To Be A Cat

Inside the Filing Cabinet

SO, THIS WAS a great start to being twelve. Turning into a cat and getting locked inside his psychotic, post-feline head teacher’s filing cabinet.

‘Let me out!’

Then her voice, as cold and hard as the metal that contained him. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, but really you should thank me. You see, I’m doing what I’m paid to do. I’m educating you. I’m giving a lesson in horror, and teaching you that you should really be careful what you wish for. Oh, and that thing about cats having nine lives, well, that’s a lie. As you’ll find out when I take you home with me.’

‘But my mum! It’s not fair on her. My dad’s already missing. If I go missing too she’ll have nobody.’

‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ said Miss Whipmire. ‘You’re a cat. So even if I set you free – which, by the way, won’t happen – your mum won’t ever know it’s you, will she? And you won’t ever be able to change back because you are too weak.’

‘Wait … I can change back?’ Barney asked.

‘No, imbecile. Did you not hear me?’

‘Yes, I did, but you said I couldn’t change back because I was weak. Which means if I was strong enough, I could—’

‘It doesn’t matter if you live to a hundred (which you won’t, being a cat) – you will NEVER be strong enough.’

Barney had no idea what she was talking about, although he was beginning to sense Miss Whipmire’s motives weren’t solely to do with revenge. ‘But you’re saying there is a way to turn back?’

He could feel her smile, even though he couldn’t see it. ‘Unfortunately for you, that’s very unlikely. You see, the cat who turned into you is going to be happier being you than you ever were. You’ve swapped bodies with a cat who hates humans just as much as me, Barney Willow. There is no return ticket for you.’

Barney wondered if she was lying. Or if there really was no way back to being human.

‘You see,’ continued Miss Whipmire, ‘you’ve missed your opportunity. Because that is what life is. A grand opportunity. And opportunities are like cat flaps. They don’t stay open for ever … But don’t worry too much about it. The dead don’t have regrets.’

Miss Whipmire seemed amused by these words.

Barney had no choice but to stay there, standing on paperclips, with nothing except the darkness and the smell of stationery and the petrifying sound of a cat’s laugh coming from a human mouth.

After that there was silence.

Barney waited and waited, trying to think of a plan.

None came.

Even when he heard Miss Whipmire leave the room for a while, Barney didn’t know what he could do. There was no way he could push open a locked drawer from the inside, and with paws instead of fingers he wouldn’t have much hope trying to pick a lock with paperclips.

So he miaowed, continuously, until he was exhausted, until the darkness made his eyes so heavy he could hardly keep them open. But he kept on miaowing, in a state which was somewhere between napping and awake as he heard, very faintly, his long-lost father’s voice rising from a dream.

It will be all right, it will be all right, it will be all right …