Ava and Taco Cat by Carol Weston Page B

late to spy a lion or leopard (or maybe a pride of lions or leap of leopards).
    I kept my eyes peeled for as long as I could…but I must have fallen asleep.
    I just woke up and guess what? Taco Cat is not in my room, and neither is the trail of treats! When no one was looking, he must have snuck in and eaten them all up, one by one!
    Believe it or not, I consider this progress.
    Ava the Astute
    P.S. It’s cool that cats can see in the dark—well, unless it’s totally pitch black.

1/8
Friday night
Dear Diary,
    The bonus words on today’s spelling test were catastrophe and cataclysmic. Both start with cat and mean when something truly terrible happens.
    Chuck used to tease me about all my 100s on spelling tests, but we haven’t talked to each other since Zara talked to him about liking me. I know that’s not a cat aclysmic cat astrophe, but it feels like one!
    I miss our little looks. Like, whenever something funny happened, we used to look at each other. Today, when Riley said something about her horse, I wanted to sneak a peek at Chuck, but I knew I might feel dumb if he saw me looking at him. And what if he didn’t see me looking because he wasn’t looking back? That might feel even worse!
    It didn’t help that Maybelle and Zara were both wearing their string necklaces today and also matching sky-blue nail polish. I tried not to care, but I couldn’t help but care, especially when I heard them giggle together. I started feeling sorry for myself, and then I started getting mad at myself for feeling sorry for myself.
    It is not easy being eleven!
    After school, I asked Maybelle if she wanted to sleep over. She said she had “plans.” I mumbled, “Okay,” but felt as if I’d swallowed an ice chip. I mean, if she had mathletes or a dentist appointment, she would have just said so. We stood there for an awkward moment and it was as if Zara were standing right between us.
    I said “Bye” and walked home with Pip, and she made me work on Alphabet Fish . M was supposed to be for “minnow,” but Pip wanted to change it to “mudskipper” because mudskippers have eyes that stick out on the top of their heads, like aliens, and she said they’d be more fun to draw. I said, “Whatever,” because I didn’t care whether M was for minnow, mudskipper, or…Moby Dick.
    After a few minutes, I handed her a mudskipper rhyme and also:
    N is for nurse shark.
    If you were sick and this shark called nurse
    Took care of you…you might get worse!
    Confession: I was thinking of Zara when I wrote that. If Zara had never moved to Misty Oaks, she would never have moved in on my friendships with Maybelle and Chuck!
    Is Taco my new friend? Maybe. But he could be a lot friendlier!
    Ava, Alienated (That’s how it can feel when your friends aren’t being friendly.)

1/8
10:01 p.m.
Dear Diary,
    You know how they say to think outside the box? Taco pooped outside the box.
    And it was my fault!
    We were watching TV and I used the downstairs bathroom. Afterward, I shut the door behind me and completely forgot that we’re supposed to leave it open so Taco can go in and out and use his litter box whenever he wants. Just now I remembered that I’d closed that bathroom door hours ago! I went down to open the door but…too late! There were two little poops right next to the door. Cat scat! (Scat is a fancy way to say P-O-O-P—or poo or doo or dung or manure or feces or excrement.)
    Poor Taco! He’d obviously tried to be a good boy! He could have pooped anywhere . And cats prefer to bury their P-O-O-P and not leave it out in the open for everyone to see.
    I got a bunch of toilet paper, picked up the poops, dropped them into the toilet, and flushed.
    I’m glad Taco didn’t pee outside the box. That would have been way harder to clean up.
    Cleaning up the P-O-O-P was surprisingly easy—not that I want to go into the