Chapter 1

============================================================

The rain had been falling since before the sun came up. Mei could tell because she had been awake to hear it begin. First one slow tap against her window. Then another. Then a soft, steady shushing, as if the sky were whispering a secret to the roof.

She rolled over in bed and listened for the other sound. The small, careful sound she loved best in the mornings. The click of paws on the wooden floor in the hallway. The soft thump of a cat landing on her bed.

But the hallway was quiet.

Mei sat up. Her braid was crooked from sleep. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the foot of her bed, where a warm, round, calico-colored bump was usually waiting.

No bump.

"Pearl?" Mei whispered.

She went to the kitchen corner where Pearl's two dishes sat on a blue mat.

The water dish was full, the way Mei had left it before bed.

The food dish was full too. Still full. Every crunchy brown pellet exactly where Mei had poured them the night before. The little pyramid Pearl always knocked down on the first bite was still a neat pyramid.

Mei's stomach went from small and tight to hard and cold.

"Baba," she said. Her voice came out quieter than she meant. "Pearl didn't eat."

Her father looked up from the newspaper. He had his glasses on the end of his nose, the way he always did when he was only half paying attention. But when he saw Mei's face, he set the paper down.

"Are you sure, my Mei?"

"The pyramid is still there."

Baba came over. He looked at the dish. He looked at the cat door in the bottom of the back door, which swung a little in the wet morning breeze.

"She might be curled up somewhere sleeping," he said. "Let's check the usual spots."

They checked the laundry basket. Pearl was not in the laundry basket.

They checked the top of the bookshelf. Pearl was not on the bookshelf.

They checked the sunny square on the living room rug, even though the sun was not out today and there was no sunny square. Pearl was not there either.

They checked under Mei's bed, behind the couch, inside the closet with the winter coats, and once, just to be thorough, inside the dryer. No Pearl.

Mei stood by the back door and watched the rain come down in gray lines. The cat door flapped gently. Open. Closed. Open. Closed.

"She'll come back," Baba said. He put a hand on Mei's shoulder. "Cats wander. She always comes home."

Mei nodded, because that was what you were supposed to do when your baba said a thing with that voice.

But inside, where no one could see, Mei was already beginning to be afraid.

She could not eat her toast. She let it sit on her plate until it went cold and hard like a little brown tile. Then she slid off her chair, put on her yellow raincoat, and went out the front door.

She had to tell the others.

============================================================

The Maple Street Kids had a tree.

It was a big maple at the end of the cul-de-sac, old enough that three children could sit inside the curve of its roots and still have room for a fourth if the fourth didn't mind getting muddy. In the summer the leaves made a green ceiling. In the fall the leaves turned the color of fire and fell all around them like confetti. In the winter the branches were black and pointing. In the spring, like now, the tree was just beginning to put out tiny green buds the size of a baby's fingernail.

Today the tree was wet.

Mei got there first. She always did. She sat down on the round stone they used as the meeting rock, pulled her yellow hood up, and waited.

Diego came next, because Diego was the most reliable. He wore his blue rain jacket, which his abuela had sewn a patch onto right over the heart. The patch said DIEGO in careful stitches. He was carrying a notebook wrapped in a plastic grocery bag to keep it dry.

"Hey, Mei," he said. Then he looked at her face. "Hey. What's wrong?"

Mei opened her mouth. She closed it again. She was afraid that if she said the words out loud they would become more true.

"Pearl didn't come home last night."

Diego sat down on the root next to her. He didn't say anything right away. Mei liked that about Diego. He knew when words would only make a thing worse.

Jalil came splashing up the sidewalk, because Jalil always splashed. He had his sister Layli's rubber duck tucked under one arm for no reason Mei could figure out.

"Why the long faces?" Jalil called. "Did somebody lose a — "

He stopped.

"Pearl," Mei said again. It was getting easier to say. Easier and harder at the same time.

Jalil sat right down in a puddle without seeming to notice.

"Oh no. Oh, Mei. Oh no."

Amaya arrived next. She was the youngest, and she was wearing a rain hat shaped like a frog, because Amaya's moms thought it was important for a raincoat to be fun. Her short braids stuck out on either side under the frog.

"Why are we all sad?" Amaya asked. Then, "Ribbit," under her breath, because she could not help herself.

"Pearl's missing," Diego told her.

The frog hat drooped a little, as if the frog had heard too.

Tommy came last. Tommy had joined them only a few weeks ago, back at the end of everything that had happened in the fall. He was eight, like Diego, but taller and skinnier, with hair that always looked like he had just gotten out of bed. He stopped at the edge of the tree, the way he still sometimes did. As if he were not quite sure he was invited.

"Come on," Diego said, waving him in. "Get under."

Tommy came in.

