The Cat Who Saw Stars

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The two passengers in the cat carrier on the backseat complained and jockeyed

for position, then settled down as the brown van picked up speed on the open highway. The route to Mooseville lay due north. For Qwilleran, it was a highway of memories, crowded with landmarks from his earlier experiences in the county:

Dimsdale Diner (bad coffee, good gossip) … Ittibittiwassee Road (turn left to Shantytown, right to the Buckshot Mine) … old turkey farm (once owned by Mildred Riker’s first husband) … abandoned cemetery (poison ivy) … state prison (famous flower gardens, infamous scandal).

At the prison gates, the dozing Siamese perked up, stretched their necks, and sniffed. It was not roses they smelled; it was the lake, still a mile away. They detected open water, aquatic weeds, algae, plankton, minnows! Their excitement increased as the van traveled along the lakeshore road. On the left, Qwilleran saw Avery Botts’s farmhouse and the Fryers Club Summer Stage… on the right, glimpses of the lake between the trees… on the left, pastureland with cattle ruminating or horses showing off their glossy coats and noble bearing… on the right, the rustic gate of Top o’ the Dunes Club, where the Rikers had their beach house… on the left, a solitary stone chimney, all that remained of an old one-room schoolhouse… on the right, the letter K on a post.

This was the old Klingenschoen property, a half-square mile of ancient forest on ancient sand dunes, with a sandy drive winding among pines, oaks, maples, and cherry trees. After dipping up and down aimlessly, it emerged in a clearing where a cabin overlooked a hundred miles of water. Built of full-round logs interlocking at the corners, the small cabin seemed anchored to the ground by its enormous stone chimney. Eighty-foot pine trees with only a few branches at the top surrounded it like sentinels.

Before bringing the cats indoors, Qwilleran inspected the premises, which had been cleaned and summerized by a youthful maintenance crew called the Sand Giant’s Gnomes. The interior space was limited: a single large room with two cubicles at one end and a stone fireplace spanning the other. What suggested spaciousness and a kind of grandeur was the open ceiling that soared to the peak of the roof and was crisscrossed by log beams and braces. As soon as blinds were opened, the large window facing the lake and the three new skylights in the roof filled the interior with shafts of light.

Only then was the carrier brought indoors, its occupants jostling roughly and yowling loudly. The tiny door was unlatched, and suddenly they were quiet and wary.

“It’s safe!” Qwilleran reassured them. “No lions or tigers! The floor has been cleaned and polished, and you can walk on it with impunity.” The more you talk to cats, he believed, the smarter they become.

Immediately they remembered the back porch with its concrete floor warmed by the sun’s rays. They rushed out to curl and uncurl on its rough surface. Then Koko stretched out to his full length, the better to absorb warmth in every glistening cat hair.

Qwilleran thought, He loves the sun, and the sun loves him. He was quoting another journalist, Christopher Smart, who had written a poem about his cat, Jeoffrey. It was rich in quotable lines, even though Christopher and Jeoffrey had lived in the eighteenth century.

While the Siamese lounged al fresco, Qwilleran unpacked the van - first, the recumbent bicycle. The tough old trail bike was in the toolshed, but the snooty technological freak with basket seat and elevated pedals deserved more respect. He parked it on the kitchen porch. Trial runs on the backroads of Pickax had convinced him that it was safer, speedier, and less tiring than conventional bikes. Whether he would have the nerve to ride such a curiosity in tradition-bound Mooseville was yet to be decided.

Other baggage from the van made itself at home: clothing in the sleeping cubicle, writing materials in the office cubicle, books on shelves in the main room. Two exceptions went on the coffee table: the Thomas Hardy novel because of its impressive leather binding, and Mark Twain A to Z because of its large size. Koko liked to sit on large books.

There was a second screened porch on the lakeside - with a magnificent view and plenty of afternoon sun - but the concrete floor was not good for rolling, the Siamese had discovered. Sand tracked in from the beach or was blown in by prevailing winds.

The cabin perched on a lofty sand dune that had been hundreds of years in the making, its steep slope anchored by beach grass and milkweed. A sandladder led down to the beach; it was simply a framework of two-by-fours filled in with loose sand for treads.

Qwilleran, dressed for dinner in white shorts and black polo shirt, stood at the top of the sandladder, and noticed that the beach had changed. Normally an expanse of deep, dry sand, it was now a hard, flat pebbly surface, while the loose sand had blown up into a ridge at the foot of the dune. It might blow away or wash away in the next storm; that was the fascination of living at the shore. The water itself could change from calm to turbulent in five minutes, while its color shifted from blue to turquoise to green.

