Running Wild

  With deep appreciation to:

  Pam Charlson, Cathy and Don Simer

  and to

  Cheryl Green, Peggy Horrell, Alice Hurry,

  Beth Ann Meyer, and Verdeana Weidenmaier

  CHAPTER 1

  Okay . . . it was weird.

  The people out in the field were weird. The people sitting on the cement steps were weird. And Willy—well . . . he was weirdest!

  My people went to the kitchen to eat. These people ate on the cement steps. My people listened to music and visited. These people yelled and other people threw them food. In return, they gave them little pieces of paper. These people would seem fine, then all of a sudden they would leap to their feet and yell at the top of their lungs. They would clap and . . .

  “Willy, no!”

  . . . and they would jump up and act really mad. Then just as quickly as they started, they’d sit down and eat and talk some more.

  The people out in the grass were just as bad. They talked and jabbered all the time. They wore shirts, tight pants with long socks, and little caps on their heads. Right now most of them had blue caps and white pants. There was only one, standing on a little bag, who had on a red cap and gray pants. But just a moment ago it was the other way around and . . .

  “Willy, quit!”

  . . . and most of the boys had on these big gloves. That was weird because they were lots bigger than the gloves my people wore in the wintertime. But what was even weirder was that they only wore one glove instead of two. People had two front paws—I mean hands—so why only one glove? Maybe the other hand just didn’t get cold.

  The glove was so big, they couldn’t pick up stuff with it on. They couldn’t pick their noses or scratch. About the only thing they could do was catch the ball that they threw at one another. One boy stood on a pillow. He didn’t have a glove. Fact was, he didn’t have anything except his pants and shirt and . . .

  “Willy, cool it!”

  . . . and shoes and red cap. But another boy, who was dressed just like him, had on a hard hat and a big stick in his hand. It wasn’t a very good stick. The thing was wide and sort of swollen on one end and kind of narrow on the other end.

  One of the boys who wore a blue cap kept throwing a ball at the guy in the red cap. He wasn’t a very good thrower, because he hardly ever hit anybody. Sometimes he did get close, and the boy with the stick would use it to whack at the ball so it wouldn’t hit him. Another boy, who was really short, would throw the ball back so he could try again.

  Usually everybody missed. The thrower missed the guy with the stick, and the guy with the stick missed the ball and . . .

  “Willy, don’t even think about it!”

  . . . and this big man in a black suit behind the little short guy would yell: “Strike!” When that happened, people on the steps would stop eating long enough to yell at him. Then the whole thing would start all over again.

  Weird!

  I guess the boys standing out in the grass wanted to play with the ball, too. They were always watching it. When they weren’t watching, they would yell stuff like:

  “Batter, batter, batter, BATTER, SWING!” And other times they would yell: “Easy out. Easy out.”

  Mostly, they just chewed their gum or blew bubbles and they spit a lot and . . .

  “Willy! Would you quit it!”

  . . . and they scratched a lot, too. I guess they had fleas. I had a flea once. The thing sure itched. I probably scratched as much as they did.

  Willy and I sat beside this big, long trench in the ground. It was made of hard, gray blocks and had a metal roof. Sometimes when it was really hot, Willy would dig a hole or a trench and we’d lay in it to cool off. These boys weren’t trying to cool off, though. They were busy yelling at the boys on the grass—especially the guy who was throwing the ball at their friend. They’d called out things like “We want a pitcher, not a belly-itcher.” Other times they would yell at the man behind the little short boy—especially if he shouted, “Strike.”

  They would yell back at him, “Ball.”

  Like I said—weird.

  The ball . . . well, that was what made Willy weird. I mean, it was driving him nuts!

  And Willy—he was driving me nuts!

  Willy never took his eyes off of the ball. We were fine as long as someone was holding it or if it was in the air. But if the ball ever hit the ground . . .

  All I’d done since we got here was yell and fuss at Willy. As far as I was concerned, this baseball stuff wasn’t that much fun.

