To Be A Cat

The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney

AS BARNEY WAITED by Rissa’s ankles she looked down at him, smiling that same blank smile. What could he do to prove it was him?

‘Are you still there?’ she said.

He could feel a strange vibration inside him, a weird warm mumbling. And then he realized he was purring. But he wasn’t happy. He was anything but. Yet there it was, a purr that now seemed as loud as a drill. Because purring – that great mystery which has baffled biologists through the ages (‘Check the larynx!’ ‘No, it’s not coming from there!’) – isn’t anything to do with happiness. It’s to do with magic. And the sound of purring is the sound of magic itself. Or, rather, the sound of magic capabilities being made.

The door opened and his mother was standing there. He expected her to look pale and worried. After all, she must have known by now that her son was missing. But she didn’t look worried at all. In fact, she was smiling.

‘Hello, Rissa,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, I’m fine, thanks, Mrs Willow. Is Barney ready?’

This was it.

This was the moment they would realize something was majorly wrong.

Barney waited for his mother to say she hadn’t seen him all morning, but it didn’t happen. Her smile stayed exactly in place.

But if his mum’s behaviour was weird, what she said was even worse.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s just coming. Barney! Barney! Rissa’s here!’

This didn’t make sense.

Barney wasn’t coming.

He couldn’t be coming.

He was standing out on the pavement.

Yet only moments later, Barney saw someone walking through the darkness of the hallway.

Someone in Barney’s uniform.

And now he was there, standing with the sunlight revealing his face.

A twelve-year-old boy’s face.

Freckled.

With wavy hair and slightly sticking-out ears.

Barney knew the face.

It was the face he saw in the mirror every single day.

His face. On his body. In his school uniform.

And this Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney stared down at the Barney-Who-Was-Barney and gave him a quiet look which said:

I know.

I know you are me and I am you.

This is what you wanted.

‘Hi, Barns,’ Rissa said.

The other Barney silently left the house and started walking up the road, with Rissa, a little confused, following behind.

Barney – the real Barney – didn’t know what to do. So, for a few long moments, he did nothing. Then the door closed, and the sound of it thudding shut brought Barney to his senses.

And that is when he decided to follow Rissa and his other self up the street.

‘The sky was amazing last night,’ Rissa was saying. ‘I could see Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.’

The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney looked baffled.

‘So what did your mum say about the letter?’

She got no answer.

‘Barney? Are you OK? You seem, I don’t know, a bit blank. Is this about Miss Whipmire?’

Then it happened.

The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney started running – sprinting, in fact. He ran to the top of the street, then turned right onto Marlowe Road.

‘Barney!’ shouted Rissa. ‘What are you doing? Was it because I mentioned Miss Whipmire?’

The Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney said nothing, just kept running, and so Barney ran after him as fast as his little legs could take him.