The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook

by Joanne Rocklin

  Like I said before, there used to be lavender and geraniums out here in big blue pots. My dad had planted them. He also planted yarrow and catmint in the wide cracks of the concrete for the stray cats to enjoy. He had big plans to put pink paving stones on top of the concrete. Big plans. But then life got in the way. Now yellow and purple flowers are bursting through those cracks, and it’s almost as nice as having pavers.

  Of course, it used to be much prettier back here when the big blue pots had lavender plants and geraniums in them. They all dried up, so someone threw them away. There’s only dirt in there now. Maybe the plants would have grown back if they’d had a chance. We could plant more, but my mom says we would need to buy fresh soil and fertilizer and water them regularly, which is hard to remember to do when life gets in the way. I clean out the cigarette butts every now and then.

  My mom and dad and Maria and Mario and I used to hang out here a lot. Freddy was little then, sitting on my mother’s lap. Freddy doesn’t really remember those times, not even the day we found Zook. But I tell him all about those special times, so he thinks he remembers. That’s why he loves it back here as much as I do.

  Anyway, cats still love it back here, too, because of that catmint, just like my dad said they would. Of course, they also like the mice at night and the O’Leary’s trash bins. The alley smells of cat pee, but we don’t mind. Cat pee isn’t a bad smell if you have a cat that you love.

  We lean our cardboard costumes against the wall, where someone has painted ELVIS LIVES in giant blue and red caps. Elvis Presley was a rock-and-roll star who died a long time ago. I’ve seen him on YouTube. Some people are convinced Elvis Presley is still alive, roaming around somewhere. They love him so much, they just can’t bear to say good-bye, my gramma tells us. Gramma Dee herself used to scream with joy when she heard him sing his famous songs about blue suede shoes and hound dogs. Riya thinks those are weird topics to sing about. But Riya has never had a pet she’s loved with all her heart.

  “Elvis lives!” reads Freddy.

  Freddy is so proud that he can read that all by himself, without a “rhymes with” or any other help from me. We sit down, leaning against the wall, me against the E, Fred against the L. We take long drinks from our water bottles. Then I pour all the money out of my hat. Ten quarters, eight dimes, three one-dollar bills, and the five-dollar bill that started it all.

  “Eleven dollars and thirty cents,” I say. I want to keep the money so much, even though I got it with the help of a yellow whopper. It just feels so good to have extra money in your pocket—ever notice?

  “That’s a lot of money,” says Freddy.

  “Let’s keep it a secret awhile, OK?” I say. “Promise?” I hunch over the money and turn my back so Salvatore and Manic Moe can’t see it.

  “Sure, I promise,” Freddy says. “I love secrets!”

  Then Fred asks a question I had a feeling he’d ask sooner or later. Except I guess I thought it would be later.

  “Oona, how many lives do human beans have?”

  “Only one. But don’t worry. It’s a long, long one.”

  My heart hurts, because that’s a whopper, too. A white one, but a big one for sure. Our dad did not have a long life. He died of cancer when he was thirty-one. Freddy blinks like he knows I’ve told a lie, but the dots aren’t all connected for him yet.

  And now I don’t feel like hearing more questions from Freddy. I just feel like telling him other whoppers, so he’ll feel better. Before he connects the dots and thinks about our dad.

  Because that’s my fourth job: telling stories to Freddy. My father’s stories.

  A wise, wise person (OK, our dad, the Great Rebus-Maker and Whopper-Teller) once told me that stories are whoppers, but in a good way. My father said there aren’t too many stories in the world, and he’d told me practically all of them. But you can tell the same stories over and over by making them different all the time. All you have to do is take pieces of the real world, then string them up in new ways to make a whole other world. My dad told me to do that. He told me to make the stories my own. That’s why stories are green whoppers, because they’re alive and growing and changing all the time.

  The whopper-teller feels good telling the stories. When my mom makes me wash my Raiders sweatshirt, I lose a little bit more of the smell of my dad. But I still have his stories.

  The whopper-getter feels good, too. And eats food of many colors and shapes. And doesn’t get real skinny and cry all the time, like he did when the Great Whopper-Teller disappeared forever.