"What's going on?"

"Pearl's gone."

"Pearl the cat?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," Tommy said. His face went still. Mei saw him thinking, the way he did, about what was the right thing to say. Tommy had spent a lot of his life not knowing the right thing to say, and now he tried very hard, which Mei liked. "I'm sorry, Mei. That's — that's really bad."

Mei nodded. She drew her knees up to her chin. The bark of the maple tree was cold through her coat.

They were one short. They were missing Noor.

"Should we wait?" Amaya asked.

"No," Diego said. "Let's tell her at her house. If Pearl's out somewhere, every minute counts."

Mei said nothing. But in her pocket, her fingers closed around a small bell. It was Pearl's bell, the one she wore on her collar. It had come off the collar two weeks ago, and Mei had meant to fix it, and she had forgotten.

If she had fixed it, they would be able to hear Pearl. Wherever Pearl was.

Mei pressed the bell very hard into her palm.

============================================================

Jalil's baba was in the garage when they all tromped up, dripping, to Jalil's house. He was doing something complicated to the underside of a bicycle that had belonged to Layli, who was now three and did not fit on it anymore. Baba Nasir had his sleeves rolled up and a smudge of grease on his chin.

"Ah," he said when he saw them. "A whole committee. And all of them wet. What is the matter?"

Jalil told him. The story came out fast and loud, the way Jalil told all stories, with his hands waving.

"— and the food pyramid was still a pyramid, which means she never came home, and Mei is very sad, Baba, we have to do something — "

Baba Nasir wiped his hands on a rag. He looked at each of them, slowly, one by one. When he got to Mei, his eyes were kind.

"I am sorry, Mei-joon. Pearl is a good cat. We will find her."

Mei felt her chin wobble. She fixed it.

"We're going to search," Diego said. "We just have to figure out how."

"Good," said Baba Nasir. "Then let us have a consultation."

"A what?" Tommy said.

Amaya lifted one finger. "A con-sul-tay-shun."

"A meeting," Baba Nasir said. "But a particular kind of meeting. A consultation is when we sit down together and share our ideas, and we listen to each other with open hearts, and we do not say a thing is right just because it was our idea. We try to find the truth together, like you try to find a smooth stone in a stream. You look together, and when someone sees it, everyone looks at where they're pointing."

Noor was at the door.

Mei had not heard her come. Noor was like that. She moved softly, the way a deer moves. She was standing in the open doorway of the garage in a big blue raincoat that must have belonged to her older cousin, because the sleeves came down past her hands.

"Pearl is missing?" Noor said. Her voice was careful. She was still picking up English one word at a time, the way Mei picked up beach glass. "I am sorry, Mei. I am very sorry for your heart."

Mei had not known that was a thing you could say in English. I am sorry for your heart. But as soon as Noor said it, Mei thought it was the most correct sentence she had ever heard.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Noor came in and sat down on an upturned bucket next to Amaya.

"Good," Baba Nasir said. "Now we are all here. So. Consultation. Who has an idea?"

For a moment nobody spoke. Mei looked at the oil stain on the garage floor. It was the shape of a dog. Or maybe a cloud.

"I have one," Jalil said. "We get hot dogs and lay a trail of hot dogs from the tree to my house and Pearl will smell them and follow."

Diego opened his mouth to say this was a terrible idea. Baba Nasir caught his eye and gave a very small shake of his head.

"Jalil, that is a creative idea," Baba Nasir said. "What might be a problem with it?"

Jalil thought. His forehead creased.

"Other animals would eat the hot dogs," he said sadly.

"Yes," Baba Nasir said. "Also Pearl probably does not know what a hot dog is. But the idea of using something that she likes — that is a good thought. We could bring her favorite treats when we look."

Jalil glowed a little. Mei thought, my baba is good, but Jalil's baba is also good. There are a lot of good babas in the world.

"I have an idea," Diego said. He opened his plastic-wrapped notebook. "What if we make a map. The neighborhood. And we cut it into pieces, and each of us takes a piece, and we search really carefully, and then nobody searches the same place twice."

"Zones," Amaya said, because she had heard her moms say this word once when they were talking about a new parking sign.

"Zones," Diego said. "Exactly."

"That is a very good idea," Baba Nasir said. "Mei, what do you think?"

Mei looked up. She had not expected to be asked.

"I think," she said, slowly, "I think Pearl doesn't like loud noises. So we shouldn't yell her name too loud. Just say it. Like, regular."

Everybody thought about this.

"Yes," Noor said. "When I call my cat at home — " she stopped, because she did not have a cat at home anymore, and everyone knew she did not. "When I called my cat, I did not shout. I said, softly, come, come. Like that."

Mei nodded. There was a warm, wet feeling behind her eyes. Noor looked at her and smiled a small, kind smile.

