The Big Cat Nap

year, I don’t think I could master all this.”
    “It is disturbing.” He stood up, leaned over, and turned off her computer. “Now, look, you go to Cooper with this. Don’t go off half-cocked.”
    “I won’t,” Harry promised.
    Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker padded behind the humans. They felt quite sure that Harry would soon forget her promise and do something stupid.

H arry finished her farm chores. Hot and muggy, the late-June day would only grow more stifling in the later afternoon. She had spoken to Coop that morning, telling her what she’d found at the Automotive Education & Policy Institute website.
    Coop vowed to pursue this further by checking other collision repair services, talking to other insurance agents.
    Harry was restless, though, and thought she might just cruise around and poke into things herself. The WRX STI tempted her. She hopped into the powerful vehicle, putting Tucker in the back. The two cats sat in the seat next to her.
    “This car’s too low to the ground.”
Pewter preferred the truck.
    “So are you,”
Tucker told her from the safety of the backseat.
    “Ha-ha,”
the gray cat sarcastically replied.
    “We can stand on the seat, put our paws on the dash. It’s not so bad.”
Mrs. Murphy enjoyed any ride, regardless of cab height.
    “Hard for Pewter to do. Sixty percent of Pewter’s weight is in the rear, like a Porsche,”
Tucker said.
    Pewter leapt through the space between the front bucket seats. Tucker bared her teeth, but the gray cat jumped on her back, rendering those fangs useless.
    Harry cut the motor and whapped both dog and cat.
    “I’ve had enough of this. Three weeks of nonstop fussing andfighting. One peep, one tiny little peep, and I am throwing you two out of this car.”
    Both looked up at the angry human. Harry leaned back into the driver’s seat, which felt like a cockpit to her. Pewter returned to the front seat. Harry was falling in love with the car but was in anguish, too, because she wasn’t going to buy it. They weren’t starving—Fair had work, thank heaven, for many didn’t—but money was tight.
    The souped-up 2.5-liter four-cylinder turbo awoke with a pleasant rumble. Its six-speed manual transmission thrilled her. She wished her truck, as well as the Volvo station wagon, had a manual transmission. These days, finding manual transmission wasn’t easy: There were a few models of BMW, but not one Mercedes that she knew of. Most all family cars forced the buyer into automatic transmission, which burned more gas, although manufacturers declared the computer chips saved gas. Harry wondered, did the car manufacturers think that because someone had a family they didn’t like to drive, really drive? One could row through gears without being a maniac.
    She, however, possessed a few maniacal qualities behind the wheel of a heart-throbbing, terrific acceleration machine.
    She and her little family climbed to the top of Afton Mountain on Route 250, turned left onto I-64, and drove to Stuarts Draft. Going left off the Fishersville exit, she turned onto a commercial road filled with big metal-box buildings. Haldane’s Salvage was a small brick building. Outside on the chain-link fence was a big sign: RECYCLED CARS, WE GO GREEN . A big stoplight was painted on the sign, with its green light glowing. She pulled in.
    Mildred expected Harry, as she’d called ahead. Mildred Haldane also expected the pets, which the kind woman allowed in the office air-conditioning.
    Mildred was as round as she was tall, but nevertheless it was with considerable energy that she marched Harry to the huge yard out back. It was bounded by chain link with thin wooden slats inside, the fencing to hide the view of crunched cars, as well as the view of the real cruncher. At the back of the lot, Leyland cypress trees hid some of what many considered an eyesore. Row after row of eyeless trucks, cars, even a few golf carts, greeted Harry. Harry didn’t findthe auto graveyard offensive. Some vehicles bore testimony to terrible crashes; others looked tired, with rusting bottoms and paint faded by the sun.
    “Don’t get too many people who are interested in salvage,” Mildred rattled on, coral lipstick shining. “My late husband and I started this business in 1972. Not much out here then, so we could buy a lot of land. We figured there’d always be cars and there’d always be collisions. Little did we know that one-car families would become two- and three-car families.