  The boy with the stick whacked at the ball. I guess he figured it was going to hit him, so he swung really hard. A loud crack sound came to my ears. The ball hit the ground. A little puff of dust exploded, and the other boy in the red cap, who was standing on the bag, had to jump so the ball didn’t hit him.

  Sure enough . . . Willy’s muscles tensed. His enormous chest quivered and his legs trembled. The ball was headed the other direction—going away from us—but it was all I could do to keep my friend from chasing after it.

  I jumped up and put my paws against his shoulder.

  “Willy, knock it off!”

  The way he was shaking and the way his muscles tensed—ready to spring after the rolling ball—well, this time . . . I didn’t know if I could hold him or not.

  Luckily, the boy in the blue cap picked up the ball.

  Willy sank down on his haunches. He was still panting, his long tongue dangling from his slobbery mouth, his eyes wide and excited. But he sat down. With a heavy sigh, I sat down beside him.

  “Willy? I think it’s time to go back home, don’t you?”

  His big, brown eyes never left the ball. Even sitting down, I could see his stub tail wagging—stirring the dust behind and underneath him. When he didn’t answer, it made my tail flip.

  “Willy? Are you listening to me?”

  He gave a slight nod. My tail jerked the other direction. “Willy!”

  “Yes,” he answered. “I’m listening.” He tried to look down at me and keep his eyes on the ball at the same time. I leaned over and rubbed my cheek against his arm.

  “Let’s go home, please. If you get their ball, it’s going to make them mad. They might call ‘The Pound!’ And we don’t want that, do we?”

  He shook his head, but he still wouldn’t look at me. It was irritating, to say the least. Now my tail was jerking back and forth so hard that I could barely sit.

  “I mean it, Willy. You’re gonna get us in trouble. I’ll leave you. I’ll go home without you. I’m serious.”

  “Okay. Just a second.” Like he was in a trance or something, his eyes never left the ball. “Just let me see this one more pitch, then we’ll . . .”

  “CRACK!”

  The little, round ball came flying right in front of the trench where we stood. Willy took off!

  It was amazing how something that huge and clunky looking could move so fast. It was like watching an enormous black streak of lightning.

  One second he was sitting there beside me, trembling and all excited. The next second he was gone! All that was left was a cloud of dust as he chased after the rolling ball.

  The boys with the blue hats yelled at him. The boys with the red hats yelled at him, too. The man in the black suit just shook his head.

  Now you’ve done it! I thought to myself. Now they’re going to call the pound and the guy will catch you and drag you away and . . . and . . . this time I won’t be able to save you.

  CHAPTER 2

  I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

  My tail flipped, but I didn’t even bother to look at him.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Honest. I didn’t mean to. I just couldn’t help myself. My boy used to play catch with me. I loved it. He would throw the ball a
nd I’d chase it. Then he’d chase me and try to get the ball back so he could throw it again and . . . well. . . when that ball came rolling toward me . . . I’m sorry. I just couldn’t help it.”

  My tail flipped so hard, it yanked my rump halfway off the ground. I stood and wheeled around to glare up at him.

  “It was embarrassing, Willy,” I hissed. “That boy chasing you and yelling. You—running around like an idiot—holding that stupid ball in your mouth as high as you could and slobbering all over it. What if someone had called that man from the pound?”

  Willy’s head kind of ducked. His ears folded forward, real sheepish like. “I didn’t think about that.”

  “Didn’t think about it? Didn’t think about it! No kidding. You didn’t think at all. That’s the problem.”

  His enormous head hung so low, his chin almost bumped the ground. An eyebrow arched. He looked at me with those big, sad brown eyes.

  “I won’t do it again. Promise. Don’t be mad at me.”

  I took a deep breath. I wanted to hiss at him. I wanted to spit and meow at the top of my lungs. Then, when I looked at those sad eyes and his giant head hanging so low and looking so helpless . . . well, the air just sort of whooshed out of me. The fur along my backbone gave a little ripple.