"So," Baba Nasir said, "this is consultation. Diego, you make us a map. Jalil, you bring Pearl's favorite treats. Mei, you tell everyone the best way to call her. Amaya — "

"I can be the brave one," Amaya said. "For going in scary places."

"A necessary job."

"Tommy?"

Tommy had been quiet. He pushed his hair out of his eyes.

"I can — um. I can go anywhere. I don't have to be home."

Baba Nasir looked at him for a second longer than necessary. Then he nodded.

"You have the gift of being free, then. That will be useful too."

"And Noor?"

"I will help," Noor said. "Wherever I am needed."

"Good. Then we have a plan. And one more thing — " Baba Nasir lowered his voice. "If we do not find Pearl today, we will have consultation again tomorrow. Because this is how it works. A consultation is not one meeting. It is how we listen together, again and again, until the thing is done."

Mei let her fingers unclench inside her coat pocket. For the first time since she had seen the untouched pyramid of food, she could breathe all the way down to the bottom of her ribs.

============================================================

Diego's map was beautiful.

He did not say this about it, because Diego was the kind of boy who did not say things like that about his own work. But anyone could see. He had taken a big piece of the brown paper his abuela wrapped her bread in, and he had drawn all of Maple Street on it with a black pen, and every house was a little square with the family's name above it, and there were X's where the big trees were and wavy lines where the creek was, and dotted lines for the path that cut through to the park.

He had drawn a star on Mei's house.

"Because that's home base," he said. "That's where Pearl is trying to get to."

He had divided the paper into five zones, each a different shape, each outlined in a different color of crayon.

"Zone Red," he said. "That's the front street and the yards on the even side. Zone Blue — the odd side, with the Ramirez house and the Goldmans'. Zone Green — the path down to the park, including the playground. Zone Yellow — the creek. Zone Purple — " and here Diego paused. "Zone Purple is the far end of Maple, where the old shed is. And Mrs. Gable's yard."

Everybody made a small face at Mrs. Gable's name.

Mrs. Gable lived in the last house at the end of Maple Street, which was small and white with green shutters and a fence that was a little too high. She had a sign on her fence that said NO TRESPASSING in red letters. When kids ran through her yard chasing a ball, she came out on her porch and said, "You children get off my lawn." She said it exactly like that. Like a lady in a cartoon.

"I don't want Mrs. Gable's yard," Amaya said.

"Somebody has to take it," Diego said. "Who's brave enough?"

Amaya slumped. "I said I was brave. Okay. Me."

"No," Mei said. "Not by yourself."

"We'll all take that one together," Diego said. "At the end. Zone Purple is a group zone."

"And the creek?" Noor asked.

"Zone Yellow," Diego said. "Who wants the creek?"

"I'll take the creek," Tommy said.

Everyone looked at him.

"I mean — I'm not scared of it. I used to — I used to go down there, sometimes."

When things were hard, Mei thought. He means when things were hard. She remembered Tommy from before — sharp and angry, with a pocket full of small mean tricks. He had been different since he had joined them. But some of the old Tommy was still there, like a dark line under a picture.

"Good," Diego said. "Tommy takes Zone Yellow. Mei — "

"I'll take Zone Red," Mei said. "Because Pearl knows my voice best. She might come if I'm calling on our own street."

"Jalil takes Zone Blue. Amaya takes Zone Green. Noor — will you come with me in my zone?"

"Which zone is yours?"

"Whichever one is left after everyone else is happy," Diego said. His abuela had raised him to say things like that.

"I will come with you," Noor said.

"Good. We meet back here at the tree at noon."

And so the first search began.

Mei walked down her own street. She carried the bell in her pocket and a little bag of Pearl's favorite treats in her other hand. The treats were shaped like tiny orange fish.

"Pearl," Mei said. Not loud. Just her regular voice, the way she said it at bedtime. "Pearl, come on home. Pearl."

She looked under every bush. She looked in every rosemary plant (Pearl loved to lie in the rosemary, for mysterious Pearl reasons). She looked under every parked car, shaking the bag of treats. She looked up into the branches of every tree.

No Pearl.

Everywhere in the rain there were other sounds that were not Pearl. A crow croaked somewhere. A neighbor's dog barked twice. A car engine far away. A dropping from a leaf.

No small pads of paws. No chirp-meow, like Pearl said when she saw Mei coming.

No Pearl.

============================================================

They met at the tree at noon. Nobody had found Pearl.

They ate peanut butter sandwiches that Jalil's mama had made for everyone, and then they fanned out again.

By supper, they still had nothing.

By supper, Mei did not want her supper.

