Super Spinach Read online

  To every kid and kitten searching for their inner power

  CHAPTER 1 The White Card

  “Pow!” shouted a tiny tabby named Bruce as his paw struck a crinkle ball, sending it flying toward his littermates.

  “Bam!” called his sister, Sally, as she swiped it out of the air with her fluffy mitts.

  Slam! Two calicos named Prissy and Peach jumped for the ball and collided.

  The four kittens were tucked into the back room of an animal shelter, tumbling in their metal kennel like furry wrestlers. Across the way, they had an audience of one: a tiny little kitten named Spinach who was peering at them through the bars of her own separate kennel.

  Although Spinach longed to play with the shiny toy that had captured the other kittens’ attention, she couldn’t join in on the fun. Instead, she sat with her face smooshed against the metal poles, taking shallow breaths and watching as the ball bounced from paw to paw, imagining how fun it would be to play, too. But she was smaller and frailer than the other kittens, and in no condition to be twisting, jumping, rolling, or sprinting. And so there she sat, stuck on the sidelines while the others perfected their pounces.

  “Think fast!” called Sally as she threw the crinkle ball straight into the air. Prissy, Peach, and Bruce all made a leap for it, colliding on top of the ball and falling into a pile of laughter.

  “Hey, keep it down up there!” grumbled Jack, the cat in the kennel below them. “I’m trying to get some beauty rest before my big adoption day.”

  The kittens rolled their eyes and kept playing. They had so much energy!

  Bam! Bam! Pow! The ball flew back and forth across the kennel.

  Sally slammed against the bars as she swiped the ball into the kennel corner, where Spinach could get a closer look at the glittery toy. Spinach giggled as she watched. “That looks fun! I wish I could play.”

  “Sorry, Spinach! It’s just… you know,” Sally said with a shrug. She picked up the ball in her mouth and trotted back over to her siblings.

  “I know,” Spinach said to no one, and shrank into the corner of the cage.

  The trouble is, Spinach didn’t know. Well, she sort of knew that she was different, but she didn’t really know why. All she knew was that her whole life, she’d been unable to do the things that other kittens her age could do. She was easily winded—even walking to the water dish caused her to wheeze—so playtime was not an option. That was just the way it was.

  Spinach had silver fur with gray tiger stripes, but she didn’t feel like a tiger at all. Tigers run and pounce and go on adventures, but Spinach couldn’t do any of those things. She had been born with an extra-small, misshapen rib cage that made it difficult for her to breathe deeply or walk comfortably. Anytime her chest was touched, it sent a prickly feeling through her body, like her heart was caught in a cactus garden. Because of this, she had always been a very cautious kitten who moved slowly, kept to herself, and didn’t take many risks.

  Of course, Spinach didn’t know life any other way, and she was quite used to passing the days sitting very still, quietly observing the world around her through soft almond-shaped eyes. But deep inside, she longed for the friendship and adventure all the other kittens seemed to have.

  Sigh. Alone in her kennel, Spinach had nothing but a litter box, a water dish, and a front-row seat to watch the other kittens playing without her.

  Spinach hung her head and looked down at her paws. The newspaper that lined her kennel was making her daydream about the world beyond the bars. In the printed pictures, everyone seemed to have a friend: the businesspeople, the models, and even the cartoon characters! She squinted at a superhero comic showing a crime-fighting duo flying through the sky. It seemed like they had it all: amazing costumes, cool gadgets, and an entire cast of supporting characters. It didn’t make sense that her life had to be so boring… and so lonely. Why did everyone else get to have all the fun? Spinach closed her eyes and imagined soaring through the air and doing important things like saving babies and protecting the world from bad guys.

  But then the image faded, and she sighed. Spinach knew she could never do any of that.

  When Spinach looked up, Bruce, Sally, Prissy, and Peach had lost interest in the crinkle ball, and now they all sat admiring the blue card that hung on their kennel. The card was just placed there today, and it was a big event in the life of any shelter cat. Probably the most important of all!

