. Some people, especially men, feared these women because they didn’t understand what they did.

  Wouldn’t it be nice if I could stop off at this woman’s house and ask her for something that would heal Mittens? I stop my bike and gaze at the barn-house, wishing for some kind of magic.

  The sun reflects off an upper window, and I see something move. I have the uneasy feeling that someone is looking at me.

  I get back on the bike seat and begin pedaling again—a bit faster than before.

  Chapter Four

  Sunita’s home!” shouts Harshil when I walk in the door.

  Jasmine races down the stairs. “Sunita, will you play Barbies with me?”

  Playing Barbies is just about the last thing I feel like doing right now. “Later, OK?” I beg off.

  “Would you read me these books I got from the library?” Harshil asks, holding up three picture books.

  “I’ll do that later, too,” I promise. “Why don’t you two watch TV?”

  Jasmine makes a disappointed face. “We’ve been watching TV all afternoon.”

  I know my mother is at the hospital on Saturday afternoons, so I don’t even bother to hunt for her. My father is probably buried in his study as usual.

  Out of habit, I head for the kitchen, but I realize I’m not hungry at all. I pull open the refrigerator, stare into it, then shut it again without taking anything out. When I turn, I see my father at the table, cutting a piece of cake for himself.

  He looks at me and frowns thoughtfully. “Why so glum?” he asks.

  I sit in a kitchen chair and tell him all about what happened to Mittens. He forgets about his cake and nods as he listens.

  “I feel so terrible,” I say at the end of my story. “Maybe I’m not responsible enough to take care of animals.”

  He folds his arms and sits back in his chair, studying me. Is he disappointed in me? I hope he doesn’t say it was not my fault, because I know better than that. If it wasn’t my fault, whose was it?

  “Try not to worry too much,” he says. “Dr. MacKenzie is very capable. But Sunita, perhaps it’s time for a change.”

  His remark takes me by surprise. “What kind of change?”

  “Well,” he begins, “perhaps it is time to try something new. The other day, an associate asked me if you would be interested in an internship at his research lab. I didn’t even present it to you because I know you’re busy with your work at the clinic. But maybe now you would like to give this lab work a try.”

  If I take this job, I’ll have less time to volunteer at Dr. Mac’s Place. But maybe that would be a good thing.

  “What kind of work do they do at the lab?” I ask.

  My father smiles. “It’s a veterinary lab. They create new medicines for animals.”

  “That does sound pretty interesting,” I say. It would be a way to help animals without putting them in danger by my carelessness.

  “What do you think?” my father prods.

  “I’ll give it a try,” I say. Why not?

  My father smiles as he gets up from his chair. “I’ll call my friend, Dr. Dan Green, and tell him you’re interested. Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”

  After a few minutes, my father hurries back in, looking excited. “The internship spot is still available. You can start on Tuesday. I think you’ll love it,” he says enthusiastically. “I spent a summer working in a research lab and found it fascinating.”

  I guess he hopes it will be the same with me.

  No sooner does my father return to his study than Jasmine runs into the kitchen. “You’re just sitting here. Now can you play Barbies?”

  “Later,” I remind her.

  “This is later! Besides, you’re not doing anything,” Jasmine insists.

  Harshil comes in, holding his library books. “Is it later yet?” he asks.

  “Later is when Sunita is playing Barbies with me,” Jasmine tells him.

  “No way,” Harshil replies. “Later is when she reads my books to me.”

  Listening to them bicker is about to drive me insane. Without a word, I slip out the kitchen door that leads to our backyard. They’re so busy fighting, they don’t even see me leave.

  Something black slinks under one of the lawn chairs at the back of the yard. Squinting into the late afternoon sun, I see that it’s a cat.

  I walk slowly, casually, toward the lawn chair. The cat will bolt if I approach too quickly. It could be the black cat we saw in Dr. Mac’s yard the other day. When I’m about three feet away, I sniff. Skunk. It’s the same cat, all right.

  Huge green eyes stare at me. The cat seems torn between wanting to run away and wanting to be friendly. I move a little closer.

  This is one amazing-looking cat. It has no tail and has huge paws. Maybe it has six toes. A breed called the Cymric has no tail and six toes. This cat also has a nip out of its left ear, probably from a fight.

  The poor cat’s black fur is so matted. If that matting continues and it’s not able to groom itself, it may begin to scratch and its skin will get infected.

  Crouching down, I look at the cat directly. In a book about cat behavior that I once read, it said that looking directly at a cat tells it that you want to be friends and mean it no harm.

  The cat stares back at me. Its eyes are open wide and its ears are back, which means it’s afraid. Maybe it has a good reason to be afraid. The other day I saw an article on the Internet about keeping cats safe in October. It said that some horrible people like to hurt and even kill cats around Halloween. These people range from gang members who think it’s cool to torture cats to people who are seriously into dark magic. There are even people who believe that cats have evil powers and all sorts of crazy stu
ff like that.

  It’s dangerous for this black cat to be outside around Halloween. I’d sure want someone to keep Mittens inside if she somehow got lost at this time of year. My mother probably wouldn’t allow me to keep a stray cat in the house, but I bet Dr. Mac would board it, at least until Halloween is over.

  “Here, kitty,” I call in a singsong, friendly way. “Are you hungry? Would you like to come with me? I can feed you. I can even help you out with those clumps of hair.” I stretch out my hand, wishing I had some food to offer it.

  The cat steps forward cautiously. “Come on, kitty, kitty,” I coax. “Come to me.” It stops and then takes another step. Soon it’ll be within my reach.

  Suddenly the kitchen door slams. Harshil and Jasmine run outside.

  The cat jumps back, then bolts.

  Chapter Five

  It’s not easy to track a black cat in the dying light. The cat scrambles in and out of the trees’ shadows. Once it stops to look back over its shoulder at me, but each time it decides to keep going. Finally I lose track of it altogether.

  Disappointed, I head back toward my house. In the distance, I hear my mother call to Jasmine and Harshil, telling them to come in. If she’s home from the hospital, it must be after six o’clock.

  Where will the cat sleep tonight? Will it be able to catch any supper, wearing such a strong skunk odor?

  I walk into the kitchen. My mother has begun cooking chicken. “There you are,” she greets me, turning from the stove. “It’s dark. I was starting to get worried.”

  “Sorry,” I apologize. “I saw a stray cat in the yard and I was trying to catch it.”

  She laughs lightly. “Oh, you and your cats. I should have known. Are you all right? Your father told me what happened with Mittens.”

  “I’m OK, I suppose,” I reply. “I’m worried though.”

  She nods and turns back to her cooking. “Dr. Mac will take good care of her,” she says.

  I wish I could feel reassured.