But she didn’t sleep well that night at all. Katherine had fitful dreams of something, or someone, screaming and fighting outside her window. At one point it was as though a lost night creature was banging the tops of the garbage cans together and yowling at the moon.
A few times she dug her head deeper into her pillow and fell back to sleep. Once she rolled over and mumbled “stupid raccoons” before jamming her favourite stuffed bear over her ear to block out the noise.
Milly spent all night sitting in Katherine’s bedroom window, looking out into the backyard and growling gently to herself. Once in a while her tail twitched slightly, but otherwise she looked still as a statue. She was watching something very intently.
The next morning, Katherine woke up late for school, tired from a bad night’s sleep. When she ran downstairs to grab some breakfast before dashing out the door to school, she didn’t even think twice when her mom asked her, “Do you know how the garbage can lids got all over the backyard? Or how one of the dwarves got his nose broken off?”
“Stupid raccoons, they were fighting all night long. Bye!” And Katherine was gone.
Chapter Three
The Chuckle
After such a bad sleep, it wasn’t a great day for Katherine.
She misplaced her math book and got in trouble with Mrs. Glean three times, which meant her name went up on the board with a frowning face above it. No matter how hard Katherine tried to get her name and frowny face erased, they stayed there all day.
At three thirty, Mrs. Glean asked her to stay for a few moments to “chat”. Katherine had never been asked to stay after school before, except for good things like band practice or to help the little kids get their snowsuits on.
It wasn’t that Mrs. Glean was a terrible teacher; in fact, she could be quite helpful and knew a lot about important things, but she always had a cup of coffee in her hands. There was nothing Katherine liked less than stale coffee-breath.
“Katherine,” she started, “are you having problems concentrating today for some reason?”
“No, not really.”
“Well, if there is some problem you want to talk about, please feel free to discuss it with me. Your math book will probably turn up, so don’t worry about that. But you weren’t really yourself today... Is everything all right?”
“Yes, everything’s fine,” Katherine said. “We just had a loud raccoon fight going on in the backyard last night, and it was hard to sleep, so I’m a little tired today.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Glean smiled, “that’s fine. Let me know if you need extra help with anything.”
That was that. Katherine breathed out and slipped out behind the teacher while she was talking to someone’s mother.
Katherine’s own mother was waiting for her in the car outside the school.
“Hey, Mom,” Katherine said as she slid into the back seat and slammed the door.
“Hello, Katherine.” Her mother looked in the rear-view mirror at her daughter as she eased the car out on to Bloor Street.
It was Friday night, and they were heading to the shopping mall to buy Katherine some new runners and jeans. She’d had a sudden growth spurt, and all the new fall clothes they had bought for her just last month were already too small.
“You’re kind of late. Is everything okay?”
You’re the second adult to ask me that today, thought Katherine. She said to her mom, “Yeah. I had to stay a little late because I lost my math book and was a bit scattered today. I didn’t sleep too well last night.”
“How come?”
“Well, because of the raccoon fight in the backyard, of course. It was so loud, I couldn’t sleep at all.”
Katherine’s mother was quiet for a minute.
“Raccoon fight? In the backyard? Oh...” Her mother’s voice suddenly grew cold.
She paused a moment, then demanded, “Katherine, are you sure that’s what it was? Did you actually see raccoons? Something dragged the garbage lids everywhere and broke the dwarf’s nose right off... I’m not sure raccoons...” her voice trailed off. She turned quickly to look at her daughter, and her eyes left the road a second too long.
“Mom, look out!” Katherine yelled. Her mother veered to miss the car coming toward them.
“Mom—what’s wrong?” she was worried now.
“Nothing,” her mother snapped. “I just don’t want to talk about the backyard right now. Let’s not discuss it.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry.”
They didn’t get a chance to discuss it again anyway, since at that moment they pulled into the mall parking lot and went shopping.
This is what they bought for Katherine:
1 new hooded sweatshirt, blue
2 new pairs of pants, one cord, one jean
1 new pair of running shoes, red with white stripes
It took forever to shop for Katherine. Everything had to be tried on and tried on again. Katherine knew her mother would have been just as happy to grab the first thing she saw that even remotely fit her then get out. But Katherine was more like her dad when it came to shopping. She had to find the right shoes, the right pants, the right sweatshirt. It took awhile.
That night at home, Katherine tried everything on again, then settled on her new cords and her cool red runners with the white stripes.
After dinner, she sat outside with Milly on the back porch for a little while to get used to her new clothes. Her mom and dad had their coffee out there too. It was a really warm night for mid-October, probably the last night of the year that they’d be able to sit outside together. It was really pretty, with the little Christmas lights running all around the back fence, and the moon-candles lit up here and there among the statues.
Flickering candlelight bounced off the deep chin of the cherub statue and made him look like he was laughing. The light made the unicorn look as though he was flashing his horn back and forth. The water falling from his horn into the pool around him made a gentle lapping sound.
It was very peaceful and serene.
Katherine took her new shoes off and felt the cooling grass between her toes. They chatted and her dad played some quiet guitar. When her parents went in, her mother said, “Five more minutes, Kath, then you come in too. Bring Milly in with you, I don’t want her out all night.” If Katherine didn’t know better, she’d have said her mother gave the backyard a quick, dark look.
“Sure, Mom,” she said and moved off the porch to the back of the yard to swing a little. Milly followed her.
She sat in the swing and listened to the sound of the city around her.
Someone was smoking a pipe nearby. Katherine wrinkled up her nose at the hot, strange smell. Nobody around here smoked. It was probably someone visiting a neighbour in another small backyard one or two houses away, but she didn’t like it.
A fire truck was screaming somewhere off in the distance. There was a police car too. The neighbour’s dog was barking. Katherine had to concentrate to hear him. She was so used to the sound of him barking that she didn’t really hear him any more. It was just background noise.
Suddenly something moved beside her. She jumped right off the swing onto her feet with her fists clenched.
Milly had disappeared into the bushes and came out growling.
“Milly, don’t scare me like that!” Katherine said.
As she said