The Third Cat Story Megapack: 25 Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New

by Damien Broderick

  Bambi, a tiny thing, needed special pedals to shift and brake the damn Peterbilt. Oh, it was a nice truck. Her stepfather had tried to woo her affections away from her father by providing this alternative livelihood. Her real father had paid her way all through the New School, but what good was that? There was no money in Social Work.

  Not that truck driving paid much better. But her stepfather had willed the truck to her mother, and those two had been killed, together, in a different truck, a Ford pickup carrying rutabagas. Her stepfather had died instantly, and so her mother inherited the Peterbilt. Her mother, unfortunately, was mentally impaired by a head injury, and had spent her last fifteen years collecting stray cats.

  Bambi hated cats. They smelled, they rubbed their nasty little noses up against you, and they tried to crawl into bed with you and sit on your chest. They confused Bambi with her mother, and when her mother died, Bambi shooed them all into the garage, turned on the car engine, and came back four hours later with a roll of garbage bags.

  * * * *

  The purple kitten angel was so frightened at the huge glaring eyes and the roar of—what? A dog the size of God’s throne?—that it lost control of its bladder.

  The huge eyes loomed bigger and bigger and finally the kitten flattened its ears and squinched close its turquoise eyes and prepared for pain and death. Again.

  The first time the kitten angel had been killed, it had attempted to fly from a third story window. Ordinarily, it might have survived such a fall, but the hummingbird it was chasing had risen up from a reflecting pond that the apartment window overlooked. The kitten angel had fallen into the pond, been stunned momentarily, and drowned. Such is the short life of careless kittens.

  Somehow, the kitten angel had always, from birth, assumed it could fly. That was why it was such a disappointment when Bastael had snipped off its wings.

  So now, at the last minute, the kitten angel moved its shoulder blades and tried to flap its phantom wings.

  But it was no use. The two devil-dog lights were upon it, and the roar and jitter drowned its senses.

  * * * *

  So it was surprised, when the growling diminished, to discover itself still on the pavement, albeit in a warm pungent puddle. It couldn’t be back in heaven. If you had an accident in heaven, the heavenly pavement would just sop it up and convert it to cloud-vapor, odorless and light as steam.

  So the kitten angel knew it was still on earth. It unfolded from its crouching position and shook each paw. None of them hurt, although all four were damp.

  It sneaked a look at where the glowing eyes had gone. They had turned into red eyes, small red eyes, glowing in the dark. They hovered motionless, then slowly moved back toward the kitten angel.

  This time the kitten angel didn’t hesitate—it ran for the grass and crouched down. Should it run into the thicket beyond the ditch? Perhaps worse monsters lurked there.

  So it watched, fascinated, as the big truck—the kitten now remembered about trucks, having seen some on its way from the pound to Elvira’s home—stopped.

  A human got out.

  The kitten angel thought humans were supposed to be friendly, at least the non-cat-eating breed of human.

  This one was small for a human, and wore red leather pants, a pair of yellow glasses, a cap that said NYPD, and a pink fuzzy sweater.

  “Something in the road,” this human said to itself.

  The kitten angel squinched down, just its ears and eyes showing above the edge of the ditch.

  “Kittykittykitty,” said the human, and made wriggling motions with her fingers.

  (It must be a she human, judging by the earrings. Big gold hoops.)

  The angel kitten had never been able to resist wriggling fingers. Moreover, the human smelled interesting. Lavender, smoke, and a touch of tuna salad sandwich.

  So, the angel kitten crept out of the grass and sniffed the human’s fingers delicately.

  Tuna salad sandwich. Definitely.

  Like Elvira.

  So the kitten stroked its whiskers along the human’s red leather pant legs, which also smelled good, although the kitten had never smelled leather before, except on people’s shoes.

  It had been taught by its mother that the way to colonize humans is to rub one’s scent on them, so you can identify them again in case they change clothing. This doesn’t really work, because when they change clothing, the fresh clothes won’t have one’s scent, but the kitten and his mother didn’t know that.

  Next, you look unutterably cute.

