ambert
The Cat Who Owned Us
How we adopted a Japanese Bobtail
The Discoveries of Young Gordon in Savannah -3- 2500 words.
Copyright © 2011 Claude Lambert
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-0-9836791-2-7
This file is licensed for private individual entertainment only. The book contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into an information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photographic, audio recording, or otherwise) for any reason (excepting the uses permitted to the licensee by copyright law under terms of fair use) without the specific written permission of the author.
The Cat Who Owned Us
by Claude Lambert
Contents
1 The Intruder!
2 Backrub pleads not guilty
3. The kitten grows up
4. Bob learns to read
1. The Intruder!
Mom is a night nurse, so she goes to bed just before we wake up, but when we come back from school, we are in charge of waking her up and she takes care of us. Then Dad comes back from his teaching job and he cooks dinner, and when we are ready to go to bed, Mom goes to work. It is the same routine every day of the week. My parents like it that way because there is always somebody for us at home. And of course Mom makes more money working nights. It is the life they want.
Our dog, Backrub, is not the noisy type: he hardly ever barks. There is a message on the door that says: “Please no solicitors. We are just happy the way we are. If that changes, we will call you.” The neighbors and the postman know that mom needs to sleep, so they do not ring the bell during the day, and Mom and Backrub are left in peace. Backrub minds his own business: he is pretty cool. Dad complains that Backrub is lazy, but Mom says that he is “substantially placid.” Placidity is a quality she appreciates in daytime. Backrub uses the doggie door to get in the yard, so he does not wake up Mom when he needs to go out. Sometimes, during the night, a Foreigner tries to come in, usually a Raccoon. But Backrub keeps an eye on his door, even if he does not seem to care for the people coming to the main door. One time, there were two newts in the kitchen. They got scared and they hid under the refrigerator. Backrub kept howling in front of the fridge until Dad got up and looked under it. We are a very organized family. Most of the time. It is what you expect when your dad is a mathematician and your mom a nurse. The home of Johnny, my best friend, is very different: there are shouts and laughs and surprises all the time. Johnny’s mom passed away some years ago, Johnny has four noisy big brothers. I only have a little sister.
I came back to the house that day with Kate, my sister. I am the one who has the key. Kate went to sit on Mom’s bed and wake her up. I let go of my backpack and went to the kitchen to heat some milk and reheat some coffee for Mom. When I was done, I carried the coffee to Mom. She always looks surprised and pleased, though I do this every day. “Thank you, darling, it is very thoughtful of you”, she says. Then she asked the big question she asks every day: “Did you learn anything interesting at school?” When she started asking me, nothing came to mind, but now I make a point of remembering at least one topic to satisfy her. So I said: “We had to write a business letter.”
“Are you going to start your own business?”
“Maybe. “
Mr. Levine has his own business. He is a homebuilder and he shows me a lot of things. Maybe I will build homes too.
Mom looked impressed and went to take her shower. I went to my room, and there, in the middle of my bed, was a small furry thing. I first thought it was one of Kate’s toys. Kate knows it is ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN to enter my room, so I was furious. But as I came closer, I saw that the furry thing was alive. It was a kitten, sleeping without a worry in the world. A gift! A gift from Mom! I waited for Mom to appear in the kitchen and I went to kiss her and say thank you.
2. Backrub pleads not guilty
“Thank you for what?”
“For giving me a cat!”
“A cat?”
“The cat in my bedroom!”
My mom went to my bedroom and came back perplexed. She had not bought a kitten for me. Of course Kate and me begged her to keep the kitten. Mom sighed. She kept wondering how a small kitten entered the house. This was an intruder. As soon as she asked the question, all our eyes turned towards Backrub.
Backrub looked back with an innocent posture. “Me? What? What?”
I suggested: “Maybe he found a lost kitten and brought it back.”
