To Be a Cat

by Matt Haig

  His friend left the telescope and went inside the barge. At first he thought she hadn’t seen him. But a moment later she came back out again with a man with a beard. Her dad. In a moment that seemed like for ever, he too had a look through the telescope.

  Barney called out.

  He didn’t even bother with words this time. Words which wouldn’t be understood.

  He just made the loudest wailing miaow he could manage. A miaow that exhausted him. A miaow fuelled by every miserable moment since his parents’ divorce.

  They heard it. Saw him. Rissa’s dad stood up and, without thinking, jumped into the water and started swimming.

  Hold on, Barney told himself. Just one more minute.

  Just hold on …

  Hold on …

  Hold …

  The Barge

  … ON.

  It was just enough.

  He held on.

  Rissa’s dad reached him, his hand grabbing Barney’s belly at the moment he was about to be pulled under.

  ‘You’re OK, little fellow,’ Mr Fairweather said, himself exhausted, but determined to keep the cat above water as he made a shattering one-arm swim back to the barge.

  Once there he quickly got Barney inside. Then Rissa and her mother attended to him in their long, warm and very thin living room while Mr Fairweather had a bath.

  Barney had met Rissa’s parents before, and liked them, but to be perfectly honest he had found them a little bit odd.

  They lived on a barge, for a start. And they didn’t even own a TV, let alone watch one. And they could spend hours talking about star formations. They had a computer but he’d never seen it. They did have a phone too, but one that looked like it came from 1973. And Rissa’s dad had his big beard and wore long woolly jumpers with holes in them almost down to his knees, and made vegetarian meals full of strange ingredients like quinoa and buckwheat.

  He was a carpenter, and Rissa’s mum an artist. She painted pictures of plants and had them all over the walls. She had really long hair and naturally rosy cheeks and wore dungarees. She seemed to be in a state of extreme happiness all the time.

  Their names were Robert and Sarah, which were the only ordinary things about them.

  But Barney was now totally convinced they were the very best people you could hope to meet.

  While Rissa dried Barney with a warm towel, her mum fed him pieces of the most delicious cheese he’d ever tasted in his life.

  ‘This is Cornish Yarg,’ she told him in a voice as warm as the stove which heated the room. ‘The best cheese in the world. But I’m from Cornwall so I’m biased.’

  She gave him another large yellow crumb.

  ‘You poor little thing,’ she was saying. ‘You’re so hungry.’

  Rissa stroked behind his ear. ‘It’s that cat, you know, the one I told you about … The one that Miss Whipmire locked up. The one all those other cats were chasing after.’

  Her mum looked puzzled. She loved her daughter, but what she’d told her and Robert that evening was rather a lot to take in. ‘Oh, that’s weird. Are you sure it’s the same cat?’

  ‘Yep. Same white patch. Same eyes.’

  Rissa studied him.

  Rissa, Barney miaowed.

  ‘There’s something strange about you,’ his friend said, tenderly stroking his ear in a way that made him feel embarrassed. ‘I really feel like I’ve known you for ages.’

  You have! You have!

  She stared at him a bit more, and then shook her head as if shaking away a silly and impossible thought.

  ‘What do you think happened to him?’ Rissa asked. ‘Do you think those cats chased him into the water? Or do you think it had something to do with Miss Whipmire?’

  ‘Well, don’t worry. We’ve told the animal helpline. I’m sure they’ll look into Miss Whipmire.’

  Rissa thought about mentioning the trip to the cattery but didn’t. She knew her parents would say she should tell Barney’s mum, but Mrs Willow had enough on her plate right now.

  She sighed bleakly. ‘What with the cats, and with Barney being so odd this morning and running away before school, it’s really been a weird day, Mum.’

  I didn’t run away. That wasn’t me.

  Barney saw that Rissa was looking sad, and he tried to comfort her by rubbing his head into her hand.

  ‘You really like Barney, don’t you?’ said her mum, her eyes twinkling like the stars outside the porthole.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ Rissa’s words caused Barney to feel embarrassed, and he was thankful for the furry face, which concealed his blush.