Her mother watched her push rice around her bowl. Her mother had gentle eyes and did not say, "Eat." Instead she said, "It is okay to not be hungry when your heart is busy." Then she sat next to Mei and hummed, very quietly, a song Mei's grandmother used to hum while she cooked. The humming made a small warm place for Mei to sit inside of.

After supper, Diego knocked on the door.

"The others are coming. We're going to search again. With flashlights."

"In the dark?"

"Pearl is a cat, Mei. Cats are out at night."

So they went out, all six of them, each holding a flashlight. Baba Nasir came too, and Noor's mother Layla, walking at the back of the group in a long gray coat. The rain had stopped but everything was still wet, and the streetlights made yellow stripes on the puddles.

"Pearl," they called. Quietly, the way Mei had told them. "Pearl. Pearl."

The flashlights made spots of gold go across the bushes and fences. Moths went in and out of the beams.

Amaya was unusually quiet. Then, at one point, she said, "Did you ever see a snail in a flashlight? They look like tiny wet jewelry."

Everyone laughed. Even Mei, a little.

"Amaya," Jalil said. "You are so weird. And we love you."

"I know," said Amaya.

Noor was walking next to Mei. Her mother walked behind them. After a while Noor said, very shyly, "In my country — we had cats. On the street. They were everybody's and nobody's. My grandmother used to give them the bones from the fish."

"Do you miss them?"

Noor thought.

"I miss — I miss my grandmother," she said. "The cats too. But my grandmother, more."

"I'm sorry, Noor."

"It is okay. Some day I will see my grandmother again." Noor paused. "I do not know when. But some day."

They walked for a little while without talking. Mei's flashlight made a small round moon on the sidewalk in front of them.

"I think hope is a thing you just have to keep holding," Noor said. "Even when it is heavy."

Mei did not know what to say. She reached out and bumped Noor's hand, softly, with her own. Noor bumped back.

They searched until Noor's mother said it was time for the children to go home. They had covered all five zones. No Pearl.

Before Mei went inside, Amaya came up to her on the porch.

"Can I sleep over?" she said. "My moms said it was okay. I asked at dinner, just in case."

Mei looked at her. Amaya in her frog hat, with her serious little face.

"Yes," Mei said. "Please."

That night, Amaya slept in the spare bed in Mei's room. Before they turned the light off, Amaya whispered, "If Pearl is outside somewhere, do you think she knows we're looking?"

Mei considered.

"I think she knows somebody loves her."

"Because love goes through walls."

"Does it?"

"My mom says it does."

Mei closed her eyes. In the dark, the rain started up again.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay. Love goes through walls. Please, love, go find Pearl."

============================================================

Tommy had gone back to the creek in the morning, alone, before the others were awake.

He told them this when they all met at the tree. He looked a little embarrassed about it. "I couldn't sleep," he said. "So I thought — "

"Tommy," Diego said. "That was brave. And also you should have told us."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"What did you find?"

Tommy put something on the round stone.

PEARL

And on the back, their phone number.

Mei picked it up. Her hand was shaking.

"This was on her collar," she said.

"I know."

"She lost it. Two weeks ago. She lost it, and I — I — "

"Mei." That was Noor. "The tag is not the cat. The tag is a clue. A clue means we are closer."

Mei held the tag in her fist. Noor was right. But also, looking at the little pink circle, Mei felt something heavy land in her chest, because Pearl had been so close to where the tag was. Pearl had been by the creek.

"Where exactly did you find it?" Diego asked.

"There's a path down to the water," Tommy said. "Just where the path starts to bend. It was in the mud, kind of stepped on."

"So she was there. At least, at some point."

"Or the tag was there at some point," Mei said, because she had to try not to hope too fast.

"Right. Right."

They all stood around the stone, looking at the tag.

"I think," Jalil said, slowly, "I think we need to ask Mrs. Gable."

Everyone looked at Jalil.

"Her yard backs up to the creek," Jalil said. "She might've seen Pearl. Cats go through yards."

"Mrs. Gable hates kids," Amaya said.

"Mrs. Gable," Diego said, looking at the map, "is in Zone Purple. Which we said we would do as a group."

Nobody wanted to do Zone Purple.

But Mei thought of the untouched pyramid of cat food, which had now been untouched for almost two days. She thought of the way Pearl's empty spot on her bed was getting easier to ignore, and how she did not want it to be easy to ignore, ever, because if she got used to it, maybe it would become permanent.

"Let's go," Mei said. "Right now."

============================================================

The fence around Mrs. Gable's yard was taller than Diego. The NO TRESPASSING sign was a little faded at the corners, but still bright red where it mattered.

There was a gate. There was a doorbell next to the gate. Jalil rang it.

They heard a slow shuffle from the house. A door opening. Then a voice, cracked and sharp.

"Who is it?"

