by Ingrid Lee
The cat was all business. First, she lathered her good right paw with spit and burnished her rose-petal nose. She scrubbed her ear inside and out, and smoothed the top of her head. She wiped the crusty bits from her eyes. Then she wet her left back paw and washed the other side of her face. With her tongue, she slicked her shoulders, her legs, under her tail, her flanks. She saved the bib beneath her chin for last. By the time she was done grooming, the white patch was as bright and fluffy as a summer cloud.
Finally she stood up. Her eyes gave Billy a look warmer than honey mustard. Well, she seemed to say. What do you think?
Billy was starstruck.
Was it the same cat? The layers of soot were gone. Shiny splashes of ink decorated her bronze pelt. There were black rings around her legs and tail. And it could have been his grandmother’s best lace collar tucked under her chin.
She wasn’t a grimy gray stray anymore. She was some kind of African queen.
“Cat,” Billy whispered. He reached over and touched one pink ear. “You should open a beauty parlor.”
He stopped lacing his shoes and rummaged in the closet until he found a box. He dumped out the cleats and lined the box with a sweatshirt — a big soft one with a hood. “You need a new bed,” he said. “My dad got this hoodie for me in the city. That’s a panther on the back.”
The cat inspected Billy’s efforts. She jumped in the box and rubbed the folds with her whiskers. She kneaded the sleeves, and chewed the label loose. When the shirt was arranged to her satisfaction, she curled into a crease and closed her eyes.
Billy watched her for a long time.
After dinner, Billy emptied his money jar. He went to the pet supply store on Main Street. “I’ve got a cat,” he told the saleslady. “I need litter and some food, too. What can I buy for under six dollars?”
A girl stacking shelves was watching him. Billy turned away from her glittery eyes.
The pet store lady took down the cheapest box of kibble and a bag of cat litter. She watched Billy count out his small change. He had just enough. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Billy,” he answered. “Billy Reddick.”
“Here, Billy,” she said on his way out. She held out a can. “There’s a special today: one can of premium food with every purchase.”
After Billy left, the girl stacking jars of fish flakes scoffed, “Joxie, you’ll never get rich if you give your stuff away.”
“Now, Salome Davies,” the pet store lady said to her assistant, “don’t you be giving me lectures. You’re a member of the richest family in town. And money never made you happy. And it never made your grandmother happy, either. That’s why the two of you get along so well. You’ve both got other reasons to find joy. Trouble is, you haven’t figured yours out yet.”
Salome rolled her glittery eyes.
Billy liked having the cat in his room. The cat liked it, too. Or at least he thought she did. Nighttimes were the best. Billy’s apartment was on the top floor of a three-story building. His bedroom window overlooked the backyard. Every night after his mom and dad went to sleep, Billy shoved up the glass pane and sat on the wide sill. He held the cat in his lap. Together they watched the moon polish the branches of the old poplars. They listened to the new leaves talking.
For a few nights, the cat perched stiffly in Billy’s arms. She wasn’t all that sure about fresh air. Then one evening, she made herself at home. Her bronze coat spread over Billy’s lap, richer than a royal robe. She dangled her fancy tail off the edge of the sill and let the evening breezes comb the tip. She started to purr.
The first time Billy heard the throaty rattle, he didn’t know what it was. He thought someone had switched on a fan. “Cat,” he whispered, once he had figured it out. “You’ve got a nice motor. But I hope that’s all the noise you know how to make. If my dad catches you in my room, it’ll mean trouble. He doesn’t like cats. Nobody in this town likes cats. You guys have too many brothers and sisters, and too many uncles and aunts. You don’t respect property rights. You party all night long. The lady next door says you can even steal a baby’s breath.”
The cat chewed Billy’s pajama button.
“Cat,” Billy said. “I remember when my mom and dad used to talk instead of yell. One summer we all went down to the river on a fishing trip. My dad showed me how to build a boat out of wood. We sailed that boat right down to the bridge by the old mill. My mom brought along a picnic lunch that day. There was potato salad. She peeled the potatoes herself.”