  I hand Freddy the plate of fried zucchini. Then I start telling him about our cat Zook’s other lives.

  pull on my left ear, my story ear, like my father used to do. The ear he pulled when he used to say, “Hey, that reminds me of a story.”

  Fred leans close to me.

  “Once, long, long ago, maybe one hundred years ago or more, there was a fine, fat mother cat,” I say. “She lived on a faraway little island called Rebusina. Rebusina was famous for its artists, its olives, and its green vegetables and herbs, especially parsley and zucchini.”

  My dad’s stories took place in Rebusina, so mine do, too. I close my eyes so I can concentrate on the best story-making words, such as faraway, woe, befall, whence, and by and by. But I open them a crack to see if Fred is chewing. He is, so I continue.

  “One night, when you could see every single star in the sky and the olive groves shimmered in the moonlight, the mother cat gave birth to six kittens under a tree. The smallest one, blue-eyed and black as night, was born last, just as two shooting stars zoomed across the sky. And so it happened that the smallest kitten arrived with two extra toes on each paw, for a grand total of twenty-six. The mother cat didn’t care about those extra toes. What’s an extra toe or two? Twenty-six toes don’t help you dash up an olive tree any better than eighteen, as far as she could tell.

  “‘I have the same amount of love for all my kittens,’ she said. ‘OK, maybe I love some a little less than others, but only on the days of the week when they get into scrapes. By the end of the week, it ALWAYS evens out.’”

  “Hey, that’s what Mom tells us,” says Fred.

  I open my eyes. “Try to hold your comments and questions till I’m done so I can concentrate, OK? Anyway, lots of mothers say that.

  “Every living thing was happy on the island of Rebusina. People burst into song for no reason at all, dancing around the farms as they farmed, like in one of those Broadway musicals. In their spare time, they played musical instruments and painted pictures. They were all kind to one another. Crops grew tall, trees blossomed, insects buzzed, and all the animals did what they were supposed to do—for instance, give milk, run fast, catch mice, whatever. The mother cat’s six kittens grew big and strong.

  “By and by, something terrible befell the island. There was a drought, a horribly severe one. Rain was badly needed, because everything began withering and drooping in the fields and the groves. The Rebusinians had less to eat and became hungry and grumpy. They stopped having fun. Animals slept more than usual because they were all tired out from looking for food. Butterflies and bees hid.

  “The people asked their queen what to do. The queen asked the advice of her Royal Adviser, the villainous Victor. The villainous Victor had a boa constrictor coiled up like a long braid down his back. Whenever advice was needed, the boa constrictor uncoiled itself and hissed smart things into the villainous Victor’s ear. Victor, of course, took all the credit. The queen also consulted the young Prince Fredericko and Princess Oonella. But this time, no one knew what to do, even the boa constrictor.

  “Then one morning Prince Fredericko woke up and shouted, ‘What a dream I had last night! I dreamt I found a message in a pill bottle, which was floating in the Royal Bathtub. It may tell us how to solve our problem!’

  “He wrote down the message on a piece of parchment.”

  I draw a rebus on my pad.

  “OK, try this,” I say.

  “L-o-o
-k,” reads Fred. “Look.”

  “That’s it. Go on.”

  “Look 4 … Look for! Look for the 26… What’s this supposed to be?”

  “A crow.”

  “Look for the twenty-six crows?”

  “Right.”

  I put my rebus-making stuff in my pocket, and Freddy and I start walking out of the alley while I tell the rest of the story.

  “So the queen ordered the villainous Victor to crisscross the island looking for twenty-six crows.

  “‘I deserve a medal for this,’ Victor said on his return. ‘It was hard tracking down twenty-six, but here they are.’

  “Victor released the crows from their cages and they swooped around the Great Main Hall of the castle, and also the smaller, minor halls. Those crows made a HUGE mess. After a week of messes in the castle, nothing had changed in Rebusina.

  “‘Whence came this dream, anyway?’ cried the villainous Victor, swatting at a big crow that was trying to pluck some hairs from his beard for her nest. Victor’s boa constrictor whispered into his ear.

  “‘Off with that dreamer’s head!’ shouted Victor, looking straight at Prince Fredericko.

  “‘Ha, ha, don’t be silly!’ exclaimed the little prince.