"It's — um — kids from the neighborhood, ma'am," Diego said. He was the oldest. He had made himself be the one. "We wanted to ask you a question."

"What question."

Diego took a breath.

"Have you seen a cat? A calico cat. Orange and black and white. Her name is Pearl. She's — she's been missing."

Silence. Then shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, closer. The gate opened a crack.

Mrs. Gable had a thin face. She had short gray hair. She had eyes that were not mean, not exactly, but tired. She had a pink bathrobe on over a green dress. She looked at them the way a person looks at a puddle they would rather not step in.

"No," she said.

"You haven't — "

"I said no, didn't I? I have not seen a cat."

"Ma'am," Jalil said. "Her tag was found by the creek, right near your yard. Maybe if you could just — "

"I do not have your cat," Mrs. Gable said, and her voice cracked higher. "I do not have time for nuisance children. You children are always — running, yelling, trampling — well, this is private property, and I have told you before, there is no trespassing here. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," Diego said.

"Go home."

"Ma'am — "

"Go home."

The gate shut. They heard the lock click. They heard the shuffle move back toward the house. They heard the door of the house shut, hard.

Nobody said anything for a while.

Then Amaya said, quietly, "I don't like Mrs. Gable."

"I don't either," Jalil said.

Diego was looking at the gate with his jaw tight. "She knows something."

"Diego," Mei said.

"I'm just saying. Did you see how her eyes went when I said cat? She knows something."

"Diego."

"What?"

Mei did not know what. She just knew she did not want Diego to say another mean thing about a person they did not know.

But her own chest was full of hurt, and it was easy, too easy, to let it turn into suspicion.

They walked back to the tree. Rain started up again. None of them had put their hoods on.

============================================================

"She did something to Pearl."

Diego said it at the tree, with his arms crossed. His face was harder than Mei had ever seen it.

"Diego," Tommy said. "You don't know that."

"She wouldn't let us in the yard, Tommy."

"It's her yard."

"She was too quick to say no."

"Some people just are like that," Noor said, very softly. "In my — in my old town, there was a lady who yelled also. She was not bad. She was afraid."

"Mrs. Gable is not afraid of kids," Diego said. "She thinks she's too good for kids."

"Diego, stop," Mei said.

Diego looked at her, surprised. They did not argue, usually.

"Mei, I'm trying to help Pearl."

"I know. But you're being — " Mei tried to find the word. "You're being sure. You don't know. You're being sure of something you don't know."

"She wouldn't let us look!"

"She doesn't have to let us look! It's her yard!"

"She was weird!"

"Lots of people are weird! Tommy was weird!"

"Hey," Tommy said.

"Sorry."

"It's fine."

"Diego," Mei said. "I want to find Pearl too. I want to find Pearl more than anyone. But if we go in there thinking Mrs. Gable is a bad person, we won't see the truth. We'll only see what we're looking for. Baba Nasir said — in consultation, you have to let go of your own idea. Or else it isn't really consultation. It's just — people being sure."

Diego uncrossed his arms. He looked at his shoes.

"I don't like her," he said. Smaller.

"I don't like her either. But not liking is different from knowing."

"Yeah."

Jalil had been silent. Now he said, "Okay. So what do we do?"

"Go back," Mei said. "But not like we went the first time. Not by ourselves."

"Who with?"

Mei thought.

"Noor," she said. "Would your mama come with us?"

Noor's eyes brightened a little.

"My mother is — " She searched for the word. "Gentle. With hard people. She is. I will ask her."

"Good," Diego said. And then, to Mei, very quietly, "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"No. I mean — thank you."

Mei put her hand on Diego's sleeve for one second, and then took it back. It was enough.

============================================================

Noor's mother's name was Layla. She wore a soft green headscarf and had hands that were always doing two things at once — folding, stirring, writing a list. But when she came with the children to Mrs. Gable's gate, she was not doing anything with her hands. They hung quietly at her sides.

"I will speak first," Layla said. "Yes?"

"Yes," Diego said.

Layla rang the bell.

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. The gate opened a crack. Mrs. Gable looked out, and when she saw a grown woman, her face tightened up, because she had been expecting more nuisance children.

"Yes?"

"Good afternoon," Layla said. Her English was careful, but warmer than her daughter's. "My name is Layla. I live at the blue house, two doors from here. I am the mother of Noor, who you see here."

Mrs. Gable looked at Noor. Noor looked back, steady.

"I am sorry to come to your door a second time. The children have told me they bothered you this morning. I want to apologize."

Mrs. Gable blinked.

"I — I do not want an apology," she said, flustered. "I simply do not want strangers in my yard."

"Yes. I understand. It is your home. I too do not like strangers in my home."

"Well."