  “Oh, come on,” I hissed, softly. “Let’s go see what’s going on at Luigi’s.”

  We stepped from our hiding place beside the two trash cans at the back of Willy’s fence. I peeked around the corner. There was no one there. Willy trotted behind me to the street. We stopped and looked both ways. It was to make sure no cars were coming and to make sure the white truck with the blue light on top was no place around. I didn’t like that guy from the pound—not one little bit. Once certain the coast was clear, we crossed the road and headed for Luigi’s Italian Restaurant. Willy followed so close behind, I could feel his huge, heavy paws shaking the ground beneath my feet. Even the thought of spaghetti and meatballs didn’t seem to help. I couldn’t keep from thinking about how I got myself mixed up with this dippy dog. I guess the whole thing started about two years ago. In my mind’s eye I could still see it as clear as yesterday.

  • • •

  Tom had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. He was the cat who lived across the street. We played chase and explored and hunted mice. There was a huge pecan tree in his backyard. Sometimes we climbed out on the limbs over Rocky’s yard and pestered the mean, nasty Doberman who lived next door.

  New neighbors moved in on the other side of Rocky. They had this enormous black beast in their backyard. There was a little confusion when we first met him. He told us he was a Rott (which was short for Rottweiler) and his name was Willy. Rott ’n’ Willy. Tom and I thought he wasn’t a dog at all. We thought he was some strange monster called a Rotten Willy.

  Tom and I had a friend named Louie. He was an alley cat. We used to sit on the fence at the track around this grassy field with stripes across it. Louie called it a football field. People walked their dogs there, and we had a blast making fun of the mangy mutts. It was a hoot. I had friends. I had my Katie. She was my girl. The one who loved me and let me sleep on her pillow at night. Tom, Katie, Louie . . . my world was wonderful.

  Then . . . my world started to fall apart.

  Louie got smushed by a speeding car. Katie went off to this place called college. I didn’t like college. I wished she would come home. I wished she’d taken me to college with her. Then, worst of all. . .

  Tom moved away!

  I was never so lonely. I didn’t have a friend left in the world.

  When new people came to live in Tom’s house, they brought two cages with animals inside. I just knew they were cats! So I raced over and waited in the pecan tree for the people to let them out. I can still remember how startled and scared I was when these two fufu poodles came flying out of those cages and tried to jump up in the tree to eat me. It was terrifying!

  For three days I stayed in the trees. Three days, in the cold and snow, with no food or water. Finally I tried to leap to the back fence. I didn’t make it. When I landed in the Rotten Willy’s yard, I knew I was a goner.

  But instead of eating me, Willy rescued me. He plopped me in his water bowl to revive me and give me a drink. He shared his food with me. He even kept me in his doghouse so I wouldn’t freeze to death. And after that. . .

  • • •

  Suddenly something yanked my tail. It yanked me out of my daydream, too. It hurt. Claws out and paw raised, I spun sideways to see what had me.

  “Willy, why are you standing on my tail?”

  The sound of a car horn made my legs stiff. The hair on my tail tried to blow up like a balloon—only Willy was standing on it. Tires whizzed past, right in front of my face. The wind jiggled my whiskers. Willy glared down at me.

  “What is wrong with you, Chuck? Ever since your friend Louie got smushed, you’ve always been real careful about crossing the street. Didn’t you see the car? What were you thinking? You act like you were a thousand miles away.”

  I looked at Willy. The big lug’s enormous paw pinned my tail to the ground. I glanced at the car. It had just missed me. One more step and I would have been smushed flat.

  Willy was a dog. He looked like a dog. He smelled like a dog. Sometimes he even acted like a dog. Cats belong with cats. Dogs belong with dogs. It’s just the way things are.

  But even if he was a dog . . . Willy was still my friend. The world just wouldn’t be right without the big, ugly beast.

  Then again—those first few weeks of our friendship, I did spend a lot of time in Willy’s water bowl.

