The Christmas Cat Read Online Free PDF Page A

toward Garrison. “I’ll admit that Mrs. Brown’s plan seemed a bit eccentric to me at first, but the more I spoke with her, the more I realized that her heart was in the right place. She really loved her cats.”
    Garrison let out a long sigh. “Yeah . . . that seems obvious.” He hated to think he envied a bunch of aging cats, but he couldn’t help himself. Gram’s estate was going directly tothe felines. And really, why shouldn’t she disperse her money as she saw fit? After all, those cats had been a bigger part of her life than Garrison . . . at least for the past sixteen years. In reality, Garrison had spent only six years under her roof. It was clear, those cats were her family.

3

    A s Garrison drove home, he was determined to carry out Gram’s last wishes to the best of his ability—and as quickly as possible. For starters, he would give Viola to Ruby. Surely that would make Gram happy. As he pulled into the driveway, he checked his watch to see that he still had a couple of hours on his allergy medicine. Besides that precaution, he had stopped by the drugstore to pick up a pack of disposable allergy masks as well as some medical-grade disposable gloves. He knew this might be overkill, but he didn’t care. If necessary, he would get a respirator and maybe even a hazmat suit too. One couldn’t be too careful.
    “How’d it go with the lawyer?” Ruby asked. She’d emerged from her house just as he was closing the garage door.
    He weighed his words. “It was . . . uh . . . interesting.”
    “Oh.” She frowned.
    “Do you still want Viola?”
    Her eyes brightened. “Oh yes, I’d love to have her.”
    “Well, I need to find homes for all the cats. As soon as possible. It’d be great if you could take Viola off my hands and—”
    “You won’t have to ask me twice.” Ruby followed him to the back door. “Do you think she’ll be happy at my house?”
    “I’m sure she’ll be most grateful.” He unlocked the door.
    “I don’t have any cat goodies . . . like food dishes and litter boxes.”
    “I’m sure Gram had plenty of that sort of thing.” He paused to secure the mask and pulled on the gloves.
    “You look like you’re about to perform surgery,” she commented as they went inside.
    “Well, I do plan to remove some cats,” he joked. “But not surgically.”
    She pushed ahead of him, calling out for Viola. “Here, kitty-kitty,” she cooed sweetly. And just like that a small herd of cats came rushing into the kitchen. “They probably think I’m going to feed them again,” she explained as she bent down to scoop up the big Russian Blue. “There you are, Viola girl. You wanna go home with Ruby?”
    Garrison froze in place as the cats swarmed around his feet. He didn’t want to show how unsettling this was, but he could feel his heart racing and it was getting difficult to breathe. Or maybe that was the mask. “Go ahead and look around for what you need,” he told Ruby. “Cat food or dishes or whatever. Take anything you like.”
    “Are you okay?” She peered curiously at him. “Even for a white boy, you look awful pale. Are you having a malaria attack?”
    “No, no . . . it’s—uh—just the allergy thing,” he murmured.
    “Looks like more than that to me.” She tilted her head to one side as she rubbed the top of Viola’s head, studying him closely.
    “More than what?” He carefully stepped over a big furry cat that resembled a raccoon.
    “Looks to me like you might have some kind of phobia, boy.”
    “Phobia—of what?”
    “Cats.” She pushed Viola up close to his face and he quickly jumped back, accidentally stepping on a cat tail or paw and causing one of the felines to let out a loud screech that made him jump even higher. Ruby laughed loudly. “I do believe I’m right. You have a cat phobia, Garrison.”
    “No, no . . .” He tried to calm himself. “It’s just the allergies. I like to keep a safe distance from—”
    “I saw it on a