3. Bowling and recreational board games
4. Preparation and consumption of a cheese sandwich
5. Host a dinner party
Sitting back on my haunches, looking at the list, I was rather impressed with the sophistication of the typing (I’d figured out capital letters with the help of the shift key); it was also dangerously brave, a list that would push me out of my comfort zone. Sure, I could have added more—a note about music or dancing or extreme sports. I could’ve written a never-ending list, because weren’t there so many things? How could one possibly choose between the splendor of a midnight countdown, with party poppers (very tempting), and the humanness of baking a cake?
But we only had so much time.
Five things seemed good enough.
“A cheese sandwich?” Olive said, cross-legged in her striped pajamas. “I think we can give you a bite of one, but aren’t cats lactose intolerant?”
I wasn’t familiar with the word lactose, so I shrugged this off with a shiver of my fur.
Olive cocked her head. “The dinner party thing we can do. How many guests do you want, though? Because I don’t really know anyone here, besides Norma and Q. It would have to be small.”
Small is good, I typed at the bottom of the list. Thank you thank you.
“Welcome, welcome,” Olive said, scratching just behind my ear. She was smiling in this peculiar way. “I still can’t really believe this—any of it. I don’t think that anything this extraordinary will ever happen to me again.”
Probably not, I typed.
And for some reason, she laughed.
Please don’t get me wrong. There were many terrible things about being a cat.
Pots and pans, the garbage disposal, the whoosh of the shower curtain—any loud noise sent me skittering; sometimes I bolted so quickly that it was difficult to slow down, the rug bunching beneath me. Houseplants were nice to shove in my mouth and chew, but my cat stomach couldn’t take it. And I developed a worrying obsession with flinging myself at the window screens, clinging to them, climbing with my claws. Don’t ask me why. I can’t explain it myself.
But there were good things, too. My reflexes were sharp. Anything moving, darting, or flashing, I could see perfectly. And Olive—there was Olive. For a flicker of a second, as we spoke about my human lessons, a thought did occur to me: Despite my homesickness, would it be the worst thing, to get stuck on Earth?
I quickly swiped it away—and focused on the movies.
It may not surprise you to know that cats aren’t allowed in movie theaters, that the seats are not formed to the size and shape of our bodies. There were so many places that I couldn’t go, solely based on my fur, my claws, my relatively short legs. But The Wizard of Oz was playing at Turtle Beach Cinema for one night only, so Olive told me that we had to try.
“I just don’t want to stick you in my backpack,” she said as we were getting ready to go. “Not after what happened on the bus. Cats really shouldn’t be in backpacks. But I’m trying to figure out the best way to sneak you in.”
Norma was in the kitchen searching for her motorcycle keys. I heard rustling, the smack of boots against the floor. “Got ’em,” she finally said. “Ready?”
“Snap decision,” Olive whispered to me. “I have an idea.”
“So,” Norma said to Olive, “remind me again why you’re wearing my windbreaker?”
We were standing in line at the movies. Well, I wasn’t standing. I was suspended in the bib of Olive’s overalls, comfortably tucked underneath a large coat. She’d zipped it up to her neck, but there was plenty of air flow—thank goodness. The ride over in the motorcycle’s sidecar was rather touch and go; against every swerve, I tried not to grip too tightly. We’d made it, though, and surely that’s what counted.
“It gets cold in the movies,” Olive said, shifting from foot to foot.
“You look lumpy,” Norma said.
Another human voice added, “Here you go! Two tickets to see The Wizard. Round the corner, to the left.”
I felt Olive grab her ticket and scamper away, one hand clutching the coat zipper.
“Wait a second,” Norma said behind us. “Olive. Olive!” It was the tone of Norma’s voice: a deep, dawning realization. She knew I was under that jacket—and she wasn’t pleased. Olive picked up the pace, moving rapidly through the hall. Or what I presumed was a hall: it was really very dark beneath the fabric. My heart thudded slightly with fear. Would Norma expose me—expose us—right here in the theater?
