The Cat at the Wall Read Online Free Page A

bad. I think I was pretty normal, actually.
    When the two soldiers opened their bags and started sorting through their stuff, I decided to go down to the floor for a closer look, to see if there was anything I might want.
    I got right inside one of the bags and shoved things around with my nose, looking for something I liked. It was a little bit like shopping.
    “Hey, kitty! Look, kitty’s in the duffel bag!”
    I let the soldier called Aaron run his fingers through the fur on the back of my neck for a moment. I even decided to purr.
    “She likes me,” Aaron said. “Who’s a pretty cat?”
    “That is the ugliest cat I have ever seen,” Simcha said. “And this land is full of ugly cats.”
    “Don’t pay any attention to him, Miss Kitty,” Aaron said in a baby-talk voice. “I think you are the prettiest kitty. Really, you are. My mother would feed you up and have you looking sleek and fine in no time.”
    I heard footsteps outside. The two soldiers jumped to their posts, one at the telescope and one at his rifle.
    The town was awake.

Five
    —
    I smelled sage. I could tell from the rhythm of the footfalls that the passerby was an old woman heading down to the market with herbs to sell for making tea.
    The soldiers kept their guard up. Aaron quietly recorded everything he saw out on the streets, all the comings and goings of young moms and old men. They also kept their backs to me, so I took the opportunity to keep shopping in their duffel bags.
    I poked around their belongings, looking for something small enough to carry away. Among the socks and ready-to-eat meals I spied a packet of gummi bears. I almost took them. They reminded me of my old life. But they were wedged under an ammunition clip and I couldn’t get them out.
    I decided to take a small pack of batteries. I dragged it under the sofa and lay down on top of it.
    Mine.
    There. I felt better.
    There are little stashes of things I’ve stolen all over this area, on both sides of the Big Wall. I wish I could keep it all with me.
    A package of batteries is not very comfortable to lie on, so I left it and went back out to sniff around some more.
    I wandered away from the duffel bags and over to the pile of trash called the City of Dreams. It was trash — boxes, bottles and tin cans spread out over the entire end of the room. Unfortunately, at first sniff it seemed like it was all spotlessly clean, without a speck of food in any of it. The boxes had been cut and reassembled to look like houses, churches, schools, things like that. There were bridges made from toilet rolls and a castle with a drawbridge. Stop signs were made out of sucker sticks and red bottle caps. Toy cars and little army men dotted the streets along with tiny crocheted dogs, birds and mice. There was even a park with trees and benches.
    Someone had worked hard on it. If it was a project for school, some kid was bound to get an A.
    I kept sniffing.
    I could smell the boy. He was hiding in the middle of the cardboard city. He was sweaty and scared and hadn’t washed in a while. He had wet himself, too. All his smells were making it very hard for me to tell if there was any food around.
    He was having trouble breathing. I could hear it because I have fantastic hearing now. The soldiers couldn’t hear it because they were paying attention to the street. They kept up a whispered conversation.
    “I’ll bet you there’s a terrorist in that house with the ivy growing up the side,” said Simcha.
    “That’s not ivy. It’s sweet pea. Or honeysuckle,” Aaron said.
    “Honeysuckle? Why would terrorists be growing honeysuckle?”
    “You think terrorists would be more likely to grow ivy than honeysuckle? That makes no sense.”
    Their argument was completely pointless and I tuned them out as much as I could. I settled down near the head part of the buried boy. I looked closely at the area and saw how he had managed to hide.
    The City of Dreams was built over a trap door. The soldiers