Cat Tales (3 page)
“Gone. Thank God. I was scared somebody took me for the cat lady over on Prospect.”
Six hours elapse. Door opens.
“Mao?”
“Go away! I'm calling the Animal Warden and that's it. Hear me? Smoked kitty. Nice cyanide gas. Get! Scat!”
“Mao?”
“What are you doing? That has maggots on it. You can't eat that!”
“Prrrrrr.”
“You're eating maggoty ham, and purring? That's disgusting!”
“Prrrrrrrrrrr.”
“How could anything get hungry enough to eat rotten meat? Wait a minute.”
Door closes, opens again.
“Here, here's the rest of my chicken wings. Hope you like garlic honey sauce. They're cold, anyway.”
“Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”
“Get away from my legs! I hate that. Didn't I tell you I hate cats?”
Door slams. Eight hours elapse.
“Thank God it's gone. Found some other sucker.”
Car door slams. Car starts, zooms away.
Three days elapse.
“Mao, mao, mao, mao, mao, mao, mao.”
“You again? I don't have any more chicken wings. And I don't believe you if you say you're lost, because you left here Friday and then came back.”
“Prrt?”
“Let me look at your collar. I bet some nice little stupid girl is just weeping her eyes out over you. Woosy woosy woosy woosy.”
A brief chase.
“MAO!”
“Okay, so you have a collar, but no name on it. Real stupid little girl. She deserves to lose a prize flea-bag like you.”
“Prrt.”
“At least you didn't scratch me again.”
Six hours elapse. Dusk gives way tonightfall. The
air chills.
“Mao? Mao? Mao? Mao? Mao? Mao? Mao? MAO?
MAO? MAOMAOMAOMAO?”
A window opens.
“Shut up down there! Remember what I did the last time you woke me up?”
Footsteps on stairs. Door opens.
“MAOMAOMAOMAOMAOMAOMAOMAO!”
“Let me guess. You're cold, right? If I give you something to sleep on, you'll get cat hair all over it. And fleas. And worms. I bet you have worms, eating garbage like that.”
Door closes. Footsteps, sounds of rummaging. A
piece of torn, dirty carpeting falls out of an upper window,
THUMPS
on the ground, raises billows of dust.
“Mao!”
Silence.
Seven hours elapse.
Door opens.
“Where are you? Did you spend the night under the rug? Great, now what do I do with this piece of shit? I suppose I have to leave it, in case it's cold again tonight. A decorator touch for my entry.”
Car door opens, closes, car speeds away.
Nine hours elapse.
“Here. For your majesty. It was cheap, and it looks better than that rug.”
“Mao. Prrt.”
“That's right. Show some gratitude, you little rat. You look like a rat, did you know that? You aren't much bigger than a rat. Well, hey, that's what eating maggoty garbage does for you. Not exactly the breakfast of champions. I suppose if I give you a little milk you'll think you can move in here, right? So I won't.”
“Mao?”
“Not a chance. Go find your supper somewhere else.”
“Mao? Mao?”
“And stop rubbing cat hair all over my pants!”
Door closes. Fifteen minutes elapse.
“Here! Will that shut you up?”
“Prrrrrrrrrrrr. Slup. Slup. Slup. Prrrrrrr. Slup slup slup slup slup slup slup.”
“That's the last you get out of me. I probably don't have enough left for my cereal in the morning.”
Twenty-four hours elapse.
“Okay, one more time. But I looked up the Animal Shelter on the web. It says they let you stay five days, and then it's curtains for kitty cat. Okay? So I think you should move on.”
Four hours elapse.
“Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao!”
“Look I don't have any chicken wings. How about some â french toast? Look, it's good, it's only been in the garbage since yesterday. Eat it. Eat it, you flea bag! It was good enough for me. Are you saying it's not good enough for you? Here, I'll butter it for you. Oh, you like that. Lick the butter off, huh?”
