1 1. The Beginning (sort of)

The day was perfectly ordinary.

Mr Van was boring the class, the heat was making wiggly lines in the air and everybody was fidgeting in their sticky chairs waiting for the lunch bell to ring. The door and windows were open in the hopes a breeze would wander in.

Lucy Fang stared at the big clock over the door. Lucy sat in the third seat in the third row of Mr Van's dull, stifling hot classroom....not a coincidence because three was Lucy's lucky number. She had been born on the third day of the third month. She imagined she was born at 3 o'clock, but being the ninth child born to Mrs.Fang, her mother had little interest in noting such trivial things.

The big, black hand of the clock ticked slowly upward toward the twelve. Three minutes. Two minutes. One minute. A burst of laughter all around her broke Lucy's concentration. A quick look and she saw the cause; a big, orange cat had sauntered into the classroom and had perched himself on Mr Van's desk.

Lucy loved cats more than anything in the world. She thought she had probably been a cat in a previous life. She smiled her sweet, shy smile at the cat. The cat looked right at Lucy and meowed "Hello". Excited, Lucy began to vibrate. Her little hands started to flutter and she bounced in her chair.

The lunch bell blared, but Lucy didn't hear it. She was no longer in the room. Both Lucy and the cat had disappeared.

Georgie Becket hated cats. He hated being called Georgie. He hated vegetables and he hated school. But most of all, Georgie hated orange cats.

The stupid, orange cat must have snuck in the apartment when his older brother, Greg, left for work. Greg always forgot to shut and lock the door. Georgie and Greg's mother was a nurse who worked straight nights at a senior's nursing home and Greg worked at McDonald's til midnight. Georgie liked being home alone because he found just about everything and everybody annoyed him.

The stupid cat lay stretched out on the back of the worn, blue and pink floral sofa staring at him like Georgie was the one who didn't belong. Georgie swatted at the cat. The cat hissed and swatted back. Georgie pushed himself off the sofa and trudged angrily into the small kitchen. The cat followed.

"Get lost" Georgie insisted.

The cat ignored the command and lept easily onto the table landing six inches from Georgie's face. The cat's yellowy green eyes stared.

"Grrrr" Georgie growled at the cat.

It sounded like the cat sighed and suddenly Georgie felt lightheaded.

'What the...?" and just like that Georgie Becket disappeared.

"Rufus, Rufus, Rufus." The exasperation in his mother's voice was tinged with exhaustion. Rufus had once again replaced the sugar for her coffee with salt. That bit never gets old, he thought.

"I'm sorry, mom." His smile told a different story.

"Never mind." Louise Knapp poured the ruined coffee down the drain. "We have to leave for your appointment anyway. Do you have your stuff? I'll drop you at school when we are done."

"Right here." Rufus patted his red backpack. He didn't add that it also contained a rubber snake, fake vomit and two plastic severed thumbs.

The orthodontist smiled down into Rufus' wide open mouth and slowly pulled out a plastic thumb. "It seems you missed something while flossing." Doctor and patient laughed. Mrs. Knapp rolled her eyes.

It was after 10 when Mrs. Knapp stopped the car in front of the school. "Don't forget your backpack. Love you." Rufus dodged his mother's kiss, jumped out of the car, and headed across the empty school yard. Nearing the entrance of the school, Rufus jerked to a stop when an orange cat lept from the bushes onto the bottom step.

A slow smile spread across his face. "Hello, Kitty." His hand slid into his backpack and came out wiggling a fake snake. If cats could look droll, this one did. Rufus moved the snake closer. The cat seemed to lift one brow.

Suddenly the cat pounced, latching onto the snake and before Rufus could react the orange cat, the rubber snake and a befuddled Rufus were gone.

School was Ethan's happy place. He loved the heavy doors swinging inward, sleek floors that squeaked, overly bright lights in the hallways and classrooms. Rules upon rules and schedules. A new pencil or blank sheet of paper were nirvana. Third period was his favourite class. Ethan, first in the room, was surprised to see an orange feline lounging in the biology lab. Ethan assumed it had come looking for the mice that the teacher sometimes kept in cages, on the back counter for experiments.

Uninterested in the stray, Ethan turned and dropped his text book on the lab table. He perched solidly on a stool.

With floating grace the orange feline moved around the room until it landed squarely on the open book. It started to groom it's fur. A long raspy tongue ran the length of the feline back leg.

Ethan's natural curiosity kicked in. He tilted his head and studied the beast. A solitary person, Ethan had few friends and no pets. He had never been this close to an animal.

Trying to reason the feline's strange behavior Ethan hesitantly poked his index finger into the soft, orange fur. It seemed the cat smiled just before the pair disappeared.