This Side of Magic Page 2

  Luke opened his mouth to tell Penny that someone should take a Weed Whacker to the woods, but he didn’t get the chance. Just then, someone grabbed his shoulder. Hard.

  3

  “Ahhhhhhh!” Luke screamed and twirled around, his hands in a karate-chop stance. Luke didn’t actually know karate, but he thought if he looked like he knew something about breaking wood in half, his attacker would run away.

  But, it wasn’t an attacker. It was Natalie. And she didn’t run. She rolled her eyes at Luke. “What is your problem?” she asked.

  “My problem?” Luke sputtered, his hands still in front of his face ready to chop through the air. “You’re the one sneaking up on people.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking,” Natalie explained. “You just didn’t hear me because that cat was making such a racket.”

  “Natalie’s right,” Penny said. “Mo was making so much noise we didn’t hear her.”

  Luke glared at Penny. He couldn’t believe Penny was taking Natalie’s side. Natalie opened her pink notebook and wrote furiously. She didn’t have an ordinary pencil. Hers was topped with an eight-armed, one-eyed rubber monster with bright pink hair. The arms of the ogre trembled in Natalie’s grasp. “So you’ve heard him, too,” she said.

  That was just so Natalie. She would start talking as if everyone knew exactly what she was talking about. Luke knew that if he kept his mouth shut she would go away faster. But Penny couldn’t help asking, “Heard who?”

  “The cat,” Natalie said.

  Penny held up her arm to show where Mo’s claws left four faint streaks of blood. “Of course, we heard Mo,” she said. “Something about those boys irritated him.”

  Natalie tapped the ogre against her two front teeth. “You’re wrong. As usual.”

  Now it was Penny’s turn to think about karate-chopping Natalie, but Luke interrupted her before she could. “I know I’m going to be sorry for asking, but what in the world are you talking about?”

  “You can’t tell me you didn’t hear it,” Natalie said.

  “Hear what?” Luke and Penny yelled at the same time.

  Natalie bopped the ogre against the open pages of her notebook. “That cat talks. I’ve seen him chatting with Mr. Leery from my bedroom window.”

  “Did you actually hear him?” Penny asked.

  “No,” Natalie admitted, “it was too far away.”

  Penny shook her head. “Mr. Leery talks to Mo because he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to. That’s all it is.”

  “You’re wrong,” Natalie said, pointing her ogre pencil at Penny. “Mo answered Mr. Leery. I have it all documented in my notebook.”

  “Let me see,” Luke said and lunged for Natalie’s notebook, nabbing a corner. But Natalie hung on tight.

  “Give. It. Back,” Natalie said, accompanying each word with a jerk.

  “No. Way,” Luke said with two tugs of his own.

  Penny had been itching to look at Natalie’s spy book ever since Natalie started carrying it around in the middle of the summer. Now that school was well under way, Penny was sure Natalie had her pages filled with enough information to blackmail half of Morgantown, including Penny, Luke, and even Mr. Leery and Mo. Penny was just about to grab the notebook for herself when a movement caught the corner of her eye. She could’ve sworn it was a giant bird coming in for the kill.

  “DUCK!” she screamed. Without thinking, she tackled Natalie around the ankles.

  Natalie fell against Luke, sending the notebook sliding across the ground. All three tumbled in a heap just as a dark shadow swooped down upon them. Penny covered her head like a turtle. Luke rolled into a ball like an armadillo. Natalie scrambled after her notebook like a crab and looked toward the sky just as something big crash-landed into the bushes between Mr. Leery’s house and Luke’s.

  “Did you see what it was?” Natalie asked. “I’m pretty sure it was a monster trying to grab us right off the face of the Earth.” She opened her notebook and began furiously scribbling. “Wait until I tell my father. He’ll call the police. He’ll call the National Guard. He’ll call the President!”

  “And they’ll all think you’re one bowling pin short of a strike,” Luke said as he dusted off his jeans. “Because there are no such things as flying monsters.”

  Natalie jabbed her pencil at Luke’s nose, making the arms of the plastic ogre flop. “Then how do you explain what just crashed into those bushes?”

