BSC025 - Mary Anne and the Search for Tigger - Martin, Ann M.

Chapter 1.

"I just don't understand," Dawn Schafer said to me as we slowed down for a stop sign. "How can someone as small as Tigger knock his toys behind the refrigerator, so that you can't even get to them?" I shrugged. Then I checked the street. The coast was clear, so we pedaled across the intersection. "He just does, that's all," I said. "And thank you for calling Tigger a someone instead of a something." Dawn smiled. "I still don't get it, though." "All I know," I said, "is that his toys roll into that space between the wall and the side of the fridge, where I ought to be able to get them out. You know where I mean?" (Dawn nodded.) "Well, they roll in there and I never see them again." "Sort of a black hole for cat toys," said Dawn.

I giggled. "There's nothing underneath the fridge. I looked there with a flashlight. That leaves in back of the fridge. And I can't get there." "Which is why we're riding our bikes all the way downtown just to buy cat toys," said Dawn.

"Exactly," I replied.

In case you can't tell, Dawn Schafer is my friend. (I'm Mary Anne Spier.) Dawn is one of my best friends, in fact. And Tigger is my kitten. My one and only. He's a gray tiger cat with very pretty stripes. If I do say so, he's smart. Smart and pretty. And he can catch flies, which is difficult. I mean, when you only have paws.

Dawn and I were on our way to downtown Stoneybrook, Connecticut, to stock up on cat toys for Tigger, since he keeps losing them behind the fridge. His favorites are those plastic balls with a little bell inside. They come three in a pack, and he loses about three a week, so cat toys can be expensive to me. Thank goodness I earn lots of money baby-sitting.

Dawn and I stopped at a traffic light. We had reached Stoneybrook's main street (which is about as small as Stoneybrook is), and were only three blocks from the pet store.