Christmas Cats: A Literary Companion

Janine Adams

My cat, Joe, doesn't leave the house. But in the '60s and '70s when I was a child, no one (in my neighborhood at least) would dream of cooping their cat up indoors. So our gray domestic shorthairs, Spooky and Samantha, roamed the neighborhood. They could come inside whenever they wanted, though they didn't have a litter box and were asked to spend the night outside, except when the weather was bitterly cold.

Every morning, when my mother would bring in the morning paper, Samantha was on the porch waiting to come in. Spooky would come running out of nowhere to join her. But one early December Saturday morning when I was ten, only Samantha was on the porch when my mom opened the door. Spooky did not respond to her calls. He was nowhere in sight.

We shrugged it off, figuring that he'd found something especially fun to occupy him the night before. Every hour or so, one of us—either my parents, one of my brothers, or me, especially me—would open the front door, then the back door, and call out for him. No big gray cat with big green eyes would appear. By suppertime, we were worried. "If he's not back by morning, we'll send out a search team," my mom said. "But I think he'll be here in the morning."

I got up early the next morning, just as it was turning light. While the rest of the family slept, I crept downstairs and opened the door, holding my breath in anticipation. There was Samantha, who pushed her way in and noisily demanded an early breakfast. But no Spooky. I raced upstairs to tell my parents.

Despite the early hour, my parents didn't brush me off. They roused themselves, put on their robes, and came downstairs to talk with me about how we would find our kitty. As my mother put on coffee, my dad fed Samantha. I suggested we call the police, but my parents said they probably had more important things to work on than a missing cat. Once my brothers got up we sat at the breakfast table and made a list of all the things we would do to find Spooky. My oldest brother, Scott, who had an artistic flair, made a "lost cat" sign. We pasted a photo to the sign and photocopied it at my dad's office. Since Spooky was dark gray, the copied photo certainly didn't capture his beauty—or show off any distinguishing features—but we figured it was better than nothing.

My brothers and I pooled our money and were able to offer a $25 reward, which my parents doubled to $5O- My father got in the car and drove around looking for Spooky. Scott, Larry, and I got on our bikes and plastered the immediate neighborhood with our signs. My mother stayed home in case Spooky appeared or someone called about him.

I was sure that our signs would do the trick. We were offering $50 for his return! But nightfall came on Sunday and there was no Spooky. Not even a telephone call about him.

I didn't want to go to school on Monday. "Let me stay home and look for Spooky," I begged my mom. She told me I could ride around on my bike looking for him after school until dark. "I'll put a 'lost cat' ad in the paper today," she reassured me. "That'll help us get him home."

After school, I pedaled everywhere I could think of. I stopped mail carriers, delivery truck drivers, anyone I could see. I gave them a flier and described Spooky. No one had seen him, but everyone said they'd keep an eye out for him. "Just call us if you see him," I said anxiously. "Our phone number's right on the piece of paper."

As the days crept by with no Spooky sightings, my hope began to fade. I couldn't imagine that my cat would run away. Maybe somebody stole him, I thought. Or maybe he got hit by a car. He was wearing only a bell on his collar—no tag—so if someone found his body they wouldn't know to call us. I started making deals with God. "Bring Spooky home and I'll do my homework every night before dinner," I bargained. Even though Spooky hadn't made it home, I began doing my homework as soon as I came home from looking for him, just in case it would help.

After our cat had been gone a week, I started to get desperate. Even though the police station in our small city was farther away than I was allowed to go on my bike, I grabbed one of the lost cat signs and took it to the police station.

I was barely tall enough to reach the top of the high counter. "Excuse me," I said politely. "My cat is lost." I noticed a look of amusement cross the desk sergeant's face, but then he looked down at me with a serious expression.

"How long has he been gone?" he inquired gravely.

"A whole week!" I wailed. "Here's his picture." I handed the cop our flier.

"Well, we haven't received any reports of a cat matching this description," he said to me kindly. "But I'll post this sign here on the bulletin board and ask the officers to keep an eye out for him. What's your cat's name?"

"It's Spooky. When he was a kitten, his eyes were so big it looked like he'd seen a ghost, so that's why we named him Spooky."

"He's a fine-looking cat," the sergeant said. "I hope we find him."

I pedaled home with new hope in my heart. If the whole police force of Walla Walla, Washington, was looking for Spooky, surely they'd find him. If he was still alive. I pushed that last thought out of my head and concentrated on the possibility that he would be found.