"But you see," Layla said, "the child — this child here — " she put her hand very gently on the top of Mei's head — "has lost her cat. She is sad. The children love this cat. And they wanted to ask you, only, if you have seen the cat. Not to go in your yard. Only to ask. They are not thinking well, because they are afraid, and when children are afraid, they forget their manners. I am sorry for that."

Mrs. Gable opened her mouth. Shut it.

"What does the cat look like," she said. Her voice was smaller now.

"Calico," Mei whispered. "Orange and black and white. Not very big. She has green eyes and one white paw."

Mrs. Gable was quiet for a long moment. She was not looking at any of them anymore. She was looking at her shoes. Her shoes were slippers, Mei noticed. She was wearing slippers outside.

"I saw a cat like that," Mrs. Gable said.

Everyone went very still.

"Two days ago. Maybe three. It was sitting on my back fence. Very pretty thing. I thought to myself, somebody loves that cat. Somebody on this street loves that cat."

"Did you see where she went?" Diego said, forgetting for a second that he was supposed to be quiet.

"Diego," Layla said. Just that.

"Sorry, ma'am."

"She jumped down," Mrs. Gable said, slowly, "into the long grass past my yard. Behind the fence. There's — there's a little bit of woods there. And an old shed."

Mei's heart made a small hard jump.

"An old shed."

"Yes. Used to belong to the Millers, when they were still here. It's been falling down for years. There's a — a gap, in the side, where a raccoon lives sometimes. A cat could crawl in there easy enough. And — " she stopped.

"And what, ma'am?" Layla asked.

"And maybe not get out so easy. Boards fall. That's all I'm saying. Boards fall."

Nobody spoke. Then Mei said, in a voice that came from somewhere deep in her chest, "Thank you, Mrs. Gable."

"I didn't do anything."

"You told us."

Mrs. Gable's mouth twisted. She looked away.

"You're welcome. Go on. Go find your cat."

============================================================

Before they went to the old shed, Layla did something Mei would remember for the rest of her life.

She said, "Mrs. Gable, may we have one minute?"

"Why?"

"Only to say — we notice you. We are new in this neighborhood. We see you every day in the window. If you ever need a cup of something, or a ride, or company, my door is very near yours."

Mrs. Gable went very still.

Then she said, with her hand gripping the edge of the gate, "My husband died. In November. People brought casseroles. And then they stopped."

"I am very sorry," Layla said.

"I have lived in this house for thirty-nine years. Thirty-nine years. He was in every room of it. Now he is — not."

"Yes."

"I do not know what to do with myself," Mrs. Gable said. "I yell at the children because they make noise, and the noise — the noise is the only thing louder than the quiet. Do you understand what I am saying? Does that make sense?"

"It makes sense."

"I do not hate the children. I hate — I do not know. I hate the quiet."

"Yes."

Layla did not try to fix it. She did not say, "It will be okay." She did not say, "Cheer up." She did not say any of the things grown-ups said that Mei had noticed, over the years, did not actually help.

She simply stood there, on the other side of the gate, while Mrs. Gable cried — not loudly, just a shaking and a wet sound — and she nodded, so that Mrs. Gable could see, any time she looked up, that Layla was still there.

After a minute, Mrs. Gable wiped her face with the sleeve of her pink bathrobe.

"Go on. Your cat."

"Yes."

"Bring me word."

"We will."

They went.

As they walked away from the gate, Mei looked back once. Mrs. Gable had gone inside, but the curtain in the front window moved, and Mei could just see her standing there, watching them go up the street.

Mei lifted her hand in a small wave.

The curtain moved back. Mrs. Gable did not wave. But Mei thought — Mei was almost sure — Mrs. Gable nodded.

============================================================

The old shed was not really on anyone's land, if you asked a grown-up. It sat in a weedy patch of the empty lot past Mrs. Gable's house, where Maple Street ran out and the woods began. It had been gray once. Now it was the color of rain.

One whole wall sagged. The door hung open on one hinge. The roof had a hole in it where a tree branch had fallen down.

Tommy got there first. Tommy ran.

"Pearl," he called, softly. "Pearl. Pearl."

The others came up behind him.

"Look for the gap," Diego said. "Mrs. Gable said a gap, on the side."

They circled the shed. On the side away from the road, low to the ground, there was a place where a board had broken off. A small dark opening, just big enough for a cat. Or a raccoon. Or a determined seven-year-old girl, if she really tried.

Jalil got down on his knees in the wet grass. He shook the bag of orange fish treats.

"Pearl," he said. "Pearl-baby. Pearl-baby. Treats. Treats."

For a second, there was no sound.

Then — from somewhere inside the shed, muffled, small, tired —

"Mrrow."

Mei sat down. She did not mean to. Her legs just decided to.

