ASPCA Kids Read online

  A PURR-fect Pair

  Look for the books in the

  PET RESCUE CLUB

  series

  A New Home for Truman

  No Time for Hallie

  The Lonely Pony

  Too Big to Run

  A Puppy Called Disaster

  Champion’s New Shoes

  A PURR-fect Pair

  Bailey, the Wonder Dog

  A PURR-fect Pair

  Written by Rachael Upton

  Illustrated by Dana Regan

  Cover Illustration by Steve James

  Studio Fun International

  An imprint of Printers Row Publishing Group

  A division of Readerlink Distribution Services, LLC

  10350 Barnes Canyon Road, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92121

  www.studiofun.com

  Copyright © 2018 Studio Fun International

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed,

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording,

  or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission

  of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical

  reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Printers Row Publishing Group is a division of Readerlink Distribution

  Services, LLC. Studio Fun International is a registered trademark of

  Readerlink Distribution Services, LLC.

  All notations of errors or omissions should be addressed to

  Studio Fun International, Editorial Department, at the above address.

  5-7% of the purchase price will be donated to the ASPCA®,

  with a minimum donation of $50,000 through December 2019.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-7944-4335-1

  eBook Edition: May 2018

  To Kai, Bijou, and Nooku, the cats who rescued me.

  —R.U.

  Contents

  1. Lolli’s Farm

  2. Too Many Cats

  3. Zach’s Idea

  4. Photo Shoot

  5. Surprise Arrival

  6. Purr-fect Pairs

  7. Special Chester

  8. Picture Perfect

  9. Second Chances

  10. Happy Homes

  Lolli’s Farm

  Janey Whitfield had never been this happy before. “Baby goats are the cutest,” she said, as she leaned over the fenced pen and petted the baby goat’s long ears. The goat bleated softly and wagged its short tail, looking up at Janey with large brown eyes surrounded by long, long lashes. It was so cute, Janey felt like she might melt into the grass.

  “They are the cutest,” her friend Lolli Simpson agreed. She was sitting on the grass a few feet away, watching Janey with a big smile on her face. The baby goat belonged to her. Well, really it belonged to her parents, who called themselves “back-to-the-land hippies.” They owned a small farm, which meant that Lolli had lots of animals, including sheep, goats, and a dog named Roscoe.

  It also meant that sometimes Lolli brought cookies to school that were made of tofu or seaweed. But Janey would eat tofu cookies every day if it meant she got to have a pet of her own. Unfortunately, her father was extremely allergic to everything with fur or feathers, so Janey was usually stuck playing with other people’s pets. Not that she minded much, right now.

  “You are sublime,” she said to the baby goat, whose name was Buttercup. Janey liked to use unusual words whenever and wherever she could. “Sublime” was currently her favorite. “I should have brought my tablet,” she said to Lolli. “It has a really nice camera. Then I could have taken pictures of Buttercup for the blog.”

  Her blog, Janey’s Pet Place, had started as a way for other kids around town to share pictures of their pets. Janey thought that if she couldn’t have a pet of her own, looking at and posting photos of other people’s pets would be the next best thing. Now, however, the blog was mostly used for the club Janey had started with Lolli and two other friends from school, Adam Santos and Zach Goldman. They called themselves the Pet Rescue Club. Their goal was to help animals in need all over town. So far, the four friends had helped dogs, cats, hamsters, and even a pony find happy new homes.

  “Buttercup already has a home with me,” Lolli pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, but she’s so cute. Her cuteness should be shared with the world,” Janey insisted. “Besides, it’s been weeks since our last rescue. I should post something so that people don’t think I’ve forgotten the blog.”

  Lolli got up to join Janey at the fence. She had picked a few handfuls of clover while she was sitting, and handed some to Janey so she could feed Buttercup.

  “Maybe you should post an update about one of the animals we helped before,” Lolli suggested. “I bet people would love to know how Truman is doing. And he’s super-cute, too.” Truman was the first dog they had rescued as a club. He was an adorable little terrier mix who had been adopted by their teacher Ms. Tanaka.

  “That’s a good idea,” Janey agreed.

  At school, she could ask Ms. Tanaka for photos of Truman. Still, Janey loved helping animals, and she really wanted a new animal to help. She knew deep down that it was good no animals needed the club’s help, because she didn’t like to see animals in trouble, but helping animals made her happy, too.

  Janey was so lost in thought for a moment that she didn’t notice Buttercup had eaten all the clover from her hand, and was now munching on a piece of her long blond hair. “Oh no! That’s not food!” Janey exclaimed. She tried to pull back, laughing, and Lolli helped her friend get her hair out of Buttercup’s mouth. Buttercup let go and trotted off to the other side of the small pen while Janey tried to wipe the goat drool from her hair.

  Lolli was giggling a little. “I guess she thought it was hay.”

  “It’s all right,” said Janey, giggling, too. “Even baby goat drool is pretty cute.”

  “Okay, girls!” came a voice from across the pasture. They looked up to see Lolli’s dad, Mr. Simpson, walking toward them and waving. “Let’s clear out of the paddock.” he called to them. “I’m going to let the other goats in for feeding time.”