The cat took a swipe at a passing moth.
“Cat,” Billy said. He stroked her white bib. “Cat, who threw you away?”
THREE
Salome Davies slipped out of her bedroom window.
She climbed down the trumpet vine and ran across the front lawn. Anybody on Main Street looking through the fence toward the ritzy house wouldn’t see the girl. Her clothes were dark. A black cap covered her silver hoop earrings. Anybody looking wouldn’t see more than a wisp of night air.
Salome was in a hurry. Her grandmother had stayed up late, full of conversation, and she couldn’t steal away. Now the night was half over. She darted through the gate by the far edge of the rose garden.
A row of streetlights cast a weak glow across the sidewalks. Main Street looked deserted, but Salome wasn’t taking any chances. She ducked into the alley along the side of the hardware store. The store looked much the same as all the other two-story buildings on Main Street. Every one of them had upstairs rooms. Salome grabbed the first rung of the fire escape near the back of the alley and climbed silently past the second-floor apartment.
“Rats,” Salome cursed. The tenant who lived above the hardware shop had his lights on late. He was always building something. She timed her steps past his landing to match the light knock of his hammer. Once she’d climbed the fire escape, she began to jog across the rooftops, weaving through a jungle of air conditioners and antennae, and circling the odd chimney. At each alley she upped her pace and jumped the gap.
She was as sure-footed as any cat.
When she reached the alley next to Billy’s three-story apartment building, Salome stopped. The building across the way loomed above her. There was no way to jump up the extra story to the top.
Her toes inched beyond their perch on the roof edge. Lifting her arms, she pushed her palms flat against the night air and straightened her spine. She focused on the fire escape zigzagging up the side of the apartment building. Then she tipped into space.
Her body did the bridge work.
As soon as her fingers latched onto the diagonal struts of the fire-escape rail across the alley, Salome swung her body through the breach. Her feet hit the bottom of the rail hard, and for a moment her back bowed outward like a sail in the breeze, her hands and feet pressing into the cold metal. Finally she jumped lightly to the landing. After that, it was an easy climb up the iron stairs to the roof of the apartment building.
From the top, Salome could see the town in all directions. Only the small dome of City Hall across the street and the boarded-up bell tower of the chapel blocked her view. She walked to the back edge of the apartment roof for a look at the yard, but when she stuck out her head, she got quite a surprise. A boy sat in a window right under her nose. He had a cat in his lap. The boy was so close, he and Salome could have had a conversation.
Billy didn’t know that Salome was looking down on him. He didn’t hear anything. And his cat wasn’t telling. Both of them were too interested in the drama down in the apartment yard.
The gray tom hunched under the lilac bush.
“Must be a tasty prey,” Billy whispered to his cat. “It’s put that tom under a spell.”
The tom’s eyes narrowed away from the light of the moon. His ears scoped the quiet. A tiny shuffle in the grass was drawing all his attention. Slowly he began to creep forward, scraping his lean haunches over the wet grass. When the vole broke cover and skittered for a drainpipe, he let rip.
“The mouse
is gonna make it!” Billy whispered.
Ten feet above, Salome rolled her eyes. The kid was so wrong.
The tom honed in on its prey. His paws skimmed over the ground. When the vole swerved, the cat swerved, as if they were hitched to the same string. Inches from the drain, the cat pounced. When he slammed to a stop, his claws were full of felted flesh.
“Wow!” Billy breathed. “That’s one good hunter!”
The cat on Billy’s lap sank her claws into his pajamas. Her amber eyes glittered. She knew more than Billy did.
Salome smirked. At least that kid had got something right. She backed away from the edge of the roof and returned to running rooftops. At the alley next to the chapel, she grabbed a thick mulberry branch and swung onto the shingles of the little church. When the tom came home, she was waiting.
The tom ignored the girl on the roof. He jumped down from the wooden fence into the chapel yard with his trophy. Gently he placed the limp carcass on the table of brown dirt. He organized the tiny limbs, pushing them into place, prodding the soft body into a neat mound. Then he began to eat. He ate from one end to the other, as if the vole were a stick of licorice. The tail made a lip-smacking finish.