Meanwhile, poor Samantha seemed to be missing her brother. She wasn't eating as enthusiastically as she usually did. And she was more affectionate with us, particularly in the evening hours. She didn't complain as much. "She misses her brother, " I observed to my parents.

"We all miss him," my father replied. I tried not to cry.

I took comfort in the fact that we were having relatively warm weather for December. Every morning when I asked, my mother would check the paper and tell me how cold it had been the day before; it rarely dipped below freezing. "Maybe someone took him in thinking he was a stray," my mother said. I knew that idea was supposed to comfort me, but instead it made me mad. "He's my cat! They can't just keep him," I protested. But I realized it was better than some things that could have happened to him.

By the end of the second week of Spooky's absence, I started to lose faith. I still biked around the neighborhood after school looking for him and replacing any signs that had been taken down. But I came home after only an hour. I started to consider the fact that we'd never find Spooky. Sometimes I even thought about getting a new kitten.

I couldn't even get excited about Christmas, my favorite holiday. I was missing Spooky too much. On Christmas Eve, we decorated our tree and hung up our stockings. We hung Samantha's on the hearth right next to mine. Spooky's lay in the box.

"I guess we shouldn't hang up Spooky's stocking," I said to my mother.

"I don't see why not," she replied. "If Spooky comes home in time for Christmas, he'd be very sad not to find his stocking. And if he doesn't come home, Samantha can have his stocking stuffers."

I knew my mom was trying to make me feel better. But that day I'd officially given up hope. Spooky had been gone sixteen days. If he hadn't come home by now, I couldn't imagine we'd ever see him again.

On most Christmas Eves, I went to bed with thoughts of Christmas morning prancing around my mind, eager to go to sleep so I could wake up early and open presents. But this year, my heart was heavy and even the thought of opening presents couldn't cheer me up.

When Christmas morning arrived, for the first time in my life I didn't wake up at the crack of dawn. I didn't rush downstairs to see what Santa had brought. Instead, in my blue mood, I woke up later than usual and stayed in bed. "If I can't have Spooky, I don't want anything," I told myself, saying it out loud to emphasize the point. I just felt like wallowing in my misery.

At about 9^:OO, my mother tapped on my door. "Janine, are you okay?" she called. She opened the door a crack and stuck her head in. "I have something¹ that I think will cheer you up."

"I don't want any Christmas presents," I told her morosely.

"I think you'll want this." She opened the door wide and to my amazement, a dirty gray cat was in her arms. She put him down gently on my bed and he came right up and nuzzled my face.

"Spooky, you're home!" I hollered, hugging him around the neck, my tears flowing into his fur. I let him go and took a look at him. His once sleek coat was dirty, with some tufts of hair missing. He was very thin. Some of his pads were raw, and closer inspection revealed that several of his claws were missing. One of his ears had a chink taken out of it. But he was alive. And he was in my arms.

"I opened the door this morning for the paper, and there he was," my mom told me. "He and Samantha walked in just like every morning." She told me that she had fed him—and that he was ravenous—before bringing him upstairs.

As we opened presents that morning—who could ask for a better Christmas present than Spooky's return?—we discussed what might have happened to our cat. Each of us had a theory (Larry thought he'd been abducted by aliens), but the one that seemed to make sense was that he'd somehow jumped into someone's car and been driven a distance away. Maybe he was trying to get away from something. Or maybe he found a car that smelled particularly interesting—he was always the inquisitive type. Perhaps someone picked him up thinking he was a stray and drove him to a distant home.

However it happened, we liked to think that when he finally had a chance to get away, he just started heading home. And that it took him all those days to get there. Who knew what adventures he'd been on in those two weeks. All we knew is that we were glad to have him home.

Spooky slept on my bed for about twenty-four hours, his belly full and his body and soul clearly exhausted. Samantha slept with him, though she took a nap break to have dinner. That night, my father didn't ask Spooky to sleep outside. He slept right in bed with me, capping my very best Christmas ever.

I'd like to say that we learned a lesson and never let Spooky and Samantha go outside again. But the truth is that they were let out at will. Thankfully, they were both on the porch each and every morning until the end of their lives. But whenever I start feeling sorry that my twenty-first-century cat, Joe, can't go outside, I think about Spooky and what he must have gone through during the seventeen days he was gone. Then I hug Joe and make sure he's happy inside.