Polo's Mother

Chapter One: Out Of The NightWhen 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 buttermilkNaylor, Phyllis Reynolds is the author of 'Polo's Mother', published 2006 under ISBN 9780689874048 and ISBN 0689874049.