BOOMER
John N. Whittaker & Gertrude C. Whittaker
Boomer
Copyright 2012 © John N. Whittaker
& Gertrude C. Whittaker
Cover Design by Laura Shinn
Boomer is a work of fiction.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
Chapter 1
Once upon a time there was a cat named Boomer. Boomer lived by himself in the woods. Boomer liked it that way; he was a very unfriendly cat.
Boomer waited in a tree for pussy-cats who didn’t know any better to wander into the woods. To Boomer’s way of thinking any pussy-cat foolish enough to wander into the woods deserved what it got. Actually, he didn’t care what it deserved, it got it anyway. Afterwards he curled up and licked his fur. Sometimes he coughed up an orange furball.
One day Boomer heard the sound of hammering at the edge of the woods. It continued from early morning until late afternoon. Hammer, hammer, hammer. When it stopped, Boomer crept to the edge of the woods and stuck his head out. Something was in his way. Boomer saw that it was a fence. Somebody had built a wire fence around the woods. The problem was, those foolish pussy-cats couldn’t wander into the woods any more. That was the problem.
Boomer returned to his tree to think. First he thought about tearing down the fence. He wasn’t strong enough to tear down the fence but he thought about it anyway. It was a good idea. Unfortunately he couldn’t do it. Then he thought about getting someone else to tear down the fence. Unfortunately only a human being could tear down a fence and he didn’t know any people. What else? Cut a hole in the fence. But he didn’t have anything to cut a hole in the fence with.
Boomer was alone behind the fence. He was a very unfriendly cat, but how could a cat be unfriendly if he didn’t have anybody to be unfriendly with? Boomer thought about it.
* * *
It was dark but Boomer could see in the dark. He began climbing the fence, holding on to the wire with his claws. Half way up one of his claws stuck in the wire. He tried shaking it loose. Then he tried jerking it loose. Boomer wondered if he would be there all night. In the morning somebody would find him stuck to the fence. Boomer considered the problem. Instead of pulling his claw upwards he tried pulling it downwards. It worked. He continued climbing the fence. At the top he put his paws together and jumped. He landed on all fours and ran across the road into an open garage. Boomer was a fat cat. Exercise gave him a headache.
Boomer’s eyeballs shone in the dark. He decided to rest in the garage and then look for a pussy-cat foolish enough to be outdoors by itself. A car turned into the driveway and drove into the garage with its headlights on. Boomer hid behind a garbage can. A man and a woman got out of the car. The man closed the garage door. Then they went into the house. Boomer was cross: instead of being fenced in, he was locked in a garage. He leapt up on a windowsill and pawed the pane. Then he jumped off the windowsill onto the garbage can. Unfortunately the lid of the garbage can came off and slid onto the floor with Boomer on top of it. The lid made a loud clanging noise as it hit the floor. Boomer howled with fright. Shortly afterwards someone turned a light on in the garage.
‘Oh,’ said the woman, ‘it’s a kitty. Here, kitty, kitty.’
‘Looks cranky to me,’ said the man.
‘Cranky old fella. Puss, puss.’
Boomer didn’t understand a word of this conversation. He deeply regretted leaving the woods.
‘Be careful, don’t touch him,’ said the man, ‘he may be contaminated. I’ll open the garage door and let him out.’
‘Poor puss wants to be cuddled, doesn’t he?’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said the man.
‘Mommy would, though, wouldn’t she, you grouchy old thing? I bet you’d like a nice bath. Then we’ll see how gorgeous you are, won’t we just?’
‘Ordinarily,’ she said to the man, ‘I wouldn’t give him a bath, but he’s so terribly dirty.’
‘We already have a cat, Felicity.’
‘Yes, and that’s another thing. I had a dream about Rafe. He was clinging to the ceiling with his eyes bugged out. Rafe is much too timid. He needs bringing out of himself. Rufus will show him the ropes.’
‘Rufus?’
‘Yes, it suits him, don’t you think? All that lovely red fur.’
* * *
The man put on rubber gloves and chased Boomer around the garage. Boomer ricocheted from wall to wall like a bullet. Unfortunately he made the mistake of leaping into the garbage can. The man clapped on the lid. After a while he lifted it and looked in. Boomer was worn out. The man picked him up and carried him to the mud room.
