‘Boy in Field’ by Rachael Crowe   —   ‘Tabby Cat’ by Adél Grőber

My Real Memoir

We’d Moved…

…and I was alone again. Or so it seemed. But I was soon to learn that a true friend is always there. I missed my Downey friends. But I’d only spent a month in the 2^nd grade there, and Stevie was the only kid my age I’d really bonded with. My classroom send-off, with cupcakes and a “Goodbye, Mitch!” sign, wasn’t exactly a tear-jerker. But, oh, how I would miss my wonderfully odd assortment of non-school friends: Weird Eddie, Crazy Old Alice, my daymom Frieda and her magical garden filled with all of my non-human-friends!

I didn’t know what to expect. I only knew that Mom was right: this was big.

The city of La Mirada was so new that, like the proverbial airplane being built as it flies, the neighborhood was still going up around us. The next block was nothing but wood frames—like giant Tinker Toys beckoning to be climbed on when the construction bosses weren’t looking! I played alone, but still had fun. Sort of.

The Bigger Adventure…

…was just out my bedroom window. The field across the street was a cluster of gently rolling hills, once covered with commercially-grown flowers, now chest-high with weeds, and dotted with scrub oaks and precariously leaning shacks. The latter had once been occupied by braceros, seasonal Mexican farmworkers who’d lived in them during the flower-picking season. The former overseer’s family were packing bags when I knocked on their rough-hewn door. “No, no, nos vamos” (“No, no, we’re leaving”), said the mama. But her two little kids Hugo and Manuela were starved for entertainment, so we played pantomime games until they left.

My real adventures in “The Field” were yet to come. Meanwhile, I’d have to resume 2^nd grade in a brand-new city at a brand-new school full of brand-new kids. But before that, I met my first new friend.

I Heard a Raging Voice…

…near the end of my first week in La Mirada. I raced up the street to see what was happening, and found a man beating a skinny, terrified little cat with a broom. His daughter had trapped it in their garage in the hopes of keeping it. And so, with all the rationality of a devolving brute, the poor girl’s father was “teaching it a lesson!” He threatened to do the same for me if I didn’t leave instantly. I wanted to teach him a lesson, but elected instead to scoop up the cat and run away with it.

People say cats are loners, and sometimes mistake this for proof that they don’t care. False. I know this because I’m a loner, and one of my greatest lessons in caring came from a tiger-striped tabby named Zipper.

We would have nearly a dozen cats in the ensuing years, and most would distribute their affections equally. But not Zipper. I was Zipper’s hero. Period. And he was my BFF (best feline friend). He walked me to the corner when I headed for school and met me there when I came home. He listened attentively as I read aloud under the covers at night. And then put his head on the pillow beside mine and saw me off to other worlds. And when my first new human friends appeared, the lesson Zipper had taught me was clear:

A true friend is always there.