by John Gordon
Marshall and the Mathematician
Marshall is very picky about his friends.
His favorite is Pellomie Miffin. Marshall loves Pellomie and she loves him. She also knows him and doesn’t bother him when he’s busy working, like when he watches Baroness Von Smulkin’s birds next door. He likes to chase birds and mice but has no interest in catching them.
Pellomie’s long hair is the same color as Marshall’s. It has a fine brownish gold tint that shines with a red-like glow in the sun. When she would nap on the patio Marshall would curl up near her head. This was a safe hiding place for Marshall since he looked so much like Pellomie’s hair that no one noticed him there. Cats by nature love to hide in plain sight.
Maple Miffin is Pellomie’s father, another favorite of Marshall’s. Maple is an accountant and Marshall is fascinated by numbers. He can be found curled up on Maple’s desk in the evening where Mr. Miffin works at his accounting after dinner. Whenever Marshall detects a mistake in Mr. Miffin’s work, which isn’t often, his fur stands on end. It is his way of letting a friend know that something is wrong.
Usually Mr. Miffin would catch the error after Marshall’s warning. Maple assumed he had spotted it himself. But, when he didn’t catch it, Marshall would wait until everyone was asleep and come back well into the night. Then he would pull out the ledger book or papers and find the page with the mistake. With one calculated tug of his paw Marshall would tear the page out, or just separate it from the rest. After that it was a simple matter to hide it in one of his many choice spots in the garden or over the fence or behind the refrigerator. No one ever looks behind the refrigerator.
The next day Maple would discover a page was missing. He’d set about doing it over, thinking he had somehow misplaced that section and Mr. Miffin never made mistakes the second time. Marshall enjoyed helping Mr. Miffin. What else did a cat have to do with humans except give them a hand when they needed it? Isn’t that what cats came to the planet for? Marshall was sure of it.
Brandon Buthlecart is the only mathematician in Marshall’s life. Brandon likes to play with numbers just for the fun of it which cats completely understand. He lives on the second floor of the apartment building the third house down the street and he often visits the Miffins. Marshall is so fond of him that he will brave the Baroness’s swinging broom to visit Brandon’s apartment.
The Baroness’s yard is between the Miffin’s house and where Brandon lives. Right next to the Baroness’s yard is the Krumkle’s. Juble Krumkle is a monster to Marshall. Marshall is sure that Juble has come from some planet with the plan of tormenting all cats and preventing them from naturally bringing peace and contentment to humans. Marshall will cross an alley full of dogs rather than go into that yard.
This evening Mrs. Annabell Miffin fixed a luscious meal of green spinach and perch. When marshall’s sharp nose picked up the scent of perch he knew that Brandon was coming over for dinner. Perch was Brandon’s favorite. The Miffin’s liked the mathematician a lot to prepare perch with the special seasonings that Mrs. Miffin prepared. Maple disliked perch and he shared with Marshall by slipping morsels under the table.
Now Marshall was so sure that Brandon was coming for dinner that he went to visit Brandon’s apartment. It would be a pleasant surprise for his friend to have an escort to dinner.
Marshall walked the Baroness’ fence, stopping for a moment to gaze into her dining room window. Sometimes he would give her a chance to grab the broom and come out after him. Then Marshall would quickly disappear before she got out the back door. He wasn’t always the nicest cat to those that mistreated him.
To avoid Krumkle’s back yard Marshall dropped down to the alley, looking both ways for dogs before crossing, though some dogs like Roman from down the block were perfectly fine. Reaching the apartment house where Brandon lived on the second floor, Marshall jumped up into the large oak tree and scrambled onto Brandon’s porch. He dropped onto the red wooden floor of the porch and looked into the empty living room through the closed glass doors.
‘Brandon must have left already’, he thought with the picture in his mind the way that cats think. Marshall was just about ready to turn and head for home when something caught his eye. A wicker basket sat innocently beside Brandon’s desk. Marshall didn’t remember it looking quite like that. Was it there before? Now he wondered what was inside that wicker basket. It had something mysterious about it.
