The Gingerbread Boy by Lori Lapekes Page B

seemed suddenly ill at ease. An injured rabbit that a little girl had cornered under a chair froze, allowing its wide-eyed owner to nab it before cowering behind the chair herself.
    The lady walked in slowly, her back straight as a pole. Her narrow, lined face was tipped high, her thin lips tight and pursed. She cradled a cardboard box in matchstick thin arms. Catherine held her breath and stopped working as her heart began to pound. She desperately wished Dr. Douglas would come up from the back room and handle this client. The woman strode past the gawking statues in the waiting area and set the box on the counter before Catherine, peering sideways at her with an inspecting eye. Her voice was dry, as though she had been munching sand.
    “My name,” she began grimly, her eyes pinning Catherine to her chair, “is Mrs. VanHoofstryver.” The words were pronounced in monotone except for the “hoof” syllable, in which she raised her voice high enough to crack before lowering it again.
    Catherine wondered if the starched old lady knew how much the neighborhood kids loved to imitate this.
    “It seems one of my cats, Cinder, has had some kind of accident,” she continued, scooting the box forward, her eyes never lowering. “I’m not sure anything can be done for her.”
    It took quite an effort for Catherine to force her muscles to loosen enough to allow her to stand. She nodded at the imposing old woman, then looked into the box.
    Catherine had been assisting Dr. Douglas for nearly a year now. She was used to seeing injured animals. She’d seen horses tangled in barbed wire, collies kicked square in the face by cows, cats with ears torn off from car fan belts but this this made her face go pale and the blood rush to her ears in wordless, thoughtless horror. She gripped the edge of the counter with both hands to keep upright.
    “Dr. Douglas…” she choked, forcing her voice to remain in control. “Dr. Douglas, come up front. Right away!” Her legs wobbled as she stared at the victim, trying to wash its incomprehensible pain out of her mind.
    The cat’s head had been flattened. From neck to tail, the furry black animal lying on the pillow looked normal, but from scalp to chin, its head was compressed from a normal roundish shape to a flattened oval. It attempted a pitiful meow, but stopped short, as icicles of blood would allow the mouth to open no further.
    “Dr. Douglas!” she called once again, her legs rubbery.
    Then the cat looked at her. Its unnaturally slanted eyes stared in a manner that made her feel something she hadn’t noticed at first; the feline equivalent of hope. The next thing she knew, Dr. Douglas was standing over her shoulder, clicking his tongue.
    “I’ll give her an injection,” he said softly as Mrs. VanHoofstryver stared on, her hardened face devoid of emotion, “It’ll end the pain and put her to sleep in peace.”
    “I see.” said Mrs. VanHoofstryver. She nodded briskly, straightened, and allowed her glance to drop down into the box for an instant. It’d only been for an instant… but Catherine had seen it. It’d been obvious that the old woman, hard as nails, hadn’t wanted to look at her pet, and probably hadn’t known she’d been caught doing it. Then she abruptly turned and stalked away. Her pointy heels clicked against the shiny tile in the hushed room. The door squealed as it opened, the sound seeming to penetrate everyone’s bones… and then she was gone.
    The room was bathed with sighs.
    “I bet that’s really her husband in the box,” said the little girl under the chair, still clinging to her rabbit. “I bet she got mad and tried to kill him, then turned him into a cat so no one would know. She’s a witch !”
    Catherine stared incredulously at the little girl as she continued, “They say her husband is so fat he’s almost dead and she keeps him locked away in an upstairs bedroom. My friend Rosie says he hates all her cats, too, and eats them. No one has