In the mud room the woman prepared a tub of soapy water and disinfectant.
‘Now lower him gently,’ she said. “Mommy won’t let the bad man scare you, no she won’t.’
Boomer coughed up a fur-ball and watched it fall into the suds. Boomer hated water.
‘Now splash some water on his paws, so he gets used to it.’
The man held Boomer over the tub, put one hand under his belly and splashed his paws with the other hand. Boomer wanted to escape from this chamber of horrors but his choices were limited. In fact they were non-existent. But Boomer was a desperate cat. He leapt out of the man’s hand, rose briefly into the air, hovered over the tub and plunged head-first into the suds.
The man washed Boomer from end to end. Back in the woods he would have been asleep in a tree. Boomer tried not to think about it.
The man lifted Boomer out of the water and put him on a towel while he went for a blow-dryer. Boomer exerted himself. He left the mud room at top speed, hurtled through the kitchen, slid into the front hall, sprang up a flight of stairs and skidded from room to room in search of an exit. Unfortunately there was no exit.
Boomer hid under the bed in the guest room.
‘Come to mommy,’ said the woman, reaching under the bed.
Boomer pretended to be asleep.
‘I think we should put him outside,’ said the man.
‘Poor Rufus,’ said the woman, ‘he wants to rest.’
They left Boomer under the bed.
Chapter 2
Next morning the woman found Boomer pacing on the kitchen table. Directly overhead Rafe clung to a light fixture.
‘Oh, dear,’ the woman said.
‘Rafe is learning the ropes,’ said the man.
Boomer looked at the ceiling and hissed.
‘Hurry,’ said the woman, ‘Rafe is wobbling.’
Just then Rafe lost his grip. The man tried to catch him. Boomer tried to beat him to it. As a result the three of them collided in a heap on the table.
The woman removed Rafe from the heap.
‘Poor itty-bitty,’ she said. ‘Did big bad Rufus scare Mommy’s itty-bitty, yes, he did.’
The man locked Boomer in the mud room. Boomer was steamed. First he scratched at the door. Then he sat down and looked around. Boots lay on a rubber tray and coats hung from hooks. He didn’t bother with the window. Boomer jumped in the sink and went to sleep.
Boomer dreamt of his life in the woods chasing mice and birds and leaping from branch to branch. Soon Rafe scampered into view. Boomer chased him up a tree. Boomer was about to pounce when the door to the mud room opened and the woman came in. Boomer woke up. He sobbed. His chest heaved. Big fat tears wet his fur.
‘How’s my naughty boy?’ the woman said. ‘Mommy’s going to teach you to behave. You’ll be best friends with Rafey forever and ever. Won’t that be fun?’
She lifted Boomer out of the sink, put a collar around his neck and attached a leash to it. Then she carried him into the yard and attached the other end of the leash to the clothes-line. Boomer could run to the end of the clothes-line but no further. Once was enough. He
lay down, buried his head in the grass and groaned. Boomer played dead.
Later the woman unhooked Boomer from the clothes-line and brought him back inside. She thought he was asleep, but he wasn’t, he was pretending to be dead. The woman put his dinner in a dish anyway. Just to prove he was dead Boomer didn’t eat a scrap. Boomer was a stubborn cat.
When the woman returned Boomer was still pretending to be dead. She stroked his fur. Boomer was warm but he didn’t move. The woman went to look for a thermometer. One of Boomer’s eyes opened. The woman had forgotten to shut the door. Boomer crept out of the mud room into the basement and jumped into a crate.
Boomer tried to think. Other than being dead he needed a plan. Boomer was a clever cat but he didn’t know much about houses. Mainly he didn’t know how to get out of them. However, before he escaped he needed to teach that pussy-cat a lesson. To teach him a lesson he had to get him alone. At night the pussy-cat was so scared of Boomer that he slept with the man and the woman in the big bedroom. In the daytime he hid under a sofa. Boomer was too fat to get under the sofa and anyway he was tied to the clothes-line most of the day. So how could he get the pussy-cat alone? Then Boomer had a brainwave. It was a good brainwave, except that Boomer wasn’t sure he could do it. He needed to practice.