The worst thing to try and keep from a cat is any kind of secret. Was Brandon hiding something from him? Marshall decided to find out what it was. The bathroom window was open and a few feet above Marshall. He jumped easily to the ledge and peered inside. It looked clear and nothing jumped up at him from inside. So Marshall leapt down to the floor and stalked into the living room. He carefully, very carefully approached the wooden desk that Brandon often worked at. The rug was thick and light green and felt like soft grass under Marshall’s paws. Ahh, there was the basket just a short pounce away. He stopped to look it over. ‘No point in rushing up to this basket.’ As cats are many and varied, Marshall was pretty smart and cautious, usually.
He sat and his tail flicked very softly behind him. He looked and watched for even the slightest movement. Quietly he took a slow step forward. Still nothing jumped out at him. Now it was safe to stroll up to the basket and poke it with his strong right paw. Still no response.
Marshall put his head over the edge and was startled by what he saw. It was a basket full of numbers. They were all different pale colors and almost close to invisible. Numbers were clustered together except a few that clung to the sides. It was a huge ball of numbers like a giant ball of twine. He looked critically at them, trying to find a familiar one and certainly Marshall knew numbers. But these numbers had something strange about them. He couldn’t recognize any of them. This meant an immediate investigation was needed.
With a swift and very sleek movement of his body Marshall leapt right into the basket, right on top of the ball of numbers.
They stuck to him like glue.
All over his body, up and down his legs and even to the tip of his tail, Marshall was covered with the strange numbers. It seemed they had found a home on him. He jumped out onto the living room floor. Not one number was left in the basket.
He tried scratching them off. That didn’t work.
He tried licking them off. They just stuck to his nose.
He rolled in the rug. It only pressed them deeper into his fur.
This was a problem.
Marshall ran into the bathroom and leapt up to the window.
And he flew through the opening, right out into the air. Marshall the cat was floating two stories off the ground! This was surprising, but it didn’t hurt at all. He had never missed a window sill before. He was sinking ever so slowly toward the ground. It was so slow he could almost take a nap in the air.
He was sinking right into Juble Krumkle’s yard.
The annoying Juble spotted Marshall floating down toward his yard. He ran and got his father’s fish net from the garage. Then he stood ever so patiently and waited for Marshall to sink down into the net. There was a big smile on his face. He was already planning mischief.
When Marshall was only a few feet above the net he hissed at Juble. When he hissed - the very same moment - a few of the strange numbers shot off his body. The numbers wiggled and squirmed in the air and then stuck themselves to Juble. One particularly large and obnoxious looking number stuck to Juble’s nose.
Juble dropped the net and ran around the yard. He was yelling “Help! Help! Marshall the cat did something.!” Then Juble floated gently off the ground even as he wiggled his arms and pumped his legs as if he could run in the air.
Marshall’s brief hissy fit somehow affected the numbers and Marshall was pushed over backwards in the air with his feet turned up. Now he floated along upside down over the Baroness’s yard meeowing pitifully at his predicament.
The Baroness heard that sound and looked out her dining room window where she was s
itting with a cup of tea and some knitting. She sprang for the door while grabbing her broom. Then she leapt into the yard like an athlete. She was delighted to see Marshall floating along a few feet above her head. What a happy sight. He was within reach so she drew the broom back and aimed at him carefully. The Baroness wasn’t mean but this was her land and she didn’t like Marshall being on it. “Now, you mangy animal. I’ll teach you to fly over my yard.”
Marshall hissed even louder and angrier than before. Then half of the odd numbers on his body spun off of him. The lightest blues and greens, pinks and yellows spiraled down and covered the Baroness from head to toe.
This wasn’t going to stop her from getting him. He was still falling gently as her broom connected with his furry backside. Marshall went flying through the air like a baseball thrown across the alley. The Baroness floated off the ground. She was very upset as she drifted up and over her yard.
Marshall still had a lot of the strange numbers on him as he angled down toward the Juldippy’s yard. There slept Tiny.
Tiny was a large and generally kind-hearted bulldog, except where cats were concerned. He would bang against a wooden fence to chase a cat. He especially disliked Marshall’s superior air when he walked down the alley slowly right next to Tiny’s fence. And now Marshall
