The Cat Who Liked Rain

Four

Night disappeared on a perfectly normal day.

When Lukas woke up in the morning he knew that it was Thursday and that he would be having pancakes for dinner. He stretched out in his bed, and felt around on the covers to see if Night was lying there, asleep. Then he remembered that Night had woken him up long before dawn. Feeling tired, and perhaps also a bit angry at having been disturbed, Lukas had shuffled into the kitchen with the cat dancing around his feet, and placed a little herring in his food bowl. Night hardly ever drank milk now, he’d been eating proper food for some time. Lukas then closed the kitchen door, went back to bed and fell asleep immediately.

But when Lukas got up and went to the kitchen, Night wasn’t there. Lukas shouted for him, but there was no response. He put a chair in front of the work surface and clambered up so that he could see the tops of the kitchen cupboards. Night wasn’t lying there either. Lukas put the chair back, and thought that his dad must have forgotten to close the kitchen door when he’d finished breakfast. Night had no doubt hidden himself away somewhere else. Lukas still wasn’t worried. He’d begun to get used to the fact that Night was like himself: sometimes he just wanted to be left in peace.

As Night didn’t have a room of his own to which he could retire and close the door, he had to keep looking for new hiding places. Lukas had often thought that Night was much better than he was at discovering new hideaways that were difficult to find.

Lukas sat down at the kitchen table, drank some milk and ate a sandwich. He could hear his mother working in the laundry room. There was a whining noise a bit like an aeroplane’s engine when the washing machine was in operation. Lukas thought that Night had no doubt gone with Beatrice into the laundry room. He liked playing with the heap of dirty linen.

When he’d finished his breakfast Lukas went to the laundry room.

‘Is Night here?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Beatrice. ‘I think I saw him not long ago. Yes, he must be around here somewhere.’

Lukas went to his room and got dressed. When he looked out of the window, it was obvious that today was going to be spent indoors. It was windy and raining, and drops were pattering away at the windowpanes. He pressed his nose against the glass and wondered what sort of load his dad would have in the lorry today. He hoped the windscreen wipers were working properly. Lukas was sometimes worried in case his dad had an accident with that big lorry of his.

He could hear that it was still quiet in Whirlwind’s room. Sometimes Whirlwind would sleep in until ten o’clock. Lukas often wished that Whirlwind would sleep all day, every day. Then he wouldn’t need to worry about Whirlwind being angry with him, or with Night.

Then he started looking properly for Night. First he checked all the usual hiding places he knew about. No sign of Night. Then he checked every room, one after the other. He crept around as quietly as possible, because he usually turned the search into a game. He didn’t want to frighten Night, he wanted to try to move so quietly that Night wouldn’t hear him and prick his ears or wake up.

But Night wasn’t there. There was no sign of him.

And suddenly, as if from nowhere, Lukas had that horrible feeling in his stomach. Night had disappeared. Lukas felt frightened, just as if he’d been lying asleep and been woken up by a nightmare.

‘I can’t find Night,’ he said to Beatrice, who was busy scraping the paint off an old chair.

‘He’ll turn up as soon as he feels hungry,’ she said.

It was at that very moment Lukas knew for certain that Night had disappeared. The feeling was so strong that he couldn’t brush it aside.

‘He’s run away,’ he said.

Beatrice smiled at him.

‘You always think that when he’s hidden himself away somewhere and you can’t find him at first,’ she said.

‘No, he’s gone,’ said Lukas again, and his voice was shaking.

Beatrice looked at him in surprise. She’d heard the unsteadiness in his voice, just like it sounded when he was about to start crying.

‘Of course he hasn’t run away,’ she said. ‘This morning when your dad and I were having breakfast he was scampering around in the kitchen. There were fish bones all over the floor. You don’t need to worry. He wouldn’t go out when it’s raining like this, now, would he? Cats don’t like rain, surely you know that?’

Just for a moment Lukas felt a little calmer. It was true what Mum said, Night didn’t like water. Once, and only once, Lukas had tried to give Night a bath — and had decided he would never do it again. Night had wriggled and scratched and in the end Lukas had been covered in water and soap. Night had hidden underneath the sofa in the living room, as far in as possible, and it was several hours before he came out again.

So Lukas felt a bit calmer. But not for long. He searched through the house once again. This time he made as much noise as he possibly could, in an attempt to make Night appear. He also fetched a tin of cat food from the pantry and hit against it with a fork. Night usually recognised the noise, and would come bounding up, even if he’d only just finished eating.

But Night didn’t appear. He was nowhere to be found. Eventually Beatrice joined in the search as well. When Whirlwind finally woke up and saw how unhappy Lukas was, he also started calling for Night.

They spent all day searching, but there was no trace of Night. Lukas and Beatrice put on Wellington boots and rainwear, and went out. It was typical autumn weather, windy, and pools of water everywhere. They searched through every inch of the garden, and Beatrice also asked the neighbours if they’d seen Night. But they all shook their heads, nobody had seen him.

