Incident Seven:
Where The Cats Hear
Ordinarily, Fennel would have let the cats sleep rather than wake them to share her good news, but she had to tell someone, and they were always good listeners. It had taken a long time to teach them the value of a good night’s sleep, one of the very first things she would have each new cat learn. To wake them up and have them listen to one of her stories at such a late time in the evening was to risk that they may not want to sleep again that night, or worse, may get the idea that the night is a good time to play and try to wake her up. Sometimes, she found, the cats were willing to learn only what they wanted to, or what was convenient to them, and not according to her schedule.
She turned on the lounge light and stopped to draw a sharp breath. A large collection of books was lying open on the floor. Even stranger, a few tufts of fur hung in the air, floating this way and that. She called for her cats, each by name, using her most authoritative voice. When they came out from their hiding places she thought she saw guilty expressions. Then they started to either wash themselves or meow for food or comfort, so she didn’t give it much thought.
As she picked up the books, she realised that she had never seen them before. They were new and glossy, with impressive photography. Some were about farming, some about the world, some about history, but most were about birds. The ones about birds featured the largest and best photos.
“Who’s ordering these books?” she asked herself as she saw a stack of discarded cardboard boxes. She remembered putting them there after bringing them inside, and she had not given them another thought. All that had been on her mind recently was Bennet.
“Tell me you guys didn’t unpack them?” she asked with her hands on her hips. “What else from my mail have you been into?”
She reached down to move the boxes, but Garbygarby, who had been hiding under one, shot out and gave her a fright. He then looked as cute as he could, while trying to spit out a chunk of cardboard that he had been eating.
Webbit then walked toward her with purpose. She had her eyes wide open, staring, and she made some meows that Fennel had never heard before.
“If you’re apologising, it’s a good start.”
Fennel noticed that Webbit looked a bit hurt, as her meowing stopped, but not her staring. It was not much, especially compared to everything else that had happened that day, but it made Fennel feel uneasy.
As serious as she had ever been in her life, Fennel picked up Schnosenschnaft and put him on her lap. She gently but firmly held his head, the way she would when telling him something important, and looked into his eyes.
“Have you guys been learning too much?”
It had started out as an exercise in showing her sceptical old roommate that cats were highly intelligent creatures. Pam was a nice girl, but she liked to make fun of cats, saying they were stupid creatures who had trouble processing any thoughts at all. Fennel listened to her talk with all politeness, even agreeing that sometimes cats did silly things, like chase their tails, or get scared over nothing. Fennel tried to explain that most of those silly things were just cats’ way of being humorous. Yes, they could become frightened when they heard an unusual noise, but that was just part of their instinctive defence system. Fennel pointed out that they were very small compared to humans. She asked Pam how she would react by meeting a creature the size of bus, or a truck, which was the difference between cat and human. And how would she feel if she did not know if that creature was hostile? Pam remained unconvinced, and it inspired Fennel to prove that her cats were far from stupid.
After a few years of teaching, she did not know how many words they knew now. They had passed twenty words without trouble, but she had been through at least fifty children’s books since then. Teaching them their first words was easier than she thought it would be. Soon they knew more than the basic No or Yes. They knew words like Bird, Car, and even Television. To her surprise, they loved to watch the television, and Fennel had to hide the remote because they fought over what channel they wanted. She was reluctant to show them her computer, since they always seemed interested in it. She only used it for emails and online shopping, and she knew there was little chance of them wanting to email other cats.
Fennel looked at her computer, sitting on the little corner desk by the bookcase, and she wondered.
Schnosenschnaft sat on her lap without moving. He was listening to her, respectful of her. His eyes were fixed on her but his ears moved like they were trained on all the other cats. As she studied him she did not notice that all the other cats were coming near and sitting at attention.
“If I look at my computer, will I find that I’ve ordered all these books?”
Schnosenschnaft purred.
For a second, she thought he was about to speak to her.
Zero came up to her and rubbed against her leg. This made Schnosenschnaft stop purring and jump down from her lap. When she gave Zero a pat he dropped to the floor and rolled around, stopping every few moments to see if she was watching him. If she did not know better, she would have thought Schnosenschnaft was glaring at Zero.
Cantup then started chasing Glider, who jumped up to the table and tried to leap across to the sofa but didn’t make it. Fennel told Cantup to stop it, but then Fabblydabbly and Loop started to get in each others’ way and they started to growl and hiss.
Fennel separated them and stood in the lounge with her hands on her hips, looking at them quizzically.
“Are you cats trying to distract me? Because of Bennet?”
Then she laughed at herself and went to change into her pyjamas and make a nightcap cup of chocolate. After experiencing what she had with Bennet, she could not believe she was letting silly ideas distract her. She had just witnessed the greatest dancing that she had ever seen, from a guy she had ignored every day at the office, but now wished she knew better.
Several cats, notably Fabblydabbly and Loop, followed her and meowed for attention, while others found their favourite spots to curl up and sleep, as she told them all about her evening. The story became longer with each telling, and yet they kept listening.
“And he started going higher and higher,” she said as she raised her hands to enhance the story. “It was like he could fly. I mean really fly. It wasn’t dancing at all; it was flying. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And it wasn’t just then, either, but when he walked me to my car, he continued to dance then, too. He was floating, I tell you. Yes, dear cats, he was floating. It was like my eyes were deceiving me, but I’d swear he was hardly touching the ground at all. And to be sure, I watched when I was in my car, as he walked back to his, I watched his feet. It might have been dark, and there were a lot of shadows, but dear cats, I’m sure as you exist and I exist and the world is wonderful in the spring, he did not touch the ground at all.”
She stopped to see all the cats staring at her, very still, and she sighed at the thought of what she was doing.
“And here I am pretending you cats can understand my every word. This is my life, reading children’s books to you, like you’re children. You’re animals. You can never talk, let alone learn to read. While I’ve been doing this, wasting my time like this, Bennet has been learning to dance, so well that he can practically fly. And I didn’t even want to talk to him in the office. There I was, all caught up in my work that I missed such a wonderful man with such a wonderful talent. And you know, I might have never known? I might have brushed him away and never spent such a night out like that. But what have I done? Pretended you can understand me? Do you understand me or just like that I feed you and keep you warm, and give you silly names?”
With that she started to cry. She sat on the floor with her head in her hands, unable to stop the tears. When she stopped and opened her eyes, the cats were gone. She found them were in the kitchen, each one encircling Schnosenschnaft. He saw her and his tail went straight up in the air, and the other cats copied him.
“What are you guys doing? If I didn’t know better, you
look like you’re planning to take over the world.”
Again Schnosenschnaft looked like he was going to speak, or at least he wished that he could.
Fennel laughed at herself, turned out the lights and went to bed. Tomorrow was a workday, and she would get to see Bennet again. That wonderful Bennet.