"He weighs seventeen pounds," Karen said proudly.
"We think he belongs in the Guinness Book of World Records," remarked Watson.
Mary Anne couldn"t figure out why Watson was showing Boo-Boo to her. Okay, he was really, really fat. So what? Certainly he didn"t need to be fed.
Watson cleared his throat and adjusted his gla.s.ses. "There are a few things you should know about Boo-Boo," he said.
Now, Mary Anne is not the bravest person in the world, and she said that right then she began to feel just the teensiest bit afraid. She put her finger in her mouth and bit at the nail.
"The first thing," said Watson, "is that Boo-Boo bites if provoked. And scratches."
"He"s an attack cat," added Karen.
"It"s best if you just steer clear of him," Watson went on. "I"d offer to confine him while I"m gone, but he doesn"t like that much."
"He gnawed the laundry room door all up," said Karen.
"Just try to ignore him."
Mary Anne nodded.
"Whatever you do, don"t touch him," added Watson.
Mary Anne nodded again.
"Well, I guess that"s it. Any questions?"
"No, not really. Lunch at twelve-thirty, right?" said Mary Anne.
"Right."
"What about Mrs. Porter, Daddy?" asked Karen.
"Oh, I think she"s on vacation," replied Watson. "No need to worry about her." He turned to Mary Anne. "Mrs. Porter is an elderly woman who lives next door. She"s a bit on the eccentric side and Karen is convinced she"s a witch. She isn"t, of course, but she doesn"t like animals and Boo-Boo seems to have gotten on her bad side. We try to keep the two of them apart. Okay, I"m off, kids." Watson kissed Andrew and Karen good-bye. "I"ll be home by one-thirty," he told Mary Anne.
Mary Anne was just wondering how to entertain her charges when Karen began to talk. It turned out that she was a nonstop chatterer. "We"re divorced," she announced.
"Yup," said Andrew.
"Our parents live in different houses."
"Yup," said Andrew. He sat down in a little wagon.
"Our mommy"s going to get married again."
"Yup," said Andrew, pushing himself around the playroom.
"Then we"ll have one mommy and two daddies."
"Yup," said Andrew. He backed into a bookcase.
"And if our daddy gets married again, then how many mommies and daddies will we have, Andrew?"
"Yup."
Mary Anne giggled. "Come on, you guys. It"s a sunny day. Lef s play outside, okay?"
"Oh, great!" exclaimed Karen. "I have a new doll. Daddy bought her for me. She hasn"t been out in the sun much yet. I think she should get a tan, don"t you? Dolls can tan, you know. Of course, they"re real anyway. They can do whatever people do. They can draw and breakdance and. . . ."
Mary Anne was beginning to feel dizzy. "Want to play outside, Andrew?"
"Yup."
Mary Anne took the kids into Watson"s big backyard. Andrew brought the wagon and pushed Boo-Boo around in it.
"Is he allowed to do that?" Mary Anne asked Karen. "Your father said not to touch Boo-Boo."
"Oh, he meant you shouldn"t touch Boo-Boo. You"re a stranger. But Boo-Boo knows us. He wouldn"t hurt us." Karen paused for a breath and went on. "You see that house? The one next door?"
Mary Anne peered over Watson"s rose gardens and between the trees. Next door was a sprawling Victorian mansion, with gables and turrets and wooden curlicues on the porch. The paint was peeling and one shutter was crooked. Mary Anne said later that it looked dark and scary.
"Yes?" she said to Karen.
"That"s where the witch lives, right, Andrew?"
Andrew plowed the wagon into a tree and Boo-Boo leaped out. "Yup."
"It"s Mrs. Porter, and she"s an honest-and-truly witch. Mrs. Porter isn"t her witch name, though. Her witch name is Morbidda Destiny. The big kids on the street told me so. And she eats toads and casts spells and flies to witch meetings on her broomstick every midnight."
Mary Anne stared at the house, nibbling away at her nails again. She wasn"t sure what to tell Karen. If she told her the stories weren"t true, she probably wouldn"t get off to a very good start as a baby-sitter. If she agreed with Karen, she"d practically be lying to her. At last she asked, "Do you believe in the stories about Morb - Mrs. Porter?"
Karen nodded. "I have proof."
"You do?"
"Yup. The proof is Boo-Boo. Mrs. Porter made him fat. One day when Boo-Boo was nice and skinny, he went into Mrs. Porter"s garden and dug up some of her flowers. Mrs. Porter came out and yelled at him and threw a fit. The next day he started getting fat."
"Yup," said Andrew.
"So now we have to keep Boo-Boo away from Mrs. Porter"s house. We don"t want her to cast another spell on him. Making him fat wasn"t so bad, but she might do something really, really mean."
"Well," said Mary Anne, "we don"t have to worry about it today since Mrs. Porter"s not at home."
And it was at that exact second that Mary Anne saw a window shade snap up on the first floor of Mrs. Porter"s house. A wrinkled face with a big nose pressed itself against the panes of gla.s.s.
Karen saw the face, too. "Augh!" she screamed. "That"s Morbidda Destiny! She"s home after all! Where"s Boo-Boo? Where"s Boo-Boo?"
Mary Anne began to feel afraid again. She knew there were no such things as witches (were there?), but the face at the window didn"t look very friendly. And Andrew was crying, and Karen was panicking.
"All right." Mary Anne tried to remain calm. She thought about what Watson had told her - that Mrs. Porter was just an eccentric old lady. "Let"s look for Boo-Boo, you guys," she said.
"We don"t have to," wailed Karen. "I see him. He"s - " Karen gulped. She pointed her finger. "He"s in Morbidda Destiny"s garden!"
