To Be A Cat

Rissa Gets a Shock

IT WAS ODD, how it started.

A bronze and black tabby cat sitting on a low garden wall. Rissa and Barney walked towards it as it turned to look at them, then, once they had passed, Barney realized this was one of the swipers he had encountered this morning.

Sure enough, the cat was now following them. And it wasn’t alone. A few steps behind the tabby was Pumpkin.

Rissa, Barney said. We’re being followed.

But, of course, she didn’t understand. She just carried on walking without realizing that there were two – no, three now – actually make that four – no, five – six. And what about those three at the back? Nine cats, walking in a very serious group, keeping their eyes fixed on Barney.

Then Rissa stopped.

A pelican crossing. She pressed the button and waited.

Meanwhile the cats gathered behind Rissa’s heels as ominously as a rain cloud stalking the sun. Barney looked at them, scanning the crowd. There seemed to be twice as many as there had been this morning. Barney saw the one with bat-sized ears and a single-fanged tooth sticking out of its mouth. He remembered this one was called Lyka.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Barney asked them.

They said nothing.

Rissa carried Barney across the road, and the cats followed.

As they got further and further away from the centre of town the streets became quieter, until there was no one. No cars, no pedestrians, just cats. And more than nine now. About twenty, at least.

Enough for Rissa to turn round.

‘Whoa!’ said Rissa, and Barney felt a big bass drum of shock beat in her chest before she calmed herself down and realized it was only some cats. But soon she began to freak out as they all started purring loudly, rubbing their heads against the bottom of her legs.

‘OK, good cats … nice cats … I’m just going to go now.’

Barney was confused. Why had these swipers been scared to attack him in front of Rissa earlier but were now perfectly fine about it? Then he remembered Miss Whipmire whispering to Pumpkin. Things began to make sense.

Rissa tried to escape the cats without hurting them, by lifting one of her feet high in the air and attempting to step wide onto the pavement. But the persistent creatures didn’t allow this to happen, because as her leg rose at least four of the cats dug their claws into her socks and her skin, trying to weigh her back to the ground.

‘Ow!’

Rissa had to literally jump free from the cats, and even then she ended up landing on one of their paws.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the swiper she’d stepped on.

Within moments the cats had started to gather again around Rissa’s ankles, clawing at her as if she were a tree.

‘Get off! That hurts!’

Another – Lyka – had jumped so high she reached Rissa’s hand. Her long claws hooked into her skin, causing enough pain for Rissa to drop Barney onto Pumpkin.

‘Wotchit, Lyka, he landed on me blinkin’ ’ead.’

Barney scrambled to his feet. Swipers circled.

He realized now that even Rissa couldn’t save him. Maybe she would have if she’d known who he really was, but as a cat, well, that was a different issue. Cats attacking cats was just nature and sometimes you had to let nature be. True, she did stamp her feet, but it did nothing to shoo off Pumpkin or his fellow swipers. So Barney ran, as fast as he could, pushing his way past Lyka and the bronze and black tabby. He could hear Pumpkin behind.

‘Right, boys, geddim! Can’t ’ave ’im escape us this time!’

Barney galloped towards some railings and a front garden full of plants and hiding places. He snuck through the railings and realized he wasn’t being followed any more. Hiding amid some rhododendrons, he saw the swipers still on the street, frozen with fear.

‘It’s him!’ gasped Lyka.

‘The Terrorcat,’ said Pumpkin, gravely.

‘He can melt your brain if you stare into his eye!’ said the tabby.

‘He can stop your heart with one whisker curl!’ whimpered another, and the panic quickly spread among the others.

‘And your breath with a tail swish!’

‘He can make your fur feel wet for the rest of your life!’

‘He has his own army of hypnotized rottweilers!’

‘He is EVIL!!!’

‘I want my mummy …’

And they turned and fled with the other street cats as Rissa reluctantly walked away in the other direction and Barney did nothing at all. Just stayed breathlessly still, looking past pretty petals to try and get a glimpse of the Terrorcat.

It was the old silver cat he’d always seen staring out of the window. The one with the stitched-up eye. And even though Barney knew he should have felt scared, he didn’t. It was strange. As he watched the cat – a fireside, as Mocha had told him – licking his front paws, he couldn’t conjure the slightest trace of fear in his heart. Barney felt, in fact, as though he was watching an old friend. The eye was looking right at Barney, but he didn’t feel like his brain was melting. He felt, in fact, something else completely. He felt kindness, or maybe even love.

‘Who are you?’ Barney whispered, too quietly for the Terrorcat to hear.

The Terrorcat seemed sad, and Barney felt an urge to go over and comfort him. But, still, he knew he had to be cautious. So when the silver cat stood up and walked away, Barney didn’t follow. He just waited there until it was out of sight, and then he carefully – and watchfully – slipped back between the railings.

There was a pond-sized puddle on the path. Still water lit by the faint morning sun.

Barney looked into the remnants of yesterday’s rain and saw a face he recognized. A cat’s face, with a white patch of fur around its left eye.

It was the cat he’d seen on his birthday. The one who’d made him feel dizzy. The one Barney had wished he could be in order not to have to face his mum.

To be a cat …

And so it was that, right there, Barney’s terrible mistake was confirmed.