“Mao.”
“No! I will not put more butter on it! Eat the whole thing, bread and all.”
Twenty-four hours elapse.
“Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao!”
“Why are you still crying? Didn't you want the french toast? Yich! It's got flies on it.”
“Waka.”
“Waka? What does that mean? Cats don't say âwaka.' I'm not going to feed you if you don't speak proper English.”
“Prrt.”
“Wait a minute.”
Car door slams. Car takes off.
Twenty minutes elapse. Car pulls up. Car door
slams.
“Okay, you win. Cat food. This is probably a big mistake, but I'm not going out and buying you chicken wings.”
Twelve hours elapse.
“Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao!”
Footsteps stumble down stairs. Door opens.
“At three A.M. you think I'm going to feed you? Oh.
Your water overturned on the cat bed. Shit. Here.
Here's an old sweatshirt.”
“Prrt.”
Four hours elapse.
“Here. You didn't ask for it, but I suppose you will.
Here's your damn cat food. It stinks. I hope you love it.”
“Mao.”
“Is that your name, cat? Mao? Like Mao Tse Tung?
You don't look Chinese to me.”
[Subject kritches cat
behind ears.]
“You look â hungry. You're kind of silky â”
A succession of days in which cat food appears in
margarine tub. Spring advances. Warm weather. Cat
eats food. Subject puts out more cat food.
“Pretty eyes. You might clean up nice. I'd let you in the house, but you'd bring in fleas. Let me think about this.”
Subject switches to more expensive brand of cat
food.
“You don't want to come in? Last chance.”
A
utumnal equinox. Whir ring sound. Flashing lights. Whoosh of advanced propulsion system.
“Hey, cat! Cat! You didn't eat your food. I'm not going to buy any more unless you eat this. Hey, cat! Hey, Mao! Sneaky-paws! Where are you?”
Door left hopefully ajar.
Twelve hours elapse.
“Where are you? Pretty kitty! Mao!”
Another twelve hours.
“Where the Hell are you? Mao! Mao! Maaa-oh! Mao! Mao! Mao! Mao!”
Mary Turzillo's “Mars Is No Place for Children” won
the 1999 Nebula for novelette. Her novel,
An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl,
was serialized in
Analog,
and her poetry volume,
Your Cat Is a Space Alien,
will appear later this year. She lives with
award-winning science-fiction author Geoff Landis
and two cats, Lurker and Sam. The cats know many
secrets, but they're not talking.
by Nancy Springer
T
HE MINUTE Cindy pulled into Samantha's drive-way, she knew something was badly wrong. Both house and cattery doors stood wide open to six inches of February snow, and Samantha would never let that happen. Good grief, the kitties might catch pneumonia and die. Something must have happened to Sam, and there were no neighbors around to help, because an animal shelter always had to be way out in the country. But what could be the matter? Had Samantha fallen and hit her head, maybe?
Heaving herself out of her ancient Pinto, Cindy tightened her scarf around her thinning mousy hair, hustling toward Samantha's rancher at the fastest gait her plus-sized body would allow. Footprints riddled the snow, from volunteers and adoption seekers coming and going all day. But among them Cindy saw myriad little pawprints. Dear lord, every kitty in the place must have gotten out. They would freeze and starve and die. Even before she reached the house door and lunged inside, Cindy felt herself starting to cry.
But she stopped crying the instant she saw Samantha lying face down on the carpet, her caramel-colored spiral curls soaked red with blood. This was a matter too serious for crying. She knelt by Samatha's side, calling “Sam! Sam? Are you all right?”
Silence, except for pathetic meows from several directions. Some of the cats had stayed inside, evidently.
Cindy knew herself to be an idiot. Any fool could see Sam was not all right. With one chubby hand Cindy fumbled at the side of Sam's neck.
Yes, there was a pulse, but barely. Yes, Sam was taking a shallow breath now and then.