  Rissa’s voice changed. ‘But Barns … I mean, Barney can be so annoying sometimes. Like today! Acting so weird this morning, and me thinking he’d run away for ever or something, and then just turning up at the end of the day … And not even bothering to phone here when he got home, after I hadn’t been in school all afternoon. Then having to find out from his mum! What was that all about?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling,’ her mum said as water lapped gently against the barge. ‘I’m sure there’s an explanation. He’s a good boy, I know it.’

  Barney knew that all the bits of information were there in Rissa’s brain, like Lego. If only she could click them all together and make the truth.

  Carrot Cake

  AFTER THE CHEESE, the Fairweathers gave Barney some home-made carrot cake, cut up really small and placed in a bowl.

  Then they sat him down on a warm rug. ‘Oh, look,’ said Rissa’s mum sadly. ‘He’s got scratches all over him.’

  ‘Mum,’ said Rissa. ‘Can he stay with us?’

  ‘Of course he can. If he wants to. Can’t he, Robert?’

  Rissa’s dad looked over at Barney from an old wooden chair as he played a soft melody on his guitar. ‘You’d be very welcome, so long as you realize that’s not a swimming pool out there.’

  Rissa’s mum poured some milk, which Barney lapped up as quickly as he could. It was delicious, and full of thousands of tastes and aromas he’d never known before.

  Rissa sat down next to him on the rug, and stroked him. ‘You’re quite lucky to be a cat,’ she told him. ‘Because it means you don’t have to pay too much attention to human beings.’

  ‘That’s not very cheerful, Rissa,’ said her dad.

  ‘Well, I know.’ She sighed, and her hand came to a standstill on her friend’s fur. ‘It’s just Barney.’

  Her mum opened her sketchbook, started drawing her daughter and the cat with a piece of charcoal. ‘I’m sure there’s an explanation,’ she repeated.

  ‘I hope the old Barney’s back tomorrow so I can have a best friend again.’

  ‘Thought you wanted him to be more than that?’

  This time Rissa blushed along with Barney.

  ‘Changed my mind. No boyfriends till I’m at least eighteen! And it won’t be Barney Willow! Anyway, best friends are more important than boyfriends.’

  ‘One day you’ll realize they can be both,’ her mum said.

  Barney looked up at Rissa’s face. She seemed unhappy. And it hurt him to know that he was the cause.

  I’m still here.

  She stroked his chin. ‘Poor cat. You’re safe now.’

  And then her dad started singing a made-up song. He called it ‘A Cat Shanty’.

  ‘Oh, you’re safe now, cat, so don’t you worry,

  Oh, you’re dry and warm and there’s no hurry.

  Oh, you might as well stay right here,

  For a day, a week, or even a year …’

  It was tempting. To stay here, with his best friend and her lovely parents, being fed cheese and carrot cake in the warmth of this barge.

  And he certainly was sleepy.

  Really sleepy.

  Yes. Why not? Why not stay here?

  As he stared up at the Fairweathers’ loving, smiling faces he felt himself dissolving into darkness and a deep, deep sleep, in which he saw nothing but a shining green eye, glistening with answers.


  I am Barney

  BARNEY WOKE.

  It was still night outside the windows of the barge, and the stars remained in the sky. He was alone on the rug, exactly as Rissa and her parents had left him.

  He could hear the river lapping at the barge. He looked up at the wooden walls and the paintings of plants. One was of a cactus in a desert, with its long shadow stretching back across the sand. It looked more beautiful than any painting he had ever seen.

  He could see Robert’s guitar lying in the corner of the room next to the tiny kitchen area, and the remainder of the marmalade-flavoured carrot cake lying in a saucer near his front paws.

  There are worse lives, he thought to himself, than the life of a cat on a barge. Being warm, sleeping on a soft rug.

  He could stay here.

  Safe.

  For ever.