He walked along the shore to the Rikers’ beachhouse. The first half-mile bordered his own property and included

the stony Seagull Point. Then came the row of cottages known as Top o’ the Dune Club. This year they had been given names, displayed on rustic signs of routed wood. The golfing Mableys called their place THE SAND TRAP. The old Dunfield cottage, said to be haunted, was now LITTLE MANDERLEY. A little frame house called THE LITTLE FRAME HOUSE was understandable when one knew the owners had a picture-framing business. Then there was BAH HUMBUG, which could belong only to the Comptons; Lyle was superintendent of schools, a grouch with a sense of humor.

Most of the cottagers were on their decks, and they waved at Qwilleran; some invited him up for a drink.

Last in the row was the Rikers’ cottage, a yellow frame bungalow called SUNNY DAZE.

“Is that the cleverest name you could think of?” Qwilleran asked Arch, never missing a chance to needle his old friend. Arch was serving drinks; Mildred was serving canapés. The Comptons were there, and Toulouse sat on the deck railing - a silent bundle of black-and- white fur.

“Does he ever say anything?” Qwilleran asked, comparing his silence with Koko’s electronic yowl.

“He says a polite meow when I feed him,” Mildred said. “For a stray he’s very well-mannered.”

She was wearing a caftan intended to disguise her plumpness. Her husband’s leisure garb did nothing to camouflage his well-fed silhouette, but he was happy and relaxed. By comparison, the superintendent of schools looked underfed and overworked after three decades of coping with school boards, teachers, and parents. Lisa Compton was as pleasant as her husband pretended to be grouchy.

Mildred announced, “Qwill has built a guest house!”

“Expecting a lot of company?” Lisa asked.

“No, it’s strictly for emergency overnights,” he said. “It’s a little larger than a dollhouse and a little more comfortable than a tent. I come up here to get away from it all and don’t encourage guests.”

Lisa asked about Polly Duncan; they were usually seen together at dinner parties.

“She’s traveling in Canada with her sister during; July.”

“A whole month? You’ll miss her,” Mildred said.

He shrugged. “She went to England for a whole summer, and I survived.” The truth was: already he missed their nightly phone calls, and he would miss their weekends even more. “Has anyone tried the new restaurant?”

No one had, but they had read about it on the food page of the Something. A couple had come from Florida to run it during the summer months; the wife was the chef, with a bachelor’s degree from a culinary institute. It sounded promising.

Mildred said, “We stressed her training because MCCC will soon have a chef’s school, and we knew our readers would be curious about the curriculum in a school like that. It was a generous feature, but the chef’s husband had the bad taste to phone and complain because we didn’t price the entrees or list the desserts.”

Lisa nodded wisely. “He was jealous because his wife got all the attention, and he wasn’t even in the photo.”

Then they discussed the backpacker mystery (no conclusion) … the Sand Giant’s Gnomes (nice kids) … the sudden naming of beach houses (someone’s nephew was in the sign business).

Qwilleran asked Lyle, “What’s new in the school system? Any conspiracies? Any bloodshed?”

“I’ll tell you what’s happening,” Lyle said crisply. “The K Fund has been so generous with our schools that we’ve gone from the lowest per-student expenditure to the highest in the state! So our share of state funding has been reduced to peanuts. At the same time - they’re telling us what and how to teach!”

“And if we don’t comply,” Lisa put in, “they’re threatening to take over our schools!”

“Over my dead body!” Lyle said. “Our school system will go private! The whole county will secede from the state: the Principality of Moose, 400 miles north of everywhere, with our own government, our own tax laws, our own education system!”

“And my husband as reigning monarch,” Lisa cried. “King Lyle the First!”

“Thank you,” he said. “Qwill can be chancellor of the exchequer, and Arch can be master of the royal cellar.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said the host as he uncorked another bottle.

While he served, Lisa asked Qwilleran about his vacation plans, and Lyle asked if he had brought his weird bicycle.

“If you refer to the recumbent… yes, I brought it, but I plan to ride only on back roads. Mooseville isn’t ready for state-of-the-art technology.”

“And what do you intend to read?” Mildred asked.

“Chiefly old editions of Mark Twain that Eddington Smith has found in estate sales. It’s amazing how bookish previous generations were in this remote comer of the country.”

“There was no electronic entertainment,” Lyle said. “Also, there was a lot of affluence in the nineteenth century, and an impressive library gave the family status, whether or not they read the books - probably not. I imagine you run across many uncut pages, Qwill.”

“Yes, but not in Mark Twain’s books; they’re all well thumbed.”

“He came through here on a lecture tour,” Lisa said. “My great-grandmother had a crush on him. She fell for his moustache. I have her diary. The pages are brown, and the ink is fading, but it’s full of fascinating stuff.”

Qwilleran made a mental note for the “Qwill Pen”: Lisa Compton’s great-grandmother’s diary.

When Mildred invited them indoors to the table and they were spooning butternut and roasted pepper soup, she asked, “Is everyone going to the Fryers Club play? It may be Fran Brodie’s last production. I hear she’s had a good job offer in Chicago. She was there for two weeks, working on the hotel do-over.”