  Before Penny and Luke could answer, the bushes rattled and rustled and wiggled. Something was stuck in the thorns, and whatever it was, it didn’t sound happy. In fact, it almost sounded like it was muttering a string of words that Penny and Luke were never allowed to say or they’d end up being grounded until they were one hundred and two.

  “W–wh–who’s there?” Penny stammered.

  She grabbed Luke’s arm and pulled him back. Step-by-step, the three kids inched away from the shaking bushes. Natalie even forgot she was holding her notebook and it slipped to the ground. Suddenly, the leaves exploded from the bushes as a black shape broke free from the tangle of hedge with a cry of “RRRR-OUCH!”

  “Mo!” Luke gasped at Mr. Leery’s black cat. “You scared the snot out of us!”

  Mo’s fur was ruffled. Leaves were stuck in his whiskers and a bright red feather was caught in his tail. The cat looked at the three kids as if they were hairballs. He walked casually over to Natalie’s notebook and slashed at the open pages with his giant paws.

  “Stop that, you mangy cat,” Natalie snapped.

  Penny ignored Natalie and scooped up Mo. “Where have you been?”

  “Mrrrrrr-arrrnd,” Mo meowed.

  “Did he just say ‘around’?” Natalie asked.

  “Of course not. He is a cat. Cats do not talk,” Luke said slowly as if he were explaining things to a two-year-old.

  “Maybe not most cats,” Natalie said. “But I have a sneaking suspicion that Mo is not an ordinary cat and Mr. Leery is not an ordinary neighbor. It’s all right here in my notebook.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Penny said as she plucked a thorn from between Mo’s toes.

  “Mrrrrr-ahhhnks,” Mo said.

  “See?” Natalie said. “He just said ‘thanks.’”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. He’s just purring because he’s glad to be safe,” Luke said. “Don’t you know anything about cats?”

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said slowly. “I don’t know enough yet. Give me the cat.”

  “What?” Penny gasped and clutched Mo a little tighter. Mo growled. She loosened her grip, but only a little.

  “I need to find out if my suspicions are true,” Natalie said. “Hand him over.”

  “I’m not giving you anything,” Penny said, turning around to keep Mo out of Natalie’s reach. “Mr. Leery told us to take care of his cat, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  Natalie clutched her notebook to her chest. She tapped the ogre against her chin and glared at Mo. “Fine, have it your way. For now. But I intend to get to the bottom of this. With or without your help.”

  With that, Natalie stomped down the sidewalk.

  Penny smoothed the fur on Mo’s back and pulled his claws loose from her T-shirt. She tried to sneak Mo into her house, but Penny’s mom met Penny and Luke at the front door. “Take that cat home right now,” Mrs. Jones told them.

  “But we’re watching him for Mr. Leery,” Penny told her mother.

  Mrs. Jones was not convinced. “That cat will be much happier in his own home. Besides, he probably has fleas.”

  Five minutes later, Penny gently scooted Mo through the cat door Mr. Leery had built. As soon as the last of Mo’s tail was safely inside, she hooked the door so he couldn’t get out during the night.

  “I wonder why Natalie is so curious about Mo,” Luke said, looking at her big house across the street.

  “I couldn’t care less what Natalie does,” Penny said, “as long as she keeps her grubby hands off Mo.”

  4


  “Oh, no!” Penny yelped. “What happened?”

  Luke and Penny stood outside Mr. Leery’s house the next morning. It was Sunday. The two friends had shown up bright and early to feed Mo, but the hook to the cat door was loose and the flap swayed back and forth in the morning breeze.

  “I hooked the cat door. I’m sure I did,” Penny cried.

  “You did,” Luke said. “I saw it myself.”

  “Then how did it get unhooked?” Penny asked.

  “Let’s just hope Mo didn’t decide to go roaming during the night,” Luke said.

  “Here kitty-kitty-kitty,” Penny called.

  Luke pounded on the door and yelled, “Hey, Mo. Where are you?”

  “What are you doing?” Penny asked.

  “Looking for Mo,” Luke said.

  Penny stared at Luke for a full ten seconds. “Mo is a cat. He is not going to answer the door just because you knocked on it.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Luke said, and he stopped knocking on the door.