  But then he remembered. His dad was alive. And right now his mum was living with a former cat. And what if that former cat was as deadly as that former cat’s mother? If that was the case his mum and Rissa could be in danger. No. He had to solve this. Somehow, he had to become human again. All he needed was to find out how, and he had a feeling he knew who’d be able to tell him. He didn’t know why, but he kept on thinking of the Terrorcat and that strange, sad green eye staring at him, and the warmth he had felt inside. The feeling that he had something to say but hadn’t.

  Barney looked at the time on the old wooden clock on the wall.

  It was half-past five in the morning.

  Before he left he had some more milk, which had been left out for him, along with a nibble of the carrot cake too, as he knew he’d need all the strength he could get.

  Then he had an idea.

  Slowly, with his paws, he picked apart at the cake until it was a thousand little crumbs. Then he carefully pawed the crumbs onto the floor and shaped them into words on the light wooden floorboards:

  I am Barney

  It took him ages. Then he left, out of a tiny open window in the bathroom, and landed easily on the grass of the river bank.

  He headed off in the direction of town, thinking about the shining green eye of the Terrorcat he had seen in his dream.

  Rissa Realizes

  RISSA WOKE BEFORE her parents. She stepped out of her little cabin in her normal morning haze and looked for the cat.

  ‘Here, kitty-cat, where are you?’

  And then she saw the crumbs on the floor. At first that is all they were. Just crumbs. But then she saw the crumbs had fallen into the shape of words, and she read the words and gasped as something the cattery owner – whoever he really was – had said yesterday afternoon came back into her head.

  He might have come to you but you didn’t recognize him. Trust me, keep your mind open to the impossible and you will find the truth.

  Rissa’s heart drum-rolled. And she quickly got ready and put on her coat to go and look for her friend.

  The Terrorcat (and the Stillness of Things)

  BARNEY REACHED THE right house, opposite the park, but there was no sign of the one-eyed cat that always sat there every morning when he walked Guster. There was nothing in the window except an empty vase. Barney sat on the pavement a while, feeling vulnerable.

  But there were no cats around.

  Maybe they were too scared to come anywhere near the Terrorcat. Yes, that was probably it. In which case, maybe he should have been too scared to go anywhere near the Terrorcat. Still, he waited.

  As he did, he observed his surroundings. The park. With the same trees and bushes and flower beds that had been there two days ago when he’d been human.

  He had a weird feeling.

  Like the world told the same lie over and over. The lie that things didn’t change. That things stayed as still as the empty morning air.

  And it was easy to keep the lie going because most of the time things really didn’t change.

  Each Monday was like the last, give or take a few details. You saw the same faces every day, ate similar food week by week, did a lot of the same stuff. But the stillness of things made it worse when changes happened. Like when a shark pops out of an ocean to gobble a fisherman. Or like when his dad and his mum told him, ‘We’re not going to live together any more.’ Or when, one day, his dad wasn’t there to tell him anything at all.

  An old woman was hobbling up the road with a pint of milk.

  Barney had seen her quite a few times before. She lived somewhere on this road. She had hearing aids in both ears and was always fiddling with them with whichever hand wasn’t holding the walking stick. Today she had both hands occupied so wasn’t fiddling with anything, but Barney could tell she wanted to.

  It took her a century to walk up the street. When she got to where Barney was, the old lady’s eyes looked down with the same kindness she had always shown him as a human.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart.’

  Hello.

  And then he realized.

  She was going into number 22, and number 22 was the Terrorcat’s house. And she was going so slowly Barney would easily be able to sneak inside, even if she hadn’t turned to him and said, ‘Come on, sweetheart. You look like you could do with some milk. Come on. Come inside.’

  Inside: mouldy wallpaper, ancient carpet, black and white framed photos, unopened envelopes, and the deafening sound of breakfast TV presenters filling every corner.

  But no cat.

  Not in the hallway or the living room.

  Then …

  A voice from above:

  ‘Hello.’

  There he was at the top of the stairs, half in shadow, his one eye shining down like a solitary star on a cloudy night.

  Barney realized he was expected to say something.

