schoolâwould open a door for me into another world.
That afternoon I made a decision.
I would learn everything possible about lost cats and Vietnam.
It felt as if I were going up and over some kind of barrier after spending too long hitting the thing straight on.
Chapter 11
M ai watched as Willow got out of the backseat and headed up the driveway, pulling her wheeled luggage behind her.
Quang-ha mumbled:
âSomeone should tell her to get a backpack.â
Mai shot him a hard look, which she knew would keep her brother quiet.
She could see that the strange girlâs house had been painted the color of the shrimp curry that her mother made. It was a bold yellow that stuck out in the drab neighborhood.
But what really interested Mai was behind the house.
Because it was very green back there.
On one side, a stand of timber bamboo jutted up three stories high. On the other edge of the property, a tall palm tree and several smaller, bluish silver eucalyptus trees trembled together in the late-afternoon wind.
Staring at the house and the properties next door, it looked to Mai like there was a jungle behind where Willow lived.
No one else had that. Not in a neighborhood that spent two hundred days a year without rain.
Maybe, she theorized, the girlâs parents owned a plant nursery.
Her brother didnât seem at all interested in Willow, or her house, but Dell stared intently with his nose almost touching the glass as Willow removed a key from a zipped pocket in her carry-on luggage.
Any regular little kid would have then turned and waved back, or done something to acknowledge the people in the waiting car.
But Willow simply unlocked the door and slid inside, disappearing into the shadows of the curry-colored house as if she were suddenly invisible.
It was intriguing.
Once Willow was gone, Mai watched as Dell Duke jerked his car out of park, hitting the gas pedal so quickly that the Ford lurched forward like a broken carnival ride.
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
So he was
that
eager to get rid of them?
Interesting.
She hadnât had a very good opinion of the counselor, but in the last hour she had been feeling bad about his lost cat.
Now she was quickly returning to her original position:
Dell Duke was not a natural at his job.
After Dell dropped off the troublemaker and his flame-throwing sister, he headed home.
The route took him directly by the school district offices and that was when he saw Cheddar sitting in the still-hot sun on top of a once green Dumpster at the south side of the parking lot.
Dell didnât even brake to get a better look.
There were rats on the property. That was just a fact.
As far as Dell was concerned, Cheddar could pull his own weight back there. And maybe shed a pound or two in the process.
Dell had picked up the cat after reading a notice online about a lost pet.
It wasnât a shelter, so he didnât have to pay any fees. He just claimed the fleabag and even took the plastic cat carrier that the old lady offered.
The woman seemed thrilled to be reuniting the cat with the owner. Dell almost felt bad.
Still, he was going to dump the LOST CAT flyers in the trash. He had promised the kids that heâd post them, but that was just to keep them in their shoes. Theyâd been pretty anxious about losing Cheddar.
The flyers were on the passenger-side floorboard of the car.
Now, as he waited at a traffic light, he had to admit that the drawing, coupled with the imaginative and dedicated coloring that Quang-ha had done earlier in the afternoon, was disturbing.
The kid was a Lone Wolf.
He was coded green.
It was just wrong for the delinquent to have any artistic talent.
But anyone could see from the picture of Cheddar that the surly kid had some kind of visual sense.
Dell made a note to change Quang-haâs category.
He was going to be moved to purple, for Oddball.
Dell found himself wondering if all kinds of assumptions were
That afternoon I made a decision.
I would learn everything possible about lost cats and Vietnam.
It felt as if I were going up and over some kind of barrier after spending too long hitting the thing straight on.
Chapter 11
M ai watched as Willow got out of the backseat and headed up the driveway, pulling her wheeled luggage behind her.
Quang-ha mumbled:
âSomeone should tell her to get a backpack.â
Mai shot him a hard look, which she knew would keep her brother quiet.
She could see that the strange girlâs house had been painted the color of the shrimp curry that her mother made. It was a bold yellow that stuck out in the drab neighborhood.
But what really interested Mai was behind the house.
Because it was very green back there.
On one side, a stand of timber bamboo jutted up three stories high. On the other edge of the property, a tall palm tree and several smaller, bluish silver eucalyptus trees trembled together in the late-afternoon wind.
Staring at the house and the properties next door, it looked to Mai like there was a jungle behind where Willow lived.
No one else had that. Not in a neighborhood that spent two hundred days a year without rain.
Maybe, she theorized, the girlâs parents owned a plant nursery.
Her brother didnât seem at all interested in Willow, or her house, but Dell stared intently with his nose almost touching the glass as Willow removed a key from a zipped pocket in her carry-on luggage.
Any regular little kid would have then turned and waved back, or done something to acknowledge the people in the waiting car.
But Willow simply unlocked the door and slid inside, disappearing into the shadows of the curry-colored house as if she were suddenly invisible.
It was intriguing.
Once Willow was gone, Mai watched as Dell Duke jerked his car out of park, hitting the gas pedal so quickly that the Ford lurched forward like a broken carnival ride.
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
So he was
that
eager to get rid of them?
Interesting.
She hadnât had a very good opinion of the counselor, but in the last hour she had been feeling bad about his lost cat.
Now she was quickly returning to her original position:
Dell Duke was not a natural at his job.
After Dell dropped off the troublemaker and his flame-throwing sister, he headed home.
The route took him directly by the school district offices and that was when he saw Cheddar sitting in the still-hot sun on top of a once green Dumpster at the south side of the parking lot.
Dell didnât even brake to get a better look.
There were rats on the property. That was just a fact.
As far as Dell was concerned, Cheddar could pull his own weight back there. And maybe shed a pound or two in the process.
Dell had picked up the cat after reading a notice online about a lost pet.
It wasnât a shelter, so he didnât have to pay any fees. He just claimed the fleabag and even took the plastic cat carrier that the old lady offered.
The woman seemed thrilled to be reuniting the cat with the owner. Dell almost felt bad.
Still, he was going to dump the LOST CAT flyers in the trash. He had promised the kids that heâd post them, but that was just to keep them in their shoes. Theyâd been pretty anxious about losing Cheddar.
The flyers were on the passenger-side floorboard of the car.
Now, as he waited at a traffic light, he had to admit that the drawing, coupled with the imaginative and dedicated coloring that Quang-ha had done earlier in the afternoon, was disturbing.
The kid was a Lone Wolf.
He was coded green.
It was just wrong for the delinquent to have any artistic talent.
But anyone could see from the picture of Cheddar that the surly kid had some kind of visual sense.
Dell made a note to change Quang-haâs category.
He was going to be moved to purple, for Oddball.
Dell found himself wondering if all kinds of assumptions were
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