Homeless
Chapter Three
Sunita explains they’re looking for a hurt cat named Socrates, who ran off after a fight with a black tuxedo cat. The boy asks if they’ll take the cats away, but Brenna says no, they want to find Socrates and go home.
The boy walks to the boxcar, reaches inside, and pulls out two chipped ceramic bowls. He fills them with cat food from his backpack, and the cats run over to eat while the girl sets down water.
Sunita gives the kids her name and explains Socrates needs a veterinarian. The boy, Jamie, offers to help look, though they’ll have no luck if Socrates is in the bushes, and asks if they know how to care for a hurt cat.
Sunita nods, and Jamie leads them to an injured cat on a doll’s blanket behind a rusted barrel, its hind leg swollen and bloody. He explains a car hit the cat, and he won’t eat, drink, or let anyone close since he’s wild and bites and scratches.
Sunita insists he has to be taken to the clinic. Jamie says they can use the house phone to call for help, and Katie will show them the way. Katie and Maggie cross the tracks toward the house.
Jamie explains the cats aren’t theirs. They just help care for them with allowance money and play with the tame ones since the wild ones bite. Brenna says they need to keep looking for Socrates, and she and David will knock on doors and return in fifteen minutes.
Jamie asks Sunita to describe the tuxedo cat again, then says he’s seen her before; they call her Mittens. Katie and Maggie return with a short, angry woman who warns the cats are dangerous and that she’d told her kids to stay away. As she gets closer, Sunita sees she’s not angry but afraid, reminding her of her own mother.
The woman tells Jamie to take Katie home. Once her kids are out of earshot, she explains the neighborhood is upset: the cats use gardens as a bathroom, dig through garbage, and multiplied after an old man nearby fed them and then moved away. One cat is cute and two are fun, but a jungle of them howling all night is trouble.
The woman explains she’s called everyone, the mayor, city council, county commissioners, but nobody cares while the cats keep having kittens. Sunita offers to help find them homes, but the woman says nobody wants wild cats that bite, scratch, and carry fleas and disease like the raccoons nearby. That’s why the county comes tomorrow to take them away.
Before the woman can explain more, Jamie calls out that there’s a phone call for his mom. She turns to leave, hoping they find their cat fast, since Animal Control comes tomorrow morning.