An attendant takes Cat away, and I go sit in the waiting room, feeling
sweaty and cold all over. They tell me it’ll be a couple of hours, so I go
out and wander around a lot of blocks I never saw before and drink some
cokes and sit and look up at the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge to Queens.
When I go back for him, Cat looks the same as ever, except for a bandage
all up his right front leg. The doctor tells me to come back Friday and
he’ll take out the stitches.
Mom sees me come in the door, and I guess I look pretty grim, because she
says, “Cat will be all right, won’t he, dear?”
“Yes.” I go past her and down into my room and let Cat out of the basket
and then bury my head under the pillow. I’m not exactly ashamed of crying,
but I don’t want Mom to hear.
After a while I pull my head out. Cat is lying there beside me, his eyes
half open, the tip end of his tail twitching very slowly. I rub my eyes on
the back of his neck and whisper to him, “I’m sorry. Be tough, Cat,
anyway, will you?”
Cat stretches and hops off the bed on his three good legs.
8
[Illustration: Dave and Mary buying tickets to West Side Story.]