Leonard (My Life as a Cat), Carlie Sorosiak [7 ebook reader .txt] 📗

fighter. He really is. And when he’s ready to return to the ocean, I want to be there on the shore, toasting him with a bottle of root beer. That’ll be my best day on Earth.”

I shook my fur in agreement; that would be a good day, indeed.

A few raindrops pattered the windshield as Q told Olive, “You’re up, kid.”

But Olive was lost in her thoughts—even after Stanley and I nudged her. Even after Q said you’re up again. All she did was stare out the window, watching the clouds flicker by.

Earth, by nature, is incredibly stormy. Tsunamis crash into cities. Tornadoes whip through cornfields. And walls of rain hit highways in rural Tennessee. Olive was still gazing out the window as the storm came, swiftly and suddenly. Our motor home began to swerve against burst after burst of wind. Water started pounding the roof, loud enough to make us jump. Part of me thought that it was fitting: I’d arrived on this planet with a flood, so why not leave with one?

Q voiced the other half of my thoughts. “Bad luck,” he said, speeding up the windshield wipers. “Bad luck. I’m trying, but I can barely see a thing.”

“Pull over,” Norma instructed. “This isn’t worth it. We’ll wait it out.”

“No!” Olive blurted, the first thing she’d said in an hour. Frantically, she consulted the map. “We need to keep the pace up, if we want to get there two mornings from now. It’s still seven hundred miles to Lincoln, Nebraska.”

“I’m sorry,” Q said. “I really am. But we’re not making good time in this rain, anyway. And if we get into an accident . . . That’ll lose the most time. Storms are funny things; they sweep in, sweep out. You’ll see. We’ll be back on the road quickly.”

Except it didn’t happen quite that way.

At the next exit was a rest stop, and we waited there—first in the Winnebago and then at a covered picnic table, watching the rain glisten and fall. Lightning arrived: big bursts that split the sky. Stanley wasn’t a great fan of lightning. Two flashes later, he was cowering beneath the table, fur bristling on the back of his neck. I scooted next to him, offering company and commiseration: On my planet, I said with my eyes, there is no lightning.

And he said, Please, oh, please, make it stop.

Little streams of water were seeping around us; I was flicking my paws, freeing them of droplets, when Norma asked, “You want something to drink while we wait? Thought I saw a vending machine just down the way.” Q requested lemonade, Olive asked for chocolate milk, so Norma wrenched up the hood of her coat, slipping behind a sheet of water. It didn’t take long before the storm consumed her completely.

Q drew a damp pack of cards from the pocket of his cargo pants. “You know, your grandma used to be a storm sailor. I’ve seen her go out when the waves were”—he whistled, pointing to the ceiling—“way up there.”

“Really?” Olive said.

“Why do you think she has that motorcycle?” Q asked, shuffling the deck. “Still has some daredevil in her. Now pick a card, any card.”

Olive selected a card from the bottom of the stack as I shook my fur. “I’m starting to get worried,” she said. “The GPS says we have to travel eleven hours and nine minutes today, and that doesn’t include bathroom breaks. Or snack breaks. Or storm breaks. Or Norma breaks. Do you think we could drive through the night? Is that possible?”

“Anything’s possible with enough coffee,” Q said, placing the cards on the table. “I could ask Norma to drive some. Her night vision’s sharp as a bat’s. But she’ll ask why we’re rushing.”

Olive’s shoulders drooped. “Yeah, that would be bad. You really think that it would shock her, telling her about Leonard?”

Q shuffled the deck once more, Olive’s card somewhere in the middle. “My guess is yes. And I’d hate to risk it. Your grandmother’s the best friend I’ve ever had . . . Now, important question,” Q said, tugging a two of hearts from the deck. “Is this your card?”

Olive shook her head.

“How about this one?” Q asked.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Well, darn,” he said, half at the cards, half at the sky. The rain kept bolting down.

By the time we were back on the road, we’d lost two and a half hours and Olive couldn’t stop jiggling her legs, or sitting on her hands, or pressing her forehead to the window, willing the motor home to move faster. Nervously, I watched her from my perch on the kitchen counter, a dishcloth draped over my back; it wasn’t nearly as cottony as my green beach towel, but I was making do under the circumstances. My fur was pitifully soaked.

Outside it was still misting. Norma opened several windows anyway, allowing a foggy breeze. Between gas-station snacks and Stanley’s wet-dog scent, the Winnebago was beginning to smell stale. We said nothing to one another for over a hundred miles—just let the wind do the talking.

In Nebraska, we finally pulled into the campground well after midnight, the RV chugging to a stop.

“Whew,” Q said, yanking up the parking brake.

“You said it,” Norma added, stretching her back.

And Olive whispered that she had a surprise for me, if I wasn’t too exhausted. She dug out her suitcase. Underneath a stack of books—the Whitman and the Wordsworth—there was a small green tent. “I bought it at a used camping store online, so I’m not expecting great things, but it should fit us both.”

I like to think that my tail said it all—that Olive knew exactly how much this meant. It really was extraordinary, setting up camp in a lush bed of grass, not too far from a silver-topped lake. Inside the green fabric, I was a ranger. I was camping in the wilderness, the earth at my feet.

All that time, all that study.

And now, someone to share it with.

Olive brought out pillows,