  The proper way to do this is to look up with your eyes as wide as possible, cocking your head to one side, and raise one paw as if to shake hands.

  “Aren’t you adorable,” said the human. “Just freaking adorable.”

  And the angel kitten felt a hand scoop under its belly and lift it into the air.

  The technique of imprinting humans at this point requires a deep, satisfied, trusting purr. The angel kitten tuned up and gave forth: prrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRR.

  “Yeeesss,” said the human. “Out here trying to grow up and make more adorable little kittens. The humane society would adopt you out, and no doubt somebody would promise oh so sincerely to neuter you. But Auntie Bambi has her own kitty birth control plan. Although I do hate to get my pillow case all bloody.”

  The kitten felt there was something in these words that should alert it to danger, and it stopped purring.

  For a moment, it did consider scratching the human and running into the woods. But who knew what was in those woods? Dogs, maybe, or more trucks with big glowing eyes.

  “Wait,” said the human, as she got closer to the truck. “What color are you?”

  She held the kitten angel in front of the headlights of the truck.

  “Purple? What the freaking blazes kind of color is purple for a cat? Oh, I see, somebody dyed you.”

  The kitten angel thought dyed meant killed, and it started to get really scared. It struggled, but the human had its back paws firmly in her right hand, and no matter how it twisted, it couldn’t get at her bare skin to attack.

  “No, wait. That isn’t dye. Damn if you’re not purple. Let me think about this.”

  She climbed up into the truck and forced the kitten into a cardboard box.

  “Shall I take you to a breeder to see if you’re worth something as a stud cat or a breeding female? That would mean more cats in the world. There might be money in it, though. Or, I could just take you straight to the taxidermist.”

  “Breeder? Taxidermist? Breeder? Taxidermist?” She kept that litany up as she drove away.

  * * * *

  The dark, cold room smelled of something that the kitten knew was bad. It was the stuff that dripped out of the bottom of the truck. The human called Bambi dipped a rag in some of that stuff and rubbed the kitten’s fur. Then she muttered, “I’ll be damned. It’s real.”

  The stuff on the kitten’s fur burned, and it licked at it. But it tasted horrible and made it sneeze, so it just avoided that part of its fur when it bathed from then on.

  Every so often Bambi would come in and give the kitten some more water and some food. The food was sometimes good, sometimes horrible. It seemed to be people food. Sometimes the kitten got the remains of a sandwich. It could eat the meat part, and sometimes it got so hungry it would eat the bread, but the sharp, sour stuff on the bread hurt its tongue, and was hard to nibble around.

  Once there was a long time between foods. The kitten cried after a while, its belly hurt so much. The human called Bambi came in and shook its cage hard, and the kitten bounced around and bruised its jaw. After that, it didn’t cry when it was hungry.

  After a very long time, a small human came in the garage. The kitten had learned that small humans were sometimes dangerous, but easier to charm. So it meowed as prettily as it could, and when the small human came over, it rubbed its face against the fingers the small human stuck in the cage.

  “Oooh, way cute!” said the small human. “My name is Tre
vin. Oh, look, you’re purple! I never knew cats came in that color. Is your name Purple?”

  Purple. That was a good name. Certainly easier to remember than Joseph Patrick Michael Thomas Stephen Jesus-Marie Francis Antony Benedict Anselm John Edward, which took forever to say, and therefore meant the kitten got to its food dish (back when it was a pre-angelic kitten) way before the food arrived. Purple.

  Purple purred loudly and patted the small human Trevin on the back of his hand.

  “I bet Aunty is going to give you to me for my birthday,” said Trevin. “Would you like to be my kitty?”

  Purple turned up the volume on the purr up to frantic.

  “Here, kitty. See, this is my helicopter. Want to see it fly?”

  A bird sprang from the boy’s hands. No, not a bird. A flashing, sparkling thing, delicious to spring upon. Forgetting hunger and thirst, Purple stood on hind legs and pawed at the cage bars. If only! If only! It was the most beautiful, it danced in the air, it need to be swatted down—

  It flew back to the boy’s hands.

