To Be a Cat

by Matt Haig

  Barney felt sick. His cat nostrils could pick up smells a human nose would miss, and there seemed to be a million different queasy odours coming from the compost heap which, mixed with his fear, was really too much to bear.

  Somehow he pulled himself together enough to leave the narrow passageway and run back round to the front of his house.

  He saw a pair of boots he recognized. Black boots with a daisy painted on the ankles, now sidestepping a window-cleaner’s ladder and then walking up the path.

  It was Rissa.

  Of course it was Rissa. For her and for everyone else, this was a totally normal Wednesday morning at – well, Barney worked out it must have been about quarter past eight if Rissa was on time.

  Rissa, he called. Rissa!

  Even when he tried to shout her name as loud as he could, all that came out was a faint, breathless miaow. Watching her giant feet take T. rex strides up his path he felt a heavy sadness in his stomach. He crawl-walked towards her and nudged his head against her ankles.

  She stopped and looked down. Slowly her face broadened into a smile.

  Rissa, Barney kept on saying, even though he was beginning to realize it was pointless. It’s me, Barney. Please understand me … please understand me …

  His friend kept smiling, but it was that empty smile you give to animals, not humans.

  ‘Hey! Hello, cat,’ she said.

  She crouched down and stroked the top of Barney’s head. Her hand seemed massive, was massive, like the hand of some monster in a 3D movie that had actually managed to break through the fourth dimension.

  I’m not a cat, he said, feeling a weird itch in his ear. I’m your best friend.

  ‘Where do you live?’ She asked him this the way people ask animals questions, without expecting an answer, but he gave her one anyway.

  You know where I live. I live at seventeen Dullard Street. That’s right here. This very house. Barney panicked, the memory of Pumpkin and the swipers burning like the scratches on his back. Please, you’ve got to help me. It’s dangerous out here.

  Rissa kept smiling, then stroked her best friend under his chin, which he found quite annoying. Not that it was her fault, or anything. How could she know who the cat she was stroking really was? How could anyone know?

  ‘Well, gotta go,’ she told him. ‘You’re lucky. You’re a cat. You don’t have to go to school.’

  No. No. I am not lucky. I am deeply unlucky. Rissa, please, it’s me.

  She stood up. She hummed happy human tunes, then rang the doorbell.

  Barney stayed still for a moment.

  Then he realized. She was calling at his house. The house he wasn’t in, and his mum was going to answer and say he wasn’t there, and Barney would be able to miaow at them like crazy and maybe – just maybe – they would understand.

  D. I. E.

  BARNEY HAD FELT a bit like this before, in the old days before his parents divorced. Obviously he’d never actually been a cat, but he’d felt that feeling of not having a voice. Or rather, not having a voice that anyone properly listened to.

  You see, Barney’s mum and dad used to have lots of arguments. They’d row about almost anything. They’d row every time they drove in a car together. They’d row about his dad leaving old milk in the fridge when it had gone sour. About whose turn it was to walk Guster last thing at night.

  And, after a while, there were no spaces between the rows.

  Barney’s mum and dad had become trapped in a never-ending argument, and no matter how many times Barney told them to stop, or got them to promise they’d never do it again, they always did do it again.

  And it was horrible.

  When he was in bed Barney used to put his hands over his ears and close his eyes tight shut, trying to cancel out the shouting. ‘Be quiet,’ he used to whisper. ‘Please, just be quiet.’

  But even though he hated his mum and dad getting cross with each other, he hated it even more when they told him they were getting a divorce. When he was younger he didn’t really know what ‘divorce’ meant, although he knew it wasn’t good. How could a word with the letters ‘d’, ‘i’ and ‘e’ in it – in that order – mean something nice?

  ‘Dad’s not going to live with us any more,’ his mum had said.

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Because we think you will be happier – and everyone will be happier – if me and your dad live apart.’

  ‘So, you’re splitting up because of me?’

