The girls drift over our way. The one that spoke first is a redhead. The one who seems to be the leader is a big blonde in a real short skirt and hair piled up high in a bird’s nest. Maybe that’s what started Nick bird-watching. The third girl is sort of quiet-looking, with brown hair, I guess.
“You want a couple of cupcakes? You can have mine. I’m going on a diet,” says the blonde.
“Thanks,” says Nick. “I was thinking of going after some cokes.”
“Why waste time thinking? You might hurt your head,” says the redhead.
The third girl bends down and strokes Cat between the ears very gently. She says, “What’s his name?”
I explain to her about why Cat is Cat. She sits down and picks up a piece of seaweed to dangle over his nose. Cat makes a couple of sleepy swipes at it and then stretches luxuriously while she strokes him. The other kids get to talking, and we tell each other our names and where we go to school and all that stuff.
Then Nick gets back on the subject of going for cokes. I don’t really want to stay there alone with the girls, so I say I’ll go. I tell Nick to watch Cat, and the girl who is petting him says, “Don’t worry, I won’t let him run away.”
It’s a good thing she’s there, because by the time I get back with the cokes, which no one offers to pay me back for, Nick and the other two girls are halfway down the beach. Mary—that’s her name—says, “I never saw a cat at the beach before, but he seems to like it. Where’d you get him?”
“He’s a stray. I got him from an old lady who’s sort of a nut about cats. Come on, I’ll see if I can get him to chase waves for you. He was doing it earlier.”
We are running along in the waves when the other kids come back. The big blonde kicks up water at me and yells, “Race you!”