The Old Willis Place

My father called the police and they're after you."
    MacDuff ran toward our hiding place, with Lissa right behind him, as mad as any girl I've ever seen.
    Georgie had already disappeared, but I wasn't fast enough. I pressed myself against a tree trunk, hoping the sunlight and shadows would camouflage me. She'd called me a thief. Me, a thief. Didn't she know the difference between stealing and borrowing?
    Just when I was sure MacDuff would find me, Nero came to my rescue. Making a loud rustling sound, he leapt out of the bushes right under MacDuff's nose. The dog forgot about me and ran after Nero. In a few bounds, the cat scrambled up a tree. Well out of MacDuff's reach, he arched his back and hissed at the dog.
    "MacDuff! MacDuff!" Lissa tugged at the dog's collar, trying to pull him away from the tree. She was so close I could smell the shampoo she used, as sweet as honeysuckle. If it hadn't been for Nero, she would have seen me.
    Mr. Morrison opened the door and stuck his head out. "What's all the commotion?" he yelled. "Has MacDuff treed a raccoon or something?"
    "It's a big black cat," Lissa cried. "He's way up high in the tree. What if he can't get down?"
    Mr. Morrison crossed the yard and grabbed MacDuff s collar. "Sit! Be quiet!"
    MacDuff sat as commanded and stopped barking. Mr. Morrison peered up at Nero. The cat lashed his tail and growled. With his fur puffed up, he looked twice as big as normal, almost the size of a panther.
    "It's a feral cat," Mr. Morrison said. "It can take care of itself."
    "He's not feral," Lissa insisted. "He belongs to someone, I can tell. See how nice and shiny his coat is?"
    "Mr. Maloney told me Miss Willis had dozens of cats," her dad said. "After she died, they ran off into the woods and went wild. I imagine there are hundreds of them out there."
    "Can't you get him down, Dad?"
    "With my luck, I'd fall out of the tree and break my neck." He patted Lissa's arm. "I'll take MacDuff inside. Don't worry. When the cat sees it's safe, he'll come down."
    Lissa watched her father walk away with the dog. Then she looked up at Nero. "I used to have a black cat just like you, but he died last year. He was very old."
    Nero began edging backward along the tree limb. Slowly he inched down the trunk. His claws made a scratching sound on the rough bark.
    "Good boy," Lissa crooned as he descended, "good boy."
    When Nero was low enough, Lissa lifted him from the tree and cuddled him in her arms.
    "Would you like to be my cat? I'll keep you safe from MacDuff," she promised. "You can sleep on my bed at night. I'll feed you cream and sardines. And I'll call you Aladdin, like my old cat."
    Nero gazed at Lissa as if he were considering her offer. I felt a twinge of jealousy. Suppose he decided to belong to Lissa? No more mice and shrews and moles, no more cold nights in the shed.
    But no. In a flash, Nero jumped out of Lissa's arms. Stretching his slender body with each bound, he ran past my hiding place as if he had urgent matters to attend to. It might be a mouse hiding under a leaf, a squirrel twitching its tail on a tree trunk, a blue jay calling from a bramble bush. Away he went, ever alert, ever curious.
    "Aladdin, Aladdin," Lissa called. "Come back. Kitty, kitty, kitty..."
    For a moment I thought she was going to follow Nero and find me, but instead, she stood where she was and watched the spot in the woods where Nero had vanished, her face sad. I guessed she hoped he'd come back.
    When that didn't happen, she sighed and returned to the steps. She picked up her notebook and her pen and began to write.
    Before long, Mr. Morrison came to the door with Mac-Duff. "Do me a favor, Liss. Take MacDuff for a walk. He needs some exercise."
    Lissa laid her diary on the step and set off across the yard. MacDuff bounded ahead, sniffing and searching the way dogs do.
    "Where's she going?"
    I spun around to face Georgie. "Don't ever sneak up on me like that again! You scared me half to death!"
    "Sorry." Georgie's little smirk told me he wasn't one bit sorry.
    "Let's follow her," I suggested, "and find out."
    As usual, Georgie and I stayed in the deep shadows near the edge of the woods. Lissa and MacDuff walked in the sunlight. The dog ran in circles around the girl, sniffing the weeds, the bushes, the trees. Hundreds of grasshoppers leapt out of his way, but he didn't seem to be interested in them.
    Trailing behind her dog, Lissa walked slowly toward Miss Lilian's house—just where she'd been told not to