Incident Last:
Where Fennel Saves The World
It was night when Fennel returned home. She remembered little of the many people who had spoken to her, or pushed past her, or looked at her, or felt sympathy for her. All she knew was Bennet and his lifeless body.
First the police cordoned off the house, then his body was transferred into a bag with a big zip, and then it was taken away. She watched it for as long as she could, and not once in all that time did she fully comprehend what had happened.
The police were very nice to her, since she was the only witness. They called her the Girlfriend, and she did not think to correct them. The other neighbours had heard the gun shots, and all came running, and they all saw Mrs Weebley waving her gun around, but Fennel was the only one who saw the actual shooting.
A victim of accidental shooting, they told her. An old woman with a few bats in the attic, they said. A case of wrong place and wrong time, and Fennel was lucky she didn’t share Bennet’s fate, was the general gist.
Was she meant to explain that he was flying?
Was she meant to explain he was being hunted?
Was she meant to say it was her cats hunting him?
Was she meant to say her life would never be the same?
Her house emitted a quietness she had not heard for many years. No cats came to greet her entrance. No meows filled the room. She looked out the window, into the dark yard, wondering if any of them could find their way home, and wondering if she wanted them to.
“What have I done? Turned adorable household pets into monsters seeking to rid the world of ... birds?”
There was a sound in her house. A rustle and thump, and slight whine. Finally, a sound she knew. She rushed to find where it was coming from. In a bottom cupboard in her kitchen, where she kept her grandmother’s old pots and pans, was something scared and timid.
“Webbit!”
The little cat who liked to hide in small places, was inside a cupboard that Fennel never opened. At first she imagined the cat getting in there for fun and not finding her way out. But when she saw the scared look in Webbit’s eyes, she realised there was more going on.
“Who put you in there?”
A small meow and staring eyes.
“No matter, you’re coming out now.”
Webbit clung to her. She cradled her to her shoulder and neck. Eventually she purred, and it quickly became loud and deep.
“I knew you wouldn’t betray me, Webbit.”
For the first time since the shooting she really cried. She knelt down and let the tears pour out. She looked around for Webbit, unable to see through blurry eyes. The cat was not near her and that made her cry again.
“You found a secret, dear Bennet. You never told me what it was. How did you do it?”
She went into her lounge and tried imagine what Bennet would have done. His secret must have something to do with his dance moves, so she started to move like he did when he danced. His legacy would continue with her, if she could only discover his secret.
She hit her foot on her small coffee table and fell into a sad ball on the floor. Her pain was divided between her toes and the thought of knowing that she had failed, that she could never do what Bennet did.
“Who am I kidding? I have no talent to change the world.”
Then she saw where Webbit had gone. Her computer was on, and there on the desk, sniffing at the keyboard, was her little cat. The first thing Fennel thought was that she was ordering more books. Then the reality hit her, and she questioned how a cat could know how to work the computer at all.
“What are you doing there? It was you, Webbit? Who taught you that? Who taught you to spell?”
There was writing on the screen:
sore
“Sore? Yes, I am sore at you.”
But Webbit had not stopped. With a claw outstretched from a paw, the cat carefully pressed another key.
sorey
Webbit looked at Fennel with her eyes wide.
“Sorry? You’re saying you’re sorry?”
There was more:
sorey no on need now
“Sorry no on need now? What are you saying, Webbit?”
sorey no on need now won kow
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me, dear cat.”
Webbit started to circle the keyboard, sniffing and looking around, almost meowing but then whined instead. Fennel realised why the cat was having trouble.
“That button there,” she said as she pointed to a key, “that’s the backspace. Try it.”
Webbit pressed backspace and then gave a happy meow.
no wons need kow
“No one need know.”
Webbit needed a pat, and Fennel took her in her arms.
“No one needs to know I trained cats to take over the world? No one needs to know that a man learned to fly but my cats tried to stop him?”
Webbit meowed.
“Bennet flew and I taught. We both went beyond what anyone else has. Are you telling me what I did has at least some measure of good to it?”
Webbit meowed louder.
“What animals can I teach if not cats? Dogs are dumb, crude animals. I can’t think of teaching them. They can be taught tricks, but not taught to think. Cats can be taught tricks too, but they prefer to learn. What other animals are there? Elephants are very smart, of course, but I would need to go to the zoo, and wouldn’t be able to get close to them. I like giraffes, but I doubt they have much intelligence. And don’t ask me about monkeys, they’re far too smelly.”
Webbit looked at her without meowing. She was saying with her eyes what Fennel began to understand.
“I should teach children.”
So they can take over the world.
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