  “You know, once you get a blue card clipped to your kennel, it means you’re about to go out to the adoption floor! I heard it from Wilson, the black cat who used to live in cage six. Once his blue card arrived, it was only a matter of hours before he found his home!” Bruce said, tapping at the card. “This thing is a one-way ticket to Foreverland!”

  “No more cages, just a big house and a family to call your own…,” said Peach. “Prissy, we’ll go to a home together, right? Priss?”

  Prissy smiled and nodded her head. “Sisters stick together for life!”

  Sally bumped her shoulders with Bruce and announced, “Every kitten needs a sidekick!”

  Spinach looked at them longingly, then looked back at her lonely cage. If every kitten needs a sidekick, then where is mine? All her life she’d been the outcast—too petite to play with the others, too fragile to find a friend. Everyone had a buddy but her.

  Well, there was one other cat who was alone—Jack. Spinach tilted her head as she looked down at him, all curled up on a donut bed in the kennel below, sleeping the day away. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to pester you, but… are you… would you happen to… might you be looking for a sidekick?” Spinach crossed her toe beans, hoping.

  Jack yawned and looked up at her. “Eh, that’s real sweet, kid, but I’m kind of a loner. Besides, I’m getting adopted today, remember?” He pressed his nose against the kennel, and his blue card glimmered.

  “Oh,” Spinach said. “Well, that’s okay. Congratulations on your big day.…”

  She slumped over in the corner of her cage. Where was her blue card?

  Spinach tapped against the bar and quietly asked the kittens, “Do you think I’ll ever get a blue card, too?”

  “I’m sure yours is coming any minute,” Sally said, holding up a comforting paw. She opened her mouth to say more, but then—

  Click! A shelter worker had returned, and she had clipped a card onto Spinach’s cage. For a moment, Spinach felt a flutter of excitement, but the feeling vanished when she saw that the card looked different from the others. It wasn’t blue—it was white.

  Why does my card look different? Spinach wondered. What does this mean? With small, shallow breaths, she could feel her chest getting tighter as panic set in. “Does anyone know why my card is white?”

  Peach looked to Prissy. Prissy looked to Bruce. Bruce looked to Sally. And Sally just scratched her head, confused.

  But Jack, the big cat in the kennel below, spoke up. “Yeah, I know that card, kid. A white card means a visit with the white-coat people. I think they’re called a vetrin… a vetrinaire… Well, I don’t know how to pronounce it. They’re basically called a vet or something. They are the ones who show up when a cat needs help. That’s you, kid.”

  Spinach’s heart was thump-thump-thumping in her tiny chest, which was ever so uncomfortable. She knew that the white-coat people, who were apparently called vets, were there to help, but she didn’t like the sound of visiting them at all. She wanted to go to the adoption floor!

  Just then, a shelter employee in a blue shirt came and picked up Jack. As he exited the room in her arms, he turned to Spinach and said, “The road to Foreverland is ever-winding, kid. It ain’t the same for every cat. I mean, look at me! I’m just now finding my forever home, and I’m fifteen years old. Imagine that—a hefty old guy like me! Don
’t worry ’bout it, kid. Your time will come—!” The door closed and he was gone.

  Spinach looked to the others with distress. “Is everyone really getting adopted but me?”

  “Oh, Spinach, it’s okay,” Sally said. “It’s like the old guy said. You just have a different pathway… a special journey you have to take. That’s all.”

  “But I don’t want a different pathway,” Spinach wheezed, reaching through the bars to try to bat the card away and make it all stop. “I want to be adopted with you guys!”

  Spinach tried and tried, but she couldn’t take the card down.

  “Turn blue!” she called out as she bopped the card, hoping for it to magically transform. But she had no power in her paws, and in all her smacking, she had only succeeded in making it swing back and forth, taunting her as it moved side to side, undeniably white.

