Socks by Beverly Cleary Page A

itself, but his food was a different matter. He crouched, flattened his ears and hissed, hoping to frighten the other cat, but prepared to defend his dish if he must.
    Old Taylor merely glanced in his direction and went on gnashing and crunching. Socks’s honor as a cat could not excuse such rudeness. He advanced, still hissing, through the rain. Old Taylor stopped gnawing and grinding. He flattened his ears and hissed back from the dry spot on the step.
    By now Socks was not only angry, he was soaking wet. He ignored the rain and continued to crouch, changing his hiss to a light singsong wail intended to warn Old Taylor that he meant what he said. His tune did not frighten Old Taylor. The black cat returned the sound louder and meaner. No young upstart was going to tell him anything. The fur of the two cats rose along their spines. They wailed and howled and caterwauled, and all during the eerie duet they were moving closer to one another with their fangs bared and their ears laid back.

    Nose to nose, Socks found Old Taylor a terrifying sight with his ear torn and his fur standing out on his great black jowls. But Socks did not back down. Finally, with a terrible scream, the cats were on one another, a growling, snarling, yowling tangle. They clawed and bit and tumbled down the steps into a puddle. They rolled across the soaking grass and into freshly spaded earth. They floundered and wallowed in the mud. Old Taylor was on his back, thrashing at Socks with punishing blows of his strong hind feet. Socks felt claws and teeth through hisfur. He hurt, he was bleeding, and Old Taylor had sprayed him. The black cat was too much for him.
    Socks no longer cared about his dry food. Let the old tomcat have it. Socks wanted to get away, to untangle himself from the snarling, biting mass of muddy black fur. Somehow he did get away and ran for the garage while Old Taylor sent singsong warnings after him through the downpour. When Socks tried to leap to the windowsill, the weight of the mud on his fur made him fall. When he tried to lick his bleeding forepaw, the rasps on his tongue scraped up a mouthful of mud. Cold, wet, stiff with mud and in pain, Socks needed help.
    Lights were coming on in the bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens of the neighborhood. Old Taylor had disappeared. Slowly and painfully Socks made his way throughthe rain, through the scattered cat food, now soggy and unappetizing, to his own back door where he cried a small, desperate meow for help.
    Mrs. Bricker, who was in the kitchen, heard and must have understood, for she immediately opened the back door. “Socks!” she cried, shocked.
    Socks looked up at her with sad, defeated eyes.
    â€œOh, poor Socks!” Mrs. Bricker opened the door wider, and Socks stepped painfully into the laundry. “Bill! Come and look at Socks. He’s been in a fight!”
    Mr. Bricker came down the hall with his bathrobe flying. “Why you poor old fellow,” he said, when he saw his cat.
    Socks waited helplessly.
    â€œAnd he’s bleeding !” cried Mrs. Bricker. “What’ll we do? He can’t lick all that mud.”
    Mr. Bricker agreed. “And if we tried to give him a bath, he’d climb the wall.”
    â€œWe can’t let the mud dry,” said Mrs. Bricker. “Adobe bricks are made out of mud like this. If it dries, he’ll turn into an adobe cat.”
    â€œTry wet bath towels.” Mr. Bricker snatched a clean towel from the tangle on top of the dryer and dampened it under the kitchen faucet. Mrs. Bricker did the same. They knelt and began to rub Socks. How good the warm towels and gentle hands felt. Charles William awoke and fussed in his crib, but this time Socks got the attention, which made him feel better.
    â€œPoor Socks,” grieved Mrs. Bricker, as she swabbed with a second towel and then a third. “It’s all our fault for shutting you out.” She dropped the towel into the washing machine and