The Cat Who Sang For The Birds

-16-

Wednesday was the day of the big game, and an electric charge jolted the placid community 400 miles north of everywhere. Banners were strung between the light poles on Main Street. Pennant Race posters plastered the central business district, and the department store displayed the silver pennant that would be the winners’ trophy.Betting was going on all over: private bets on street comers and office pools in every place of business. Even Qwilleran’s Siamese sensed something momentous in the offing and prowled restlessly.

He himself, having a journalist’s compulsion to be in the middle of the excitement, went early to breakfast at Lois’s Luncheonette. The place was crowded. Two cooks were whirling around the kitchen, and Lois herself was taking orders, serving the ham and eggs, pouring coffee, and making change at the cash register. She was one of the celebrities being given pinch-speller status; the mayor had recently proclaimed a Lois Inchpot Day in recognition of her thirty years of feeding hungry Pickaxians.

The other pinch-spellers, besides Amanda Goodwinter, would be Dr. Prelligate, president of MCCC; Foxy Fred, the popular auctioneer; Grandma Toodle, matriarch of the grocery dominion; and Mr. O’Dell, high-school custodian for forty years before his retirement.

Qwilleran asked Lois, “Are you prepared to go up and spell in a pinch?”

“No! No sir! No way! Nothin’ could get me up on that stage to spell! Do you know my boy Lenny is spellin’ for the Nailheads?”

“If the Nailheads win, do we all get free coffee?”

“Absolutely!”

Next, Qwilleran went to the newspaper to watch them making up the front page with a banner story on the spell game and a photo strip on the pickets and card-burners at the library. The headline read: “A Hot Time at the Library.”

After picking up groceries for Polly and transferring them to her car, he went into the building to see if she had returned from the conference. The august premises were unnaturally quiet.

“She’s back,” said one of the clerks, gesturing toward the glass-enclosed office on the mezzanine.

“You missed the excitement” were his first words to Polly. “What was your reaction when you heard about it?”

“My assistant phoned me in Lockmaster, and I confess I was rather amused. Apparently it turned into somewhat of a farce. But there’s a serious side to it. Half of our volunteers have now resigned, and that’s a great loss. They contribute thousands of work-hours every year.”

“Did you mention the situation at the conference?”

“Yes, and their attitude was: What do you expect of Moose County? The other libraries adjusted to automation without any trouble… Well, I’m not going to worry about it until tomorrow, after the spell game frenzy has simmered down.”

“Are you going to the game?”

“Of course! Indian Village has chartered a bus for the event. So many of our residents are spelling or otherwise involved!”

“By the way, two of Phoebe’s butterflies have made their debut and are trying their wings.”

“Don’t free them till I’ve seen them, Qwill.”

Driving home through the evergreen woods, he had a brief surge of euphoria that mystified him, and he stroked his moustache. It was a hunch that something was about to turn out well. The Siamese were jumping around in the kitchen window in boisterous fashion as he approached the barn. Before unlocking the door, he automatically checked the sea chest for deliveries. Strangely, the lid was ajar, propped open by a small stone. When he raised it, he quickly lowered it again and backed away. Everyone in Pickax was bomb-conscious following the hotel incident of the previous year. Were the cats warning him?

On second thought he had another cautious look at the contents of the chest. He saw a sizable cardboard carton tied with rope, and there were crayoned words on one flap. As he tried to decipher the message, he heard a faint murmur from inside the box. It sounded like a mewing cat! It sounded, in fact, like two cats! The message on the box flap, he figured out, read: Please find us a good home.

When he unknotted the rope and opened the carton, two pairs of imploring eyes gazed up at him. They were domestics with luxuriant fur - one orange, one tabby - curled together for mutual protection. He closed the chest and went indoors. Away from their ingratiating presence he could think intelligently. Who had dropped them off? It would be someone who knew he was an ailurophile … someone who knew where he lived… someone who knew he was away from home on that particular morning. Celia Robinson fitted the profile, but she would be more forthright. Yet… she had a large acquaintance, one of whom might have two waifs to give away.

He phoned her. “Celia, did you leave anything in my sea chest this morning?”

“No, Chief, but I’ll have some berry tarts later in the day.”

“Did you see a vehicle entering or leaving the woods?”

“Is this another investigation?” she asked enthusiastically.

“Not exactly. Someone left two cats in the sea chest with a note saying they need a good home.”

“Oh, my! Kittens or full-grown? Most people want kittens.”

“Full-grown, with nice fur, soulful eyes, appealing personalities.”

“Ohh! I wish I could take them, but Wrigley wouldn’t like it. I’ll ask around, if anyone wants to adopt them.”

“Are you going to the game tonight?”

“Oh, yes! Mr. O’Dell is taking me. He’s one of the pinch spellers. I’m going to root for the Diggers.”

Qwilleran hung up and said aloud, “How do I get mixed up in these animal-adoption cases? Last winter, it was a schnauzer!”

“Yow!” came a voice from the coffee table. Koko was keeping one of the large books warm. He stirred, raised his hindquarters, and lowered his forequarters, pawing the book jacket.

