Polo's Mother (Cat Pack, The) - Softcover

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0689874049 ISBN 13: 9780689874048

Verlag: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Polohas always longed to find his mother. All he remembers is that she was soft and warm and smelled of milk. So when sassy, street-smart Geraldine returns, she isn't exactly the mother he expected. But Polo is still thrilled to have found her and is eager to show her off to his pack of friends in the Club of Mysteries.
As usual, there are many mysteries to be solved. Does the light inside a refrigerator turn off when the door is shut? What is at the top of a church steeple, anyway? But perhaps the most puzzling mystery of all is one Polo cannot figure out: Does his mother truly love him? If so, can he convince her to change her roaming ways and stay?
Irresistible to cat lovers everywhere, this is a heartening conclusion to Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Cat Pack series.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written more than 135 books, including the Newbery Award–winning Shiloh and its sequels, three of which were made into movies; the Alice series; Roxie and the Hooligans; and Roxie and the Hooligans at Buzzard’s Roost. She lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland. To hear from Phyllis and find out more about Alice, visit AliceMcKinley.com.

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Polo's Mother

By Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Aladdin Paperbacks

Copyright © 2006 Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780689874048

Chapter One: Out Of The Night

When the trees turned feathery green and brooks began to babble, Polo missed his mother. He had been missing her ever since he was a kitten, of course, but spring was especially sad because he had been born in the spring, and all the scents and sounds of the season reminded him of her.

"Can't you stop wriggling about for even a second?" asked Marco from his side of the velveteen basket. "You twist and turn, you snort and sniffle and make all those wretched noises in your sleep. What's the matter?"

"I miss our mother," said Polo. "I'd just like to see her again, that's all."

"She probably wouldn't recognize you," said Marco.

"I know," said Polo.

"Then why do you want to find her?"

"I just want to be near that soft-warm, dark-dank, furry-purry, milk-smelling something again," Polo said.

"Good luck," Marco told him. "There must be five thousand cats in this city."

Polo climbed out of the velveteen box and paced back and forth in front of the dining room windows. The kittens, Jumper and Spinner, were sprawled at either end of the sofa in the next room, and Marco and Polo could hear the soft footsteps of Mrs. Neal as she came downstairs to start the morning coffee.

"My goodness, Polo, do you want to go out so soon?" she asked. "Don't you even want your breakfast first?"

She came through the kitchen in her robe and slippers and unlocked the back door. Marco roused himself also and climbed from the basket. If Polo was going out into the early spring morning to have an adventure, then Marco had to go along. He couldn't bear the thought that his brother, who was usually the more timid of the two, might do something adventurous without him.

"You want to go too?" asked Mrs. Neal. "I don't know...Every time I let you cats out, you seem to disappear for a week or so. What you do and where you go is a mystery to me."

She opened the door and the cats went out -- first Polo, one paw hesitantly in front of the other, and then Marco, who stopped on the threshold to stretch. His hind legs went back, his front legs went forward, and as his belly sank lower and lower toward the floor, his rump went higher and higher. Finally Mrs. Neal put out one foot, gave him a nudge, and closed the door behind him.

? ? ?

"Now what?" asked Marco as they walked down the path to the back fence. "It's a big, wide world out here, Polo, and we don't even know where we were born. Under somebody's porch, I imagine."

"Maybe we'll find one of our brothers or sisters and they'll know where Mother is," said Polo.

"You don't understand," Marco said as the tabbies leaped up on the gate and over into the alley. "The world is big. The world is huge. Mother could have wandered across town and been adopted by a family there. She could have been living with someone who packed up and moved to Oklahoma! She -- "

"Stop!" cried Polo. "She's still around; I'm sure of it!" If anything had happened to their wonderful soft-warm, dark-dank, furry-purry, milk-smelling something, he didn't want to know it.

"Well, because of you, we left the house without breakfast, so we're not having any adventures till I've got something in my stomach," Marco told him. With that he set off down the alley in the direction of the Fishmonger Restaurant, where all the neighborhood cats gathered when they wanted a treat. All they had to do was to nose up the lids of the garbage cans and crawl down inside.

There were no other cats prowling around the garbage cans at this hour, however, as the most fragrant, fishy leftovers did not get thrown out till later in the day. But the tabbies were hungry, and one of the lids was ajar. So Polo, being the more nimble of the two, leaped up on the rim of the first can, nudged the lid over a few more inches, and peered down inside.

"What's on the menu?" asked his pudgier brother from the ground below.

"A bit of buttermilk pancake with maple syrup..." said Polo.

"Continue," said Marco.

"Biscuits and gravy..."

"Keep going."

"Half a cheese omelet with pork sausage and a piece of bacon with home fries," Polo finished.

"I'll take some of that sausage," said Marco. "If you can mop up a little gravy with it, so much the better."

Polo disappeared down inside the garbage can and came up with a sausage in his mouth and gravy on his whiskers.

"It'll do," said Marco, as Polo dropped the morsel at his brother's feet and went back a second time to fetch his own breakfast.

They ate in silence for a while, snapping at the meat until they had bitten off a hunk. Then they chewed each bite with relish and sat licking their paws and rubbing the fur around their mouths. The sky was growing lighter, the air warmer, the birds became noisier still, and at last the sun peeped over the roofs of the houses across the alley.

"Now can we look for Mother?" Polo asked.

"Yes, but now my stomach's full and all I want to do is sleep," Marco told him. "We'll take a little nap first. What got you started on this, anyway?"

"I can smell her scent," said Polo. "The milk -- "

"It was the pancake," said Marco.

"No," said Polo. "I can smell the damp -- "

"It's probably going to rain," said his brother.

"No," said Polo. "The scent of warm skin -- "

"It's the sun coming out on the shingles. Let's head back down the alley to Murphy's garage and see if anyone there has seen her," Marco suggested. "Maybe one of the other cats knows our mother."

So they trotted back down the alley, tails in the air, until they came to Mr. Murphy's garage. In they went and up the narrow, dusty stairs to the floor above.

"You're late!" boomed a voice from out of the shadows. And there, in an old rocking chair, sat a yellow cat, one paw dangling over the side. He was a big cat, a banged-up cat, who had obviously been through a few fights in his life. He looked at the two tabby brothers with his large, yellow eyes and repeated, "You're late! The moon was full last night, so where were you?"

Ever since Marco and Polo had been admitted to the Club of Mysteries, Texas Jake had tried to ridicule Marco, because he was smart, and Polo, because he wasn't.

"Oh, Texas, do be kind!" said the beautiful calico cat named Carlotta, who was the friend of all but the true love of none. "I'm glad to see you, Marco. You too, Polo. We've all missed you, haven't we?" She looked around at Boots, the white cat with the brown paws, and Elvis, the sleek black cat with the green eyes. Boots just turned his head and looked the other way, while Elvis began to groom himself, licking between his claws with his long, pink tongue.

The truth was that none of the male cats was particularly eager to share the lovely Carlotta with anyone else, but because Marco and Polo had passed the test for membership, they were members of the club, like it or not.

When Carlotta sidled up to Marco, however, and rubbed noses, then walked over to lick Polo on the head, Texas Jake rose up to his full height on the rocker, his stiff leg notwithstanding, and growled.

"Just the same, Carlotta, we are a club, and a club must have rules!" he hissed. "This club is to meet on the first night of a full moon, and last night the tabbies were not here. What is required of cats who are not here?"

Boots and Elvis raised their heads and joined Texas in answer: "Solve another mystery."

"It's all my fault!" Polo said quickly. "My mind was on other things."

Texas Jake...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0689874049
• ISBN 13: 9780689874048
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 176
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande