One Amazing Thing

The boy pretends he’s Robinson Crusoe, alone on his island except for the ca

The kitten is small and scrawny and meows loudly, opening its mouth wide and displaying tiny ca

The kitten laps up the milk and licks the boy’s fingers. Its tongue is sandpaper-rough against his knuckles, and the boy shivers with pleasure. They play some more with the branch, the boy pulling it backward and the kitten pouncing on it so fiercely that right then and there he names it Shere Khan, after the character in The Jungle Book. They play this game for hours, even after the sun sets and the boy shivers in his too-small jacket. Finally he hears the sound he’s been waiting for, the roar of trucks. Marvin’s friends are leaving, and when the boy peers around the edge of the apartment building, he sees to his delight that Marvin is going with them.

It’s simple enough, after that, to carry into the apartment the discarded kitchen drawer that he has already picked out, to hide it behind the couch where he sleeps nowadays, beside the cardboard boxes that hold his clothes and books. He lines the drawer with an old shirt and places the kitten in it, admonishing it to stay put while he does his homework. The kitten promptly climbs out, scampers to his chair, and clambers up his jeans leg onto his lap. That’s how he does his homework, with the kitten curled into a ball of warmth against his stomach and him not daring to move because he doesn’t want to disturb its sleep.

He has never loved anyone in the world as much as he loves this kitten. He will never love anyone this way again, with nothing held back.

When he hears the key rattle in the door, he squeezes his eyes shut and prays it’s his mother, and, miracle of miracles, it is. He stuffs the kitten into his shirt and fetches her a soda pop, and when she puts out a tired hand to rumple his hair, he tells her about it in a rush, because he knows he has only a little time before Marvin returns.

“Can I keep it, please, please? I’ll take care of it. It won’t cost you anything.”

Holding the kitten carefully in both hands, he offers it to her. She puts out a finger to scratch behind its ear. It closes its eyes and purrs, and butts her finger with its head when she stops. She laughs and his heart leaps. But then her face fades and she shakes her head. “We don’t have enough room,” she says. “And Marvin doesn’t like pets.”

All his pent up resentment comes out in a rush. “Why do we have to do what he says? This isn’t his place. Why does he even have to live with us?”

She’s angry, he can tell that by the way her nostrils flare and little blotches of red appear on her cheeks. But then her shoulders sag. “He pays part of the rent,” she says. “He watches you in the afternoon in case there’s a problem or something.” He’s about to protest hotly, but she goes on. “This way I don’t have to get a babysitter. Plus-” She shakes her head. “Oh, you won’t understand.”

He wants to tell her she’s the one who doesn’t understand that things were so much better when there were only the two of them, snuggled in their whale quilt. Her raspy, lovely morning voice reading to him on Saturdays is only a memory now. Instead, at night, wriggling around on the lumpy couch, he hears noises from the other room that make it hard for him to look her in the eye the next morning.

The door swings open, banging against a chair, and the possibility of telling her anything ends. Marvin throws a fit when he sees the kitten, going on and on about how he’s allergic to cats, and is the boy trying to kill him. Scared by the noise, the kitten pees on the boy’s hand. He doesn’t care, but some of the pee drips onto his mom’s uniform and now she’s shouting, too. He’s forced to take the kitten out on the porch, where he puts it into the drawer, tells it to stay, and covers the drawer as best he can with a cardboard box. The box is too small and he’s afraid the kitten (already scrabbling madly inside) will escape. He hunches beside the box, trying not to cry, shivering, hating Marvin, wishing he would die. Alongside Marvin, he hates his mother-this is a first-and wants her to die, too. Then he can go and live with a different family, one that will let him keep his kitten. He hates them even more when she yells at him to get inside before he catches a cold and when Marvin stomps out and yanks him into the apartment, telling him to mind his ma. His hatred swells through the broken dreams of a night he will never forget.

In the morning, he runs out to discover the kitten gone. In school he is unable to pay attention-even to math. He rushes from the school bus to the junkyard, searches frantically through piles of garbage, and finally discovers the kitten shivering under a bush. Even when he hugs it hard against his thumping chest, hatred simmers inside him.

HE WILL REMEMBER THIS HATRED THE DAY HIS MOTHER DIES. Guilt will press down like a ball of iron on his chest no matter how much he rationalizes it, telling himself that he wasn’t responsible, because look at Marvin, wasn’t he still walking around hale and hearty in spite of all the boy’s wishing?

He will be sent to live with foster parents. They’ll turn out to be an older, childless couple, a bit strict but clean and organized. They will not get him a pet-and that’s good, because surely then the iron ball would crack his chest. They will make sure he gets to school on time and does his homework and has nutritious meals. They will take him to art museums and classical music concerts and will not upbraid his indifference to such things. They will recognize his talent and enter him in math contests-regional, then state, then national-and wi

He knows his mother would have done none of this. Why then, lying in a bedroom all his own, the wallpaper of flying dragons that he picked himself lit ghostly blue by the night-light-a room he couldn’t have imagined when he lived in the old apartment-should he give in to tears?

FOR A WHILE AFTER THAT TRAUMATIC NIGHT, THINGS GO WELL. The boy cleans out the abandoned freezer in the junkyard and lines it with his old clothes. He keeps inside it a bowl of water and a dish of cat food bought with money he has stolen from his mother’s purse and Marvin’s wallet, a couple of cautious dollars at a time. After school each day, he takes Shere to the other end of the junkyard and plays with him, keeping a wary eye out for his mother and Marvin, because he doesn’t want them to know what he’s doing. When it’s time for him to go in, he reluctantly puts Shere in the freezer, bids him good night, and wedges a stick under the lid-enough to allow the kitten to breathe without letting it escape. This way, the raccoons and wild dogs that roam the junkyard at night can’t get to it. The kitten learns to recognize the boy. It launches itself at his chest as soon as he opens the freezer lid, purring so loudly that its whole body vibrates. The boy steals more money-what else can he do when his mother will not give him an allowance?-to buy Shere a catnip ball and can’t stop gri