Sara Lost and Found by Virginia Castleman

next move is mine: Stick out hand. Shake. Say hellos. Look up. Smile a lot. The first face I look up at is Barbara MacMillan’s. She’s a short, round, friendly-faced woman with shoulder-length brown hair. She has a big smile. When she talks, her words kind of march. Mrs. Craig had said she taught nurses how to nurse. Maybe part of her teaching is giving orders, and that’s why she talks like she does.
    I am right about the balding guy. It’s Dr. Dan MacMillan, her husband.
    A boy, brown as a roasted peanut, who looks like he’s a little older than me, comes around the doorway and stares at us.
    â€œThis is our son—Pablo,” Mrs. MacMillan announces, putting her hands on the boy’s shoulders and moving him toward us. “His adoption was official four years ago yesterday. We still celebrate every year.”
    â€œHi.” Pablo is almost a whole head taller than Anna, which makes him a head and a half taller than me. His eyes are like round black olives, darker than Ben Silverman’s, and his smile is quick and white. His dark brown hair is long on top and falls down on his forehead in curly strands. He has on cutoffs, a sun-melt yellow tie-dyed T-shirt, and sandals.
    â€œWhere’d that come from?” Pablo points to the lump of wet fur that I’m holding.
    I just stare at him. Mrs. Craig steps in. “That’s a kitten that Sara saved from the storm.”
    â€œJust what this neighborhood needs, another stray,” Mrs. MacMillan says, still holding on to Pablo, like if she let go, she’d lose her balance or him. “The block is full of them. Kittens everywhere. Let’s all go into the dining room, shall we?” She ushers us in, looking long and hard at the cat as I pass by.
    â€œKeep it?” Anna begs, patting the kitten’s head.
    â€œIt might be somebody’s pet, honey. Or maybe its family is looking for it—we don’t know. I think we should just put it outside and let it find its way home.”
    â€œMaybe it doesn’t have a home,” I blurt. Didn’t she just call it a stray?
    Mrs. MacMillan glances over at Mrs. Craig, then smiles at me.
    â€œWell, you’re right. I don’t know if it has a home or not. The neighborhood is overrun with kittens no different than this one. But it appears you girls have taken a liking to it—” She frets a moment and does a hem-haw thing. “Mmm. How about this. You can keep it, but it has to stay outside. And if you could, try to keep it out of my garden.”
    Outside? I stare at her. Has she looked around? What if the storm comes back? The kitten could drown. Or get hit by a car or eaten by a dog. Still, I nod, clinging to the kitten. “Can we dry her off real good before she goes out?”
    â€œOf course. Let me get a rag, though. Don’t use the towel.”
    â€œWe’ll sneak her in later,” I whisper to Anna as Mrs. MacMillan races off to find a rag.
    â€œSneaker,” Anna agrees. I grin. Anna has just named the cat.
    â€œIt looks like things are going to be fine,” Mrs. Craig says as we all round the table. “Let’s take a moment, before I leave”—she stops to check her watch to be sure she has time for whatever it is we’re taking a moment for—“and tell the girls about your upcoming move.”
    Upcoming move? What move?
    Mrs. MacMillan returns with a torn-up towel and hands it to me. Anna and I sit beside each other at the dining room table. I don’t make any move to put Sneaker outside, but no one says anything.
    â€œJuice, anyone?” Mrs. MacMillan holds up a pitcher of orange juice.
    Anna and I nod.
    â€œIt was too noisy in the car to really explain the situation to you girls,” Mrs. Craig began, glancing this time at the clock on the wall, “but the MacMillans are moving to South America. Dr. MacMillan is part of a team of surgeons called Doctors Without Borders that goes