Catwings

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY S. D. SCHINDLER

  A CATWINGS TALE

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Catwings

  Catwings

  Also by

  Ursula K. Le Guin and S. D. Schindler

  CATWINGS RETURN

  WONDERFUL ALEXANDER

  AND THE CATWINGS

  JANE ON HER OWN

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  A CATWINGS TALE

  Catwings

  ORCHARD BOOKS

  ·

  NEW YORK

  An Imprint of Scholastic Inc.

  Illustrations by

  S. D. SCHINDLER

  Text Copyright © 1988 by Ursula K. Le Guin

  Illustrations copyright © 1988 by S. D. Schindler

  All rights reserved. Published by Orchard Books, an imprint

  of Scholastic Inc.

  ORCHARD BOOKS and design are

  registered trademarks of Watts Publishing Group, Ltd.,

  used under license.

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  trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

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  Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse

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  storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

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  557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-82653-2

  First edition, September 1988

  The text of this book is set in 14 point CG Cloister.

  The illustrations are pen-and-ink drawings and wash.

  To all the cats I’ve loved before

  — U. K. Le G.

  Catwings

  CHAPTER 1

  MRS.

  JANE

  TABBY

  could not explain

  why all four of her children had wings.

  “I suppose their father was a fly-by-night,”

  a neighbor said, and laughed unpleasantly,

  sneaking round the dumpster.

  “Maybe they have wings because I

  dreamed, before they were born, that I could

  fly away from this neighborhood,” said Mrs.

  Jane Tabby. “Thelma, your face is dirty; wash

  it. Roger, stop hitting James. Harriet, when

  you purr, you should close your eyes part way

  and knead me with your front paws; yes, that’s

  the way. How is the milk this morning,

  children?”

  “It’s very good, Mother, thank you,” they

  answered happily. They were beautiful

  children, well brought up. But Mrs. Tabby

  worried about them secretly. It really was a

  terrible neighborhood, and getting worse.

  Car wheels and truck wheels rolling past

  all day

  —

  rubbish and litter

  —

  hungry dogs

  —

  endless shoes and boots walking, running,

  stamping, kicking

  —

  nowhere safe and quiet,

  and less and less to eat. Most of the sparrows

  had moved away. The rats were fierce and

  dangerous; the mice were shy and scrawny.

  So the children’s wings were the least of

  Mrs. Tabby’s worries. She washed those silky

  wings every day, along with chins and paws and

  tails, and wondered about them now and then,

  but she worked too hard finding food and

  bringing up the family to think much about

  things she didn’t understand.

  But when the huge dog chased little

  Harriet and cornered her behind the garbage

  can, lunging at her with open, white-toothed

  jaws, and Harriet with one desperate mew flew

  straight up into the air and over the dog’s

  staring head and lighted on a rooftop

  —

  then

  Mrs. Tabby understood.

  The dog went off growling, its tail

  between its legs.

  “Come down now, Harriet,” her mother

  called. “Children, come here please, all

  of you.”

  They all came back to the dumpster.

  Harriet was still trembling. The others all

  purred with her till she was calm, and then

  Mrs. Jane Tabby said: “Children, I dreamed a

  dream before you were born, and I see now

  what it meant. This is not a good place to grow

  up in, and you have wings to fly from it. I want

  you to do that. I know you’ve been practicing. I

  saw James flying across the alley last night

  —

  and yes, I saw you doing nose dives, too,

  Roger. I think you are ready. I want you to have

  a good dinner and fly away

  —

  far away.”

  “But Mother

  —

  ” said Thelma, and burst

  into tears.

  “I have no wish to leave,” said Mrs. Tabby

  quietly. “My work is here. Mr. Tom Jones

  proposed to me last night, and I intend to

  accept him. I don’t want you children

  underfoot!”

  All the children wept, but they knew that

  that is the way it must be, in cat families. They

  were proud, too, that their mother trusted

  them to look after themselves. So all together

  they had a good dinner from the garbage can

  that the dog had knocked over. Then Thelma,

  Roger, James, and Harriet purred goodbye to

  their dear mother, and one after another they

  spread their wings and flew up, over the alley,

  over the roofs, away.

  Mrs. Jane Tabby watched them. Her

  heart was full of fear and pride.

