Elephi

by Jean Stafford

  The policemen grew impatient.

  Miss Alice stopped laughing and began to cry.

  The story is now well known of how, at dinner time the night before Christmas eve in the year of the historic snowstorm, an emergency squad of workmen swarmed into the building on lower Fifth Avenue to remove a car.

  The news of this amazing event spread quickly and so many curious people gathered on the sidewalk out front that special policemen were sent over to direct traffic.

  “You say they’re taking a car out?” said newcomers to the scene.

  “I’m not sure whether it’s a car or a cow,” they were told.

  The doormen from the apartment houses and the hotels down the avenue came to watch. The Presbyterian minister stared from the doorway of the church and his bell ringer forgot to ring the bell at half past five. Everyone, including the workmen, was very jolly. It was agreed that this was the most outlandish thing that had ever happened in this part of town and possibly the most outlandish thing anywhere ever.

  The crowd was delighted when they saw a huge net being raised by pulleys up the side of the building and a great cheer went up when Whitey’s nose appeared in Elephi’s bay window.

  “I said it was a car, not a cow,” said somebody. “What would a cow be doing in a New York City apartment?”

  As the basket with Whitey in it slowly, ever so slowly, descended, the crowd moved back, not wanting to get bumped on the head.

  “Bravo!”

  “Hurray!”

  “Well done!”

  “Did you ever!”

  “Well I never!”

  There was only one heavy heart among all those people, and it belonged to Elephi.

  “Goodbye, Whitey,” called Elephi as the car disappeared over the window ledge.

  “So long, Elephi,” said Whitey. “No hard feelings. You were a brick to do what you did even though it didn’t turn out right. And thanks for the purring lesson.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Elephi. “And remember what I told you. Proper purring depends on proper breathing.”

  The Well-Known Cat leaned out the window as far as he dared and watched the people gather around Whitey. Newspaper reporters and photographers interviewed Miss Alice and took pictures of her and her car. They came up to the Cuckoos’ apartment and photographed the room where Whitey had been found. They wrote down Walter’s story in detail.

  “What a story!” they said.

  “Scoop!” they said.

  They said, “This takes the cake!”

  Late into the night, the Cuckoos talked about their adventure. Sometimes they shook their heads in disbelief and sometimes they laughed until their stomachs ached.

  Elephi did not think it was a laughing matter.

  His first and only friend was gone.

  Poor Cat!

  The next evening before dinner, Mrs. Cuckoo said to Mr. Cuckoo, “The dentist hurts me.”

  “He wouldn’t be a good dentist if he didn’t hurt,” said Mr. