The Painted Ponies of Partequineus and The Summer of the Kittens

by Peter H. Riddle

  Sorry for the swear word, Diary, but that’s what he said.

  I couldn’t see what he was so angry about. Jimmy pushed on the rims on his wheels and rolled himself forward, and Mr. Harding turned and attacked him with his eyes, dared him to come any closer. Jimmy eased up, and that was when I saw a cat sticking its head out from among the weeds at the edge of the vacant lot. It sort of slinked onto the sidewalk, low to the ground and with its ears bent back.

  It was an ordinary tabby, striped grey and black with a little bit of white on its chest, and a faint kind of orange tinge to the tips of its long fur, and it looked like it was somebody’s pet, not scruffy like a stray or skinny like cats get when all they have to eat is whatever they can catch, mice or birds or even bugs. It kept looking around as if it was scared, or confused maybe.

  “Go home, boy,” Mr. Harding said to Jimmy. “And stay away from that cat. I don’t want it hanging around here.” He limped back up the path and disappeared inside his house, banging the door shut behind him.

  Jimmy was looking at the cat. “Where’d that come from?”

  “The car, I think,” I told him. I was already halfway down the tree, and lost my grip on one of the boards and sprawled on the ground. Jimmy spun his chair around and rolled over to me.

  “You okay?” He was staring at me, and I realized my skirt had scootched up when I fell out of the tree.

  “Getting a good look?” I said, annoyed mostly at myself for being so clumsy.

  “I thought maybe you were hurt.”

  “Yeah, right!” I tried to sound angry, but I wasn’t really. I stood up and smoothed my skirt down and brushed off the grass clippings that stuck to it. My mother had cut the lawn that morning. Dad used to do it, but he almost never does any more. Or much of anything else.

  We have a great looking yard. Mom put in a big flower garden last year, right after she found out about Dad and that woman he was hanging around with at the university. It was like she was always looking for something to do, something that said the world was still a beautiful place, even though for her it wasn’t. She planted roses and peonies and a whole bunch of other stuff I don’t know the names of, and almost every day she’s out raking and weeding and pruning and putting in new kinds of shrubs.

  It was really warm and there was a lot of rain last night, so you could almost see the new leaves uncurl as they grew.

  I looked across the street. “Where’s the cat?” I said.

  Jimmy turned his chair and looked, too. “I guess it went back in the weeds.”

  I saw movement down by the tracks. “No, there it is. It’s gonna go out on the dykes. Let’s go see if it’s friendly.”

  I took hold of the handgrips on the back of Jimmy’s chair and started pushing him down the sidewalk, past Mr. Harding’s house and onto the gravel where the asphalt ended. Jimmy doesn’t like to be pushed, ’cause he says he has to do everything for himself, in case some day there’s nobody around to help him. He used to talk like that a lot, about how when his Mom and Dad get old and die he’ll be all on his own, and how that was okay, because he wasn’t going to be a cripple forever. He was going to fly.

  Only today he let me push him, because I can make his chair go faster than he can on his own, especially where the ground is bumpy. The cat was already across the tracks and heading for the gate, and we knew if it went under the fence we wouldn’t be able to catch it.

  Catch it? I guess that was what I was thinking about.

  The gravel is kind of rough at the end of the street, more like big stones, and it was hard to push Jimmy’s chair without bouncing him around a lot, so I had to slow down. Anyway, by the time we got to the gate the cat was gone, disappeared among all the weeds and bushes that were pretty well leafed out after all the rain we’ve had. We tried calling it, but I guess it was scared of us and wouldn’t come out. I thought about climbing the fence - I’ve done it before, lots of times, even though I’m not supposed to - but since Jimmy couldn’t come with me, I decided not to.

  “Guess the cat doesn’t like people,” Jimmy said.

  “Guess not.”

  “Are you sure it came out of that car?”

  “I think so. I’ve never seen it around here before.”

  “How come they left it here, then?”

  “Don’t know.”

