Florence
Bu
ttons the Kitten
Buttons the Kitten
by Debbi Michiko Florence
illustrated by Melanie Demmer
Buttons the Kitten
by Debbi Michiko Florence
illustrated by Melanie Demmer
The author wishes to thank Melissa Orth for sharing her stories about fostering kittens.
My Furry Foster Family is published by Picture Window Books, a Capstone imprint 1710 Roe Crest Drive, North Mankato, Minnesota 56003
www.capstonepub.com
Copyright © 2020 by Picture Window Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Florence, Debbi Michiko, author.
Title: Buttons the kitten / by Debbi Michiko Florence.
Description: North Mankato, Minnesota : Capstone Press, [2020] | Series: My furry foster family | Audience: Age 5–7. | Audience: K to Grade 3.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019004133| ISBN 9781515844747 (library binding) |
ISBN 9781515845621 (paperback) | ISBN 9781515844785 (eBook PDF) Subjects: LCSH: Cats—Anecdotes—Juvenile literature. | Foster care of animals—Juvenile literature.
Classification: LCC SF445.7 .F59 2020 | DDC 636.8—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019004133
Designer: Lori Bye
Photo Credits: Mari Bolte, 68; Melanie Demmer, 71; Roy Thomas, 70
Printed in the United States of America.
PA70
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
New Furry Friends . . . . . . . . 9
CHAPTER 2
Too Shy to Play . . . . . . . . . . .19
CHAPTER 3
Blankets and Flashlights . . . 29
CHAPTER 4
The First Adoptions . . . . . . . 41
CHAPTER 5
The Last One . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Dad
(Tim Takano)
Mom
(Cindy Takano)
Me
(Kaita Takano)
Ollie
Joss Lawrence,
Happy Tails
Rescue
Hannah Miller,
my best friend
CHAPTER 1
New Furry Friends
Ollie played with a tennis ball in
my room. He batted it across the
floor with his paws, then he chased it. When the ball stopped rolling, he batted it again. He and the ball went back and forth, back and forth.
“Ollie, stop it,” I said, laughing.
“You’re making me dizzy!”
My goofy mini dachshund wagged
his tail.
9
I was sitting on my bed, trying to read a book about cats. My family
was getting some foster kittens soon.
I wanted to learn how to take care of them. I wanted to be ready.
We adopted Ollie from Happy
Tails Rescue last year. Afterward my parents and I decided to become an
animal foster family.
Sometimes animals need homes.
Maybe a family has to move away
and can’t take their pet with them.
Maybe someone finds a homeless
animal. Foster families take care of an animal until it finds a forever
home.
I love all animals. It makes me
happy to help them!
10
I put down my book and snuggled
with my old baby blanket. I used
to be scared of things like the dark or thunder. My grandma made me
the blanket to help me feel safe.
It worked! I’m not scared of those
things anymore, but I still love
Grandma’s blanket.
“Kaita! Lunchtime!” my dad called.
Ollie stopped playing. He perked up his ears. He knew that word. Yip! Yip!
Yip! He ran to the kitchen.
When I got to the table, I cheered.
We were having tomato soup and
grilled cheese sandwiches. Yum! Ollie watched as Dad spooned soup into
bowls. Ollie always followed Dad
around in the kitchen. Dad had a
habit of sneaking food to Ollie.
I sat down, and Mom poured me a
glass of milk. She and I pretended not to see Dad give Ollie a piece of cheese.
When we were all seated, Ollie curled up under my chair.
“Are you excited for the kittens?”
Mom asked me.
12
“I am! How many are we getting?”
I asked.
“Five,” Dad said.
Five little kittens! I was so excited!
I could hardly sip my soup without
dribbling. What would they look like and sound like? How big would they
be? Would they have names already?
Just as we finished eating, the
doorbell rang. Yip! Yip! Yip! Ollie barked and started to run to the door.
“Wait, Ollie,” I said. I picked him up and kissed his nose. “You will
meet your new friends a little later.
I promise.” I put him in my room,
closed the door, and hurried to the living room.
13
Dad opened the front door. There
was Joss, the lady from Happy Tails Rescue. She had a pet carrier slung over her shoulder. It looked like a big purse with netting across it.
“Hello, Takano family!” Joss said
as she walked in. “Kaita, are you
ready to meet your new fosters?”
“I sure am!” I said.
Joss knelt down and opened up the
bag. Out tumbled four tiny kittens.
They mewed loudly and tripped
over each other. So cute! One was all white. The other three were orange
tiger-striped.