Salome saluted the tom from her perch on the chapel roof before crawling under a loose board in the bell tower. She had her own game inside the church, so it wasn’t long before the stained glass above the chapel door began to glow. Lucky none of the people out late at night on Main Street noticed the rosy blush above their heads. People out at that time had better things to think about.
Besides, the bell in the tower was long gone.
Nobody in Clydesdale looked up anymore.
FOUR
Billy’s folks didn’t suspect he had a cat.
His room was leftover space. Nobody else used the hall past the utility room. When his mom wanted Billy, she yelled from the kitchen. And if his dad wanted something, it didn’t matter where he was. He yelled right there.
Billy was a smart boy. He did his best to keep the cat a secret.
Cat hair was a problem — it seemed to stick to his clothes until he was more cat than boy. When the time looked right, Billy said to his mom, “I’m old enough to go to the laundromat on my own. Can I have some change for the machines?” Billy was careful with the litter tray, too. Every morning he wrapped the used litter in plastic and carted it away in his schoolbag. And he stuck to his old habits. He tried not to run to his room when he came home from school. He left some supper on his plate, and swiped it later when no one was looking. And he kept his room the way he always kept it.
Messy.
Billy and the cat had more fun than a barrel of monkeys in all the clutter. Billy made up games. He tied an eraser to a string. When he dragged the toy between his shoes, the cat skittered after it. She pounced on the soft rubber. At other times he stalked the cat through the legs of his bed. He poked the rings on her tail or the spots on her back.
If Billy forgot to watch out, the cat got even. She ambushed his hand. Or she untied his shoelaces.
One day he made a paper airplane and flew it across the room. The cat brought it back and dropped it at his feet. Billy was so impressed that he got down on the floor to thank her properly. “Good girl,” he said. He ran his hand over her bronze coat and let her backbone cup his hand. Then he threw the airplane again. By the time the game was over, the plane was a damp ball of crumpled paper. “Cat,” Billy said. He lay down on the floor so they were eye to eye. “Cat, do you think you’re a dog?”
When Billy went to school, the cat explored his room. She got into the seat of Billy’s jeans, and hid in the drawers of the dresser. One day he found her peeking out of a rubber rain boot. There was nothing she couldn’t get inside.
Nothing but his lunch box.
That lunch box put the cat in a snit. It was made of tin, with a latch that slipped sideways. Whenever Billy left the box in his room, the cat turned it into homework. She could have written a test, she studied it so much. One day when Billy took out his math textbook, the smell of his leftover tuna sandwich drove her crazy. She scraped her cheek along the side of the pail and tapped the latch with her paws. She scratched at the corners. Then she crouched down low and glared at the box with her butt up. She stayed that way for a long time.
Maybe she thought the lunch box would sprout legs and take off.
Billy worked on a math problem. If Mark had two and a quarter bars of chocolate and Kristen ate two-thirds, how much does Mark have left?
As far as Billy was concerned, Kristen had eaten more than her share. That was all anyone needed to know. He put down his pencil. “Here, cat,” he said. “I’ll show you how it works.” He pushed the latch of the lunch box sideways and swung open the top. He even offered her a bit of the old bread crust before he snapped the lid shut and got back to the math question.
The cat ignored the food. She kept watching the box. Finally she walked over and tipped it sideways. She tormented the latch with her paw. When that didn’t work, she shoved the box against the bed leg and pawed it some more. The next time Billy looked at her, she was sitting right in the box with a tuna crust in her mouth.
Billy pulled the cat onto his lap and watched her clean her paws. Her spit smelled like fish. “You’re one smart cat,” he said. “If you were a human, you could do my math homework. Anybody as smart as you needs a proper name.”
Billy had never named anything before. And the cat was special. She knew how to be quiet. She cleaned up after herself. And she liked his conversation. He had to think of a name that said all those things. “How about Dot?” he offered.