  Lolli and Janey nodded, and climbed over the fence to the other side, out of the way. Mr. Simpson opened a gate, and two grown-up goats trotted into the paddock and toward the feeder of hay on the other side.

  Buttercup bleated at them from her pen. The older goats bleated back, but they seemed much more interested in food than the little goat.

  “How long until she can join the herd?” Lolli asked her dad as he joined the girls at the fence.

  “Another week or so,” Mr. Simpson replied. “We want to be really sure everyone gets along first. The other goats need to think of Buttercup as a friend, not a stranger. Otherwise they might hurt her.”

  “What? But that’s so mean!” Janey burst out. Buttercup was much smaller than the adult goats. Why would they hurt her?

  “They wouldn’t do it to be mean,” Mr. Simpson explained. “They’d just be scared. Goats are really protective of their territory. Most animals are. In the wild, they have to defend what they have to survive. Here, we make sure they have everything they need, so it’s also up to us to make sure they know they don’t have to be scared or fight with one another.”

  That made a sort of sense to Janey, although she still thought Buttercup was way too small to be scary. “So how do you do that?” she asked. “Help them be friends?”

  “Slow and steady does it,” said Mr. Simpson. “We’re keeping them separate for now, but they can still see and smell each other.”

  “Animals love to smell each other,” Lolli put in, grinning. “Even if they don’t always smell great.”
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  “They rely on their smell more than we do,” Mr. Simpson agreed. “And by feeding them at the same time, we’re also teaching them that there’s enough food to go around. Even the most ornery animal can usually be persuaded to make friends, if you take the time to do the introduction right.”

  At the mention of food, Janey’s stomach gurgled loudly. She blushed.

  She’d begged her mom to bring her over early this morning, and it had been a long time since breakfast.

  Mr. Simpson laughed. “Why don’t you girls head inside to eat? I’ll finish up here.”

  “Let’s go, Janey,” said Lolli. “The goats will be eating for a while, and I’m starving, too.” She looped her arm through Janey’s, and together they headed to the house.

  Lolli’s mom must have known they would need a snack, because there was a plate of cookies waiting for them in the living room, and if they had seaweed in them, Janey was too hungry to notice. She and Lolli had soon eaten three each, and Janey was about to reach for a fourth cookie when the phone rang in the kitchen.

  Mrs. Simpson answered it, and a moment later called Lolli and Janey from the kitchen. “Girls? It’s Kitty, from the Third Street Animal Shelter. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Oh!” Janey jumped to her feet. Kitty was her favorite worker at the town’s animal shelter. She was always patient with Janey and her friends from the club, and happy to let them volunteer there.

  Lolli took the phone from her mom, and she and Janey pressed their heads close to the receiver so they could both hear.

  “Hello?” said Janey and Lolli in unison.

  “Hi, girls!” came Kitty’s voice. She was normally calm, but today her voice sounded a little frazzled. “I hate to call you like this, but we have a bit of an emergency at the shelter. I thought I would see if you two are free to come help.”

  An emergency at the shelter? That was exactly what Janey had been waiting for! Animals needed their help, and Janey was ready to jump into action. “Of course!” she said, forgetting to ask if it was okay with Lolli. Luckily, Lolli was already nodding, too.

  “I’ll ask my mom for a ride,” Lolli said, looking serious. “We’ll come as soon as we can.”

  “Thank you, girls,” said Kitty, sounding relieved. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Too Many Cats

  Janey and Lolli walked into the shelter through the back door marked for volunteers. They’d worried all the way to the shelter about what kind of emergency it was, and now Janey felt ready to burst. She should have asked on the phone, but she’d been so eager to come and help that it hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder what the emergency was until after they had already hung up.

  “Kitty!” she called as they entered, and then stopped in her tracks, eyes wide, when she saw the shelter’s intake room. “Oh!” she cried. “Cats!”

  On every chair and in every corner of the room were cat carriers, in stacks three or four high. There were maybe two dozen of them. And from the sounds of meowing, they were full of cats and kittens. Janey shook her head, unable to believe what she was seeing and hearing. She hadn’t seen the shelter so full since a big tornado had blown through town a couple months earlier. But there hadn’t been a tornado today—or any storm at all. It was bright and sunny outside. So what were all these cats doing here?

  To double her surprise, their friend and fellow Pet Rescue Club member Zach was there, too, peering into one of the carriers at a litter of kittens. He looked up at Janey and Lolli. “Hey! Isn’t this crazy?”

  “I’ve never heard so many cats in one place,” said Lolli, with her hands over her ears to block the meowing. It was true. Even during the storm there hadn’t been this many cats, or this much noise.

  “You’ll get used to it.” Zach laughed. “I’m glad you guys came. It’s been hard, working by myself. I’ve been here all morning because Kitty called in Mom to help earlier, and Mom said I couldn’t stay home and play video games all day.” He rolled his eyes a little, but he didn’t look that unhappy to be at the shelter.

  Zach’s mom, Dr. Goldman, was a veterinarian who owned the Critter Clinic in town. She was always volunteering at the Third Street Animal Shelter, too. She liked animals, and Janey liked her a lot. She liked Zach, too, even if he had a habit of joking around and not taking things seriously enough for Janey’s taste.

