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had left on the wooden floor. “Ooops! Can’t take ’em off though! I still gotta walk Marty.”
    I knew that Marty was full of saved-up energy. He ran so fast around the block that we had to go around again. On round two, I demonstrated some of my halfpipe moves on little snow mounds along the sidewalk. “What do you think about this one, huh Marty man?” I slid off the pile backward and grabbed my feet. “That’s called a grab . It looks a lot cooler on a board.”
    Marty spun around twice on the ground to show me he had been working on his moves too. “Not bad … not bad at all!” I told him. Maybe the dog-on-snowboard thing could work out after all.
    When we returned home, the air was full of delicious dinner scents. “Savory,” as Scott would say—the word he used to describe things that were tasty from
flavor
instead of
sweetness
.
    “How did you make it smell so awesome in such a short time, Dad?”
    “Funny you should ask. Actually, I keep twelve tiny cooks in the basement.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Dad joke alert!” I warned.
    “Okay, okay. I grabbed a frozen eggplant lasagna from the freezer. Made it myself a few days ago.”
    While Dad cooked, I ran upstairs to take a shower. I’d just gotten back to the kitchen when the doorbell rang.
    “I’ll get it!” I called. I started down the hallway. Halfway there, the door burst open, sending in a gust of cold air and snow.
    “Yoo-hoo, Jake, it’s us.” Andie poked her head around the door. She looked different from when I met her at the store. Her hair was really long and curly and her eyelashes looked longer and darker too. “Hey there, Avery!” Andie gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek. Um … did she know you weren’t supposed to hug
strangers
? Andie walked past me and into the kitchen, carrying a plate covered with foil.
    Kazie stood frozen in the doorway for a second. She was carrying something too … something furry. “Likekitties?” she asked with a half smile. I stared at the large black-and-gray-striped creature twisting in her arms. That was no kitten. It was, without a doubt, the biggest cat I’d ever seen. “Meet Farkle,” Kazie announced.
    Farkle snarled at me, looking googley-eyed and loony. It took me a second to realize why. His eyes were two different colors! The left one was blue and the right one was gold. One of his ears stuck up and the other was squished down on his head. Farkle made a screeching
meow
when Kazie placed him on the floor. He stretched out his giant paws with SIX toes on each! Whoa. This was one spooky cat.
    “He’s part Maine Coon,” Kazie told me proudly. “Some of ‘em have extra toes.”
    “He’s ginormous!” I reached out to pet him, but Farkle pulled his head away and made the weirdest sound ever.
    “ROOOOOOOW, YEOOOOOOW.”
    Kazie laughed. “I wouldn’t get too close if I were you. Farkle really only likes me.”
    I wondered what Farkle thought about other pets. “Um, I have a dog,” I said. “But Marty’s super people-friendly.”
    Kazie looked horrified. “You have a
dog
?”
    “Yeah, he’s the man. You want to meet him?”
    “Yo, Avery, just so you know, this could be really bad news …” Kazie warned, but I pretended not to hear her. Marty loved kids and he’d never been afraid of cats before.
    “Marty!” I called. Marty trotted into the room to see what was happening. “Hey there, lil’ guy. This is Kazie and Farkle. Say hello!” I expected Marty to stand on hishind legs—his usual showoff trick, but Marty didn’t move. Instead, Farkle was the one to slink closer, glaring at Marty with those freaky-deaky, multicolored eyes. Marty backed up. The hair on his back stood straight up. So did his ears and tail. Even his little legs were trembling!
    Farkle the Franken-cat made the same horrible noise.
“Rooooooow, yeoooooow.”

    That did it. Marty bounded off in the other direction, scrambled into the family room, and crawled underneath the sofa. My mouth hung