The Girl with the Cats

     There she was-the weird girl from the other day, he recognized her pale hair and orange cardigan. 

    He almost raised his hand and shouted a greeting, but she had jumped a good six feet when he'd done that last time, and then run off before he could say anything. He'd wait till he got a little closer and say hello in a normal tone of voice. Keep the volume down. Like Mom said, judge the situation, curb his enthusiasm accordingly, all that good stuff. And it sounded like she was already talking to someone too. 

    "Yes I know that I need to take care of it, but I also have to go to school! People start asking questions if you don't go to school!" she hissed. 

    "Would they? In all truth?"

    "Yes!" she clutched the handle of her cello case close to her. Who was she talking to? 

    "But it is not their business what you do. And this is more important." That other voice was weird. It was kind of...whiny? Yowl-y? But it wasn't whining-whining, it was just how the voice was pitched? 

    She hadn't noticed him yet, she was still too wrapped up in her conversation. The other person must be standing in the bushes off the road. 

    Wait-"Are you talking to that cat?" he burst out. Whoops. 

    She flinched and whirled around, and the three cats disappeared into the bushes in simultaneous leafy poofs. 

    The girl in front of him clutched her cello case even tighter. 

    "Aw man, I didn't mean to scare them off!" He ran forward and peered into the bushes, but he didn't try to chase them. He had a cat, and he knew they were probably long gone. 

    He turned back around. "Why were you talking to that cat?" he asked excitedly.

    She was kind of hunching her shoulders inward and was clearly frantically trying to figure out what to do, but he had already seen her, and he wasn't going to be deterred this time. 

    "What were you talking about?" he pressed. "Why are you talking to them? How are they talking?" 

    "Uh-I-I don't really-" she was clearly trying to come up with a cover story.

    "Please tell me?" He came a few steps closer, back up to the edge of the road. "I just want to know what's going on." He needed to know. He needed to know why the statues were moving and why he was seeing fairies where butterflies were and hearing singing with no one to sing, and this girl with the cello case had just been talking to cats. She knew something.

    She was just staring at him of wide-eyed now.

    "Please tell me?" he asked again. "I saw you that last time by my house when you left that burn in the ground, and just now talking to those cats, can't I know what's going on?"

    "Well-well-It's really complicated..." she started, then trailed off again. She took a deep breath that seemed to stretch its moment and fill her entire chest. Then she started again.

    "It started in the house my parents bought down the road," she started quietly. "I found a sword in the garden." She clutched her cello case with white knuckles. 

    A sword? She found a sword in the garden? Did she have it now?

    The girl flinched as the bus screeched to a stop in front of them and then hurriedly scrambled aboard. 

    Dangnabbit!

    He jumped on and scowled. She had sat down in the back next to Heidi and started a conversation with her. She still looked nervous though. He settled into a seat closer to the front. Well he could always ask her after school. They were neighbors after all. She couldn't avoid him forever.