  “They are remarkable children, Jane,”

  said Mr. Tom Jones in his soft, deep voice.

  “Ours will be remarkable too, Tom,” said

  Mrs. Tabby.

  CHAPTER 2

  AS

  THELMA

  , Roger, James, and

  Harriet flew on, all they could see beneath

  them, mile after mile, was the city’s roofs, the

  city’s streets.

  A pigeon came swooping up to join them.

  It flew along with them, peering at them

  uneasily from its little, round, red eye. “What

  kind of birds are you, anyways?” it finally

  asked.

  “Passenger pigeons,” James said

  promptly.

  Harriet mewed with laughter.

  The pigeon jumped in mid-air, stared at

  her, and then turned and swooped away from

  them in a great, quick curve.

  “I wish I could fly like that,” said Roger.

  “Pigeons are really dumb,” James

  muttered.

  “But my wings ache already,” Roger said,

  and Thelma said, “So do mine. Let’s land

  somewhere and rest.”

  Little Harriet was already heading down<
br />
  towards a church steeple.

  They clung to the carvings on the church

  roof, and got a drink of water from the roof

  gutters.

  “Sitting in the catbird seat!” sang

  Harriet, perched on a pinnacle.

  “It looks different over there,” said

  Thelma, pointing her nose to the west. “It

  looks softer.”

  They all gazed earnestly westward, but

  cats don’t see the distance clearly.

  “Well, if it’s different, let’s try it,” said

  James, and they set off again. They could not

  fly with untiring ease, like the pigeons. Mrs.

  Tabby had always seen to it that they ate well,

  and so they were quite plump, and had to beat

  their wings hard to keep their weight aloft.

  They learned how to glide, not beating

  their wings, letting the wind bear them up;

  but Harriet found gliding difficult, and

  wobbled badly.

  After another hour or so they landed on

  the roof of a huge factory, even though the air

  there smelled terrible, and there they slept for a

  while in a weary, furry heap. Then, towards

  nightfall, very hungry

  —

  for nothing gives an

  appetite like flying

  —

  they woke and flew on.

  The sun set. The city lights came on, long

  strings and chains of lights below them,

  stretching out towards darkness. Towards

  darkness they flew, and at last, when around

  them and under them everything was dark

  except for one light twinkling over the hill, they

  descended slowly from the air and landed on

  the ground.

  A soft ground

  —

  a strange ground! The

  only ground they knew was pavement, asphalt,

  cement. This was all new to them, dirt, earth,

  dead leaves, grass, twigs, mushrooms, worms.

  It all smelled extremely interesting. A little

  creek ran nearby. They heard the song of it

  and went to drink, for they were very thirsty.

  After drinking, Roger stayed crouching on

  the bank, his nose almost in the water, his

  eyes gazing.

  “What’s that in the water?” he whispered.

  The others came and gazed. They could

  just make out something moving in the water,

  in the starlight

  —

  a silvery flicker, a gleam.

  Roger’s paw shot out. . . .

  “I think it’s dinner,” he said.

  After dinner, they curled up together

  again under a bush and fell asleep. But first

  Thelma, then Roger, then James, and then

  small Harriet, would lift their head, open an

  eye, listen a moment, on guard. They knew

  they had come to a much better place than

  the alley, but they also knew that every place is

  dangerous, whether you are a fish, or a cat, or

  even a cat with wings.

  CHAPTER 3

  “IT’S ABSOLUTELY

  unfair,” the

  thrush cried.

  “Unjust!” the finch agreed.

  “Intolerable!” yelled the bluejay.

  “I don’t see why,” a mouse said. “You’ve

  always had wings. Now they do. What’s unfair

  about that?”

  The fish in the creek said nothing. Fish

  never do. Few people know what fish think

  about injustice, or anything else.

  “I was bringing a twig to the nest just this

  morning, and a cat flew down, a cat flew down,

  from the top of the Home Oak, and grinned at

  me in mid-air!” the thrush said, and all the

  other songbirds cried, “Shocking! Unheard

  of! Not allowed!”

  “You could try tunnels,” said the mouse,

  and trotted off.

