The Cat Who Liked Rain

Twelve

The night before Lukas started school, he had a remarkable dream. At first he’d found it difficult to get to sleep. His mum had sat on the edge of his bed and read aloud several stories that Lukas liked to hear. But she’d also told him he needn’t feel nervous about his first day at school. He’d been to meet the teacher some time ago, and he knew several of the children who would be starting at the same time and in the same class.

‘I’m not frightened,’ said Lukas.

‘Good!’ said Beatrice. ‘Sleep well!’

She left a lamp on and closed the door quietly. Lukas could hear the sound of the television in the background, and that was when the remarkable dream started, even before he fell asleep.

He was lying and looking at the lampshade, the faint light behind the thick red shade. Suddenly, he had the impression that everything was becoming lighter. Stars seemed to be glittering from the ceiling. Just next to the old cupboard with his old teddy bear on top, a pale half-moon was shining, exactly as if the moon had sunk down from the sky and somehow smuggled its way in through the closed window. A campfire was burning in the middle of the floor. Shadows danced along the walls, and Lukas thought it was an interesting dream — but he wasn’t asleep.

Just for a moment he felt afraid, and pulled the sheet over his head. But when he smelled the smoke from the campfire in his nostrils, he pulled it down again and decided that it wasn’t a dangerous dream, just something unusual and remarkable.

He sat up in bed.

Yes, the whole room had changed. He noticed that the curtains now looked like a door. He got out of bed, was careful not to go too near the fire, and made his way to the window.

When he carefully opened the curtains, he saw that the window behind them really had changed into a door.

He tried the handle and opened the door. There was no longer a garden outside. There were no other houses, and no Rowan Tree Road. There was something else. Something remarkable...

He went back to his bed and sat down on the edge of it. Then he noticed something yellow lying next to the campfire. He couldn’t see what it was at first, but when he leaned forward he saw it was Night’s collar. The one he’d been wearing the day he wandered off to Rainy-Weather Land.

He noticed that his heart was pounding. Night was somewhere close by. He went back to the window.

It was totally dark outside, because the moon and the stars were inside his room. But then he realised that he could see even so. Just like Night, he thought. In this strange dream I can see in the dark just as well as Night.

Then he heard a sound coming from the darkness. He knew immediately what it was. His ears had become just as good as Night’s as well.

But was it really Night miaowing in the darkness?

He thought he could glimpse something black, but he wasn’t sure. He held his breath and waited. Then he heard the sound again.

Night, Lukas thought. You’ve come back after all. You’re coming to greet me, even though it is only in a strange dream.

There was a ladder leaning against the window that had changed into a door. Lukas clambered out onto the ladder.

Although it was cold outside, he didn’t feel cold. I’ve probably got thick fur now as well, even if it is invisible, he thought. Every time he put his foot on a new rung, he could hear various tunes playing for him.

When he stepped onto the last rung of all, he could hear the tune he liked best of all, Silent Night. And he remembered singing it to Night, one of the last days just before he vanished.

When he reached the ground, he noticed that it was drizzling slightly. But he didn’t get wet at all, and the rain was warm — it was like standing under a warm shower.

I’m in Rainy-Weather Land, he thought. When Night realised that I wouldn’t be able to find my way there, he came to me and brought the land with him in a dream instead.

He could hear some more miaowing, further away this time. Lukas followed, trying to be as quiet as possible and not to walk on dry, rustling leaves. He listened to the warm rain, and it sounded to him like various tunes. The drops were playing melodies for him, and it was nearly as beautiful as when his mum used to sing to herself.

He suddenly stopped dead. What if he liked Rainy-Weather Land so much that he didn’t want to go back home? What if he would never go to school, neither tomorrow nor any other day?

He turned round, frightened of losing his way. He could see the open door of his room, shining brightly through the darkness, high above the ladder. The moonlight shone down in a beam that ended at his feet. If he followed that moonbeam, he’d never find his way back home, he thought.

