What the Cat Dragged In by Kate McMurray

Author:Kate McMurray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2021-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Paige did not understand how something so small could make so much noise.

A six-year-old boy alternately laughed like a hyena and emitted high-pitched raptor squeals. He’d started encouraging the six other kids at Paige’s Cats and Crafts event, and the volume in the cat room was deafening. Most of the cats had declined to participate and were instead hiding under the furniture.

Paige clapped her hands a few times to get everyone’s attention. “Kids? Hi, kids! We’re going to get started on the crafts in just a minute, but I need everyone to lower your voices. Hunter, you scare the cats when you make noises like that. If you guys want the cats to help with the crafts, you have to be a little quieter.”

The boy looked chastened, but still talked through a lot of her presentation. She had set up supplies on the table for the kids to make cat masks with paper plates and tongue depressors. She’d gotten some cheap yarn from Stitches that the kids could glue to the masks to look like fur, and she had kid-friendly glue sticks, crayons, markers, and safety scissors she’d bought with the fundraising money.

Once the kids knew what to do, they calmed down and got to work. Even Hunter the Screamer mostly focused his attention on making his mask look like a lion. As the kids quieted down, the cats took tentative steps out from under the furniture. By the time the kids were almost done, a couple of cats were sitting on the table with them, sniffing at the kids’ projects. Mr. Darcy got a hold of a ball of yarn and took off with it in his mouth, then rolled around on the floor with it, attacking it like it was his greatest enemy.

“And I thought cats playing with yarn was just something from cartoons,” said one of the moms.

Evan showed up a half hour after the event began and looked startled as he walked into the room.

“Don’t hate me,” he whispered to Paige, “but I completely forgot this was happening.”

“I don’t suppose you want to make a cat mask.”

“Are you kidding?”

Evan dove right in, sitting next to Hunter and drawing a beautiful cat face on a paper plate. Paige hadn’t known Evan even liked kids, although she did know he’d never met a craft he didn’t like. But Evan asked the kids questions and helped them draw and cut yarn. Considering he was working with crayons and yarn, the mask he made was surprisingly lifelike. Paige was grateful for the help, because the kids had started to overwhelm her.

Paige did not have a ton of experience working with children. A few of her friends and family members had kids, but she rarely saw them. Paige liked kids and had liked the idea of doing crafts with them in the abstract, but she had somehow not anticipated the kids would be this rowdy.

She had never thought much about having her own kids. She’d always assumed she’d have one or two, but in the same way she assumed she’d get married someday.

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