  The birds had to learn to get along with

  the Flying Tabbies. Most of the birds, in fact,

  were more frightened and outraged than really

  endangered, since they were far better flyers

  than Roger, Thelma, Harriet, and James. The

  birds never got their wings tangled up in pine

  branches and never absent-mindedly bumped

  into tree trunks, and when pursued they could

  escape by speeding up or taking evasive action.

  But they were alarmed, and with good cause,

  about their fledglings. Many birds had eggs in

  the nest now; when the babies hatched, how

  could they be kept safe from a cat who could fly

  up and perch on the slenderest branch, among

  the thickest leaves?

  It took a while for the Owl to understand

  this. Owl is not a quick thinker. She is a long

  thinker. It was late in spring, one evening,

  when she was gazing fondly at her two new

  owlets, that she saw James flitting by, chasing

  bats. And she slowly thought, “This will

  not do. . . .”

  And softly Owl spread her great, gray

  wings, and silently flew after James, her talons

  opening.

  THE FLYING TABBIES had made

  their nest in a hole halfway up a big elm, above

  fox and coyote level and too small for raccoons

  to get into. Thelma and Harriet were washing

  each other’s necks and talking over the day’s

  adventures when they heard a pitiful crying at

  the foot of the tree.

  “James!” cried Harriet.

  He was crouching under the bushes, all

  scratched and bleeding, and one of his wings

  dragged upon the ground.

  “It was the Owl,” he said, when his sisters

  had helped him climb painfully up the tree

  trunk to their home hole. “I just escaped. She

  caught me, but I scratched her, and she let go

  for a moment.”

  And just then Roger came scrambling

  into the nest with his eyes round and black

  and full of fear. “She’s after me!” he cried.

  “The Owl!”

  They all washed James’s wounds till he

  fell asleep.

  “Now we know how the little birds feel,”

  said Thelma, grimly.

  “What will James do?” Harriet whis-

  pered. “Will he ever fly again?”

  “He’d better not,” said a soft, large

  voice just outside their door. The Owl was

  sitting there.

  The Tabbies looked at one another. They

  did not say a word till morning came.

  At sunrise Thelma peered cautiously out.

  The Owl was gone. “Until this evening,” said

  Thelma.

  From then on they had to hunt in the

  daytime and hide in their nest all night;

  for the Owl thinks slowly, but the Owl

  thinks long.

  James was ill for days and could not hunt

  at all. When he recovered, he was very thin and

  could not fly much, for his left wing soon grew

  stiff and lame. He never complained. He sat

  for hours by the creek, his wings folded,

  fishing. The fish did not complain either. They

  never do.

  One night of early summer the Tabbies

  were all curled in their home hole, rather tired

  and discouraged. A raccoon family was


  quarreling loudly in the next tree. Thelma had

  found nothing to eat all day but a shrew, which

  gave her indigestion. A coyote had chased

  Roger away from the wood rat he had been

  about to catch that afternoon. James’s fishing

  had been unsuccessful. The Owl kept flying

  past on silent wings, saying nothing.

  Two young male raccoons in the next tree

  started a fight, cursing and shouting insults.

  The other raccoons all joined in, screeching

  and scratching and swearing.

  “It sounds just like the old alley,” James

  remarked.

  “Do you remember the Shoes?” Harriet

  asked dreamily. She was looking quite plump,

  perhaps because she was so small. Her sister

  and brothers had become thin and rather

  scruffy.

  “Yes,” James said. “Some of them chased

  me once.”

  “Do you remember the Hands?” Roger

  asked.

  “Yes,” Thelma said. “Some of them

  picked me up once. When I was just a kitten.”

  “What did they do the Hands?”

  Harriet asked.

  “They squeezed me. It hurt. And the

  hands person was shouting

  —

  ‘Wings! Wings!

  It has wings!’

  —

  that’s what it kept shouting in

  its silly voice. And squeezing me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I bit it,” Thelma said, with modest pride.

  “I bit it, and it dropped me, and I ran back to

  Mother, under the dumpster. I didn’t know

  how to fly yet.”

  “I saw one today,” said Harriet.

  “What? A Hands? A Shoes?” said

  Thelma.

  “A human bean?” said James.

  “A human being?” Roger said.

  “Yes,” said Harriet. “It saw me, too.”

  “Did it chase you?”

  “Did it kick you?”

  “Did it throw things at you?”

  “No. It just stood and watched me flying.

  And its eyes got round, just like ours.”