I picked up the white kitten. She
started purring.
14
“Wait, I thought there were five kittens,” I said.
Joss peered in the bag. She smiled.
“There are,” she said, lifting out the tiniest kitten.
15
I hardly got a good look at him before he flipped back inside the bag.
Whoops! Joss reached in a second
time. She held the kitten firmly with both hands. He was mostly white,
with patches of orange.
“This is Buttons,” Joss said. “He’s very shy.”
The tiny guy wriggled, squirmed,
and dropped back into the bag.
“We named him Buttons because
he is cute and tiny like a button,”
Joss said. “You can name the rest of the litter. Please use names that start with the letter ‘B.’ We go through
the letters of the alphabet with each foster litter.”
16
I smiled. It would be fun to name the kittens.
“What happened to the mama?”
I asked.
“The owners of the mother cat
don’t have room for the kittens,” Joss said. “So thank you for taking care of them. Kittens usually get adopted quickly. I don’t think you’ll have
them for long.”
I peeked in the bag at Buttons.
He looked up at me with wide eyes.
I was going to make sure he knew I
was his friend.
17
CHAPTER 2
Too Shy to Play
I was excited to name the kittens.
I watched them play, and I watched
them sleep. I drew pictures of them in my sketchbook.
The white kitten was the only girl.
She was also the bravest. She loved to climb high and then leap into the air, like she was flying. She always landed on her feet. I named her Birdy.
19
The three orange tiger-striped
kittens looked a lot alike. Each one had something special, though.
One kitten had four white paws,
like he was wearing shoes. Since Joss asked me to pick “B” names, I called him Boots.
Another kitten had a tiny spot of
white on his head. It was shaped like a bean. I called him Bean.
The third orange kitten was so friendly. He liked to follow us around the house, wherever we went. I called him Buddy.
I tried to coax Buttons from his
carrier, but he wouldn’t come out.
When I reached in, he squirmed like a worm. He slipped out of my hands
and ran back into the bag.
“Let’s leave him be for now, Kaita,”
Mom said. “Give him time to get used to us.”
The other four kittens made
themselves at home. The three orange ones climbed up Dad’s pant legs and made him laugh. They crawled all over him. So funny! Birdy climbed a pile of Mom’s books and leaped into the air.
We let Ollie meet the kittens after dinner. I got him out of my room
and told him the rules.
“No barking, Ollie,” I said. “You
don’t want to scare the kitties. Please play nice.”
Ollie licked my cheek. He wagged
his tail. He was always such a good little boy.
Mom set up a playpen. She put
the kittens inside. They mewed and
crawled all over each other—except
one. Buttons hid in the carrier.
As soon as I put Ollie on the
floor, the kittens stopped playing.
They watched Ollie, their whiskers
twitching. It didn’t look like they were scared at all.
22
Ollie didn’t bark. He slowly walked up to the playpen and stuck out his nose. Birdy quickly batted it, and I gasped. Ollie just wagged his tail.
“He’s being so sweet,” Mom said.
“I knew he’d make a good foster
brother,” I said proudly.
Mom opened the playpen. The
kittens tumbled out. Ollie stood still as all four piled on top of him. They used him like a climbing toy.
I went to the pet carrier and
peeked in. Buttons stared up at
me. His whiskers twitched, then he
scooted back and got as far away
from me as he could. He tucked
himself into the far corner.
24
“Oh, Buttons. It’s OK,” I said. “I’m nice. I really am.”
I reached in and carefully picked
him up. Once again he squirmed and
wiggled. I tried to hold on, but he slipped from my hands. He zipped
under the couch.
“He’s just not ready to meet us
yet,” Dad said.
Mom showed the other kittens to
the litter box in the laundry room.
Dad fed them dinner in the kitchen.
Ollie seemed very interested in the cat food. I wasn’t surprised, though.
He eats just about everything!
“Sorry, buddy,” Dad told Ollie.
“I already snuck you some cheese
tonight. Kitchen’s closed.”
25
Mom, Dad, Ollie, and I played all evening with the kittens—except Buttons. He stayed hidden. No
matter how much we tried to coax
him, he did not want to join in.
I made a tower of pillows for Birdy to climb. She jumped from the top of the pile and landed on the carpet on all four feet. Ta-daa!
Mom dragged a long piece of
string along the ground for Buddy.
She snapped it back and forth. Buddy got dizzy chasing it.
Dad gave Bean and Boots a fuzzy
toy mouse to share. The kittens took turns snatching it from one another.
