Calvin trotted into the middle of the one way street, not even bothering to watch for traffic. He squatted, put his head down on the ground and rolled onto his back, almost daring a car to come.
He looked up through a canopy of leafless twisting black tree branches to a blank light grey sky. He stared up at the lifeless streetlights standing like sentries posted every fifty feet, more than the block needed. The lamp above his head was exposed, the casing for it had swung open some time ago and now it swayed upon the breeze.
Snow had started to fall, big fat flakes that fell faster than Calvin thought they should. One of these corpulent crystals landed on his nose, and Calvin waited a moment before twitching his head and blowing it off.
Calvin could hear a car coming now. He reluctantly rolled to his feet, carefully stepped between sport-utility vehicles, and sat down on the sidewalk. He watched the car drive past, and listened to it scrape itself against an overly zealous speedbump.
He could hear Kara walking down the sidewalk, the click of her hard-soled shoes, the noise of music coming from a dangling ear bud, the jingle of keys and loose change in the pocket of her backpack. When she was ten feet away Kara called out, “good morning, Calvin. What are you up to today?”
Calvin silently walked over to the little girl. He pressed his body against her legs, and purred loudly.