  “Better not let on that I saw you. My birthday isn’t until November. Ooo, I can hardly wait.”

  The garage door rolled up. Trevin looked startled and darted out through the side door.

  * * * *

  The light from the sun dazzled Purple’s eyes. Purple felt its cage being lifted up, and it was suddenly in a light-drenched, chilly open space. Birds chirped, wheedling to be played with. Green leaves waved above. Then the cage, with Purple, lurched out into cold, windy space.

  “Where?” asked Purple repeatedly. It sounded more like “Gneyrrr?” but there was nobody around to answer its question, so it didn’t matter.

  After a long cold bumpy ride, Purple again felt the cage lift up. It swayed as it was carried into a dark, smelly place. Some dead things were in here, and also some sharp non-animal smells.

  A male human voice said, “Bambi, you old whore. What you got there? I thought you hated cats.”

  “I do, you foul-mouthed old fool. You know that ugly swordfish you’ve got over the tool bench in your garage? That Eleanor won’t let you bring in the house?”

  “I could bring it in if I wanted. I like it out there.”

  “Whatever! Can you give me the number of the taxidermist that did that fish for you?”

  “Sure! He’s in the directory: Tex Tackle and Taxidermy, I think. You’re not planning to have that cat—”

  “MYOB, Orville. I don’t tell Eleanor about your Thursday night movie club, you don’t ask about my cat.”

  Somebody picked the cage up and plunked it down hard. A bright light made Purple blink. A very old human with breath that smelled like rotten smoked meat peered in the cage. “Bambi, did you spray-paint this kitten?”

  “Orville, I swear, you keep butting in my affairs, I’ll tell Eleanor what kind of movies you and your old fart buddies watch.”

  * * * *

  Purple grabbed on with its claws as the human woman swung the cage back into the bed of the pickup. The truck jolted along until she came to another stop. She came around to the back and looked in at Purple. Purple still liked her gold earrings. They would be fun to bat around. But the rest of her wasn’t very nice. Purple wondered if she was going to let that small human play with it. That could be good or bad.

  There had been a long word that worried Purple for a moment: taxidermist. But Purple had a short attention span, and forgot about anything except that the cage was getting insanely boring. Several times, Purple had seen flies that were just beyond reach. Also, it hadn’t had a chance to dash around knocking things over for about a hundred years. Purple wanted to run and roll and catch things with its claws.

  Just about the time Purple had gotten interested in some ants it could see in the bed of the truck, the human came back, this time with a female human with a smooth face. She smelled like hand lotion with a lot of cat smells, too. She put a finger inside the cage, and Purple rubbed his chin on it.

  “Mrs. Russolini, my sense of humor is wearing thin today. Someone has obviously done something to this poor animal, and I’m about ready to report you to the ASPCA.” The smooth face loomed closer to the cage, and Purple slowly closed and opened its eyes. “My, that is an unusual color for a cat’s eyes. You didn’t do anything to its eyes, did you? Like put food coloring in them?”

  Bambi said, “The cat is actually purple. I tried to wash it off, but it’s in the fur.”

  The smooth faced woman nodded, “I see you did. With gasoline. I wonder the poor thing is still alive.”

  The cage came suddenly open and Purple tried to make a dash for it. There was a smell of other cats, lots of them. Cats to hide among.

  The smooth-faced woman had strong hands. She lifted Purple’s tail, which tickled. “It’s a male, incidentally. The answer is, I’ll take this kitten off your hands and make sure it gets a good home. I won’t breed it, though. It looks healthy, but my queens are all champions and I can’t breed them with another champion after they’ve been bred to a mongrel.”

  “So how much will you give me for it?”

  “Twenty dollars. And that’s only because I’m afraid of what will happen to it if I don’t take it.”

  “Please don’t insult me,” said Bambi. “You’ll undoubtedly mate it and make your first million that way. Think of what happened to the breeders that got that ugly skin-disease cat breed started.”