Mom went to my bed to take the kitten and feed it. She placed it in front of Backrub. Backrub gave himself away: he wagged his tail. He was not surprised at all. He had known the kitten was there all along. The kitten had found an accomplice. It looked perfectly at home, he was not afraid of anything.
Kate said: “The kitten lost his tail Mom, look, there is only a small bit of a tail, like a rabbit’s tail.”
Mom examined the cat’s tail carefully and said; “There is no wound; I think the cat is born like that.”
“May I call Johnny? I am sure he would like to see a kitten without a tail.”
Mom said yes, and soon after, Johnny appeared with his Dad. I liked Mr. Levine as much as I liked Johnny, because he was singing all the time. He did not even know he was singing. It was like tunes followed each other in his mind. We could hear him in the driveway, Mr. Levine was singing “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'!”
I got to tell you, this is pretty unusual in Savannah. It is still a small town, we say “Hey!” or "Hey, y'all!" or ”How’you doin’?” or “A ‘right”, but we never sing in the street. Except for Mr. Levine. He does not sing of the top his lungs, but he is pretty loud, and he sings in the grocery store too. It makes people smile.
Mr. Levine entered the kitchen and scooped the kitten.
“It is a Japanese bobtail,” he said, and he looks pretty smart too. “A bobtail is a cat without a tail. They are generally very smart.”
“He is born here,” I replied, “He has to be an American bobtail!”
Mr. Levine smiled. “That too, he said. It is the law: if you are born here, you are American!”
Backrub did not want Mr. Levine to hold the cat too long and came in front of him to tell him that he had hold the kitten long enough. Mr. Levine placed the kitten in front of Backrub. Backrub sat there and placed his big paws on each side of the kitten. They both looked happy with each other. We all exchanged looks, but we did not comment on this extraordinary situation: Backrub understands everything we say.
Kate looked at the kitten and said: “He cannot be Japanese, he does not have slanted eyes!”
Mr. Levine’s enormous laugh filled the kitchen. “Japanese people do not have slanted eyes,” he said, “don’t you know that?”
“Yes they do!” insisted Kate. “No they don’t” said Mom and Mr. Levine together. Mom said: “It is just the eyelid that is different, Japanese people have an epicanthal fold, a little piece of skin over the corner of the eye. Epicanthal means close to the corner.”
Mom is a nurse, she knows all kinds of things and even all the bones in the body, and we have 206 different bones!
The Japanese bobtail did not have an epicanthal fold. But it had a third eyelid, a membrane slid over his eye from the corner of his eye. I could see it: the membrane slid and then the kitten closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Mr. Levine said that he was certain that Backrub had found the kitten abandoned in the woods and had brought him by transporting him carefully in his mouth. That was a very good deed, he said, and we all did congratulate Backrub. Then Dad came home and we told the story again and Backrub was congratulated again. Dad an
d Mr. Levine are best friends, just like Johnny and me. It is not surprising: they both talk about good deeds and what is the right thing to do all the time.
Mom sent Johnny and me to play in the garden. She prepared some tea. Everybody got a slice of fruitcake from Claxton. Fruitcakes from Claxton are the best in the whole world. Dad and Mr. Levine went out for a walk and I could hear Mr. Levine sing:
“Three little maids from school are we
Pert as a school-girl well can be
Filled to the brim with girlish glee
Three little maids from school.”
I wanted the kitten to come back on my bed, but he was asleep between the legs of Backrub and Mom said to let them be.
3. The kitten grows up
For a whole week we were all very anxious: if someone claimed the cat, we would have to give it back. But no post appeared in the neighborhood, so it became our cat.
We named it Bob, because it was a bobtail. When Bob grew up, the vet said it was a girl, not a boy, but it was too late to change its name. We tried Bobbie, but the cat did not like it, so Bob it is. The kitten soon started ordering everybody around. It stared with Backrub: “Come here” would the kitten say, “Let me sleep against your belly”, “Play with me!” and Backrub would do anything the kitten wanted. Then Bob succeeded in getting Mom all smitten: ”Gimme food, gimme milk, caress me!” and Mom would run around and serve Bob the way she wanted. Of course, Kate and I would do everything that Bob wanted as well.