  ‘Hello … Mr Terrorcat,’ he said nervously. ‘I’m Barney Willow. I’m not actually a cat. I just came to see you because yesterday you saved me from Pumpkin and those other swipers, and I thought you would … I thought you would know how I could turn back into a human. I thought as you obviously have powers … I wondered … maybe you could do it for me?’

  The Terrorcat sat in the same ominous silence so Barney stepped closer to the stairs. ‘I really want to be a human. I want to be me again.’

  Barney saw the old lady in the kitchen and her crooked hand beckoning him towards a saucer of milk. ‘Come on, sweetheart.’

  It was then the Terrorcat decided to speak, staying in exactly the same spot. His voice seemed to have a forced calm, but Barney’s ears detected a troubled wavering.

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  Barney had no clue as to what this meant. ‘Sorry? I don’t understand.’

  The Terrorcat studied Barney.

  ‘You wanted to be someone else. Anyone else. Even a cat. Or you wouldn’t have been able to change.’

  Barney closed his eyes, and in his memory saw torn pieces of paper flying in the wind, and remembered exactly how he had felt on Wednesday evening.

  ‘I was stupid. I’d had a bad day.’ Barney reconsidered. ‘I’d had a bad two years.’

  ‘Two years?’

  ‘My mum and dad got divorced then, and it’s like everything since has been cursed. Everything. I went to a terrible new school with this demon head teacher, who I now know is actually a cat, and with this evil kid called Gavin who is just a nightmare. Then, on top of all that, my dad disappeared.’

  ‘Pickles!’ It was the old lady, shouting even louder than the people on TV.

  ‘That’s what she calls me,’ said the Terrorcat softly. ‘Not good for the cred, but I live with it.’

  ‘Come on, you two kitty-cats, get some milk.’

  The Terrorcat didn’t move. Just stayed there, King of the Stairs.

  ‘You were saying? About your dad.’

  ‘He wasn’t living with us. He was living on his own in a little flat. But one day he ran away. I don’t know why. No one knows. No one knows anything except that he was selfish, because he didn’t leave a note or anything and never came to explain.’


  They were called again for some milk, and then the old lady gave up and hobbled back to the living room and her TV.

  ‘You are wrong,’ said the Terrorcat.

  Barney was surprised. ‘What?’

  ‘He came to see you, but he was thrown back out on the street. There was no way he could explain what he was going through. But he never stopped loving you.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  The Terrorcat came downstairs, tackling each stair carefully. It seemed strange. A cat with superpowers worrying about how to handle a staircase.

  When he was right up close, Barney stared into the speckled green of the cat’s one eye and felt scared, as though he’d walked into a trap.

  ‘More to me than meets the eye.’ The Terrorcat then gestured with his head towards the kitchen. ‘Come. Let’s have some milk.’

  Barney followed reluctantly.

  They drank from the same bowl, and Barney would have loved the soothing creamy liquid on his dry tongue if it hadn’t been for the fear prickling his whiskers.

  ‘How do you know about my dad …’ Then Barney had a thought. ‘Are you psychic? Can you read minds?’

  The Terrorcat spluttered on his milk. ‘It’s all a lie,’ he said. ‘This whole Terrorcat thing. I’ve no magic powers. The cats find it easy to believe because of how I look – with the eye. But really that just proves my lack of power. You see – like you, I wasn’t always a cat. I was a human, too. And on my very first day as a cat I got into a fight with a Siamese.’

  Barney thought of Miss Whipmire. ‘Siamese?’

  ‘Yes. I told her my name and everything, and she hated humans, and had a mean set of paws. That’s how I lost the eye … Never seen her since, though.’

  That certainly did sound like Miss Whipmire.

  ‘The old lady took me in. Looked after me. Got me stitched up at the vet’s …’

  ‘So why “the Terrorcat”?’

  ‘Well, survival. That thing about cats having nine lives is not true. I realized the way to stop fear was to become fear itself. I had no powers, not like real cats. But I looked scary. Plus …’