Read Online Highway Cats by Janet Taylor Lisle - Free Book Online Page B

had found an old egg carton and were parading around underneath it caterpillar style. Only their twelve tiny feet showed out the bottom, a sight hardly calculated to terrify anyone.
    â€œStop that right now,” Shredder warned them. “We must go before it’s too late. This is no place for kittens. You’ll only get trampled.”
    It was no use. They wouldn’t follow directions. Soon it really was too late. Heavy footsteps and a thundering tread of machinery could be heard coming uphill. Shredder collared the egg carton and yanked it behind a gravestone. The other cats lowered themselves, and their disguises, into the high grass.
    Closer the noise came, closer and closer. All eyes were trained on Khalia’s Siamese tail, an elegant, dark ribbon rising up through the long grass. A gritty smell of hot machinery swirled like a dust storm into the graveyard. The kits sneezed. The cats coughed. Would the signal never come?
    It came.
    Above the weeds, Khalia Koo’s tail waved like a gallant flag.
    A bloodcurdling howl poured from the throat of every cat in the graveyard, a sound so heartfelt and penetrating that it cut through the roar of a bulldozer just then cresting the hill.
    A line of approaching hard hats glanced uneasily around. One worker held up his hand to stop the bulldozer. It halted, growling and panting like a leashed dog.
    Once again, Khalia’s tail flashed in the weeds. The cats let loose with a second howl, a wild crescendo of ghoulish wails and cataclysmic shrieks as if all life on earth were about to come to an end.
    The work crew froze at the entrance to the cemetery. With wide eyes, the men scanned the tangled weeds and vines around the gravestones. When nothing could be seen there, they looked at each other and then, fearfully, up into the sky. Here was the perfect moment for the third signal.
    Khalia waved her tail: RISE!
    Between the long grasses, the disguised cats came to their feet and began, with slow and steady steps, to move forward across the cemetery. The effect was horrifying, as if a monstrous field of trash had come to life between the graves, a living, breathing tide of furious-eyed garbage that slobbered and hissed and slithered toward the road crew.
    â€œHELP!”
    â€œRUN!”
    The workers didn’t wait to ask what kind of apparition this could possibly be. They fled, pushing and yelling and tripping over each other. Caught in the retreat, two bulldozers, a dump truck and a front loader reversed gear and accelerated at top speed down the hill. The machines roared backward through the little woods and, following close behind the running workers, heaved back onto the parking lot, where they flattened several parked cars in their haste to get across. The mangling sounds of these collisions rebounded back to the cemetery with a satisfying echo. Several cats peered out from under their disguises.
    â€œAre they gone?”
    â€œThey are!”
    â€œDid we do it?”
    â€œWe did!”
    â€œHooray! Hooray!” The monster wave of trash wobbled and toppled and began to break apart. For a moment, rubbish flew in all directions. Then the transformation was complete: tubs and cups, bags and wrappers became again the heads and tails of ecstatic cats. They surrounded Khalia Koo and Shredder in a wild surge and, before they could protest, pulled the kits from their egg carton and lifted them high off the ground.
    â€œPut them down! You’ll crush them!” Shredder cried in alarm.
    â€œIf you want to thank someone, thank me!” Khalia sniffed.
    The cats did thank her. They loved and extolled her. They loved Shredder too. And they loved each other. Hadn’t they all worked together to pull the thing off? Together! Think of it. Without a scratch or hiss. This in itself was a kind of miracle. Something wonderful was in motion, some fantastic, cosmic change, and everyone, even Khalia, agreed on who was responsible.
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    â€œI T’S