  ‘No, Barney, of course not,’ his mum said.

  ‘Well, good. Because I want you to stay together. Why can’t you both stop arguing? It can’t be that hard. At school we learned about Carthusian monks who don’t speak for years. Why don’t you just not speak? Then you couldn’t argue.’

  But Barney couldn’t convince her. Or his dad, for that matter, who put his hand on Barney’s shoulder and said, ‘Barney, sometimes what seems like a bad thing is really the best thing.’

  ‘But I won’t ever see you.’

  ‘You’ll see me on Saturdays. We’ll have fun together.’

  Barney wasn’t impressed. He already had fun on Saturdays. It was Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays that needed improving. And having a Dad-less house certainly didn’t make them any better. In fact, Barney found himself actually wanting to hear his mum and dad have an argument, because it would have been better than hearing his mum on her own, crying.

  He spent nearly a year like this.

  Saturdays with his dad trying too hard to be Mr Fun-Father, going to zoos and theme parks and football matches, which he would never have taken Barney to before.

  ‘You’ve had fun, haven’t you?’ his dad always said at the end of each Saturday.

  ‘Yes,’ Barney would say, and he’d sometimes mean it, but it was never enough fun to balance out six days of non-fun.

  The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney

  AS BARNEY WAITED by Rissa’s ankles she looked down at him, smiling that same blank smile. What could he do to prove it was him?

  ‘Are you still there?’ she said.

  He could feel a strange vibration inside him, a weird warm mumbling. And then he realized he was purring. But he wasn’t happy. He was anything but. Yet there it was, a purr that now seemed as loud as a drill. Because purring – that great mystery which has baffled biologists through the ages (‘Check the larynx!’ ‘No, it’s not coming from there!’) – isn’t anything to do with happiness. It’s to do with magic. And the sound of purring is the sound of magic itself. Or, rather, the sound of magic capabilities being made.

  The door opened and his mother was standing there. He expected her to look pale and worried. After all, she must have known by now that her son was missing. But she didn’t look worried at all. In fact, she was smiling.

  ‘Hello, Rissa,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, thanks, Mrs Willow. Is Barney ready?’

  This was it.

  This was the moment they would realize something was majorly wrong.

  Barney waited for his mother to say she hadn’t seen him all morning, but it didn’t happen. Her smile stayed exactly in place.

  But if his mum’s behaviour was weird, what she said was even worse.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s just coming. Barney! Barney! Rissa’s here!’

  This didn’t make sense.

  Barney wasn’t coming.

  He couldn’t be coming.

  He was standing out on the pavement.

  Yet only moments later, Barney saw someone walking through the darkness of the hallway.

  Someone in Barney’s uniform.

  And now he was there, standing with the sunlight revealing his face.

  A twelve-year-old boy’s face.

  Freckled.

  With wavy hair and slightly sticking-out ears.

  Barney knew the face.

  It was the face he saw in the mirror every single day.

  His face. On his body. In his school
uniform.

  And this Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney stared down at the Barney-Who-Was-Barney and gave him a quiet look which said:

  I know.

  I know you are me and I am you.

  This is what you wanted.

  ‘Hi, Barns,’ Rissa said.

  The other Barney silently left the house and started walking up the road, with Rissa, a little confused, following behind.

  Barney – the real Barney – didn’t know what to do. So, for a few long moments, he did nothing. Then the door closed, and the sound of it thudding shut brought Barney to his senses.

  And that is when he decided to follow Rissa and his other self up the street.

  ‘The sky was amazing last night,’ Rissa was saying. ‘I could see Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.’

  The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney looked baffled.

  ‘So what did your mum say about the letter?’

  She got no answer.

  ‘Barney? Are you OK? You seem, I don’t know, a bit blank. Is this about Miss Whipmire?’

  Then it happened.

  The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney started running – sprinting, in fact. He ran to the top of the street, then turned right onto Marlowe Road.