The woman returned with a thermometer and found Boomer sitting in the middle of the mud room. Boomer was smiling. It wasn’t easy to be friendly. The last time Boomer smiled that pussy-cat had jumped straight up to the ceiling. Boomer made a special effort.
The woman smiled back, showing her teeth. ‘Well, look at you,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you the friendly cat?’
Of course it was just so much static to Boomer, but the woman seemed pleased.
‘Just wait till Daddy gets home. Won’t he be surprised?’
The woman tied a big pink ribbon around Boomer’s neck with a bow at the side. The pink ribbon went nicely with Boomer’s red fur. Boomer smiled.
When the man returned from the office the woman told him to put his hands over his eyes because there was a surprise in the study. The surprise was Boomer sitting on a coffee table with a pink bow around his neck. Boomer smiled.
‘Great Scott,’ said the man. ‘What happened?’
‘Isn’t he adorable?’ said the woman.
‘Rufus wants to make friends with mommy and daddy and Rafey. That’s what happened, isn’t it?’
‘Where’s Rafe?’
‘Under the sofa.’
‘Maybe you should bring him out.’
‘I did. Rufus smiled at him. I guess it was too soon.’
‘Too soon after the last time.’
‘Yes. It hurt Rufus’s feelings, although I think he understands.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
* * *
Boomer was an impatient cat. He was also an obstinate cat. Days went by. Boomer smiled when he woke up and went on smiling until bedtime. Sometimes if no one was looking he stopped smiling and rested his face. The woman thought Boomer had changed. But she was wrong. Boomer was a dangerous cat, and when he was smiling he was extremely dangerous.
* * *
The woman brought Boomer into the back yard and returned to the house for Rafe. Rafe left scratch marks on the floor as she dragged him out from under the sofa.
The woman carried Rafe into the back yard where Boomer was waiting with his best smile. The woman unhooked Boomer from the clothes-line.
‘Rufus is trying to be friendly,’ the woman said, ‘and Rafey should be friendly too.’
Rafe didn’t want to be friendly. The woman put him on the grass beside Boomer. Rafe ran as fast as he could. Unfortunately Rafe didn’t watch where he was going and ran into the fence. He ran into the fence several times. After that he fell down with his paws in the air.
The woman scooped Rafe up in her arms.
‘Oh, poor teenie-weenie,’ she said. ‘Say hello to mommy.’
Rafe didn’t say hello to mommy or anything else.
The woman rocked Rafe backwards and forwards. She buried her face in his fur and promised to prepare his favorite dish for dinner. None of this made any difference to Rafe. He was knocked out.
Boomer looked around. The coast was clear. The woman was giving the pussy-cat artificial respiration. Boomer leapt to the top of the fence and dropped to the ground on the other side, a liberated cat. The only problem was that he hadn’t taught that pussy-cat a lesson. On the other hand, the pussy-cat was a goner anyway.
* * *
Boomer returned to the woods. He was free. He wanted to celebrate but there was no one to celebrate with. There were no silly pussy-cats to swat. Boomer was lonely. In his dreams a steady stream of silly pussycats wandered into the woods. Boomer swatted them right and left. Unfortunately no silly pussy-cats wandered into the woods in real life on account of the fence. The fence had ruined his life.
Then one day a stray pussy-cat showed up. Boomer waited until the pussy-cat was close to the fence. Then he stuck his paw through the wire and grabbed the pussy-cat by the tail. Boomer yanked and the pussycat pulled. Finally Boomer yanked a piece of fur out of the pussy-cat’s tail. The pussy-cat got away. Boomer shook the fence until it rattled. He clung to the wire and sobbed.
Boomer thought a lot about the pussy-cat who used to live in the house. That pussycat was dead. But suppose he wasn’t. Boomer imagined what would happen then: one minute the pussy-cat would be asleep in his basket and the next minute he’d be flattened against a wall. But what was the use? The pussy-cat was dead. Boomer kicked a mouse into the middle of a bush.
