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a few more days, because they had to harden before they could be glazed and fired.
    “I can’t wait until Cat sees them!” Brody said as the boys walked home from camp together to Mason’s house.
    It had rained the night before. Their few Hamster posters that hadn’t blown away were unreadable, the letters blurred and runny. Mason tried not to look at them.
    “She’s going to be the happiest cat in the whole world!” Brody said.
    As if eager about her present, Cat came running to the front door to meet them.
    “Hi, Cat,” Mason said awkwardly. He still wasn’t sure how to make conversation with an animal. And,really, what was the point? Humans and animals didn’t even speak the same language.
    Brody grabbed Cat up for a big hug and cuddled her against his chest, burying his face in her fur.
    “Cat, we’re making you a present in art camp! You’ll never guess what it is!”
    Then Brody sneezed.
    And sneezed.
    And sneezed again.
    Mason’s mother came into the room. “Brody, I heard you sneezing. Are you allergic to cats?”
    “No!” Brody said. “I just have a cold. Well, I had one when I was here yesterday, but then I went home and it went away, and now I guess it’s back again.…” His voice trailed off.
    “Oh, Brody,” Mason’s mother said.
    “Oh, Cat,” Brody said, hugging her more tightly.
    “Mason,” his mother said. “We aren’t going to be able to keep Cat if Brody’s so allergic. Not when Brody’s over here every single day.”
    She looked sadly at Mason, as if to see how hard he was taking the news.
    But Brody was the one whose eyes were red and watery: from allergies and tears.

6
    Brody went with Mason and his parents later that afternoon when they drove Cat back to the animal shelter; Mason’s dad came home early from work to give his help and support.
    “Look at it this way. It’s good we found out sooner rather than later,” Mason’s mom said as Mason’s dad backed the car out of the driveway. “Before we got too attached.”
    “I’m already too attached!” Brody moaned.
    Inside her cardboard cat carrier, placed between the two boys on the backseat, Cat meowed piteously. Mason didn’t know if she was sad to be saying farewell to Brody, or sad because she didn’t like being in the cat carrier. Or both. He didn’t think it was because she was all that sorry to be saying goodbye to him, Mason.

    Mason didn’t join in the conversation as Brody talked about Cat’s softness, her friendliness, her purr. In half an hour, Cat would be just a memory. Her litter box, corduroy cat bed, fine-toothed plastic brush, and cat tease toy were now crammed on the shelf in the garage on top of Hamster’s cage, next to Goldfish’s bowl. There had been room for them there on the shelf, after all.
    And the cat bowls that Mason and Brody weremaking at art camp? The boys could follow Nora’s example and use them for paper clips.
    At the shelter, Mason and Brody carried Cat’s cardboard carrier in to the front desk, Mason’s parents trailing behind.
    “My son’s best friend is allergic,” Mason’s dad explained to the lady sitting there, an older woman wearing a T-shirt covered with painted paw prints. “Brody’s at our house several days a week while his parents are at work. So I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to keep her.”
    “We understand,” the lady at the desk said. She didn’t sound cross or critical. Maybe people returned pets to the shelter all the time; maybe Mason wasn’t the only person in the world who wasn’t meant to have a pet. “Thank you for being willing to give one of our abandoned pets a good home.”
    “Goodbye, Cat,” Brody whispered through the airholes in Cat’s cardboard box as he crouched down next to her on the floor. “I’m sorry I’m allergic. Really, I am.” He sounded even sadder than he had at Goldfish’s celebration-of-life ceremony, even sadder than he had when they were lettering the LOST! posters for Hamster.
    The lady