Abruptly Olive stopped, and I heard a door swinging open—then the sound of laughter and the smell of buttered popcorn, with all its salt and tang. The movies. No, I hadn’t strolled in on my own two feet, but still: I was at the movies. An experience that would transform me, transport me—like it had for generations of humans. Who wouldn’t want to see a chase on horses, a voyage on the sea, a flight to Earth’s moon?
Olive settled in the back row; I know this because she unzipped the jacket, just a little, and I poked my head out, my eyes adjusting to the dimness. Before us was a massive blue screen and a theater dotted with people.
“Sailor,” Norma whispered, scooting into our row. She looked frazzled, as if she’d been fighting with seagulls. “At first I thought, nope, no, you wouldn’t do that. But by golly, you’ve really gone for it. And you brought him in the motorcycle?”
Norma and I locked eyes. It was difficult to tell if she was angry with me or impressed that I’d stayed undetected for so long.
“Up,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“But we just got here,” Olive said, guilt in her voice—for my discovery or for bringing me to the movies in the first place, I didn’t know. “Can we stay, even just for a little bit?”
“Heck no,” Norma said.
Disappointment filtered through me, my ears pinning back. I was looking forward to this movie in particular, after Olive had discussed it with me: a pair of dazzling slippers, a floating house, a grown man in a lion’s costume. But we were lucky, Olive and I; just as Norma beckoned us to follow her, a flashlight shone upon us. A movie usher, checking the theater. Olive froze. Norma froze. We sat back quietly into our seats, as if there were nothing to see here, nothing at all. I tucked my head back into the jacket as Norma whispered, “Five minutes, that’s it. And then we’re gone.”
We stayed for the entire film.
The Wizard of Oz is really quite good, if you’re in the mood for adventure. I wish I could tell you more about the film specifically, but I’m embarrassed to say that inside the theater it was dark and warm, with wonderfully soothing music trailing from the speakers. As much as I tried, I couldn’t help nodding off, tucked cozily into Olive’s overalls, listening to the thump, thump, thump of her human heart.
On Earth, I have thought about the future constantly. How much of the universe would I fail to see if I lost my immortal life? How much would the hive miss my presence? And then there was the death bit—the actual, physical experience. Would it scare me? Would it hurt?
But I must say, during my first human lesson with Olive at the movie theater, I didn’t think about the possibility of dying—not even once. When we were listening to Dorothy say, There’s no place like home; when the lights flicked on and I yawned and stretched, pretending that I’d been awake all along; when Norma looked over at me and smiled, despite herself—these felt like livable moments, like I wasn’t just going through the motions of being alive. I was enjoying myself, without the worry and the stress of thinking about what comes next.
As it happened, what came next was ice cream.
I know I have already mentioned ice cream, so forgive me if—for just a second—I retread old ground. Because this time it was much less about the eating and much more about the atmosphere. It was jovial. It was fun. And most of all, it involved Olive and Norma interacting in a way that I hadn’t seen: like an invisible rope was strung between them, pulling them together.
“I feel like we just got away with some
thing big,” Norma said, laughing, as if she’d been part of our human lesson all along. A chocolate-cherry ice cream cone melted slowly in her hand. “Never in a million years would I think to do that.”
Olive took another bite of her coconut ice cream, putting down the spoon. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Not at all,” Norma said, finishing off her cone. “Your brain just works a little different. There’s power in that. Now that Leonard’s officially your cat, though—no one’s responded to the posters I’ve put up—I think I have a right to know if you’ve got any other plans with him. No skydiving, mountain climbing, sneaking into the grocery store at two in the morning?”
“I think Leonard would like the grocery store.”
Norma wiped her hands with a napkin until they were mostly clean. “I don’t doubt it.”
“And I . . . I might have promised him that we’d go bowling.”
“Promised him?” Norma said, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile.
Olive covered her tracks. “I mean, you know—I promised myself. That I’d take him. In a normal way.”
