Creature Crossing by Betty Levin

Author:Betty Levin [Levin, Betty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-202990-4
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1999-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

17 After one last glance around her room, Kate swept up Blackberry and carried him downstairs.

“Where are you going?” her dad asked. “I thought we agreed the kitten would stay inside for the first week or so.”

“I’m not letting him go free,” Kate said. “I’m just showing him to Miss Ladd.”

“Oh.” Dad nodded.

“If Ben and Foster show up, tell them—” But if Dad told them anything, it would be the truth or what he believed to be the truth.

“I’ll tell them where you are,” he said helpfully.

Clutching Blackberry so hard that he began to squirm, Kate dashed outside and across the yard to Miss Ladd’s driveway. She had to wait so long for Miss Ladd to let her in that she was afraid Ben would catch her there. Not working. Not doing anything to keep her from his important meeting. But finally the front door opened and Miss Ladd welcomed Kate in.

Almost at once Kate realized that this parlor was no place for Blackberry to run loose, even for a few minutes. Everywhere she looked there were breakable vases and small porcelain figures and lamps with tassels inviting kitten play.

“You don’t look as happy as I would have expected to see you today,” Miss Ladd said.

Kate nodded and gulped. All at once an awful sense of loss came flooding over her. Not the loss of the liz-thing, but of her love for the kitten. She had been so worried about what Ben would say and do that she hadn’t been aware of how her own feelings could be changed. Blinking back tears, she blurted, “Blackberry ate the lizard!”

“What lizard?” Miss Ladd asked.

“Ben’s.”

“Ben has a lizard?” Miss Ladd exclaimed.

Kate nodded. “He found it. We had it in Foster’s bowl in my room because Daisy fiddles with everything.”

Looking slightly puzzled, Miss Ladd considered Blackberry. Then she shook her head. “Your kitten doesn’t seem big enough or hungry enough to eat a lizard. How big is it?”

Without letting Blackberry go, Kate tried to show with her fingers.

“Well,” said Miss Ladd encouragingly, “if it was a baby, maybe there are more at the shop where it came from. I don’t think we have any native lizards.”

“Ben found it right here in the ditch on Flint Farm Road. He thinks it might be an embryo, only he’s not sure. It’s like some dinosaur embryo he saw in a magazine.”

Miss Ladd smiled and frowned almost at the same time. Then she picked up the telephone, dialed, and waited. “Frank,” she said finally, “do you know whether anyone has released a baby lizard into the wild?” She listened a moment, and then she tried to explain what she knew about Ben’s lizard. “What?” she asked. “Wait for what?”

She pulled the phone away from her head. Then she spoke into it again. “Frank?” Then she hung up. Turning to Kate, she said, “That was strange. Frank told me to wait a minute, and now he doesn’t seem to be there.”

Kate thought there wasn’t anything strange about Mr. Torpor being strange, but she didn’t say so.

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