  We stood and watched for a few minutes, or I stood and Jimmy sat, only the cat didn’t show up again. I thought about climbing up in my tree once more to see if I could spot it from way up high, and I thought about climbing the fence and trying to find it, and I thought about being a cat and just disappearing into the bushes and doing whatever cats do when they’re off on their own and don’t want to have anything to do with people. I think I might like that.

  In the end I just pushed Jimmy’s wheelchair off the stones and onto the sidewalk, and he grabbed for the rims on the wheels and pushed real hard so I had to let go. But he wasn’t mad at me. He was just showing me he didn’t need me any more. He said goodbye, and I stood and watched him roll up the street to go home, all alone.

  I’m all alone, too, but in a different way.

  I’ve never had a cat. I’ve never had any kind of pet, ’cause my Dad thinks they’re too much trouble. I’m pretty sure my Dad thinks I’m too much trouble, too.

  After Jimmy left, I walked back to the gate across the tracks and stretched my hands up real high and clung to the chain links and sort of stretched myself, getting bigger and bigger and bigger until I was so tall I could see all the way across the dykes to Port Williams and all the way across the Bay of Fundy to New Brunswick and all the way across Canada to Vancouver. And Jimmy flew by in his airplane, and he was standing up in the cockpit on two strong legs and laughing, and the sun rose up in the sky and followed him like it always did, right across the whole big country.

  He was so happy.

  It was just Mom and me for supper, ’cause Dad was off at some meeting at the university, at least that’s what Mom said, although I think she was just covering up for him, like she always does when she thinks I don’t know what’s going on with him. Afterward I took some of the ground beef that was left over after we ate and stuck it in a napkin and took it outside. I walked down to the dyke gate and called for the cat, you know, like, “Here, kitty, kitty,” ’cause I didn’t know the cat’s name. If it even had a name, that is.

  Anyway, it didn’t come. I sat there for the longest time until it started to get dark, and when I heard my mother calling me I left the napkin on the ground and went home. I figured something would eat the meat, a rat or a squirrel or a raccoon, maybe. But secretly I believed it would be the cat who would come out of the bushes as soon as I was in the house, and that it would know I was the one who remembered to feed it.

  May 17th

  Hey, Diary!

  School was really boring today. It rained in the morning so we couldn’t go outside for recess, and today wasn’t an assembly day, and Jimmy wasn’t there. He misses a lot of school on account of his spina bifida, but he keeps up with his work. He’s really smart, and sometimes I take his books to him and his assignments and stuff, and that’s what I did today, ’cause of the math test tomorrow, and he needs to study, just in case he feels well enough to go to school in the morning.

  Mrs. Morris opened the door when I rang the bell.

  “I brought Jimmy’s schoolwork,” I told her. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s sitting out on the deck, dear,” she said. “You can go see him.”

  I followed her into the house and back to the dining room, and when she went into the kitchen I opened the big sliding door and stepped out onto the deck. Jimmy was wrapped up in some kind of a blanket, even though it was really warm out. He looked awfully pale and his eyes were sort of red and burned looking, so I knew he was having one of his headaches. He gets headaches a lot. Mom told me that he had hydro-something when he was a baby and it made his head swell up, and he had to have a couple of operations to fix it, only I guess the
doctors didn’t do such a good job, ’cause he still gets the headaches, sometimes really bad, like today. But he smiled at me and said “Hi.”

  “I’ve got your stuff,” I said. “Mr. Parrish is giving us a test tomorrow. You think you can come?”

  “Sure.” Jimmy always says that, even when it’s obvious that he’s too sick to go anywhere. “What’s the test on?”

  “Chapter Thirty-four. It’s mostly review, but I thought you might like to go over it. I can help you if you want.”

  “That’s okay.” He was kind of grinning at me, and I knew what he was thinking. When it comes to math, it’s usually him helping me. But English and history, that’s a different matter. Especially writing - I really like to write. But you know that already, old pal Diary. Mom says I have a really vivid imagination, and I guess she’s right, because I’m always seeing stuff that nobody else sees.

  “Any sign of the cat today?” Jimmy asked.