"Pearl," she whispered.

"Mrrow."

"She's in there!" Amaya said. "Pearl! Pearl, we are here!"

"We have to get her out," Diego said. "Tommy — can you — "

Tommy was already testing the door, which had not moved in years. It was stuck. He pushed harder. It gave, with a groan like an old man standing up.

Inside, the shed smelled like rain and rust and something else — mouse, maybe, or old hay. There was a broken lawn mower in one corner. There was a pile of cardboard boxes soaked into mush. There was a dark space under an overturned shelf.

And under the shelf, pressed against the back wall, with her front paw held up at a wrong, careful angle, there was a calico cat.

"Pearl," Mei said.

Pearl blinked at her. Her eyes were green and wide. Her fur was wet and matted and full of bits of straw. Her nose was dry. She looked very, very small.

"Mrrow," said Pearl. In a voice that meant, I have been waiting.

Mei crawled under the shelf.

Pearl did not run. Pearl could not run, because her paw was hurt, and also because Pearl was smart enough to know when she had been rescued.

Mei lifted her, carefully, the way you lift a thing that is precious and breakable, both. Pearl weighed nothing. Pearl weighed everything.

Mei came out from under the shelf with Pearl pressed against her chest. Pearl's wet fur made a big dark spot on Mei's coat.

"We found you," Mei said into Pearl's ear. "We found you. We found you. We found you."

Pearl began to purr. It was a small, scratchy, unsure purr, like an engine that had not been started in a long time. But it was a purr.

Around Mei, her friends were cheering — Amaya was jumping, Jalil was yelling, Noor was laughing and wiping her eyes at the same time. Tommy was standing very still, with a grin Mei had never seen on his face before.

Diego was on one knee with his plastic-wrapped notebook open, but he was not writing anything. He was just watching Mei hold her cat.

============================================================

Jalil's mom drove them.

Pearl rode in a cardboard box lined with a towel, on Mei's lap. Mei kept one hand on Pearl the whole way. Pearl did not complain. Pearl only closed her eyes, as if she trusted that wherever Mei was taking her was safer than the shed.

The vet was a large, slow, gentle man with a beard. He took Pearl into a back room and came out, after a while, to say many good things.

Pearl was dehydrated, which was not good. Pearl's paw was broken, which was also not good, but it was a clean break, and it would heal. Pearl had a small cut on her shoulder, which they had cleaned. Pearl would need to wear a little plastic cone on her head for a few weeks, which Pearl would hate, but which would keep her from licking her bandage.

"She is a lucky cat," the vet said. "She was in there a couple of days, I'd guess. Any longer and we would be having a different conversation. You kids saved her."

Mei could not speak. She just nodded.

"Go home," the vet said kindly. "Give her quiet. Give her food in small amounts. Let her sleep."

On the drive home, Pearl was back in her box on Mei's lap. Pearl was wearing the little plastic cone. The cone was ridiculous. Pearl looked at Mei through it with the exact expression of a cat who blames you personally for the existence of this cone.

"I'm sorry," Mei whispered. "I know."

Pearl sighed a deep, wronged sigh, and went to sleep.

============================================================

They picked the flowers from Jalil's yard.

Jalil's mama had a garden — lilacs and daffodils and the first of the tulips, and a bush of white flowers that smelled sweet but Mei did not know the name of. They cut a big handful, with kitchen shears, and Jalil's mama tied them with a piece of yellow ribbon.

Dear Mrs. Gable,

We found Pearl. She was in the old shed, where you said. She has a broken paw but she will be all right.

Thank you for telling us.

We are sorry we thought bad things about you. We did not know about your husband. We are sorry for your heart.

If you ever want quiet company, I will sit with you. I am quiet.

Love,

Mei (and Diego, Jalil, Amaya, Tommy, and Noor)

They signed their names in a row at the bottom. Amaya drew a frog.

They walked down Maple Street together. The rain had stopped. The sun was doing that shy thing it did after a long rain, where it poked one bright finger through the clouds and lit up everything wet.

Mrs. Gable opened the door. She had taken off the pink bathrobe. She was wearing the green dress, and her hair was brushed.

"Yes?"

"Ma'am," Diego said. "We — "

"We brought you flowers," Amaya said.

Mrs. Gable looked at the flowers. Her mouth pulled down at the corners, which Mei realized was what happened to Mrs. Gable's mouth when Mrs. Gable was about to cry.

"Oh," Mrs. Gable said. "Oh, children."

"And a note."

She took the note. She read it standing there in her doorway. Mei watched her eyes move. At one point she put her hand flat against her chest, as if to hold something in.

"You found her."

"We found her."

"She was in the shed."

"Yes, ma'am."