  Kitty and Dr. Goldman came in from the examination room in the back. Kitty looked just as frazzled in person as she had sounded on the phone. Her normally bouncy blond ponytail was loose and frizzy. She smiled when she saw Lolli and Janey.

  “Hi, girls! Thanks for coming in on such short notice. As you can see, we’re a little overwhelmed.”

  “No problem,” said Lolli.

  “We’re happy to help,” agreed Janey. “But, um…where did all these cats come from?” She looked around at the stacks of carriers, still confused and a little amazed.

  “The Lakeville shelter,” Dr. Goldman said. “They had a big storm overnight, and their shelter building got flooded.”

  “It wasn’t safe for the animals to stay there,” Kitty added. “So the other local shelters agreed to take their animals in. Of course, they’re a much bigger town than us, so…”

  “They have a lot more animals,” said Lolli, nodding. She was still wide-eyed.

  “Exactly,” said Dr. Goldman. “This isn’t even all the cats they had in their shelter.”

  Janey looked around at the cats again, and tried to picture more. The idea was too much. “That’s way too many cats,” she said finally, shaking her head.

  “It’s definitely a lot,” Kitty said. “And it will probably take a while for the Lakeville shelter’s building to be repaired, so it’s up to us to feed, house, and try to adopt out all these cats.”

  Janey nodded. She’d never seen anything quite like this. When the tornado happened, a lot of the animals that came to the shelter already had owners and homes. It had been temporary, but these cats were all in need of good homes. She could see why Kitty had asked for their help.

  “Anyway!” Kitty clapped her hands together. “Now that the two of you are here to help Zach, we might finally be able to make some progress. Dr. Goldman is very kindly doing health checks and processing the Lakeville veterinarian paperwork for each and every cat, but I have to help her in the examination room. And poor Mr. Petersen has been on his own in the back room, trying to get kennels ready for our new residents. Do you guys think you can give him a hand?”

  “Definitely!” said Janey. “Leave it to us!”

  Mr. Petersen was another shelter worker. The Pet Rescue Club didn’t see him as often as Kitty—he was usually out “in the field,” helping people find lost pets or picking up strays. He waved to them when Kitty showed them to the back room.

  “Hey, kids!” he said. “Thanks for coming to help. It’s a little bit of a madhouse this morning.”

  “You can say that again,” said Zach, shaking his head, and looking around at the room.

  The members of the Pet Rescue Club quickly got organized. Janey carefully filled bowls with food and water, while Lolli laid newspaper and fresh, clean bedding in each kennel. Zach poured litter into the litter boxes, though he let out a loud, clearly fake ah-CHOO! at the dust.

  Once some of the kennels were ready, Mr. Petersen helped them move the cats from the carriers into their new temporary homes. Most of the cats were young—almost all of them were kittens, in fact, at which Janey couldn’t help but coo. They all seemed tired after their exam, and most quieted down once they were inside the kennels. Several of them curled up and fell right to sleep in their newly made beds.

  “Aren’t kittens the greatest?” Zach asked. He was petting a trio of little black kittens who were busy investigating their new home. “These little guys are awesome.”

  “Shh, you’ll make Mulberry jealous!” Lolli giggled. Mulberry was Zach’s family’s cat, a fat orange tabby who loved attention, and got lots of it from Zach’s big family. Zach stuck out his tong
ue at Lolli playfully.

  Janey was about to chime in with a teasing joke of her own, but she was interrupted by a loud, insistent purr-ROW! from one of the kennels next to her. She turned to see a large gray-and-white cat staring at her with one green eye.

  For a moment, Janey thought he was winking, but then she realized his left eye wasn’t there at all—one side of his face was just smooth gray fur. He didn’t seem hurt, though. He meowed again, just as loudly, and rubbed his face against the kennel bars as if saying, “Pet me!”

  Just then, Kitty came in from the exam room. “How’s it going?” she asked, looking around at the cats. “You guys are the best! Looks like we’re nearly done.”

  “Every kitty is watered and fed,” Lolli confirmed.

  “But this one is missing an eye,” Janey interrupted, unable to help herself.

  “What?” asked Lolli and Zach together, rushing over to the cage to see for themselves. The cat didn’t notice—he just kept purring and rubbing happily against Janey’s fingers.

  Kitty had followed them to the kennel, and relaxed when she saw which cat they were talking about. “Oh, that’s Chester,” she said, reaching through the bars alongside Janey to pet him. “We don’t know what happened to his eye exactly, but we can tell it was a long time ago. Dr. Goldman checked him out, and he’s just fine.”

  Janey let out a relieved sigh. “Sublime. I didn’t really think you and Dr. Goldman would miss something that important.” She smiled up at Chester.

  Chester purred louder.

  “Most of the cats are just fine, luckily.” Kitty sighed, shaking her head a little. “There are just a lot of them.”

  “I don’t think I’ve seen the kennels this full since the storm a few months ago,” said Mr. Petersen, surveying their handiwork.

  Kitty agreed, looking worried. “And just like then, it’s going to be a big strain on the shelter’s resources.”