I try to feel my hands. But I can’t. I know the shape of myself. I walk delicately balanced on four velvet paws. My tail is a lash or a question mark, depending on my mood. I have eyes as green as cocktail olives, and I am beautiful …

“We don’t have time for all this, Olivia,” Lauren says. “Just pick it up in your mouth. You can do that, right?”

Yes! I take the cassette gently in my jaws.

“Let’s go to the mail slot, OK?”

OK!

On our way past the living room I see something that makes me stop for a second.

“Is something wrong, Olivia?” she asks.

Yes, I say. I mean … no.

“Then hurry up!”

I nose the mail flap open. The metal is heavy and cold on my delicate velvet nose. The outside world smells of dawn frost. White light hits my eyes.

“Toss the cassette out into the street,” Lauren says. “As far as you can.”

I jerk my head and throw the cassette. I can’t see anything, but I hear it bounce.

“It went into the bushes,” Lauren whispers. I hear the dismay in her voice.

Sorry, I say. Sorry.

“It was supposed to land on the sidewalk so someone could find it,” Lauren says. She starts to cry. “How will anyone find it there? You wasted our chance.”

I feel terrible, Lauren, I say. I really do!

“You aren’t trying,” she says. “You don’t want us to get out. You like it here, being his prisoner.”

No! I say, agonized. I don’t, I want to help! It was an accident!

“You have to take this seriously,” she says. “Our lives depend on it, Olivia. You can’t go on pretending you don’t have hands. You have to use them…”

I know, I say. For the knife. I’ll practice. I won’t mess up again. I nose her and rub my head against her where I feel her in my mind. You rest now, I tell her. I’ll watch. We curl up on the burry orange rug and I purr. I feel her beside me, inside me. She gives a deep sigh and I feel her slip gently down and away into the peaceful dark. My tail is filled with worry. Lauren never likes to talk about after, when we’re free. I have a bad feeling she doesn’t care about being free. Worse—that she doesn’t want to be alive. But I will help her. I will keep us safe.

She has enough to deal with, so I didn’t mention it, but the weirdest thing just happened. As I walked to the front door just now, with the tape in my mouth, I glanced into the living room. And I swear that for a moment, this rug had changed from orange to blue.

DEE