The kittens were little, but boy, were they fast!
26
At bedtime I picked up Boots, and Mom picked up Bean and Birdy.
Buddy followed us to the laundry
room, where the kittens would sleep.
Mom and I tucked them in their nest of blankets.
Dad got on his belly and gently
pulled Buttons out from beneath the couch. Buttons fell right asleep with his littermates.
“Good night, sweet kittens,” I
said, closing the door. The next day I would try to show Buttons he had
nothing to be afraid of.
27
CHAPTER 3
Blankets and
Flashlights
The next morning I ran to the
laundry room. I wanted to check on
our new foster kittens.
The door was open a tiny bit. I
guessed I hadn’t shut it all the way the night before. I peeked into the room and—no kittens! Oh no! They
had gotten out!
29
I checked the kitchen and dining room first. No kittens.
I checked the living room next.
Thankfully all the kittens were
playing on the couch—all except
Buttons.
I went back to the laundry room
to look for him. He wasn’t there.
I looked in the carrier. He wasn’t
there either.
I looked all over the house, but
I couldn’t find Buttons.
“Did you find him, Ollie?” I asked.
A furry tail flicked back and forth under my old baby blanket.
30
“No, Buttons,” I said, walking over to him. “That is my favorite blanket from when I was a baby. It’s very
special. My grandma made it for me.”
I lifted off the blanket. Buttons
dashed out of the room.
31
“Sorry!” I called after him.
“There are tons of other blankets in the house you can have!” I hid my
blanket in my closet.
“What are you sorry for?” Dad
asked, walking into my room.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I just talked with Joss,” Dad said.
“She was happy to hear that the
kittens got along with Ollie. That
means people with cat-friendly dogs can adopt the kittens.”
“Good,” I said.
Dad looked me in the eye. “Kaita,
is everything OK?” he asked.
“Buttons found my special blanket
from Grandma,” I said.
32
“Oh. Well Buttons is very shy,”
Dad said. “Maybe the blanket will
help him, like it used to help you
when you got scared.”
I shook my head. I did not want to
share my blanket.
Dad put his arm around my
shoulder. “Joss told me that it will be hard to find Buttons a forever home if he doesn’t like people,” he said.
“I know. I’ll find a way to help
him,” I said.
I went into the living room to
look for Buttons. Three kittens were playing. Birdy pounced on Bean.
Boots chased a scrap of paper. Buddy slept on Mom’s la
p while she read.
33
Buttons wasn’t behind the couch.
He wasn’t in the kitchen.
“Buttons?” I called. “Where are
you?”
I looked in one room, then the
next, and the next. I finally found him in the laundry room. He was
hiding under some clothes in the
laundry basket. I lifted a shirt. Two big eyes peered up at me.
“It’s OK, Buttons,” I said. “I just want to be your friend.”
I got my sketchbook and sat on the
floor across from him. I didn’t sit too close. I gave him his space. I started drawing pictures of all five foster kittens.
34
I was on my fifth drawing when I felt something on my foot. I looked up. There was Buttons! He was out of the basket, sniffing my toe. I stayed very still.
Suddenly Dad laughed loudly in
the other room. Buttons froze, his
eyes wide. Seconds later he dived
back into the laundry basket.
“Buttons, that was just Dad
laughing,” I said, crawling over to the basket. “Don’t be scared. You need to get used to sounds in a house. People make lots of different sounds. Please come out.”
Buttons stayed put.
35
I tried to coax him out with a string.
I waved a fuzzy toy mouse at him.
He just dug deeper into the laundry basket. I brought him a cat treat and left it on the floor. He didn’t come out for that either.
I looked around the room. I grabbed a flashlight and turned it on. I flashed the light in front of the basket.
Buttons’ nose poked out.
I moved the spot of light to the left and right. Buttons pushed his head
up out of the clothes. He watched the light carefully.
Whenever the light moved, Buttons’
head moved. He watched and watched.
His paws slowly inched up the edge of the basket until . . .
36
POUNCE!
Buttons leaped right on the spot of light!
I moved the light to the door and
across the floor. I shined it near the sink and then to the laundry basket.
Buttons chased the light wherever
it went. His paws flew. His tail
swished. I was so happy to see him
so happy!
I moved the light near me, and
Buttons chased it. I moved it onto my lap, and Buttons climbed up. His fur tickled, so I giggled.
At the sound Buttons froze.
He stared at me.
Then he ran back to the basket.
38