The summary is: 1) Belle, Marie, and Francis have dinner at the narrator's house after school since their parents will be at the hospital late. 2) While doing homework, the narrator listens in on a conversation between their parents about Belle's mother and the word "cancer". 3) At dinner, Marie is sad that her pet bird died that morning. They then hear strange shrieking outside which the mother discovers is a strange cat. She then gets a call from the hospital about Belle's mother.

1. Cat’s Cry
The school bus rumbles away and disappears around a bend. Belle glances up at my mum, then looks
straight past houses, other children, a mailbox, and a weeping willow on Darlington Crescent.
“Your father called. He said he’d be staying late with your mother at the hospital,” my mum says, as
she looks down at Belle, Marie, and Francis. “The three of you will be having dinner at our house tonight.
We’re having spaghetti.”
I walk beside Belle. The straps of our backpacks sink into our shoulders.
We reach house number forty-two. Mum unlocks the door. Marie, Francis, Belle, me, mum, and my
three sisters Nadia, Sonia, and Mona step inside.
We toss our school bags by the closet, slip off our sneakers, and sit at the kitchen table. The booth
table fits the seven of us. Mum brings over a plate of home-baked cookies and glasses of milk. In a free-
for-all we snatch the cookies off the plate. I dip the edge of a hot, white-chocolate macadamia nut cookie
into the cold milk.
“They’re soft on the inside and crispy on the outside,” says Belle.
I gobble my cookie and look across the table at Belle. Belle’s in my class. She dunks a whole cookie
into her glass and eats it all at once. Milk drips from her fingers.
Mum comes back into the kitchen and collects the plates and glasses for washing. “Time for
homework,” she announces.
“Do I got to?” I groan.
“You’ve got half an hour until Darkwing Duck comes on,” she says. “Just finish up before then and
you can watch it.”
We all walk into the living room. Marie and Nadia sit at the dining table. They say nothing and keep
their noses in their notebooks. The rest of us place our homework on the carpet. We get comfortable. I’ve
got spelling, reading and math homework. I do spelling first. I pull out a list of words and scribble them
down three times each in my spelling book—fast. Mona, Sonia and Francis sit together and work out
math problems.
I get up for a glass of water and peep over Marie’s shoulder at a page of cursive writing. I wonder
what she’s written about, for about a moment, then mosey into the kitchen, to the counter, where I open
some drawers and set them up as steps. I climb up to the counter, turn the tap to the blue side, grab a glass
from the sink, fill it with water, and gulp it down. I look at the clock on the wall and wonder what time it
is.
I wonder how time works.
The conversation my parents had last night comes to mind. I hid behind the curtains and secretly
listened to them talk. They talked about Belle’s mum, and a word came up a lot. I’d never heard it before.
I wonder what cancer is.
I climb down, push the drawers in, and step into the living room. I stop in front of Belle. She looks
up from her colouring book, where she colours a little black rain cloud. I sit down beside her and take out
a book from my bag.
“What’s that book about?” Belle asks.

2. “Haven’t read it all, but…” I point at the girl on the cover. “Her soap slips out her hand and she
chases it all around over town,” I say.
Belle smiles. Her eyes curve up at the corners almost into a smile too.
“I even read the last page,” I say.
“You’re not supposed to read the last page,” says Belle.
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because…I don’t know…Mrs. Booth said so.”
“Don’t you want to know?”
“Yeah.”
“Well too bad.”
I open my math book.
“I hate math,” I tell Belle.
“I like it.”
I think for a moment. “If you do my math, I’ll give you this.” I pull a cookie from my pocket.
Belle looks at the cookie, with lint stuck to the melted chocolate chips.
“Okay,” she says. Her lips and eyes smile.
*
Darkwing Duck is a rerun, but I don’t mind. After it ends, we’re all back at the kitchen table, swirling
stainless steel forks in the spaghetti on our plates. Marie has a neat ball of spaghetti and meatball on her
fork. Belle and I have a sloppy mess on our forks. I laugh when she drops a meatball onto her white dress.
“Aw man,” Belle says, tucking her chin into her chest. She wipes the stain, smears it, and makes it
worse.
Everyone eats except Marie. She stares down at her plate and pushes a meatball around.
“What’s wrong?” asks Nadia. “You look sad.”
“My bird died this morning.” Marie doesn’t take her eyes off her plate.
Mum, standing by the counter, eating, turns. “I’m sorry to hear Marie.”
“It’s okay,” says Marie. “She was sick, and inside, I knew she was dying.”
The room falls quiet, except for the noise of forks hitting plates and the chewing and
swallowing of spaghetti.
“Dad said we’ll get another bird,” Francis says and looks at Marie. He sips some milk.
Marie looks up from her plate. “No bird could replace her.”
A shrieks sounds outside. We all look toward the window above the sink.
“What was that?” Belle asks.
Mum walks to the window, peers out, then looks back at us.
“I don’t see anything.” The shriek sounds again. And again. And again.
“No one move,” Mum says. She opens the side door and walks outside.
We all stare at the door.
Mum walks back in a minute later.

3. “There was a cat outside,” Mum says. “And a strange one at that.”
The phone rings minutes later. Mum, leaning against the fridge staring at the floor, jumps in surprise.
She lifts the receiver to her ear.
“Hello? she says. “Yes...Yes, I’m still here. I’m just...sorry to hear...yes...yes, we’ll come to the hospital
right away.”
Mum hangs up the phone and looks over to the kitchen table. Belle twirls a fork in her
spaghetti.