Daniel, the taller black boy, scooped up a handful of mud and kneaded it. The Ghost Cat guessed he planned a controlled experiment, throwing it at another boy to observe how it splattered.
Something wriggled in Daniel’s mud. He stopped kneading to see what it was. It was a long, pink worm. He liberated it from the mud and held it high, like a trophy, stretched between two hands. The other boys crowded around to see it.
Now, thought the Ghost Cat, having studied the properties of mud, they will go on to study the properties of worms.
“Ain’t never in all the world been a worm big as this one,” said Daniel.
“ ’S only a baby compared to what my aunt has back in Iowa,” said the fair-haired white boy.
“Maybe a baby, but he scare the pants off of you!” Daniel shoved the worm in the fair boy’s face. The boy dodged away So did Daniel’s next victim, the little Cambodian.
Daniel chased the others all over the garden, but failed to catch any of them.
The Ghost Cat watched and purred louder.
Daniel went after the girls. They quit being ballerinas, screamed, and scattered.
“Stop you teasing, Daniel,” yelled the Mother Lady. “You put that worm right back in the earth where he belong!”
Daniel shuffled a bit on the lawn, then returned to the muddy place and put the worm on the damp earth. With the other boys, he watched it wriggle out of sight.
The Vietnamese girl smoothed her dress. She put the flute to her lips again, and resumed playing.
The other girls resumed their toe-tip teeter totters. They giggled some more.
In a little while, the Mother Lady grew restless. She kept looking at her watch. Presently she stood up, gazed out over the ocean. The great ship was hull down on the horizon. “ Bye, ol’ ship, goin’ Singapore, Hong Kong, some such place,” she said. “Wish you’d take me with you!”
She looked at her watch again, and went into the house.
The Ghost Cat went to the side door of the house and went inside too, through the little cat flap. It bothered him deeply that the Mother Lady would want to be on a ship, carried away from the children. He found her in her living room. The TV was on, some sort of current affairs thing about simplified tax laws, but he took not much notice of it. He knew more than he wanted to know about tax laws. What he did notice was that the Mother Lady’s eyes were teary, and she was dabbing them with a white handkerchief.
He forced her to notice him. In body language, he asked what was troubling her.
“Taxes,” she told him.
She went on mumbling to herself, “Ain’t it always the same? You work like a little engine, get a house for the children, everything fine. Then big old taxman come. He say you owe, puts lien on salary, you not have money left to pay the rent.” She switched off the TV. “Old program here don’ tell me nothin’ that help.”
She picked up the Ghost Cat, held him at arm’s length in front of her. “You look some fierce, old Ghost Cat. Don’t do no good. Ain’t nothin’ you can do. Rent not paid, me and the children be gone I don’ know where.”
I bet there is something I can do, thought the Ghost Cat. He leapt out of her hands, over to the cat flap, through it, and straight up the hill to his own place.
In his own place, the Ghost Cat immediately plugged himself into the nets. Everybody’s problem is out on the nets somewhere. He searched for the Mother Lady’s.
It was soon found. The Mother Lady worked nights for the telephone company. That was how she paid her bills, fed the children, and paid rent. She had sent in her tax forms in April, just like everyone else. All her money went on the children, but she never kept records to itemize, so she only took standard deductions.
The tax man wrote her saying she owed three thousand dollars.
She wrote the tax man saying she had no money. She had spent it all on the children, so couldn’t she be excused?
Only, wrote the tax man, if she could produce a set of books showing, item by item, what she had spent.
Can’t do no such thing, she wrote back.
Well, then, said the tax man’s next letter, we will have to put a lien on your salary.
He had put on the lien. The telephone company had done what they could to hold back as little money as possible, but next month, as the Mother Lady knew, her salary would be too small to cover the rent.
The Ghost Cat immediately went stalking the responsible tax man.
He was soon found. His name was Ed “Muscles” Grimond. His personnel file held many commendations for the efficiency with which he recovered delinquent taxes.
Unpleasant individual though he must be, the Ghost Cat had to meet him. He burrowed electronically into the man’s computer. Looking out through its screen from inside, he saw a small individual who looked much like a mouse.
Numbers scrolled on the man’s screen, and his eyes gleamed as he surveyed his day’s victories over the taxpayers.
Parts of the Ghost Cat went in various directions to do background checks on Ed “Muscles” Grimond. One part came back with a school kid piece about his first day in Washington High. Another new kid, taking a hard look at him, tried to give him the name of “Mouse.” Before others followed suit, Ed said, if they had to call him something, it had better be the proper Latin term, “Mus musculus,” not the commonplace “Mouse.”
Another kid, observing his puny physique, corrupted “Mus Musculus” to “Muscles.”
From there on, he was Ed “Muscles” Grimond, and all the kids had a good laugh.
Another part of the Ghost Cat came back with details filed in the computer of Ed’s psychiatrist. The record said he was terrified of cats. He was also afflicted with the fantasy that, somewhere in cyberspace, there existed a blind-ended mousehole, into which, if the real world became too much for him, he could withdraw and be safe.
While the Ghost Cat absorbed this information, Ed “Muscles” frowned and stopped scrolling. He had come to the social security number of the Mother Lady. “Blasted woman,” he mumbled.
Apparently the telephone company was not withholding as much money from her salary as it should have done.
The Ghost Cat angrily swished his electronic tail and thought how he hated taxes and tax men.
There was one way to show Ed what he felt.
Behind the man’s computer screen, he created a monstrous virtual cat. He had the cat leap out of the screen at the man.
Ed “Muscles” Grimond squawked loudly and withdrew into his cyberspace mousehole.
The Ghost Cat let the virtual beast sit on Ed’s desk for a while, towering over his inert form as it ominously cleaned its paws.
Presendy he deleted the beast.
He set off on a tour of the IRS files. Wherever he found a reference to the Mother Lady’s tax problems, he deleted that.
He toured the telephone company’s files.
Wherever there was any reference to the tax man’s lien, he deleted that.
While he was about it, he gave the Mother Lady a raise.
He went home.
Only when he was unplugging himself did it occur to him to wonder if he had done anything illegal.
He had not, he told himself, because he could not. He was programmed absolutely not to.
Of course, there was that dire emergency clause.
Maybe this had been a dire emergency.
Anyway, he felt good, and not to worry.
He went outside and down the hill to the Mother Lady’s house.
The Mother Lady was back on the patio again, rocking in the sunshine. The children were happy in the garden.
Using every ounce of body language he possessed, he assured the Mother Lady that, from here on, everything, everything, would be all right.