The Cats in the Doll Shop Read Online Free PDF

of afternoon.
    I have been so busy cat-watching that I almost forget that today is the twenty-eighth of September—that’s the day when we are supposed to start checking the Shipping and Mails section of the newspaper. When we look, we see that Tania’s boat is due to arrive tomorrow!
    â€œCan we go with you to get her?” I ask Papa. He has finished working at his desk in the doll shop and is putting all his papers together. “Please?”
    â€œYou have to go to school,” Papa says. “You’ll see her when you get home.”
    That night, Sophie, Trudie, and I stay up talking long after lights out. This is one of our last nights in the big, old bed, and I am so glad. Squashed in between my two sisters, I feel like a jack-in-the-box, ready to pop out any second.
    â€œHow will she understand us?” Trudie asks. “She won’t know any English.”
    â€œWe’ll have to teach her,” Sophie says. “That’s going to be my job, remember?”
    â€œWe can all help,” I say quietly.
    â€œOh, of course,” says Sophie. “I’m not sure how much time I’ll have anyway. I’m very busy in school.”
    â€œI hope she doesn’t bring too many things with her,” Trudie says, looking around our small room. “It’s already crowded enough in here.” Shifting once more in the tightly packed bed, I have to agree with her. Still, I am eager for Tania’s arrival.
    â€œI hope she’ll like dolls,” I say. “Do you think she will?”
    â€œDoesn’t everyone like dolls?” Trudie says. She reaches down to touch her own doll, which is in a box on the floor just beside the bed. Even though Sophie and I have asked her a hundred times not to do this, she insists on keeping the box right there, where we are apt to stumble on it.
    â€œWe can show her the doll shop,” I say. “I’ll bet she’ll love it.” I feel a pang when I remember that I had wanted to make Tania a doll but never got around to it. And the ideas I had before—the Russian princess, the Spanish dancer—somehow seem wrong to me now.
    The next day drags by. I keep looking at the big clock that hangs on the front wall of my classroom. It seems to me that the slender black hands do not move at all but are frozen in place. History, geography, arithmetic . . . Will the lessons ever end? Our teacher, Miss Marsh, is not even here today. She is out sick, and we have a substitute. She is very young and giggles nervously when she has to give us instructions. I feel sorry for her.
    Finally it is three o’clock, and as soon as we are dismissed, I race down the stairs in search of my sisters. We agreed that we would walk home as a group and greet Tania together. We don’t stop to look at anything along the way, and even though today I have my allowance money in my pocket, I am not tempted for a second to stop for a root beer or penny candy.
    But when we all clatter into the shop, we see Mama bent over her sewing machine and Papa at his desk, just like it’s a normal day. There is no sign of Tania, no sign that today is different from yesterday or the day before.
    â€œWhere is she?” pants Trudie, dropping her satchel.
    â€œShe’s still on Ellis Island,” Mama says, turning to face us. “Papa went but he couldn’t get her today.”
    â€œWhy not?” I ask.
    â€œThere were so many people,” Mama says. “Everything took much longer then we expected. But Papa will get her tomorrow.”
    â€œOh,” I say. I was so sure she’ d be here by now.
    â€œWhat’s Ellis Island?” Trudie asks. “Is that where the lady with the torch stands?” Mama has told us about seeing the tall statue, Lady Liberty, from the boat.
    â€œNo, silly!” says Sophie. “The statue is on a different island. When you get to America, you have to pass through Ellis Island