Page 32 of Peach Tree Family

Ace was still looking down so Theo said, "Let's check out what's around here. We're not in that much of a hurry."

They left the truck where it was and walked around then Ace stopped and pointed. "Theo, what's that place?"

"Oh, no," Theo said seeing the sign for Ashbury Animal Shelter.

"Is that where they have dogs?" Ace asked, his spirits rising.

Theo grumbled then admitted, "Yes."

"Can't we just go and look at them?" Ace asked in a pleading voice.

"Looking leads to wanting, and wanting leads to whining," Theo said making Seth laugh, but Ace was already whining.

"Please. We can just looooook."

Theo hung his head then nodded. "Fine. Since we're here, we might as well."

As they headed for the animal shelter, Seth had an inkling that Theo agreed because he didn't want their shopping trip to end on a bad note for Ace.

Going inside, they heard barking from a back room and a lady sitting at a desk greeted them. "Hello there. I'm Devina. You here to make some new friends?"

"I am," Ace told her as he craned his neck eager to have a look at the noisemakers in the back.

"We're just looking," Theo told her. "We're not ready to take any new friends home with us." That was as much for Ace's benefit as for the lady's.

She showed them into the back anyway, and Seth couldn't hold back. He went right over to the dogs to meet and greet every single one.

"You're worse than Ace," Theo told him.

That was true. Ace was hanging back and just looking at the animals. He was a smart kid, so maybe he took Theo's words to heart, and he didn't want to get too friendly with a doggy he couldn't have.

But as Ace was smiling at the dogs, a cat jumped up and hung onto the wire mesh of the enclosure she shared with two other cats. At first, she startled Ace, but then he went closer to have a good look at her.

"He's sniffing at me," Ace said as the cat did just that.

"She's getting to know you. That's Butterfly and she's a girl," Devina told him. The cat was white with dark patches including one on her back that sort of looked like a butterfly.

"Is that where her name comes from?" Seth asked Devina.

"You got that right," she told him.

"She won't stop looking at me. Hi, Butterfly," Ace whispered as the cat's green-eyed stare had him hypnotized.

"Thought he wanted a dog," Seth said to Theo.

"That cat has other ideas," Theo said while watching his little brother smiling at the cat and losing a staring contest to her.

"And what about you?" Seth wondered.

Theo slumped over and sighed. "I'll go find out what we need to do to take that cat home."

"For real?" Ace asked in a loud voice, startling the cat. "Theo, you said we couldn't afford to have a pet, not even a fish."

"Maybe we can have a pet. We have a house, and I have a job," Theo said.

"Really?" Ace was amazed. "Everything is different here!"

"Isn't that the truth," Theo said with a quick glance at Seth, but then he went off with Devina and busied himself with paperwork.

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