Chapter 3
Time went by. Boomer lay on his belly behind the fence. One day an ambulance stopped in front of the house across the street. Boomer sneezed and watched with one eye open. Boomer didn’t know an ambulance from his elbow but he watched anyway. The driver and another man got out, opened the door at the back of the ambulance and pulled out a stretcher. Boomer had never seen a stretcher before. A pussy-cat lay on the stretcher with its legs in the air; the pussy-cat was wrapped in bandages. The men rang the doorbell, the woman opened the door and they carried the pussy-cat inside. After a while the men came out and drove away without the pussy-cat.
Maybe the pussy-cat on the stretcher was the one who used to live in the house and maybe it wasn’t. Boomer couldn’t tell under all those bandages. What difference did it make? One pussy-cat was as good as another when it came to whacking it over the head. On the other hand, it wasn’t much fun whacking pussy-cats that had already been whacked. Boomer would have to wait until the pussy-cat was better. Then he would whack it.
Boomer decided on a plan: one minute to get into the house, five minutes to beat the pussy-cat like a rug and one minute to get out. If he didn’t get out the people who lived in the house would give him a bath.
* * *
Time passed. One day the woman came out of the house carrying a pussy-cat. Boomer sat up. The woman put the pussy-cat down and tickled it with a feather. Then she waved the feather. The pussy-cat wanted to chase the feather but its legs were too wobbly. Boomer snorted. It was the same pussy-cat who used to live in the house.
Boomer waited for the pussy-cat to get better. It was summertime. The people who lived in the house left the front door open. When the pussy-cat was well Boomer would climb the fence, run across the road and whip into the house.
* * *
Boomer was a fat cat. He was a lazy cat. He waited and snoozed behind the fence. Sometimes he opened one eye, sometimes the other, sometimes he shut both eyes, but he kept his ear to the ground. Boomer was a lazy cat but his brain worked at top speed. On the other hand, he wasn’t exactly a mastermind.
* * *
One warm July morning (not that he kept track of such things) Boomer lay with his head on his paws. He flicked a fly off his nose. Then he heard a click. Across the street the front door opened and the pussy-cat came out with the woman. The woman threw the pussy-cat a ball. He ran after the ball and caught it in his paws. Then he scampered aro
und and rolled in the grass. The pussy-cat was ready.
That night Boomer climbed the fence. Climbing made him wheeze. At the top he jumped and landed with a thud. Boomer saw stars. He shook himself and headed for the house.
The front door was wide open and there were lights on inside. Boomer edged up the steps and listened at the door. He slid into the house.
All Boomer had to do was find the pussycat and whack him. But as soon as Boomer got inside he heard static. The man and the woman were talking. Boomer perked up his ears. They were coming closer. Boomer hid behind a door. A light went on.
‘Isn’t he cute?’ the woman said.
Boomer looked through the crack between the door and the wall. The pussy-cat was asleep in his basket.
‘That horrible Rufus tried to murder him,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t say that exactly,’ said the man.
‘I was there,’ said the woman. ‘Rufus frightened him half to death. Poor Rafey. If I had that Rufus here right now I’d box his ears.’
Boomer stuck his nose in the door jamb to stifle a sneeze. Then the man and woman turned off the light and left the room. The front door slammed shut. Boomer began to sweat. How would he get out of the house now? It was impossible. Then he had a brainwave. Just for now he would pretend that the front door was open. He would have fun.
Boomer crept up to the pussy-cat in the basket. He rapped on the pussy-cat’s forehead. Rat-a-tat! The pussy-cat woke up. What happened next happened so fast it could not be seen by the naked eye. Whack! Bam! Splat! Boomer was getting plenty of exercise. Smack! Whack! Slam! The pussycat rotated around Boomer’s head. Then Boomer let go and the pussy-cat flew through the window. Crash! tinkle, tinkle….
* * *
Thinking back on it Boomer realized he should have jumped through the window after the pussy-cat. Not jumping out the window was a mistake because he didn’t enjoy what happened next nearly as much as he enjoyed whacking the pussy-cat. Somebody or something grabbed him from behind, swung him through the air and brought him down on the table-top. Thump! Then whoever or whatever it was did it again. Thump! And again. Thump! It seemed as if it would never stop. Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! A lot of Boomer’s fur came out. Then Boomer passed out.
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