  Penny shook the bracelet down to her wrist so she could slip the key Mr. Leery had given her into the lock. Slowly, the door creaked open.

  Mr. Leery’s cottage was the oldest house on the block. It was the smallest, too. Light struggled through the two tiny windows on either side of the door to show walls lined with bookshelves. Books were everywhere. Some books had at least an inch-thick layer of dust on them. Several old ones were piled on top of one another in a giant heap. Some were open and pages had been torn out. A small desk sat in a corner.

  Penny sneezed. “Mr. Leery needs a housekeeper and a housepainter.” Then she giggled at a thought. Luke’s mom was always painting something in his house. Right now, she was turning Luke’s room into a basketball locker room. He even had a basketball hoop for his dirty clothes. “Your mom would love to get her hands on this place.”

  “Let’s just find Mo,” Luke said. “We can worry about redecorating later.”

  But Mo was nowhere to be seen.

  “Here kitty-kitty-kitty,” Penny called.

  Nothing.

  Two doors opened to other rooms. One door led to the kitchen where brightly colored bottles of herbs, spices, and oils cluttered the counter. It looked as if Mo hadn’t touched any of his food from the day before, but two blue feathers lay near the back door.

  “He must’ve caught his own dinner,” Luke said.

  The other door led to Mr. Leery’s bedroom. There was a cot, a small dresser, and a straight-backed chair. Tufts of cat hair were clumped in the middle of the bed, but Mo wasn’t there.

  One thing was perfectly clear. Mo was nowhere to be found.

  “What are we going to do?” Penny flopped onto the cot, sending cat hair floating into the air. “We promised Mr. Leery we’d take care of Mo!”

  “It’s not our fault,” Luke said. “We hooked the door. I know we did.”

  “Then who unhooked it?” Penny asked.

  Penny and Luke looked at each other. “Natalie,” they said at the exact same time.

  Penny jumped up. “I’m going to give her a piece of my mind,” she snapped as they hurried outside.

  “Are you sure you have enough pieces to share?” Luke joked as he locked the door behind them.

  “This is no laughing matter,” Penny said. “Natalie catnapped Mo and now she’s going to pay for it.”

  Penny and Luke marched across the street to the biggest house in all of Morgantown.

  “Wait,” Luke said. “You can’t just go barging into Natalie’s house this early in the morning. What will her father say?”

  Natalie’s father was a judge and Natalie always bragged about how her father put people in jail. Luke didn’t really think it would happen, but he didn’t like the idea of being sent to jail for interrupting Mr. Lawson’s morning coffee.

  “I don’t care if the Lawsons are eating their Cheerios. And I don’t care if Natalie’s father is a judge. I am going to get Mo back, and I’m going to do it right now.”

  Penny leaned against the doorbell and didn’t let up until she heard footsteps. The door flung open and there stood Natalie. As soon as Natalie saw who it was, she tried to slam the door. Luke jammed his sneaker in the door just in time.

  “What are you doing here?” Natalie asked.

  “We came to get Mr. Leery’s cat,” Penny said, pushing the door back open. “Let us in.”

  “Cat? What cat?” Natalie said.

  Luke plucked a clump of cat hair off of Natalie’s sweatshirt. He waved it in front of Natalie’s nose. “The cat that belongs to this,” he said.

  Natalie sighed. “Fine. Come in. He’s in my room.”

  Natalie led them up a curving staircase and stopped in front of a closed door at the end of a long hallway.

  “I can’t believe you stole Mr. Leery’s cat,” Luke said.

  “I didn’t steal him,” Natalie said.

  “Then what do you call it when you take something that doesn’t belong to you?” Penny asked.

  Natalie opened the door to her room. It looked like a bottle of stomach medicine had exploded. The walls were pink. The curtains were pink. The carpet was pink. Even the ceiling was pink.

  “I, um, just thought Mo might be a little lonely,” Natalie said. “I brought him here to, um, play. Don’t worry. I treated Mo like a baby.”

  And that’s exactly what Natalie had done. Mo peered at the kids through the slats of a pink doll’s cradle. A piece of cardboard from Natalie’s science fair project was taped over the top, trapping the cat inside. Mo was wearing a baby dress and a frilly pink bonnet. He had been wrapped in a pink blanket with ruffles, but long claw marks were proof that he got loose from that in a hurry. His giant paws poked out from between the slats like a prisoner reaching through the bars of a cell.