  ‘Barney!’ shouted Rissa. ‘What are you doing? Was it because I mentioned Miss Whipmire?’

  The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney said nothing, just kept running, and so Barney ran after him as fast as his little legs could take him.

  Cat Pancake

  HERE’S SOME ADVICE:

  If you ever become a cat – and it’s more likely than you might imagine (there’s about a one in 5,000 chance, according to the latest estimates) – don’t think about things too much.

  What I mean is, don’t think, How can I purr? because then you won’t purr. And certainly – certainly – don’t think, How do cats run? because then you’ll struggle. Just as Barney struggled, running along Marlowe Road, trying to find the right paw rhythm – front left, back right, front right, back left – trying to stop his head from hitting the pavement.

  And all the time he was watching himself – his body, his hair, his school bag – get further and further away from him. By the time Barney had stopped wondering, How do cats run? and actually ran, cat-style, it was too late.

  The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney had disappeared behind the crowd of school kids at the bus stop. A crowd that included Gavin Needle.

  ‘Oi, Willow!’ he was shouting at the boy he thought was Barney. ‘Where are you going, you freak?’

  Then Gavin stopped, looked down at Barney. The real one. The furry, four-legged version.

  ‘Isn’t that—?’ said another voice. One of Gavin’s cronies.

  Barney didn’t have time to run away, because suddenly there was a massive knock to his stomach, as if a rowing boat had swung into him. But it wasn’t a boat. It was a boot. Gavin’s boot. And Barney heard cruel laughter as he flew into the air, landing on the road.

  Barney froze. A car was speeding towards him. But the only part of Barney that moved were his claws, clinging to the tarmac as the car drove directly over him, its tyres missing him by a whisker.

  And then Gavin said something to Barney. Something like, ‘What are you doing here?’ He might have added a swear word somewhere too, but Barney wasn’t listening properly. He was too busy looking to see where his clone had got to, but he couldn’t see him. There were traffic lights and crossroads, but it was impossible to know which way this other Barney would have gone.

  Straight on, into town? Left down Coleridge Road, the road which the bus took to school? Or right, heading towards the park along Friary Road?

  He had no idea.

  Then another voice from the pavement. Rissa, breathing heavily: ‘Watch out!’

  She had run after the Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney, and now she was at the bus stop with all the others.

  Barney turned.

  The school bus was heading straight for him, pulling in at the side of the road, its two left tyres right on track to kill him.

  The driver hadn’t seen him. Because he was too busy concentrating on his breakfast. He was eating a chocolate bar, as he did every morning.

  Cat pancake.

  Barney froze, petrified. The noise of the bus was louder than anything he’d ever known.

  I’m going to die.

  And he really did believe that would be his final thought.

  But it wasn’t.

  Because he was still thinking – mainly about the human hand under his stomach, sweeping him fast into the air – as the side of the bus slid past his face.

  That was too close.

  For a moment Barney wondered whose hand it was, but then he realized he could feel the cool metal of Rissa’s rings and, sure enough, he heard her voice in his ear.

  ‘What are you doing, cat? You were nearly killed.’

  She pulled him off her shoulder, looked him straight in the eye.

  I’m not a cat, he tried again. Rissa, I’m Barney.

  This time, just for a second, Barney thought she understood. A glimmer of recognition shone in her eyes. But the glimmer disappeared, like the sun behind a cloud, and she placed Barney down on the pavement.

  ‘Don’t go on the road. It’s very, very dangerous,’ she said. ‘Buses and cats don’t get on very well. In fact, they’re pretty much incompatible. Remember that.’

  Gavin kicked me onto the road. I couldn’t help it.

  She stood up, followed the other Blandford High pupils onto the bus.

  Wait.

  Barney tried to think. There was no way he was going to catch up with the Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney. And there was no point going home to a closed door. Even if the door wasn’t closed, his mum would just throw him out again. Even if she didn’t, Guster would still try to kill him.