During the day, Bob sleeps with Backrub after kneading his belly for a very long time. Backrub says he does not mind. Sometimes when I come home, I see that Bob is playing with Backrub’s tail; Backrub looks at me and says: “It is annoying, but what can you do? Bob is only a kitten,” and he suffers patiently. Of course, during the day, Backrub is the only person available to Bob. Mom keeps her door closed, otherwise the kitten wants to play with her or sleeps on her face.
At night, I am the one that Bob sleeps with; I take it as a compliment. Kate is not jealous because Bob plays with her a lot: she has a lot of patience. Bob’s favorite plays are hide and seek and follow the laser beam. She also loves to dip a paw in Kate’s cereal bowl and then she licks her paw. Mom forbids it because it is “unsanitary”, but Bob does it behind her back and Kate does not say anything: she just giggles. Another thing Bob does that Mom does not like too much is to hide in a cupboard. If you come close by, she will jump at your leg to play with it.
The ploy that Bob uses with each of us is always the same: when she wants something, she presents it as if she were doing US a favor!
“I am doing you a favor: gimme more turkey.”
“I am doing you a favor: play with me!”
“I am doing you a favor: I want to sleep on your face!”
That describes Bob pretty well. The proverb that says: “Dogs believe they are human, cats believe they are God” is well observed. Anyway, we adore her.
Her favorite trick is to send a cardboard mouse under the oak sideboard and then cry: “Help! I cannot get my toy! I am miserable!”
Everybody goes on all four to get her the precious mouse. As soon as we turn our backs, she sends it under the sideboard again. What she wants is to be the center of attention.
What else can I say? We all love her: Backrub, Dad, Mom, Kate and me.
She must have been very scared before she came to our house, because she is now big enough to go out through the doggie door if she wants to, but she never does. She has found a good house and she does not want to leave it. She thinks that the yard is a very bad place. Bob is content with looking at the birds and the lizards from the windowsill. Bird watching is good for her. Mom bought a birdfeeder to place close to the window, so Bob can enjoy looking at all kinds of birds. We have lots of cardinals, wrens, finches and kinglets. In the spring, we also have flocks of red-winged blackbirds and some cowbirds. On rare occasions, we get a family of hummingbirds. Some years we get a couple nesting nearby, some years none at all, even if we give them a special nectar feeder. Aunt Bessie lives on the marsh and she gets different birds, many of them very big, like egrets and herons.
4. Bob learns to read
Bob likes to work with me. She sits on my homework; she loves to type on the computer’s keyboard and to look at the screen. She has a sixth sense; she always sleeps on the textbook I need to open. And she loves to steal my pens and my pencils: she makes them slid from the desk and then jumps on the floor to play with them and hide them. She is just trying to help.
Her favorite textbook is American History. The only way I can study is to keep the book in my hands and read aloud to her. She likes that. She is especially fond of our great heroes like Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I noticed she has no interest in the Presidents’ wives. She is not the feminist type, she seems to prefer men, even when we have visitors and the ladies are always kinder to her.
Have you heard of the excuse; “The dog ate my homework?” Bob likes to chew one corner to bring me luck.
She has become a very learned cat. She understands everything and she is getting very smart in business matters. For instance, there is nothing she likes better than to read the tickers of the stocks on CNBC.
But most of the time she sleeps. Sometimes she sleeps in a circle, like a cat; sometimes she sleeps on her back with all four paws extended. We think that it is when she has a full belly, or when she is especially happy. My dad says that she is thinking about the “principle of inertia. ” This principle was discovered by Galileo. It says that a cat moving on a level surface will go on running until hell freezes over, but a sleeping cat will go on sleeping until she gets disturbed.
The End