  The door opened again, and two workers in blue shirts approached the kennel, which rattled as it unlocked. The other kittens were being plucked from the cage faster than Spinach could catch her breath to say goodbye. Peach, Prissy, Sally, and Bruce were whisked away to the adoption floor—and all Spinach could do was take tiny breaths and watch as they left her behind.

  “We believe in you!” said Peach.

  “You’ve got this, Spinach. You’re going to make it to Foreverland someday. All you have to do is follow the path and believe in yourself!” said Sally.

  Spinach pressed her little pink nose between the bars, very much in disbelief. The kittens were gone, and she was left with nothing but a white card and tears in her eyes.

  Believe in myself? Spinach thought. What’s there to believe in?

  CHAPTER 2 Your Heart Is in Danger

  Within minutes, the white coats had come and taken Spinach to a large and echoey room where she was surrounded by staring eyes. The cold metal table felt like ice cubes against her paw pads, which was almost enough to distract her from her confusion and frustration, and the strange sensation of hands reaching out to touch her.

  “Excuse me, but I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” she said to a white-coat lady. “I think I’m supposed to have received my blue card.… Ouch!” She jolted back as fingers wiggled over her rib cage. “Hey, that hurts!”

  The white-coat lady wasn’t listening, or maybe she didn’t understand. And so Spinach scanned the room sideways, looking outward in hope of finding answers.

  She listed in her head all the things she could see.

  A glass container filled with little snowballs.

  Another filled with small sticks.

  A tray with some shiny things on it.

  A strange robot machine… or something like that.

  It calmed her down, but she was still in the pickle of not knowing where she was, or why she couldn’t go to Foreverland.

  On the far side of the room, she spotted a small row of cages. A big yellow dog with a cone on his head was resting on the lower level. On the upper level, an orange cat was napping with his leg wrapped in a purple cast. The third cage was empty. Was it for her?

  She called out to the dog and cat. “Hello? I’m sorry to wake you, but I was supposed to receive a blue card, and I received a white card instead. I think it might be a mix-up, but if not… could you please tell me what exactly happens in here?” The dog with the cone and the cat with the cast continued their naps and didn’t respond.

  Then a hand scooped Spinach up and carried her over to the robot machine. Agh! She closed her eyes, wincing as she was placed at the center of its crosshairs. She took a few shallow breaths and opened her eyes but was immediately startled again by a sudden flash of lightning, which made a loud click! that caused everyone to jump—her, the dog, and the orange cat, both of whom didn’t look very happy about being woken up.

  Spinach was feeling confused. “A different pathway,” she whispered to herself. What could that mean?

  Then, from the corner of her eye, she noticed a scraggly old tomcat stretching out his legs from behind a stack of files.

  Having just taken his afternoon snooze, the cat stood up and sauntered along the counter. He had puffy cheeks, a raggedy folded ear, wiry whiskers that stuck out in every direction, and most importantly, he had free rein of the room.

  Spinach perked up. She called out to him: “Excuse me, Mr. Tomcat? Do you know what’s going on here?”

  The cat approached her and sat down, observing her quizzically and twirling his crinkly eyebrow whiskers with his paw. “That’s Dr. Tomcat, if you don’t mind. Welcome to the clinic, young one. What ails you?”

  “Oh, um, thank you… Dr. Tomcat. Anyway, I seem to have received a white card, but I was meant to receive one in blue.” If Spinach just kept repeating this, maybe she could make it true.

  “Ah, yes, my dear! All the kittens who come through here have received a white card, of course. That’s your ticket to the veterinarian, after all! Yes, I’ve seen many a sickly cat come through these doors… many a broken leg… many an oozing wound.…”

  Spinach’s face scrunched up. “Well, I’m not broken! Or… oozing!”

  “Yes, yes. Well, let’s see. I’m sure I can determine precisely why you are here with a quick look at your chart.” He paused for a yawn, then looked up at a screen behind him and squinted. On the screen, there was a black-and-white image of kitten bones.

  “Pectus excavatum,” he said.