  When Luke snorted at the sight, Mo hissed.

  “What have you done?” Penny asked, kneeling down to reach her fingers through the slats to scratch Mo under the chin.

  “I told you, I treated him like a baby,” Natalie said. “I wanted to see what he would say.”

  “Say?” Penny repeated. Then she noticed Natalie’s notebook lying by the cradle. “You were teasing Mo just to see if he would talk?”

  “Isn’t that just the cutest thing you ever did see?”

  All three kids jumped at the voice. There, standing in the doorway, was Natalie’s mother. Mrs. Lawson was almost as wide as she was tall. She wore her hair piled on top of her head, fuzzy slippers, and bright red lipstick. “Those are the very same baby clothes my sweet little Natalie wore when she was an itty-bitty baby herself. Doesn’t that cat look just precious?”

  Luke and Penny couldn’t say Mo looked good dressed up like a baby. He looked ridiculous. But they didn’t want to lie to an adult, so they both kept their mouths shut. It didn’t matter.

  “I must have a picture of this,” Mrs. Lawson said as she gave Natalie a big hug. “It will look adorable in our photo album. Come along, dear, and I’ll get you the camera.”

  Natalie grabbed her notebook and followed her mother out the door. “I’ll be right back,” she warned. “Don’t touch a thing.”

  Natalie was barely out of sight when Mo growled. “BBbbbbout time.”

  “What did you say?” Penny asked Luke.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Luke said. “I thought that was you.”

  Penny looked at Luke. Luke looked at Penny. Then they both looked at Mo.

  Mo looked out the bars of the crib. “Gggrrrrr…. If you ask me,” the cat muttered in a very human-sounding voice, “this is going above and beyond the call of duty.”

  “Holy moly,” Luke gasped. “Natalie was right. You can talk!”

  “RRRrrrr…. Of course I can talk,” the cat muttered. “It’s just that most people don’t bother to lisssssten.”

  Penny plopped down on Natalie’s bed. Luke steadied himself by holding on to the wall.

  “But…but…but cats can’t talk,” Penny argued.

  Mo blinked his amber ey
es at her. “Okay,” he said slowly. “If you ssssay so. But would you mind putting those opposable thumbs of yours to good use and get meow-t of here!”

  Penny and Luke jumped into action. Luke tore off the cardboard and stood aside when Mo pounced on the bed. Penny’s fingers were shaking so badly she couldn’t get the bonnet strings untied.

  “Rip it off, before that girl gets back here,” Mo told her.

  As soon as Penny and Luke had stripped Mo, the cat smoothed the fur on his back where the doll clothes had been.

  “This is impossible,” Penny said. “Does Mr. Leery know you can talk?”

  Mo stopped grooming and sighed. “I told him he should tell you everything, but he didn’t think you were ready.” The more Mo talked, the more human he sounded, as if his tongue and lips were getting the hang of forming words. “Now it’s up to me to get us out of this mess.”

  “Not ready for what?” Luke wanted to know.

  “What mess?” Penny asked.

  “Can’t tell you,” Mo said. Before the kids could argue, Mo glanced at the window. He arched his back and hissed, showing his glistening fangs. Then he leaped from the bed to the windowsill.

  “What’s wrong, Mo?” Penny asked.

  “Who’s out there?” Luke asked.

  All three stood at the window, peering into Natalie’s front yard. Early morning shadows danced across the yard.

  “What are you doing?” Natalie asked, coming into the room and holding a camera. “I told you not to touch anything. Why did you take the clothes off Mo? Now I’ll have to get him all dressed again for the picture.”

  “Mo doesn’t like to be dressed like a baby,” Penny told Natalie.

  “How do you know?” Natalie asked.

  “He told us,” Luke said.

  “Shhh,” Penny said.

  “I knew it!” Natalie said. “I tried to get him to talk all night long, but he refused.” She dropped the camera on the bed so she could open her notebook. Then she kneeled in front of Mo. “Talk,” she demanded.

  Mo stared at Natalie.