“No, no! That’s a library book!” Qwilleran scolded… and then he had an inspiration. He grabbed the book and his car keys and hurried to his van, stopping only to pick up the box of cats, Five minutes later he was at the library, heading for the stairs to the mezzanine, He barged into Polly’s office and deposited the box on her desk.

She rolled her chair back in dismay. “What’s this?”

“The answer to your problem,” he said as he opened the box. “Books and cats belong together. These two need a home, and the library needs a homey touch. Abracadabra!”

As he spoke, the two cats rose: and stretched, then turned their large, wondering eyes on the librarian and mewed delicately.

Qwilleran said, “They even have the right kind of voice for a library cat.”

“Honestly, Qwill, I don’t know what to say!”

“Don’t say anything. Just let them loose among the stacks, and they’ll win over your alienated volunteers and patrons.”

“How shall I explain them?”

“Just say the Klingenschoen think tank in Chicago heard about the problem and prescribed them as a catalyst for change. I’ll go to the pet shop for a commode, dishes, and food,” He started to leave.

“Wait a minute! What are their names?”

“No one knows. Have a contest to name them.”

“Don’t forget litter for the commode!” she called after him.

Long before game time, hundreds of fans started assembling on the high-school parking lot. They came in cars, vans, pickups, recreation vehicles, and school buses. Eighteen followers of the Diggers piled out of three limousines usually used for more solemn occasions. Several bank employees arrived in an armored truck, carrying picket signs that supported the Moneybags. Placards on long sticks declared allegiance to favorite teams: “Eat ‘Em Up, Chowheads” and “Muckers Don’t Muck Up!” Photographers from the Lockmaster and Moose County papers and the TV crew from Down Below were kept busy.

When the doors opened, the crowd surged into the auditorium and gym. Backstage the spellers in T-shirts and baseball caps grouped in teams of three. Officials wore black T-shirts with white letters designating their function: coach, pitcher, umpire, and timekeeper. Pinch spellers were herded into the Green Room. Two stage managers checked and double-checked.

About ten minutes before game time, Sarah Plensdorf reported to Hixie Rice that Phoebe Sloan had not arrived and could not be reached by phone - anywhere.

Hixie said firmly, “Well, the entertainment begins in ten minutes, and if she isn’t here by that time, we’ll call in a pinch speller… Wetherby, would you go to the Green Room and see who’s willing to pinch-spell?”

Since the Butterfly Girl’s T-shirt was extra-small, a DAUBER card was lettered-just in case - to hang around the neck of the substitute. Hixie, who saw the bright side of every cloud, stated that an emergency substitution would only add to the excitement. Already the uproar on the other side of the blue curtain :was deafening. It fused the jabbering of fans, the shouts of hysterical partisans, and the cries of hawkers selling peanuts, Cracker Jack, and scorecards. Wetherby remarked that half the town would be hoarse as bullfrogs for a week! Dr. Diane predicted an epidemic of hearing-impairment.

At seven-thirty it was announced on the loud speakers that Dr. Prelligate of Moose County Community College would pinch-spell for No. 79 on the scorecard. There was a roar of approval, but Qwilleran wondered how Phoebe’s parents would feel, sitting in the auditorium and questioning her absence. Then the Pickax barbershop quartet - in striped blazers and straw boaters - marched smartly from the wings and lined up in front of the blue curtain to sing a tongue-twisting parody of a campfire favorite:

Old MacDonald had a farm, A E I O U, And on that farm he learned to spell, A E I O U, With an E-I here and an I-E there, Here an A, there an 0, everywhere a U-U. Old MacDonald had a farm, A E I O U,

With a double-B here and a double-C there, Here a D, there a T, everywhere a G-G. With a double-M here and a double-N there, I Here an L, there an F, everywhere an X-X. Old MacDonald had a farm…

It went on and on until the blue curtain parted, revealing the ten colorful banners and thirty-one empty chairs, while the quartet sang Take me out to the spell game. Then the spellers jogged on stage, each greeted by cheers and whistles. As a curtain-raiser it was, Qwilleran had to admit, impressive!

“Ladies and gentlemen, the National Anthem!”

Wetherby Goode announced. Everyone rose. Everyone sang.

When the last notes faded and the fans reseated themselves, the mayor stepped into the spotlight and pitched a word to the audience: literacy. He thanked them for supporting a program that would teach adults to read and write, ending with “Play ball!”

In the first inning, Qwilleran pitched the first word to the Daubers: cat. There was a hush in the auditorium and a pause onstage. Then Dr. Prelligate stepped briskly to the mike and spelled it - correctly, according to the umpire’s thumb. There were murmurs of bewilderment among the fans.

One by one the teams were called upon to spell three-letter words, until the Muckers took their turn at the plate. Qwilleran pitched the word: antidisestablishmentarianism. Two adults and one nine-year-old went into a huddle, and Culvert stepped to the mike and rattled off the twenty-eight letters. There was laughter, then applause, and the fans relaxed for the serious spelling: ambidextrous, kaleidoscope, peripatetic.