  Which left—

  Rissa.

  She was his best hope right now. After all, she’d just saved his life.

  So, without thinking much more about it, he padded towards the bus, hid behind the last pair of human legs – Rissa’s – and jumped on board.

  The Bus

  BARNEY GOT THE school bus every day, so he knew that people normally sat in the same seats.

  The twins, Petra and Petula Primm (every teacher’s favourites), always sat on the front seat. Gavin Needle and his friends always took over the back two rows.

  And Rissa and Barney always sat together, three seats behind Petra and Petula Primm, but on the other side of the aisle, opposite the Blub (who wasn’t really called the Blub, he was called Oscar Williams, but that’s what Miss Whipmire called him – because he was very fat, and because he had the understandable tendency to cry when slapped in the face by bullies).

  So Barney knew where he was going as he kept close behind his friend’s heels.

  The trouble was the bus driver had finished his chocolate bar now and was paying more attention. And the driver was sure he’d seen something sneak onto the bus behind that strange, tall girl with the crazy hair (which is how he thought of Rissa).

  He looked in the large round mirror that reflected all his passengers but couldn’t see anything. Neither could anyone else. Not even Petula Primm, who had felt something soft and hairy slide against her leg but was so busy talking in excited and secret tones to her sister about a recent trip to their aunt’s that she hardly noticed.

  Not even Rissa noticed as she was too busy wondering why ‘Barney’ had run away from her, and away from the bus to school too. What was going on? First the silent treatment, then this.

  Maybe he was just worried about Miss Whipmire.

  Or maybe he was just missing his dad.

  Or maybe he’d become totally insane overnight.

  Rissa didn’t own a mobile, so she asked to borrow Oscar’s and called Barney’s mother. After a few rings the answering machine clicked on.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Willow. It’s me, Rissa …’

  Barney was listening from under her seat, struggling to keep his balance as the bus t
urned corners, and feeling that itchiness in his ear again.

  ‘… Look, Mrs Willow, I don’t want to get Barney into trouble, or anything. I’m just a bit worried about him …’

  It was at this point that Gavin shouted from the back seat.

  ‘Mr Bus Driver! Mr Bus Driver!’ he called in a pretend goody-goody voice. ‘There’s a girl using her phone on the bus!’

  The next thing Barney knew the bus had pulled to a stop, sending him hurtling forward into Rissa’s legs.

  Her face appeared in front of him, upside down. ‘You!’

  The driver tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘Now, I’m sure you know the rules about phones on the school bus, young lady!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rissa. ‘I do. But this is actually quite important. My friend has just run away.’

  The bus driver sneered. ‘Not surprised, with hair like that.’

  Rissa heard the laughter behind her but wasn’t going to back down. ‘Look, it’s important.’

  ‘Sorry. Rules is rules. Using phones on school buses leads to mugging. That’s a known fact.’

  ‘Well, eating chocolate while driving causes traffic accidents,’ said Rissa. ‘That’s also a known fact. You nearly ran over a cat before. And, anyway, I never normally use mobile phones. I prefer talking to faces. But this is an emergency.’

  ‘’Snot even her phone,’ said Oscar.

  ‘Shut up, Blub,’ jeered Gavin from the back seat.

  The driver wasn’t listening to Gavin or Oscar. He was thinking about what Rissa said, and remembering what he might just have seen stepping onto the bus.

  ‘A cat?’

  Barney’s tail was rising with fear as cats’ tails do. And Rissa was quick to see it. She knew that if the bus driver saw it, the cat would be thrown off right here, miles from home, so she moved her leg to hide it.

  ‘I’m … I’m sorry,’ Rissa said, changing her tune. ‘For using the phone on the bus. I won’t do it again.’

  It worked.

  The driver gave the phone back to Oscar with a warning to them both, and then returned to his seat.