Cindy staggered up, yanked an afghan laden with much cat hair off the sofa and blanketed Sam. She called 911. Then she called Devon, who was the volunteer at the head of the emergency phone chain. Not that Devon was good for much except wielding her cell phone. Devon liked to brush the kitties, not clean up after them, and she never set foot in the shelter without wearing rubber gloves to protect her French-tip manicure. But she was efficient in her country-club way, didn't waste time being shocked, just said she'd call out the troops. After Cindy hung up, she checked Sam again â still unconscious, but breathing â then headed through the connecting door from the house into the cattery.
Six or seven cats flowed out of boxes and rubbed her ankles, a swirl of black, white, orange. Cindy felt her eyes fill with tears at the sight of them. Standing at the wide-open door, she called into the wind, “Here, kitty kitty kitty!”
But no kitties appeared. And oh, Lord, the box in the corner was empty. Where were the mamma cat and her litter? Following the feline mother's instinct to hide her young, Queenie had taken her weanling kittens out in the freezing cold. And already the day was darkening toward nightfall.
Cindy began to weep in earnest. Okay, Sam had fallen and hit her head on something. But who had let all the cats out? And why?
“
S
HE KEEPS MOST of them in the house,” Cindy explained to the detectives.
Other volunteers wandered the night with flash-lights, calling, peering into shrubbery, while Cindy cleaned up the mess in the cattery. “This room is just for the ones that don't use a litter box.” Ferals, mostly, and the poor declaws. Didn't want to dig with their mu ti lated front paws. Several of them crowded Cindy's ankles, wailing like banshees. Cats were cats, even when they were designer kitties, purebred Himalayans and Cymrics and Russian Blues and Burmillas.
The cats lamented, and the detectives stood watching, but Cindy worked feverishly, gathering the dirty bedding, filling food and water bowls, then down on her knees scraping poop from the linoleum,. Shock wouldn't let her sit still. The cops said Samantha hadn't hit her head. They said somebody had hit it for her. With Sam's favorite cat figurine, the stylized teakwood Siamese, which might have doubled as a bowling pin. The hospital said Sam was in stable condition, but what if she didn't get well? What would happen to the kitties? What would happen to them now, poor babies lost in the cold?
“How many cats did she have?” a detective demanded.
“Ninety some.”
“Good Lord.”
“You see it all the time,” said the other one, who was shorter and stockier. “Little old lady with too many cats.”
“Whacked on the head?”
“Okay, so this one's a little old lesbian. Running a cathouse.”
Cindy felt every overweight muscle tense. Samantha was not little, and not much older than 50, and as for her being a lesbian, so what? Sam ran a cat shelter, for mercy's sake, fully accredited, with records, volunteers, adoptions . . . these cops were jerks.
Cindy slammed her poop scraper into the sink and grabbed the scrub bucket.
“You'd know,” the taller detective called to Cindy.
“Who was her lover?”
Filling the bucket, Cindy just stared at him. She knew nothing of Sam's personal life and didn't care to.
“Okay,” he tried again, “did she have a live-in?”
“Nobody else lived here.”
“Any frequent visitors?”
Cindy stared again, wishing she could do it more like a dragon and less like a cow. Luckily, just then one of the volunteers, the retarded girl, came in roaring softly to herself. Apparently this made the detectives uncomfortable. They retreated, ambling back into Sam's house. There wasn't much detecting for them to do, anyway. Sam would tell them when she woke up who had hit her.
The retarded girl set down an armload of snow-powdered cats. Cindy plopped herself on the floor, gathering kitties onto her lap to warm them and comfort them. And herself.
From time to time other volunteers tramped in, almost all middle-aged women like Cindy. Stamping and sniffling, they talked to the cats in their arms. “Watcha thing you're doing out there? Doncha know how cold it is?” Only one of them was a man, an odd, silent young fellow who said nothing as he turned his cats over to Cindy.