The cat slewed her golden eyes sideways. She climbed out of his lap. Her tail flicked the air.
Nope.
“Mabel?” Billy asked.
The cat closed her eyes and arched her ink-splattered back. She didn’t want a name for a smart cat. She didn’t want a name for a cat with manners.
Billy rubbed the hollow between her shoulder blades. He got down and grinned. “How about ‘Skinny Bones’?” he teased.
Humph! She didn’t rattle and clatter. She wasn’t a stack of sticks.
She slipped under the dresser.
Billy wracked his brains. He remembered the old comics in the wire rack at the newsstand. There was one called Conga, the Empress of Zar. On the cover the empress sat on a throne among her sons. She was dressed in a copper dress with splotches of black. A baby slept in her lap. There were leopards at her feet.
It was a good comic even if it was old. Billy had read the whole thing, standing there while the little Chinese lady watched him from behind the counter. The empress had inherited her empire as a girl. She and her people were forced into hiding by a raiding tribe. When she returned to reclaim her land, she led an army of wildcats ridden by her four young sons. They drove out the trespassers. From then on, the empire of Zar became strong and secret. It flourished away from predatory eyes. And no one ever found it again.
Billy poked his nose behind the dresser. The cat regarded him with eyes full of heavy syrup. “Hey,” Billy said. “How about I call you Conga?”
The cat poured out of her bed box. She rubbed her cheek against Billy’s ear. Her paw mussed his hair. Then she jumped to the windowsill so the sunset could set her pelt afire.
Conga.
She liked it.
FIVE
That night Billy and Conga had ringside seats to a brawl.
They were sitting on the windowsill watching the backyard when some eyes showed up. They hovered in the lilac shadows, green and blue flashlights, black-slitted, unblinking.
Up in Billy’s window, Conga tensed. Her tail swung as hard as a bug swatter. When Billy pulled her close, her whiskers pricked his chin.
“Ssss … t!” The eyes disappeared. Moments later, two cats sprang to the rim of the fence. They were pumped up, ragged as haystacks.
Get out! one squalled. This is my yard!
“Oroww!” the other yowled back. Make me!
&nb
sp; The toms were spoiling for a fight, their tails crooked like crowbars. They spat. They growled. Then they began screaming. When one held up a fist full of nails, they ran at each other. Scraps of fur flew into the eyes of the moon.
Billy held Conga firmly. “Stop that,” he whispered harshly at the whirling mess of claws and tails. “Stop, you two!”
The warning came too late. The kitchen light went on. Boots thundered onto the landing of the fire escape outside, close to Billy’s window. His dad was up!
Billy grabbed Conga and ducked back into his room so fast he knocked his noggin on the frame. He pressed his back against the wall. Conga squirmed in his arms, but he gripped her close to his chest. Below him the backyard wailed like a roomful of hungry babies.
His dad leaned over the railing. “Shaddup, you mangy, flea-bitten devils!” he cursed angrily. “Get outta here!”
Billy dared a sideways glance out the window. A boot gyrated through the air and hit the ground with a soft thud. When its mate slammed into the fence, the yard emptied. One of the cats dropped over into the next yard. The other drew a streak of silver across the grass.
It was the gray tom.
“Those cats are dead meat,” Billy’s dad muttered. He switched off the light and slammed the kitchen door behind him. Billy could hear him clomping back to bed.
“Conga, we’ve gotta watch out,” he whispered. “That’s my dad and he’s talking about you.” He carried his cat behind the dresser and stroked her neck hairs until they settled, smooth and shining. Then he closed the window and crawled into bed.
So did Conga.
When Billy woke up, she was draped over his head, all her engines going. One soft paw plugged his nose. A tail tickled his throat.
Billy didn’t move.
He just lay there wearing his cat as a hat.
SIX
Billy’s father, Walter Reddick, woke up in a foul mood. The catfight had spoiled his sleep. And worse luck, he needed his boots. He dragged a red-checked jacket over his old jogging suit and wrenched open the door to the landing. It was two flights of stairs to the backyard and he tromped down every one of them.