  “Nope. I left some food out for him last night, and it was gone this morning.”

  “How do you know it’s a him?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Could be a girl cat. Does your Mom know you fed it?”

  “Uh, uh. I didn’t tell her.”

  “How come?”

  “Just didn’t think of it, I guess.”

  That wasn’t exactly the truth. I don’t lie to Jimmy often, only I didn’t want to get into the whole thing about my Dad, how he won’t let me have any pets. Once when I was eight there was this stray cat that came into our yard, and Mom let me feed it some tuna fish, and then it started coming to the door all the time, and I wanted to keep it and Dad threw some kind of a fit, all about how we’d end up with fleas all over the house, and how cats smell and make messes and scratch the furniture. I don’t know what happened to the cat, ’cause when we stopped feeding it, it disappeared after a few days. That made me really sad. I wasn’t going to go through that again, which is why I didn’t even tell Mom this time.

  “Want to go look for it?” I asked.

  “Can’t,” Jimmy said.

  I nodded. Jimmy never explained when he couldn’t go someplace, and I never expected him to. He never talked about his spina bifida. It’s just, you know, the way things are with him, so what’s the use of talking about it?

  “You gonna feed it again tonight?” he asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “Don’t let Mr. Harding see you.”

  “How come?”

  “Remember what he said when he was yelling at me? He doesn’t want the cat hanging around.”

  “He doesn’t own the street,” I said, a little bit annoyed. “Anyway, the cat’s probably gone by now.”

  Jimmy’s face kind of screwed up then, like he was in pain. He turned and stared out across the lawn, only he wasn’t really seeing anything, you know? I could tell. I put his books on the patio table next to his wheelchair.

  “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow in school, huh?” I said.

  He kind of nodded a little but he didn’t look at me. That was okay. Like I said, we’re best friends, and I understand when he can’t talk to me. Some of the kids think he’s stuck up or something when he gets like that, but I know it’s ’cause every so often he hurts something awful, his head or his back, and he just goes off somewhere inside himself to get away from the pain.

  I wish I had somewhere to go like that.

  I went back into the house and found Mrs. Morris in the kitchen. “I think maybe Jimmy’s not doing too good,” I told her.

  “This isn’t one of his best days,” she said. She was smiling like she almost always does, a kind of a sad smile. “Thank you for bringing his books.”

  “That’s okay. Maybe he’ll feel better tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  I left Jimmy’s house and walked down the street. Mom was doing something to the roses up next to our house. She had a box that said “Rose Food” on it, and she was digging all around the roots and pouring some pellets in and tamping them down.

  “You’re late,” she said as I dropped my backpack on the front steps.

  “Jimmy missed school today. I had to take him his assignments.”

  Mom nodded her head and picked up her clippers and started pruning or whatever it is she always does. She used to ask about Jimmy, but she doesn’t any more. I guess when somebody’s sick a lot, other people stop caring. Well, not stop caring exactly, but just sort of accepting that there isn’t anything they can do to help.

  Mom doesn’t talk much about anything any more, ever since Dad started acting so strange. We used to talk a lot, and I miss it, only now I think she’s a little bit lost inside her head, like Jimmy when he’s hurting. There’s all different kinds of hurts.

  I picked up my backpack and climbed up the steps and went into the house. It was dark inside. It used to be that Mom always opened all the shades early every morning, and she’d sing while she was making breakfast, just simple little tunes that I think she made up herself. Now the house is quiet most of the time, and gloomy. I don’t stay in it any more than I have to, except for my own room, and I never pull my shades down, even at night. I let in all the light there is.

  I left my backpack in my room and headed for the kitchen. There was a half-full package of shaved chicken in the meat drawer, and I scooped some out and wrapped it in a paper towel. Then I wandered out the back door into the yard. There’s a loose board in the fence, and I can just squeeze through into Mr. Harding’s yard so I can get to the street without Mom seeing me. Not that it would matter much if she did, except that she’d ask me where I was going, and I didn’t want to explain why I had the chicken or tell her about the cat, and I didn’t want to lie to her, either.