An ocean breeze cut by our picnic table, swirling the humans’ hair. A few crane flies dipped and dived behind us; Olive placed a hand over her bowl, just in case one got curious. At the same time, Norma squared her shoulders and said, “I’m glad that you and Leonard are becoming so close. I know it’s—well, it isn’t always easy making new friends.”
“It seems easy for everyone else,” Olive said, not impolitely—more like a statement of fact. “I just don’t know how to be cool.”
Norma chortled. “Sailor, you’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t know anyone as cool as you. What other eleven-year-old knows about the transfiguration of ghost crabs, right off the top of her head?” She paused. “Did I ever tell you about my first time on a shrimp boat?”
Olive shook her head.
“Well,” Norma said, “shrimping wasn’t exactly a ‘female’ business. It was ‘man’s work.’ That’s what they told me, when I got my first job: that some of the crew might not take too kindly to it, working alongside a woman. Especially a woman of color. My sea legs were good, and I had a nice handle on when to drop the nets, when to bring them in. But I wasn’t confident when people started talking about me, saying this and that. At first, I was so afraid of what they’d think of me—that they’d call me weird, or worse.”
“Some people call me a weirdo,” Olive admitted.
“Those are just people who haven’t found out what they love,” Norma said.
The two of them, they were having what humans call “a moment.” While I was privileged to be a part of it, I almost felt as if I was intruding. Most cats might not acknowledge this—the human need for privacy—but I wasn’t most cats. I gave them a bit of space, my leash extending into the grasses surrounding the picnic table. But as my nose followed several scent trails, I kept looking back at them: these people. This little family.
Olive made a funny noise with her throat, not quite clearing it. “Remember when I asked you about taking a trip? And you said we could go somewhere for a day?”
“Sure thing. Did you pick a place? How about Hilton Head?”
My chest clenched as Olive blurted it out, words blending into one. “How-about-Yellowstone?”
Norma quirked her head. “Yellowstone?”
“Yellowstone National Park.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Well,” Olive said, “can we maybe . . . go at the end of the month?”
“Are you yanking my chain?” Norma asked, snorting out the words.
Olive winced. “I have some money saved up—in my piggy bank, under my bed at home. I could pay you back at Christmas. And I could do chores for you. Clean your motorcycle, or give Stanley a bath, or . . . or anything. Anything you wanted me to do. Every summer, and over the holidays, and—”
Norma flattened her palm to the air. “Hang on a second. Where’s this coming from?”
“I . . . just want to go to Yellowstone to see the . . . you know, the bison.”
“The bison? I’m not traveling halfway across the country for some bison.”
“But they’re . . . endangered?”
“What’s this really about?” Norma said, losing her patience a little.
“I just want to go,” Olive said. “That’s all.”
“Well. . .” Norma fidgeted, like her feelings were a bit hurt. Didn’t it seem as if Olive was rejecting their summer plans? “It’s out of the question. I have loads of work to do, the sea turtles are hatching soon, and we’ve got a good thing going on at the aquarium. You’re having a nice summer, like I promised your mom. We’re sticking to the schedule. Besides, even if we could go, where would we stay? I’m not even sure if my truck could make it that far. And my motorcycle’s out of the question, not for such a long trip.”
“I just think—”
“You’re not thinking,” Norma said, cutting her off. “Because you’re eleven, and you don’t understand.”
It was like the air froze and my fur was suddenly cold. But what could I do? Jump in and say something? Tell Norma that Olive was acting kindly on my behalf—that she understood more at eleven than I did at three hundred? No. No, that would expose me. But still, it was incredibly difficult to stomach the expression on Olive’s face, her dimples un-dimpling.
She pushed away the rest of her bowl. “I’m not really hungry anymore.”
“Then let’s pack it in,” Norma said.
So we went. And I wondered with an increasing sense of terror if—after this, after everything I was costing Olive—I’d get stuck on Earth after all.