  “‘I know what the problem is,’ said Princess Oonella. ‘Prince Fredericko forgot to write down the code RW, for “rhymes with crows”!’

  “So the Royal Family sent out a message to the whole kingdom. Everyone had to rack their brains and think of all sorts of things that rhymed with crows—for instance, bows and hoes and does and piccolos, which they brought to the castle. It was the villainous Victor’s job to organize everything and gather them all together into the Great Main Hall of the castle. Again, nothing changed. The drought continued, with not a drop of rain to be seen anywhere throughout the island.

  “‘Woe are us!’ cried the Rebusinians.

  “Then one day, along came a poor zucchini farmer, carrying just one cat.

  “‘Where are the other twenty-five?’ asked the villainous Victor.

  “‘I’ve only brought one cat, Your Royal Adviser,’ said the farmer.

  “Victor’s boa constrictor hissed in Victor’s ear.

  “‘Cat rhymes with crows? NOT!’ declared Victor, narrowing his eyes.

  “‘But—’

  “The villainous Victor didn’t let the farmer explain further. ‘Off with his head!’ he shouted.

  “‘Ha, ha, don’t be silly!’ exclaimed Prince Fredericko.

  “Then Princess Oonella, a good noticer, noticed something incredible.

  “‘Why, this cat has twenty-six TOES!’ she exclaimed. ‘Toes rhymes with crows!’

  “‘You’re right!’ exclaimed the queen.

  “‘That’s what I was trying to tell you,’ said the farmer. ‘This is a special cat.’

  “‘What’s so special about him?’ asked the villainous Victor. ‘OK, he has twenty-six toes. But what does he do?’

  “All of a sudden: ‘EE-OW! EE-OWEY!’”

  My dad liked to get a good yell or two in every story to make his audience jump. I like to do that, too. Freddy jumps, but then he laughs.

  So I yell again. “‘EE-OW! EE-OWEY!’

  “That cat had begun to yowl, because he missed his mother and siblings. His yowl was incredibly loud, echoing throughout the Great Main Hall and all the other smaller, minor ones. The yowling was so loud, no one heard the raindrops at first. But then they heard the earsplitting claps of thunder.

  “‘HURRAH, HURRAH!’ shouted the Rebusinians. ‘That cat’s yowling caused the rain to fall!’

  “Someone found a guitar, and of course there were those twenty-six piccolos, so they had a fantastic party with singing and dancing and pizza in the Great Main Hall, as well as lots of celebrating everywhere else in the kingdom. The rain lasted for a whole week.

  “And there’s still more to this happy ending.

  “The zucchini farmer was given a medal at a special ceremony. The queen announced that the cat was to be called Miraculo and have the honor of residing with them in the castle, as the Royal Cat. Also, the villainous Victor was punished for almost spoiling everything with bad advice. His hours as a Royal Adviser were cut quite a bit. He tried to blame his mistakes on the boa constrictor, but the queen didn’t believe him. Anyway, the queen realized she received lots of good advice from her very own children.

  “Actually, the ending wasn’t that happy.

  “All day long, Miraculo lounged in the Great Main Hall on a purple velvet cushion, getting fat. Royal Servants brought him tasty tidbits on a gold platter. His favorite tidbit was pizza, which was especially fattening. But soon Miraculo began to miss his former freedom. It was so boring being a rich cat, cooped up inside the castle. Every now and then he’d do his Royal Job, yowling to bring on a rainstorm. But even that got ho-hum after a while. He couldn’t run quickly anymore, and he no longer had the energy or the appetite to chase mice on account of his weight gain. Anyway, the Royal Mice-catchers had pretty much gotten rid of all the Royal Rodents. Sadly, Miraculo remembered that chasing mice used to be a whole lot of fun.

  “HOWEVER, little did Miraculo realize that he was about to get his freedom in an unexpected way!

  “The jealous, villainous Royal Adviser Victor, upon the advice of his boa constrictor, was hatching a villainous plot to kill him.

  “In the dead of a Saturday night, when everyone was sleeping soundly after an exciting Royal Ball, Victor tiptoed into the Great Main Hall, where Miraculo lay on his purple velvet cushion. Victor’s boa constrictor coiled itself around Miraculo, who was deep in a dream about the finest pizza in the land. Then the snake slithered with the cat into the Royal Aquarium!