In the third inning the Oilers were sent to the showers. The Ladders were the next to go, then the Nailheads. At the seventh-inning stretch, only the Diggers, Pills, and Hams were left on the spelling field, and the Diggers struck out with xenophobia and onomatopoeia.

The two remaining teams were scrappy. The fans screamed and pumped their placards. The Pills’ last chance was vicissitude, and they missed, but the Hams got it right.

The blue curtain closed, and all ten teams marched across the apron for their final acclamation, with the mayor presenting the silver pennant to the theater club’s Hams.

Behind the curtain a corps of helpers was hurriedly re moving the chairs.

“What’s the rush?” Qwilleran asked. “What’s going on?”

Wetherby Goode grabbed his arm and said, “Hixie wants to see you,” as he shoved Qwilleran into the spotlight out front. Hixie was saying to the audience, “Tonight we want to honor someone whose words entertain and inform us … who supports every local endeavor even if it means being a judge at a cat contest… who rides a bicycle while others pollute the air with automotive emissions… whose creative brain dreamed up the Pennant Race: James Mackintosh Qwilleran!”

The fans gave him a standing ovation, and Qwilleran bowed graciously while maintaining his usual melancholy facade. The curtain behind him was parting.

Hixie went on. “With appreciation and affection we present the ubiquitous and peripatetic Mr. Q with a token of our esteem.” She gestured upstage, where the spotlight was on a peculiar contraption.

“What is it?” he asked, although he knew.

Hixie explained: “A recumbent bicycle - the latest thing on two wheels! You claim to do your best thinking while you’re biking or sitting with your feet up. Now you can do both at the same time.”

In his mellifluous stage voice he said, “Words fail me! For the first time in my life I’m speechless! I’m completely overwhelmed! When you see me wheeling down Main Street in a reclining position, please remember that I’m not asleep. I’m thinking!”

Half a dozen spellers helped Qwilleran load the ‘bent, as it was familiarly called, into his van. Many spellers were reluctant to leave, exhilarated by the show they had just presented. Sarah Plensdorf was one who lingered, and Qwilleran complimented her on her backstage efficiency.

In a low voice she said, “There’s something I didn’t tell you, Qwill. About Phoebe. Monday night, after the warm-up, she came to my place in the middle of the night and asked to sleep in my guestroom. She’d locked herself out, she said, and didn’t know when… Jake would be home. I have an instinctive dislike for that fellow, and I didn’t believe her, especially since her right eye seemed to be swollen. I didn’t know what to say. One doesn’t like to pry… or meddle.”

“What did she say the next morning? Anything enlightening?”

“She was still sleeping when I left for work, and I went right from the office to a dinner meeting of my button club. When I came home, she was gone. Didn’t even leave a note. And when she didn’t show up tonight, I first thought she was embarrassed about her eye, but then I thought, She’s gone to California! She’s gone to her grandmother! Phoebe’s quite impulsive, you know.”

Qwilleran said, “One would think she’d leave you a note, though.”

Sarah dismissed the remark with a wave of the hand. “Young people don’t stop and think.”

“Well, thanks for telling me, Sarah. I’m sure she’ll phone you from California. Keep me informed.”

Qwilleran drove home via the back road, not having picked up his mail or newspaper. For a moment he wondered if Phoebe might be in her studio, but the parking lot was empty, and the only light in the building was the night-light in the foyer.

As the van moved slowly up the lane, he could see the illuminated windows of the barn. At dusk a timer switched on all interior lights, transforming the four-story octagon into a giant lantern. He drove around the building and backed up to the kitchen door. He would park the odd bicycle in the lounge area, where there was room enough for it to lean against the stone wall. It would look arty there, he decided. Even if he never rode it, the recumbent would be a conversation piece, like the checker set he never used.

Before maneuvering the bike through the kitchen door, he went in to prepare the Siamese for something mystifying. What he saw was a floor covered with small dark objects, and what he heard was a guilty silence. Both cats were on the fireplace cube, arranged in compact bundles and looking somber.

Qwilleran turned on two lamps in the lounge area and examined the clutter on the floor. They were checkers!

“You devils!” he said over his shoulder. “What possessed you?”

A rumble came from Koko’s chest, as if he were claiming credit for the chaos. Qwilleran gathered up the discs. Strangely, they were all red; the black checkers were still in place on the squares. To add insult to injury, Koko jumped down from his perch and landed on the telephone desk, scattering the envelopes that Qwilleran had brought from the mailbox. The cat was obviously in one of his destructive moods, and it seemed wise to leave the recumbent in the van until morning.

He leafed through the mail. Several pieces were commercial flyers addressed to “Occupant,” and they went directly into the wastebasket. But one envelope had a butterfly sketched in the upper lefthand comer. He could hardly rip it open fast enough. It was handwritten, in a style he associated with artists. It was a long letter, and he read it twice before phoning the attorney’s home.

Bart’s wife answered. “He’s on his way home from Chicago, and I don’t expect him until midnight. Is there anything I can do for you?” She was a law clerk at Hasselrich Bennett & Barter.

Qwilleran said, “You could tell him I need to see him first thing in the morning. Tell him it’s important. Tell him it’s about fraud, bribery, arson, and the murder of an elderly woman.”