He heard more miaowing, and followed it. There were no houses at all, only bare ground and some small, odd-looking bushes that all looked the same. Then he realised what they were. Umbrellas. Planted umbrellas. Obviously, nobody needed umbrellas in Rainy-Weather Land. They were allowed to grow wherever they liked, and nobody paid any attention to them.

He suddenly stood still. He didn’t know why, only that he had to stand absolutely still. There was something close by. He pricked up his ears and listened, looking round in the blackness all the while.

That was when he caught sight of Night. He was sitting on top of a massive rock washing his fur with slow movements of his tongue. When Lukas saw him, he turned his head and looked Lukas straight in the eye. It was as if lights had been switched on, connecting their eyes — two beams of light linking their faces like telephone wires.

Night miaowed and raised his tail. Lukas stood perfectly still and realised that he had tears in his eyes. But he forced himself not to burst out crying. He was afraid the tears would extinguish the beams of light between himself and Night.

He stretched up as far as he could. He could nearly reach Night. But only nearly. He couldn’t quite reach up to stroke him.

‘Jump down,’ he whispered. ‘Jump down here to me.’

‘I can’t,’ said Night.

‘Then I’ll climb up to you.’

Night’s eyes were extremely serious.

‘I’d like you to do that,’ he said. ‘But if you climb up here, you’ll never be able to climb down again. You’ll have to stay here in Rainy-Weather Land for ever.’

‘That’s what I’d like to do,’ shouted Lukas. ‘I don’t want to start school, I don’t want to go back to my bed. I want to stay here with you.’

‘I know,’ said Night. ‘But you must stay there with all the humans. You can’t live here among the cats.’

‘Then you must come back to me,’ said Lukas. ‘Cats can live with humans.’

Night nodded slowly.

‘I’ll come back to you,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back in this dream. That’s where we can meet.’

‘That’s not good enough,’ shouted Lukas — and now he was quite desperate. ‘I want you to be with me always. Why did you leave me? What did I do wrong?’

‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ said Night. ‘You loved me so much that I dared to go off on my own. I know you are always thinking of me. That’s what gives me the strength to be a cat that goes to the Rainy-Weather Land.’

‘What is it that’s so good about being here?’ Lukas asked. ‘What is it that’s so much better here than in Rowan Tree Road?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Night. ‘I don’t know yet. I just felt that I had to go. You’ll have that feeling yourself one of these days. Something you have to do, but don’t dare. Then you can think of me.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Lukas. ‘It’s too hard to follow.’

‘You’ll understand one day,’ said Night. ‘All this is really about you. It’s not about me. I’m just a cat who’s run away. I want you to be happy when you think about me, even though I have run away. I want you to long for me. Not to miss me.’

Night reached out with a paw. For a split second Lukas was able to feel its soft pad.

Then Night vanished. Lukas ran back to the moonbeam, climbed up the ladder and snuggled down in bed again.

The starry sky on his ceiling slowly faded away, and the moon disappeared through the window once more, the campfire went out, and soon only the night lamp was still shining.

Lukas closed his eyes and tried to return to his dream.

But he simply slept, and didn’t wake up until his mum came in the next morning.

Everything that had happened came back to him immediately.

‘Can you smell burning?’ he asked. Beatrice looked at him in surprise.

‘What could have caused a smell of burning?’

‘A campfire,’ said Lukas.

Beatrice smiled at him.

‘You must have been dreaming,’ she said. ‘Have you forgotten that you start school today?’

‘No,’ said Lukas as he jumped out of bed and went to the window. Everything was back to usual outside. The houses and the road and the garden. The lone currant bush was crouching on the other side of the fence.

‘You can tell me about your dream while we’re having breakfast,’ said Beatrice.

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Lukas. ‘It was all so very odd.’

When his mum had left the room, he sat down on his bed.

Before he started getting dressed, he wanted to think through that dream one more time. And as he sat there on the edge of his bed, he had the feeling that he understood what Night had been trying to tell him.

He knew that one of the first days, his teacher would ask everybody in the class to tell the rest about something exciting or funny they’d experienced.

He knew now.

He would tell them about the remarkable cat called Night.

His story would be the most remarkable of all.