The next day was uncomfortable, to say the least. Everything was quiet. Quiet breakfast, quiet ride in Norma’s truck. On the way to the aquarium, Olive was whispering to me, pointing out sights in Turtle Beach: a stand for saltwater taffy, the little bookstore and its window displays, the miniature golf course dotted with windmills.
Norma just drove.
In the parking lot, she retied the bandanna around her neck, straightening herself out. “Keep your wits about you,” she said as a reminder. “Today’s penguin day, so it might get a little wild.”
This was very much the case. Four groups of sunburned tourists were waltzing through the shark tunnel, and the gift shop was overflowing with customers. They clutched their sea lion mugs, their faux otter backpacks. Glistening bouncy balls thwacked against the cool tile floor. Norma, Olive, and I skirted through the crowd, deflecting comments from passersby: “Mommy, Mommy, a cat!” “Hey, look, it’s a kitty.” “What in the—?”
You’d think they’d never seen a feline before! We were right by the jellyfish tank, too; I wasn’t nearly the oddest creature in this place.
Finally, we saw Q, who shouted over the crowd, “How are you with penguins?” He was dressed in a wet suit, which is what humans call a constricting rubber tube with cylinders for arms and legs. I did not want one. It was the first time that I was relieved—well and truly relieved—to not wear an item of clothing.
He gestured to a door behind us. “There are some rubber boots in the back. I’m afraid I couldn’t find any in Leonard’s size, but yours should do. Suit up, partner! I’ll meet you back here in five. Leonard can watch us from the window with Norma, if he wants.”
“Watch us do what?” Olive asked, excitement creeping into her voice.
Q winked. “Guess you’ll have to find out.”
Penguins are not a species with which cats usually interact. Though there was an undeniable coolness to them—the way they ducked and dived and waddled. At the aquarium, they lived in a colony of twelve and spent a great deal of time swimming, lounging on the rocky shore, and eating bucket after bucket of anchovies. As Olive slipped into the back to change, passing my leash to Norma, I made my way to the exhibit area, letting the scent of salt guide us.
“What, you’re not hissing at them?” Norma asked me, settling by the enclosure. A few of the penguins were
pushing around a beach ball, and I couldn’t stop staring at them, with their tightly packed feathers, their speckled bellies, brightness around their eyes. “I thought all cats hissed at birds.”
It was the first time she’d spoken to me—really to me. The only thing I could think to do was rub the side of my face against her calf, my tail sky-high and jittering. This seemed the right response, because she bent down for a second, smoothing the fur of my back.
Olive and Q emerged soon after, wearing rubber boots and carrying buckets in their hands. Something about them was very much like Yellowstone rangers. They looked professional; in control of the situation. I hadn’t realized that I could read lips, but I could see Q whispering to her: “You’re doing great. Now, we’ve got a nice fishy breakfast for these fellas. All I got this morning was Frosted Flakes, but whew! They’re lucky.”
The penguins rushed over to Olive with quick waddles. She couldn’t stop smiling as she tossed them sardines, anchovies, and squid. They ate eagerly with massive gulps: a much more efficient way to consume food. (Humans should take note.)
“She’s a natural,” Norma said to the air—and she was right. Olive looked at home out there with the animals, in her overalls and rubber boots. And it occurred to me, in that flash of a moment, exactly what I could do for her—how I could make up for the worry and the stress, her fight with Norma and the nights of staying up late, mapping out possible routes to Yellowstone. I was asking so much and giving so little.
Now, I would give.
Olive had told me once: I’d do just about anything to have a conversation with a penguin. Well, I couldn’t give her that—not exactly. But I could already tell that the penguins were intrigued by me—their black eyes were flickering, wandering in my direction, and they were asking one another, A cat? One of them said: No, no.
Intelligent birds, indeed.
It didn’t take terribly long to figure it out: their system of braying and vocal communication is startlingly similar to a cat’s, if cats were crossed with the common seagull. The key was in the throat, vibrating it just so, while throwing my head back at a sharp angle.
Leonard (My Life as a Cat) Page 8