PuttPutts caught her toe on the bottom step of her beach cottage. She heard a small crack. Pain shot up her foot, sharp and hot. She sat on the sun-washed step and held her breath. After a minute, the pain dulled. She stood. She could still walk. So she did. She told herself it was nothing. She had chores. She swept the porch. She carried water. She climbed those bright stairs a hundred times a day. Each climb pinched, then faded. A broken toe would heal on its own, she thought. People walk on them all the time. Weeks passed. The toe did not fade. It swelled and turned dark. One morning she pressed it and gasped. The bone shifted wrong under her skin. She could no longer pretend. Ignoring it had not fixed it. It had made it worse. So she got the boot. It was thick and black, heavy as a stone. She buckled the straps tight around her foot. The moment she stepped outside, sand slid over the top and settled inside. Grit rubbed against her sore toe. She shook the boot out. She took three steps. More sand poured in. She sat on the step and groaned. The whole point was to protect the toe. Instead she was grinding sand against it with every stride. She could not stay indoors forever. She could not empty the boot every minute. A soft weight pressed against her ankle. She looked down. A round black cat leaned into her leg, purring. His fur was glossy, his eyes bright and curious. He was plump and warm, and he stared up at her like he had a plan. "You want something," PuttPutts said. The cat trotted off toward the shade under the tall coconut trees. He looked back once, waiting. She limped after him. Behind the trunks sat a rumpled garbage bag. Colorful elastics spilled from its mouth in a tangled pile. Red, green, yellow, blue. The cat batted one with his paw. It stretched and snapped back. He looked at her, then at the elastics, then at her boot. PuttPutts frowned. "Elastics?" She picked one up and stretched it between her fingers. The cat meowed and pawed the boot again. He wanted her to do something with them. She turned the elastic over. She looked at the wide open top of the boot, where the sand kept sliding in. Something clicked halfway. A band. An opening. A way to close a gap. But she did not see it yet. She held the elastic in one hand and the boot in the other and stared. "Okay," she said to the cat. "You're smarter than me. Show me the rest." The cat curled up on the elastics and blinked, satisfied. PuttPutts sat down beside him in the sand. Her toe throbbed inside the boot. Now she had a boot, a cat, a bag of elastics, and no idea how they fit together.