“Bad news!” Lisa moaned. “What can we do to keep her here?”

“Get Dr. Prelligate to propose marriage. They’ve been seeing a lot of each other.”

Arch said, “It’ll take more than a college president to keep Fran down on the farm. Get Qwilleran to propose…”

“Arch, honey, would you pour the wine? I’m ready to serve the chops,” Mildred interrupted.

With the coddled chops were twice-baked potatoes, a broccoli soufflé, a pinot noir, and a toast from Lyle Compton: “Thursday’s Independence Day! Let’s drink to the genius who single-handedly dragged the Fourth of July parade from the pits and launched it to the stars!”

“Hear! Hear!” the others shouted with vigor. Mildred blushed. “Lyle, I didn’t know you could be so poetic!”

“Speech! Speech!”

“Well, our parades were getting to be all commercial and political. The last straw was a candy-grabbing free-for-all for kids, with rock music blaring from a sound truck, and not an American flag in sight! Someone had to put a foot down, and I have big feet!”

“That’s my wife,” Arch said proudly. “This year’s parade will have flags, marching bands, floats, grass-roots participation, and a little originality. Athletes from Mooseland High, wearing their uniforms, will march in four rows of five each, carrying banners with a single letter of the alphabet. Each row will spell a word: PEACE, TRUTH, HONOR, and TRUST.”

“Very clever,” said Lisa. “Who’s the grand marshal?”

“Andrew Brodie, in Scottish regalia, with his bagpipe. He’ll march just ahead of the color guard and play patriotic tunes in slow tempo.”

“Maybe it’s because I was born a Campbell,” Lisa said, “but there’s something about bagpipe music that makes me limp with emotion.”

“The floats will be sponsored by the chamber of commerce, parent-teachers, commercial fisheries, private marinas, and the Friends of Wool.” Mildred referred to a new coalition of wool-growers, spinners, knitters, and other fiber artists. “Barb Ogilvie is our mentor - very talented. She teaches knitting, started the knitting club, and runs a knitting day camp for kids. In high school she was considered a bit wild, but she’s settled down. Did Arch tell you he’s learning to knit socks?”

Qwilleran turned to his life long friend in astonishment. “Arch! Why were you keeping this dirty little secret from me?”

“What the heck! It’s one of the things you do when you’re middle-aged and in love.”

“Lyle never says sweet things like that,” Lisa complained.

There was a moment of silence, which Qwilleran interrupted by asking, “What are the Friends of Wool going to do on a float?”

“We’ll have live sheep, a shepherd playing a flute, two spinners spinning, and six knitters knitting - four women and two men, if Arch will consent. Dr. Emerson, the surgeon, has agreed, and I think it would add prestige if the publisher of the newspaper were on the float, knitting a sock with four needles.”

As all eyes turned to him, he said, “To quote Shakespeare: I don’t wanna, I don’t hafta, and I ain’t gonna.”

His wife smiled knowingly at the others. After an old-fashioned Waldorf salad, and Black Forest cake, and coffee, Lyle wanted to smoke a cigar, and the other two men accompanied him down the sandladder to the beach.

Their first comment was about the miniature sand dune recently formed. It extended at least a mile to everyone’s knowledge.

“Some day,” Lyle predicted, “it will be thirty feet high, and our cottages will have crumbled to dust, leaving only the stone chimneys. Tour groups from other planets will gawk at these monuments as tour guides explain that they had religious significance, being used to ensure fertility and ward off famine.”

Qwilleran skipped a few stones across the placid lake surface.

“You’re good at that,” Arch said. “That’s something I could never learn to do.”

“It’s one of my few talents. I could never learn to knit a sock.”

Lyle said, “You should ride on the float, Arch. I’m going to be on the PTA float. We’re reproducing a one-room school with old desks and blackboards, a pot-bellied stove, and everyone in nineteenth-century costume. I’m going to be the principal in a frock coat and pince-nez eyeglasses, brandishing a whipping cane. I expect to get booed by the parade-watchers. I just hope they don’t throw eggs.”

He finished his cigar, and they climbed the sandladder to the deck, where the two women were giggling suspiciously.

Mildred said, “Qwill, I’d like to ask you a great favor.”

“It would be a privilege and a pleasure.” He could never say no to Mildred; she was so sincere, generous, and good-natured, and she was such a good cook.

“Well, the parade opens with a 1776 tableau on a float - the signing of the Declaration of Independence - and it ends with a flock of bicycles. Wouldn’t it be a terrific finale if you brought up the rear with your high-tech recumbent bike?”

Qwilleran hesitated only a second. “I’m not too enthusiastic about the idea, but… I’ll pedal with feet up in the air … if Arch will ride on your float, knitting a sock.”