To Be A Cat

The Terrorcat (and the Stillness of Things)

BARNEY REACHED THE right house, opposite the park, but there was no sign of the one-eyed cat that always sat there every morning when he walked Guster. There was nothing in the window except an empty vase. Barney sat on the pavement a while, feeling vulnerable.

But there were no cats around.

Maybe they were too scared to come anywhere near the Terrorcat. Yes, that was probably it. In which case, maybe he should have been too scared to go anywhere near the Terrorcat. Still, he waited.

As he did, he observed his surroundings. The park. With the same trees and bushes and flower beds that had been there two days ago when he’d been human.

He had a weird feeling.

Like the world told the same lie over and over. The lie that things didn’t change. That things stayed as still as the empty morning air.

And it was easy to keep the lie going because most of the time things really didn’t change.

Each Monday was like the last, give or take a few details. You saw the same faces every day, ate similar food week by week, did a lot of the same stuff. But the stillness of things made it worse when changes happened. Like when a shark pops out of an ocean to gobble a fisherman. Or like when his dad and his mum told him, ‘We’re not going to live together any more.’ Or when, one day, his dad wasn’t there to tell him anything at all.

An old woman was hobbling up the road with a pint of milk.

Barney had seen her quite a few times before. She lived somewhere on this road. She had hearing aids in both ears and was always fiddling with them with whichever hand wasn’t holding the walking stick. Today she had both hands occupied so wasn’t fiddling with anything, but Barney could tell she wanted to.

It took her a century to walk up the street. When she got to where Barney was, the old lady’s eyes looked down with the same kindness she had always shown him as a human.

‘Hello, sweetheart.’

Hello.

And then he realized.

She was going into number 22, and number 22 was the Terrorcat’s house. And she was going so slowly Barney would easily be able to sneak inside, even if she hadn’t turned to him and said, ‘Come on, sweetheart. You look like you could do with some milk. Come on. Come inside.’

Inside: mouldy wallpaper, ancient carpet, black and white framed photos, unopened envelopes, and the deafening sound of breakfast TV presenters filling every corner.

But no cat.

Not in the hallway or the living room.

Then …

A voice from above:

‘Hello.’

There he was at the top of the stairs, half in shadow, his one eye shining down like a solitary star on a cloudy night.

Barney realized he was expected to say something.

‘Hello … Mr Terrorcat,’ he said nervously. ‘I’m Barney Willow. I’m not actually a cat. I just came to see you because yesterday you saved me from Pumpkin and those other swipers, and I thought you would … I thought you would know how I could turn back into a human. I thought as you obviously have powers … I wondered … maybe you could do it for me?’

The Terrorcat sat in the same ominous silence so Barney stepped closer to the stairs. ‘I really want to be a human. I want to be me again.’

Barney saw the old lady in the kitchen and her crooked hand beckoning him towards a saucer of milk. ‘Come on, sweetheart.’

It was then the Terrorcat decided to speak, staying in exactly the same spot. His voice seemed to have a forced calm, but Barney’s ears detected a troubled wavering.

‘What made you change your mind?’

Barney had no clue as to what this meant. ‘Sorry? I don’t understand.’

The Terrorcat studied Barney.

‘You wanted to be someone else. Anyone else. Even a cat. Or you wouldn’t have been able to change.’

Barney closed his eyes, and in his memory saw torn pieces of paper flying in the wind, and remembered exactly how he had felt on Wednesday evening.

‘I was stupid. I’d had a bad day.’ Barney reconsidered. ‘I’d had a bad two years.’

‘Two years?’

‘My mum and dad got divorced then, and it’s like everything since has been cursed. Everything. I went to a terrible new school with this demon head teacher, who I now know is actually a cat, and with this evil kid called Gavin who is just a nightmare. Then, on top of all that, my dad disappeared.’

‘Pickles!’ It was the old lady, shouting even louder than the people on TV.

‘That’s what she calls me,’ said the Terrorcat softly. ‘Not good for the cred, but I live with it.’

‘Come on, you two kitty-cats, get some milk.’

The Terrorcat didn’t move. Just stayed there, King of the Stairs.

‘You were saying? About your dad.’

‘He wasn’t living with us. He was living on his own in a little flat. But one day he ran away. I don’t know why. No one knows. No one knows anything except that he was selfish, because he didn’t leave a note or anything and never came to explain.’

They were called again for some milk, and then the old lady gave up and hobbled back to the living room and her TV.

‘You are wrong,’ said the Terrorcat.

Barney was surprised. ‘What?’

‘He came to see you, but he was thrown back out on the street. There was no way he could explain what he was going through. But he never stopped loving you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The Terrorcat came downstairs, tackling each stair carefully. It seemed strange. A cat with superpowers worrying about how to handle a staircase.

When he was right up close, Barney stared into the speckled green of the cat’s one eye and felt scared, as though he’d walked into a trap.

‘More to me than meets the eye.’ The Terrorcat then gestured with his head towards the kitchen. ‘Come. Let’s have some milk.’

Barney followed reluctantly.

They drank from the same bowl, and Barney would have loved the soothing creamy liquid on his dry tongue if it hadn’t been for the fear prickling his whiskers.

‘How do you know about my dad …’ Then Barney had a thought. ‘Are you psychic? Can you read minds?’

The Terrorcat spluttered on his milk. ‘It’s all a lie,’ he said. ‘This whole Terrorcat thing. I’ve no magic powers. The cats find it easy to believe because of how I look – with the eye. But really that just proves my lack of power. You see – like you, I wasn’t always a cat. I was a human, too. And on my very first day as a cat I got into a fight with a Siamese.’

Barney thought of Miss Whipmire. ‘Siamese?’

‘Yes. I told her my name and everything, and she hated humans, and had a mean set of paws. That’s how I lost the eye … Never seen her since, though.’

That certainly did sound like Miss Whipmire.

‘The old lady took me in. Looked after me. Got me stitched up at the vet’s …’

‘So why “the Terrorcat”?’

‘Well, survival. That thing about cats having nine lives is not true. I realized the way to stop fear was to become fear itself. I had no powers, not like real cats. But I looked scary. Plus …’

The Terrorcat hesitated, took a slow lap of the milk and seemed to be mulling something over. ‘Plus, I was good at selling when I was human, at putting on an act,’ he said at long last. ‘That

was my only talent. That’s the only real talent I’ve ever had. So when I was mistaken by a ginger moggy for the legendary Terrorcat, I said, “That’s me.” It was easy.’

Wasn’t always a cat …

On my first day …

Good at selling …

‘So … if you’re not psychic, how do you know so much about my dad?’

Barney gaped into the eye. Up close, he knew that was what brought him here, like a moth to a lightbulb. Not the eye itself but the soul shining inside. He knew that soul better than he knew anything in the world.

The Terrorcat said nothing for a moment as a drop of milk slipped off his chin into the bowl. There wasn’t an actual smile, but Barney sensed one. ‘You already know.’

It was true. Barney knew. How could he not, this close to the human he loved as much as any other, even if that human was now a cat?

‘Yes, Dad. I do.’