When Axel came home for dinner, he started looking as well. That was Lukas’s last hope. If his dad couldn’t find Night, nobody could.

But there was no sign of Night.

‘How on earth was he able to get out of the house?’ Axel wondered. ‘And why has he chosen to run away on a day when it’s been pouring with rain all the time?’

But Lukas didn’t want to know why Night had disappeared. All he wanted was for somebody to help him find his cat. Axel and Beatrice and even Whirlwind tried to console him.

‘He’ll come back,’ they said, over and over again.

‘Night doesn’t like getting wet,’ said Lukas.

‘A cat will cope with anything,’ said Axel. ‘They say a cat has nine lives. You don’t need to worry. He’ll come back.’

‘I don’t care if Night has nine lives or not,’ said Lukas. ‘I just want him to be here.’

‘You’re bound to get a new cat if he has run away,’ said Whirlwind. That was the stupidest thing he could possibly have said. He didn’t mean any harm, of course. But as far as Lukas was concerned, it made it sound as if Night no longer existed, that he was no longer alive, that he might even never have lived. Had it all been no more than a dream? Had he dreamt about that birthday present he’d been given over six months ago? Had he been asleep all that time and only thought he was awake? Perhaps he had in fact received a carpet, or a box of old shoes?

‘I don’t want any other cat apart from Night,’ said Lukas, and now he couldn’t stop himself from crying. There is only one cat in the whole world that I care about.’

That night Lukas didn’t want to go to bed. He went from window to window, staring out into the darkness where the rain was pattering against the swaying street lights. He tried to force himself to see through the thick darkness, forcing Night to come back.

But the street was deserted. Night wasn’t there.

When Lukas finally fell asleep on a chair in front of the living room window, Axel carried him into his mum’s and dad’s bedroom.

‘It’s best for him to sleep here with us until he wakes up,’ he whispered.

‘What can we do?’ Beatrice wondered.

‘I don’t know,’ said Axel. ‘Let’s just hope the cat comes back.’

But Night didn’t come back the next day either. Beatrice wrote out a number of little notices that she and Lukas could attach to lampposts, telegraph poles and notice boards, and inside shops.

‘Put a million kronor,’ said Lukas.

‘I can’t do that,’ said Beatrice. ‘We haven’t got as much money as that.’

‘Put it in any case,’ said Lukas. ‘Then people will understand how much I miss him.’

‘They’ll understand that even so,’ said Beatrice.

It continued raining the next day as well, the second day with no sign of Night. Lukas went with Beatrice to put up the notices. When they got back home again, Lukas asked for some money so that he could go and buy a comic. Beatrice thought it would be good for him not to simply hang around, wondering where Night had disappeared to. But Lukas didn’t go to buy a comic. Instead he went back to all the places where they’d stuck up notices, and added an extra line at the end.

He wasn’t sure how to spell it. He asked one of the checkout ladies at the mini-market how to spell the word ‘million’, but she had just snapped angrily at him and told him not to get in the way of paying customers. So he went into the street and asked old Trumlund, who used to sit there every day in a little hut selling raffle tickets for the local bowling club, how to spell ‘million’.

‘You spell it exactly as it sounds,’ said Trumlund.

Lukas gave up the attempt to find out how to spell ‘million’. He wrote it as he thought it sounded, and thought that whoever read it would understand anyway.

Then he went back home, shouting for Night all the way.

‘Didn’t you buy your comic?’ asked Beatrice in surprise.

‘They’d sold out,’ said Lukas.

‘Didn’t you buy anything else instead?’ she wondered.

‘I’m saving up until I’ve got a million,’ he said.

That night Lukas made up his mind about two things. He would never give up until he’d found Night. He knew that Night needed him. He also made up his mind that if Night hadn’t come back by the following morning, he would leave home and go looking for him. Maybe it would be easier to find Night if he tried to live like a cat does? Out in the night, all alone, slinking around in the shadows? Once he’d made up his mind, he went back to the living room and placed the chair in front of the window. Then he sat there all evening, staring out into the night.

Sometimes he would jump up from the chair. He thought he’d seen a pair of cat’s eyes, glittering in the darkness. But then they faded away, and everything was black, everywhere was black.

‘I shall find you, Night,’ he said quietly to himself, so that nobody else could hear him. ‘I know that something’s happened. But I’ll find you. I promise.’

That night Axel carried Lukas to his own bed, once he’d fallen asleep on the chair in front of the window.

The following day when Lukas woke up, it had more or less stopped raining. Ragged, grey clouds were chasing each other across the sky. Occasionally, between light showers of rain, the cold sun shone down on the streets, which were still very wet.

Lukas stood by the window in his room for ages, gazing out into the garden.

But Night hadn’t come back.

Night was still missing.