BACK THEN

          For three days Maggie thought, for sure, that there was a dead, yellow kitten under the rhubarb in the backyard. She’d glance out the back window before going to school and even though she knew they didn’t have any kittens around at that time, she avoided the yard.

          Then on that third day, before school, her mom had asked her to carry the garbage out to the alley. This was usually her younger brother Mark’s job, but he was in bed that morning with a sore throat. So, gathering up all her courage she forced herself down the back steps and followed the sidewalk towards the gate leading to the alley with Queenie, the families’ beloved cocker spaniel, at her side.

          Although she ran practically all the way to the garbage cans, her eyes still darted to the rhubarb and she saw that it wasn’t a dead kitten at all but just a dried, yellow leaf underneath the healthy, green ones. Maggie felt relieved, yet a bit silly. She was, after all, almost sixteen years old and a sophomore in high school!

          It was just that she loved animals so much that she hated to think about any of them suffering. She remembered, with a cringe, just a month ago when their mama cat, Tabby, had kittens; and because they already had her and two of her other offspring, Bandy and Spot, from a previous litter, her dad had to drown the new, little, furry kittens right after they were born. She knew he had put them in a sack in a pail of water with a brick on top because both of her brothers, Mark who was thirteen, and Mike at ten, had made sure she was informed of all the gory details. She had screamed at them that she didn’t want to hear about it as she blocked her ears with her hands and ran from the room.

          The sad part was, Maggie thought as she walked through the gangway to the front of the house, if Tabby had kittens again her dad would have to do the same thing all over.

          Standing in front of the Larson’s two-story frame house, Maggie looked to the corner to see if Beth was coming yet. Then, taking the front steps two at a time she ran into the house to gather up her schoolbooks. She knew that her mom had called Dr. Lasiter last night and that he was coming to see her brother sometime today, so she tried to be quiet and walked calmly as she reached the kitchen.

          It was just a year ago that the doctor had been called to see her as she had discovered a lump in her neck and had been running a fever. She remembered lying on the couch all morning listening to her mom’s soap operas on the radio and wishing that Dr. Lasiter would get there soon. He had finally arrived about 2:00 p.m. and Maggie remembered watching him take all of his instruments out of his big, black bag. He listened to her heart, felt the glands on both sides of her neck and stated, “You’ve got the mumps, my dear.”