  I sneaked along the side of Mr. Harding’s house, keeping low out of sight of the windows, and peered around the front corner to see if he was sitting on his porch. He wasn’t, and I hurried out to the street and turned toward the railroad tracks. They’re kind of overgrown, ’cause the little short line that uses them only serves the gypsum quarry out near Windsor and the feed mill in Port Williams, so we only see maybe one or two trains each week. I crossed over and squatted down next to the dyke gate.

  “Here kitty,” I called softly. I didn’t want Mom to hear me, in case she was still out in the yard. I wasn’t really expecting the cat to be anywhere around, and I was surprised when it came out of the bushes right away and came up to me. I reached out to pet it, and it rubbed up against my leg and stretched. I opened the paper towel and spread it out on the ground with the chicken in the middle, and the cat sniffed it a couple of times and sort of hunched down and started to eat.

  I wish Jimmy had been there to see it.

  The cat finished up all the chicken. Then it sat up on its haunches and began to lick one paw and rub it all over its face. My Sunday School teacher, who has three cats, says they’re very clean animals, and that they always wash their faces after they eat. I don’t think Mom would say I was very clean if I spit on my hand and rubbed it all over my face, but I guess there’s a different standard where cats are concerned. At least this one didn’t smell, like Tristan Cruikshank’s dog does.

  A fee-bee bird started singing in the trees along the tracks. Fee-bee, fee-bee. Mom says they’re called chickadees, ’cause sometimes they say “chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” sort of scratchy like. Then I heard something rustling in the bushes, and the tops of some of the weeds started swaying, as if an animal was slinking around. Something coughed, and a pheasant broke cover and went squawking off toward the dykes. I felt scared.

  A tiger crept out of the bushes and pinned me down with its big yellow eyes. It began to stalk me, carefully extending one huge black and yellow striped paw after the other as it crept along the gravel path, lips curled back above big yellow teeth, traces of blood matting the dark yellow fur around its mouth. Ugly mustard yellow! I tried to scream, only my throat was dry and all I could do was croak. The tiger was almost on top of me when Jimmy came wheeling al
ong the sidewalk like a madman, waving a rifle and shouting. The tiger stopped dead in its tracks, its big head swung around, and it snarled at Jimmy. Jimmy jumped up and knelt down on one knee and brought the gun up to his shoulder and fired. The bullet hit the tiger in the chest, and it sort of collapsed in on itself and vanished in a puff of smoke. Jimmy stood up and blew across the end of the gun barrel like Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford, with a smug grin pasted across his mouth. He turned and swaggered off down the street, leaving his wheelchair behind. He climbed into his plane and took off, and waved to me as he flew out over the dykes and way up into the sky.

  That’s how I like to think about Jimmy.

  I wadded up the paper towel and walked back toward Mr. Harding’s yard. He still wasn’t outside, and I got as close to the fence as I could and hurried down the property line toward the loose board. Just as I was lifting it up to sneak back into my own yard, I looked back and saw the cat following me.

  Suddenly I felt very angry, angry at Dad for making Mom so unhappy, angry at God for making Jimmy with that awful hole in his back so he can’t run and play like other kids, and really, really mad at the three college kids who kept a pet cat only as long as it suited them, and then just dumped it out to fend for itself when they had to go home for the summer. What’d they think, the poor cat would catch mice or birds or something when it was hungry? Suppose it doesn’t know how, like Peter in my book? And how about water?

  Water.

  I propped the board open a little bit and ran inside to get a bowl. When I came back out the cat was sniffing around the opening in the fence, and I turned on the garden hose and splashed some water in the bowl and set it down. The cat came into the yard really carefully, testing the air with its whiskers twitching and looking all around. Finally it came over to me and sniffed the bowl. It must have decided everything was okay, ’cause it started to drink, its pink tongue darting in and out of its mouth, looking like a little slice of ham. I didn’t see how it was getting much water that way, but it must have worked for the cat, because after a couple of minutes it stopped drinking and sat back and started to wash again.