Mrs. Gable let out a breath that turned into something like a laugh and something like a sob at the same time.

"Well," she said. "Well. I am glad. I am very glad, children."

"Mrs. Gable," Mei said. "I meant it. About sitting. I will come and sit with you. Whenever you want."

"You would sit with an old woman?"

"You aren't — " Mei started. Then she thought better of saying you aren't old, because it was both not true and not the point. "I like sitting. I am good at it."

Mrs. Gable laughed. It was a cracked laugh, a laugh that had not been used in a while. But it was a real one.

"Come Saturday," she said. "I will make tea. Do you drink tea?"

"My mother does."

"Then you will learn. Come Saturday. All of you, if you want. My husband — " her voice wobbled — "my husband used to love a house with children in it."

"We will come," Diego said.

"Good. Good."

They left her there in the doorway, with the flowers in one hand and the note in the other, and Mei did not look back this time. She did not need to. She knew.

============================================================

Pearl slept for most of two days.

Mei did not leave her. Mei sat by Pearl on the couch with her sketchbook open on her lap, and for a long time she did not draw anything. She just looked at Pearl, and at the yellow square of light the window made on the rug, and at the little rise and fall of Pearl's furry side.

On the second afternoon, Mei opened her Virtues Notebook.

The Virtues Notebook was a small green notebook her Mama had given her for her seventh birthday. It said VIRTUES on the cover in Mei's best careful handwriting. Inside, each page had a word at the top. KINDNESS. PATIENCE. COURAGE. GENEROSITY. TRUTHFULNESS. HOSPITALITY (that one was from Book One, when Noor had arrived). Each word had a little drawing and a few sentences from Mei about when she had seen that virtue and what it was like.

Mei turned to the next blank page.

CONSULTATION

Under the word she drew six small stick figures sitting in a circle inside a tree. She drew one of them with a frog hat.

Consultation is when you sit with your friends and share your ideas and everybody listens with an open heart. You don't have to be right. You just have to be looking for the truth together. It is like all of you are searching for a smooth stone in a stream. You look together. And when someone sees it, everyone goes to where they are pointing.

In our consultation we made a map and every person had a zone. Even the quiet ones. Even the new ones. Consultation does not work unless everybody is in the circle.

NOT ASSUMING THE WORST OF SOMEONE

Under this she drew a house with green shutters. Inside the house she drew a small lady in a green dress, and outside the house she drew herself and her friends standing with flowers.

I thought Mrs. Gable was mean. I did not know she was sad. A person who yells is not always a mean person. Sometimes a person who yells is a lonely person. Sometimes a fence is there because someone inside is hurting. My friend Diego almost believed Mrs. Gable took Pearl. I did not want him to believe this. Because when we believe a bad thing about someone, we do not look hard for the good thing. We only see what we are already sure of.

Noor's mama Layla did a beautiful thing. She did not try to fix Mrs. Gable. She just stood there. Sometimes love is standing there.

Mei closed the notebook.

Pearl, still in her cone, sighed a cat sigh and shifted on the blanket.

Mei set the notebook down and put her hand, very gently, on the small warm curve of her cat's back.

Outside, somewhere down the block, Mei could hear Amaya's voice — Amaya was yelling something about a snail she had found. Jalil was yelling back. Diego was saying, "Not so loud, not so loud, people are napping," in his Diego voice. And under all of it, very quiet, Mei could hear — she was almost sure — somebody knocking, politely, on Mrs. Gable's door.

Probably Noor. Noor had said she would take her mother over for tea.

Mei smiled.

The maple tree at the end of the street, Mei thought, had a lot more children in it now than it used to. And maybe one day there would be a lady in a green dress sitting with them too, under the branches, holding her tea.

Pearl began to purr.

The purr was stronger now. Not an engine that had been sitting too long. An engine that remembered how.

Mei closed her eyes and listened.

Home.

THE END

============================================================

AUTHOR'S NOTE TO READERS

Dear Reader,

In this book, the Maple Street Kids did two hard things. First, they planned together — they sat in a circle, they listened to each other, and they made a plan even when some ideas were silly (hot dogs!) and some ideas were quiet. That kind of talking is called consultation. When people consult, no one has to be the boss. Everyone helps find the truth.

The second hard thing was about Mrs. Gable. At first, the kids thought Mrs. Gable was mean. They almost believed she had taken Pearl. But a person behind a tall fence is usually hiding something soft, not something scary. Mrs. Gable was lonely. Her husband had died, and she did not know what to do with the quiet.

When we think the worst about someone, we stop looking for the best in them. Try, when you meet a hard person, to wonder what made them hard. Usually, underneath, there is a story.

Listen to each other. Make plans together. Wonder about strangers.

And love your cat.

— Crimson Ark Publishing