"Well, I"ll just go get him - somehow," said Mary Anne, remembering that she wasn"t supposed to touch Boo-Boo, let alone pick him up.
"She"s already gone from the window!" Karen cried. "She"s coming to the door! I know it."
"Okay, okay. Karen, you"re in charge of Andrew for a few minutes. You stay in the yard with him and watch him. I"ll be right back."
Mary Anne said her heart was pounding as she crossed Watson"s yard and stood at the edge of Mrs. Porter"s property. Boo-Boo was about ten feet away from her in the middle of some chrysanthemums, digging away happily.
"Boo-Boo," Mary Anne called softly. She glanced at the house. No sign of Mrs. Porter. Maybe she hadn"t seen Boo-Boo. "Boo-Boo/" Mary Anne called again. "Come here." She snapped her fingers.
Boo-Boo didn"t even look up.
"Yoo-hoo! Boo-Boo!" Mary Anne stepped closer. Boo-Boo sat down and scratched himself. "Boo-Boo. Hey, fat cat!"
"Boo-Boo. Hey, fat cat!" called a croaky voice.
Mary Anne"s heart just about stopped beating. She whirled around. As she was whirling, she could hear Karen shrieking in Watson"s yard. Behind Mary Anne stood ... a witch. "Honest to goodness," she told me later. "She looked just like a witch from a picture book."
Mrs. Porter, or Morbidda Destiny or whoever she was, was dressed in black from head to toe. Her hair was gray and frazzly. There was a wart on the end of her nose. She was carrying what Mary Anne at first mistook for a broom, but which turned out to be a rake.
"That fat cat," said Mrs. Porter, shaking the rake with every word, "is digging up my mums."
"I know, I know. I"m sorry. I"m trying to get him out for you." Mary Anne decided to forget Watson"s warning. She stepped right into the garden and reached for Boo-Boo.
Boo-Boo hissed and swiped at her with his paw, claws extended.
Mary Anne jumped back.
"That does it, girlie," said Mrs. Porter. She jumped into the garden and waved the rake at Boo-Boo.
Boo-Boo"s eyes opened wide. He leaped over a bush of golden mums, and streaked away. Luckily, he streaked back into Watson"s yard.
Mrs. Porter shook her rake after him. "Rapscallion!" she cried. She headed for her house. Mary Anne could hear her muttering things Hke, "Children and pets," and, "Darned nuisance."
Back in Watson"s yard, Karen greeted Mary Anne tearfully. "Did you hear that? It was a curse!"
"What was? "Rapscallion"?" Mary Anne asked, looking nervously over her shoulder at the chrysanthemum bed.
"Yeah!"
"No, that wasn"t a curse. That"s a real word. She was calling Boo-Boo a name, but she did not put a spell on him."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. Right, Andrew?"
"Yup."
"I don"t know," said Karen. "I don"t know."
"Look," Mary Anne went on. "Did you see Morb - Mrs. Porter mixing up herbs or looking for bats" feet?"
"No. . . ."
"Did you see her crushing toadstools or stirring things in a caldron?"
"No. . . ."
"Then how do you know she cast a spell?" asked Mary Anne triumphantly.
"She"s a witch. She can do anything she w - Hey!" shrieked Karen, pointing.
Mary Anne"s stomach flip-flopped. She immediately looked over at Mrs. Porter"s yard, sure she was going to see the old woman flapping across the lawn in her funny black dress. But Mrs. Porter wasn"t in sight. Karen was pointing at Boo-Boo.
"Look at that!" cried Karen. "He"s going crazy."
Boo-Boo did, in fact, look a little crazy, Mary Anne said later. As she watched, the cat ran partway across Watson"s backyard, came to an abrupt stop, ran around in a circle, then dashed off in the direction he had just come from and scrambled up a tree.
"Oh," said Mary Anne nervously, "he"s just being a cat. Cats do silly things like that all the time." Mary Anne had never owned a cat, so she"d had very little experience with them, but she had once seen the Pikes" cat, Sarge, wake up from a sound sleep, leap off the couch, jump up on top of the television set, and immediately fall asleep again. Still. . . .
"Boo-Boo doesn"t do silly things," said Karen, edging toward Mary Anne. "He"s too fat and old."
Mary Anne took Karen and Andrew by their hands. The three of them stood and watched Boo-Boo. For a while he looked as if he might go to sleep up in the tree.
Karen grew bored. "Psst," she whispered after a moment. "Morbidda Destiny"s at her window again - and she"s looking over here."
Sure enough, the old face was pressed against the windowpanes. Morbidda raised her right hand to her nose . . .
. . . and Boo-Boo sat straight up, slipped, slid, and finally fell out of the tree, landed on his feet, and shot past Mary Anne and the kids, hissing as he went by.
"Oh, nooooo," wailed Karen. Mary Anne squeezed her hand.
Boo-Boo tore up the steps to the back porch and waited by the door.
"I guess it would be a good idea to let him in," said Mary Anne. "At least we won"t have to worry about Mrs. Porter"s garden anymore."
So Mary Anne opened the door and Boo- Boo ran inside. He ran straight into the laundry room, jumped into the laundry basket, and stayed there while Mary Anne and Karen and Andrew ate lunch. Every time Mary Anne checked on him, he peered at her through the sides of the basket and yowled.
Mary Anne started to tell Karen that it was all just a big coincidence, but then she didn"t know how to explain the meaning of coincidence, so she gave up.
"Daddy, it"s a spell," Karen told Watson urgently as soon as he came home.
Watson laughed. "Don"t be silly. There are no such things as spells."
But by then, even Mary Anne wasn"t so sure. She was very relieved to go home.