  “Sphynxes? Please, Mrs. Russolini! This is entirely different. This cat is a stray. I have no idea what genetic defects it might have. But I won’t let you abuse—”

  Suddenly Purple felt four hands on its body, each pair tugging in a different direction. It bit down, hard, on the closest finger.

  “Demon!” said the smooth-faced woman.

  Purple felt himself being shoved back into the cage. He circled around and around, hissing and lashing his tail. He was really scared.

  * * * *

  After the truck started moving again, Purple calmed down and mulled over what he had just heard.

  He was a male. He hadn’t been sure he was male. He thought maybe he was, but this woman must know. She seemed to know a lot about cats. Being male was nice. He would get to spray all over stuff and sometimes jump on other cats and bite their necks. That would be fun. He forgot all about that new word, taxidermist.

  * * * *

  After a lot of lurching and bumping, the truck stopped again. Bambi came around the back of the truck with a big paper that she unfolded and unfolded and unfolded. She spread the paper out on the fender and pulled out a white tube. She put fire to the tube and made a smell that made Purple cough.

  “I thought Route 224 joined up 360 around here, but what the hell. I can’t take the eighteen-wheeler on these blue highways, so I don’t remember. What are you looking at?” She pushed her face at Purple and he darted away, to the back of the cage.

  “The taxidermist seems to be in Baconsburg, but where the hell is Baconsburg? Doesn’t sound kosher.”

  Purple was thinking he would like some water, since he hadn’t had any since he’d been taken from the garage, and the small human named Trevin. Every so often he had made a mistake and put his tongue on the place Bambi had rubbed the gasoline, so his tongue really needed water.

  Bambi inhaled deeply on the white tube and blew smoke at Purple. He tried to catch the smoke, but it wasn’t like heavenly clouds, which you could play with. “Jesus Mary Joseph, I don’t feel so hot. I’m probably allergic to cats.” She started coughing.

  She coughed for a long time. Then she lit up another white tube and smoked, coughing. Finally, she sat down on the gravel by the truck.

  “Just let me rest a moment.”

  She laid her head against the rubbery round thing and closed her eyes.

  * * * *

  Purple didn’t think Bambi was planning to be particularly good to him, but she had given him the remains of several tuna sandwiches, and some water. Now he wanted both of those things. He would purr very loudly if
only Bambi would get up and take him back to the garage with the water.

  Purring didn’t seem to do much good.

  * * * *

  Purple got very cold after a while. He curled up in the tiniest ball he could and went to sleep. When he woke up, he was very very thirsty, and still cold.

  Then after a while he got very hot, as the bright sun shone in his cage. He tried to get into some shade, but the sun followed him wherever he went.

  He heard big monsters passing on the road. He decided these must be like the monster that had brought Bambi, or possibly like the small truck in which she had been traipsing him around.

  He forgot about being hungry, but he was very thirsty. The temptation to groom off that patch of gasoline from his flank went away completely.

  * * * *

  Then, as he was lying in the bottom of the cage with his sides heaving and his eyes stuck shut, a loud wailing noise came. It was like a meow, but it would have had to come from a tiger-cat at least twenty times as big as Purple.

  Red and blue lights flashed and a dark shadow passed briefly over the cage.

  “Looks dead, all right,” said a deep human voice. “Too bad somebody didn’t call it in earlier.”

  “Aw, you know, trucks parked along here all the time. She’s not visible from the road.”

  Meeeee! shrieked Purple. But humans don’t have very good hearing, and Purple’s voice was rusty from thirst.

  “Anybody reported her missing?”

  “I’ll check.” Sounds of feet moving to and from the other big monster. “Yeah, her sister-in-law called it in. Victim’s named Bambi Russolini. Said the eight-year-old nephew wondered why she hadn’t come back.”

  Large hands, smelling harsh and clean, opened the cage and grabbed Purple by the scruff. A large face, half covered with black, curly fur, said, “What the heck is this?”

  Purple saw his chance. He dug in with his back claws and swiped with his front. The large hands dropped him. He landed, dazed for a fraction of a second, on his feet, then darted, dodging between big, heavy boots, toward the woods.

  * * * *