Coffee and Calicos by Rosie Pease

Author:Rosie Pease [Pease, Rosie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cozy mystery
Publisher: Paisley Press Books
Published: 2019-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

I shot up to my feet as quick as lightning.

“What was that!”

Gram stood up, too, grabbing the blanket I had been in the process of moving. She pushed back one of the folded portions. “I think we’ve found your ghost.”

“What?”

She stepped back, revealing a small calico kitten. She wasn’t a baby, but she was far from full-grown. A few months old, then.

My mom gasped. “A kitten!”

It took off like a shot and skittered around one of my boxes, jostling a few things in another bag as it scurried away to hide.

I followed the kitten quietly and lifted the box it had run behind, then placed the box on top of another one at my side. I squatted down and shifted another box away from where I thought the kitten had gone after that.

“There you are,” I cooed, hoping a soft voice would calm it down.

It hissed. It was one of the cutest noises I’d ever heard.

“Oh, come now,” I said in not quite a whisper. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.” I stuck my hand close to the kitten so it could smell me and realize I was okay.

Instead, it batted at my finger.

“Oof, you’ve got some sharps claws there, don’t ya?” I kept my fingers still and avoided eye-contact. I didn’t want to scare her any more than she already was. At least I assumed it was a she and not one of those one-in-three-thousand calico males.

She whacked away at my hand for several moments until I finally felt a little nose press against my knuckle.

“There we go, see? I’m not scary.” I slowly wiggled my finger back and forth.

When the kitten didn’t bat at it, I inched my hand closer to her until I could pet the top of her head with one finger. She didn’t react, which I took as a positive sign. At least she hadn’t shrunk back. I added another finger, then another, before sliding my hand down to scratch under her neck.

That seemed to do the trick. The little calico melted into my touch.

I knew I had her. I reached in with my other hand and scooped her up.

She froze as I brought her to my chest and stood up, but with some more neck scratching, she relaxed into my hold. I studied her. She had a white belly with patches of ginger-tabby and black on her back and head. Her little pink nose had a tiny black line running down the center of it.

“She’s so cute,” Gram squealed quietly.

“But where did she come from?” Mom asked.

I ticked my head back and to the side to indicate the paper bag tipped over by the door. “She’s probably what was in that.”

“Aww, the poor thing.” Mom got up from the couch and walked over to the paper bag on the floor. “Who would do such a thing?” She picked up the bag and peeked inside. “There’s a note.”

I hadn’t looked inside the bag when I picked it back up. It hadn’t felt like there was anything left in it.

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