  “Ahhh. At first the sleepy Miraculo believed he was in the Royal Bathtub. He relaxed his body, making the snake’s job very easy. But then Miraculo realized that he was underwater! He couldn’t breathe! He twisted and turned and splashed, but he couldn’t get free! One, two, three, seven seconds went by, seeming to take forever. The boa constrictor tightened its grip. And Miraculo’s fat body went limp.

  “Outside the Royal Aquarium, Victor cackled villainously. ‘He is now officially the Dead Royal Cat!’

  “Not quite! And here is where an extra life or two (not to mention two extra toes on each of your paws) come in very handy: The cat’s claws pierced the snake, which loosened its grip. Then Miraculo leaped from the Royal Aquarium, scratching Victor’s arms and face.

  “‘OW! OW!’ yowled the villainous Victor, awakening the Royal Guards as well as Prince Fredericko and Princess Oonella.

  “‘EE-OW! EE-OWEY!’ yowled the cat, chasing Victor around and around the Great Main Hall.

  “Everyone saw the villainous Victor and his boa constrictor clamber out an open window, followed by the cat.

  “But Princess Oonella and Prince Fredericko noticed something INCREDIBLE. That cat was no longer plump and black as night, but teeny-tiny and white as a daytime cloud.”

  I pause.

  I love dramatic pauses. And I am about to say my dad’s Three Best Words for story endings. “Always leave the crowd wanting more,” he always said.

  “Go on,” says Freddy.

  “To. Be. Continued.”

  Fred kicks a stone with his sneaker. “Come on! What happens next?”

  “I told you,” I say. “To be continued.”

  “But how did they make it rain without Miraculo?”

  “Oh, that,” I say. “The Rebusinians hadn’t needed Miraculo’s drought-busting services for quite a while. They’d taught themselves all about proper water conservation in case of another drought.”

  “Like we did.”

  “Right,” I say.

  here is something wonderful and incredible about people’s names. You are given a name when you are born, and some people are even given one before they are born. Your parents know nothing about you, except that you are very small, know how to yell, need your diaper changed a lot, and enjoy drinking mil
k. But right away they have to come up with a name for you. I think it may be a law. People have to call you something besides “Hey, you!” all your life.

  The wonderful thing is this: After a while, it becomes clear that your name is the perfect name, the only-name-for-you name. Are parents that smart? I don’t think so. That’s why it’s incredible as well as wonderful.

  Take my name, Oona. Two O’s = two eyes = “noticer.” See?

  Fred, sometimes Freddy = short, sometimes cute.

  My friend Riya loves to sing. Her name is an Indian one that actually does mean “singer.” Although it doesn’t mean “sings on key,” which is a good thing, because Riya doesn’t.

  Terri, my mom, RW merry, which she usually is, except when she’s not. But she does try to look merry all the time. The key thing’s the look in the eyes—ever notice? I try to keep my mom’s eyes looking merry whenever possible.

  Max, my dad’s name = big, which he was, in heart and spirit and shoe size. No one will ever fill them.

  Gramma Dee’s name is easy. Dee RW bee = honey = sweet like candy. Gramma Dee likes to make Russian taffy, which she learned from her Russian grandmother, who was born in Russia. Although she doesn’t make it as often as she used to, because of her concerns about weight gain. And also for dental reasons. That delicious taffy is murder on the teeth, really gluing them together for a few scary seconds. Seven scary seconds almost exactly, if you’re counting, which our family always does. I call it the Seven-Second Meltdown Theory. Just when you think your teeth will remain glued together forever, the taffy begins to melt.

  On Sunday, I wake up to the wonderful vanilla and butter and sugar smell of Gramma Dee’s taffy. Gramma Dee lives down the hall from us, but she makes the taffy at our house. She says that way she can give us a gift: the smell of dad’s childhood in our own home. She is famous in our building for her taffy. Maybe even famous on the whole neighborhood block.

  I go into the kitchen and there she is checking the taffy with her candy thermometer, a long, clear string of sweet stuff dangling over the pot. Freddy is already there.