  Spinach tilted her head. “Huh?”

  “Pectus excavatum,” he repeated, pointing to the image.

  She blinked, confused. “Is that some kind of… magic spell? Are you a wizard?”

  He shook his head. “I wish I was, because you could certainly use a little magic! No, no, I’m just a clinic cat, well studied after years of living here in the veterinary office. I’ve been around a long time, and I dare say that’s the worst case of pectus excavatum I’ve ever seen.” He looked back at the screen. “Just look at your chest: so small and so compressed. Your heart is in danger, my dear!”

  Spinach looked at the screen, not knowing how to take in what she was seeing and hearing. Was that image really of her? It didn’t have fur or whiskers, but it was certainly shaped like a little cat.

  At the center of the image, a heart was trapped within small, pointy, misshapen bones, and it hit her: she really was different from the others. And that was why she couldn’t go to Foreverland.

  With a lump in her throat, she whispered, “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “The vets will do their best to fix you up like those two.” He gestured to the dog in the cone and the cat with the wrapped leg. “They’ll perform a special surgery, under my supervision, of course, and bandage you up with armor on your chest. After that, if you’re lucky, you’ll go off to Fosterland for recovery,” said Dr. Tomcat.

  Fosterland, Spinach noted to herself.

  “But I’ll be honest with you, my dear: it’s all a big if. Because that doesn’t look good.” He pointed to the X-ray. “You’d have to have superpowers to survive that.”

  This Dr. Tomcat was not helping Spinach’s fears! Before she could process what he had just said, or respond, a white-coat lady swooped her up and took her into an operating room filled with bright lights and beeping machines.

  With every thump of her heart, Spinach could feel her chest getting tighter, and she couldn’t stop thinking about what the old tomcat had said about the danger she was in.

  And she trembled at the realization that she did not have superpowers at all.

  Oh, if only she did have superpowers! She would fly right off the table and whoosh through the window to escape! Of course, she didn’t dare to try, as all her life she could barely even walk comfortably. So instead she covered her eyes, simply wishing she had the power to teleport far, far away. But when she peeked through her paws, she was still on the operating table… and a sharp needle was pointed right at her! She closed her eyes tightly, longing for the power to make herself completely invisible.

  A mask went over her face, and the
world slowly disappeared.

  For a long while, she felt nothing.

  She heard nothing.

  She saw nothing.

  But eventually, she heard a faint sound in the distance and began to slowly wake.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Spinach squinted her eyes open, but everything was hazy. She tried to stand up—and fell right down! Whoa. She gazed down at her blurry paws and felt the room spin.

  Had her invisibility trick worked? Her head bobbled as she tried her best to steady herself with wobbly front legs. But what was this? A long white vine was attached to her leg with a bandage. She followed the vine with her eyes and saw that it ran up and out of the cage where she was now resting.

  Spinach took a deep breath and paused. Hmm. She took another deep breath. And another. Confused, Spinach inhaled slowly and deeply, holding her breath for a moment, then exhaling. Wait a minute, she thought to herself. Since when can I take a deep breath?

  She held her paw to her chest and felt that she was now wearing a hard shield where there used to just be fur.

  What’s this?

  Fighting to keep her eyes open and focused, she squinted at the wall of the cage. In the silver reflection, she saw a new kitten: a little gray tiger cat with built-in armor on her chest. She gasped! And for once in her life, gasping didn’t hurt.

  From between the bars, she spun her dizzy head and saw that Dr. Tomcat was looking back at her in amazement. As she stood before him in her brand-new chest armor, he gave her a wink and a snaggletoothed grin. “Good for you, my dear! You’re a survivor. Guess you must be some kind of superhero after all!”

  CHAPTER 3 Super-Kitten Incoming

  Despite her excitement over this new sensation of breathing deeply, Spinach was exhausted from her long day and had drifted off to sleep. When she woke up, she suddenly found herself ascending like a balloon filled with air. Up, up, and away!