  CHAPTER 3

  Don’t remember,” he answered with a shrug of his ears. “I think the first time I had to put you in my water bowl was when you fell out of the pecan tree and landed in my yard.”

  I nodded. “That’s the time you saved my life. I was cold and starving and about to die of thirst. Now, the others . . . I don’t know if they count.”

  He frowned and sort of twisted his mouth up on the side. “Then there was that time we were playing tag and you ran into the fence.”

  “I didn’t run into the fence. You knocked me into it.”

  “Whatever.” Willy wiggled his brown eyebrows. “Then the next time was when you were shoving my rump and trying to push me over the fence so we could go explore. I slipped.”

  My eyes rolled. “I could never forget that one.”

  “And the time you stuck me with your claws and I jumped. The gate clunked you in the head, remember?”

  My whiskers twitched. “I don’t remember that one very well. The only thing I remember was waking up in your water bowl.” Just the thought of it made me lift a paw and flip it back and forth, like I was trying to shake the water off. “What was the deal with that water bowl, anyway? Seems like, when we first started hanging out together, I spent most of my time in the water.”

  Willy’s stub tail gave a little wag. “Well, you were always getting knocked out. Putting you in my water bowl seemed like the quickest way to bring you around.”

  Now my other paw came off the ground and flipped back and forth. I didn’t even think about it. It just sort of flipped all by itself.

  “You threw me in the water so much, I thought I was going to grow webbed feet.”

  Willy smiled down at me. I couldn’t help but smile back. We strolled past my house and crossed the alley. Suddenly Willy stopped.

  “Man, would you look at that. There’s another house going up. I can’t believe it.”

  With a sigh I stopped and went back to stand beside him. “Me, neither. It wasn’t that long ago, we used to come here to catch field mice.”

  Willy’s stub tail wiggled back and forth. “Yeah. You taught me how to pounce. I wasn’t very good at first, but I finally got where I could land on them.”

  My whiskers shot straight out to the sides. “You landed on them, all right. Trouble was, every time you pounced—you totally flattened the poor things. I mean .
. . what fun is it to catch a mouse if you don’t get to play with it? You can’t play with a mouse who’s smushed as flat as a pancake.”

  Willy nudged my shoulder with his nose. It was a nudge to Willy, but as big as he was, his nudges always sent me staggering. I got my balance and scooted back. The smile stretched clear across his big, ugly face.

  “I was a lot better at catching mice than you were at chasing cows over at Farmer McVee’s.”

  “There is a little difference in size, Willy,” I explained. “You go roaring out in the field, bouncing around and barking with your deep voice—the cows take off. I go out and meow at them . . . shoot, they don’t even see me. It’s a wonder I didn’t get trampled.”

  In a gap between two of the new houses that were going up, we could see the pecan trees. That’s where Farmer McVee and his cows lived. Crows came to the trees to steal his pecans, sometimes. When the fall mornings were crisp and clear, we could hear their shrill calls.

  All at once Willy froze dead in his tracks. Kind of crouching down, he motioned with a jerk of his head. I tried to see where his eyes were focused—tried to see what made him stop. There was nothing. Nothing but bare dirt where the men had cleared yet another place to stick a house.

  “What?” I whispered. I was so still, my tail didn’t even twitch. “What is it, Willy?”

  He sprang from his crouch and trotted on. His little, stub tail wiggled back and forth like a sawed-off flagpole.

  “Oh, nothing.” He chuckled. “Just thought I saw one of those black-and-white kitty cats.”

  Eyes tight, I watched his fat rump sway from side to side as he strutted down the alley. My back arched. My rear pulled around until it and my head were pointed in the same direction. Bouncing and hopping sideways, I attacked. He let out a little yelp when I latched on to his left hind leg. His whole, plump, rear end sort of gave a hop and came up off the ground. I wrapped around that leg and hung on for dear life. I didn’t stick my claws out. When I bit him, it wasn’t hard. It was a play bite.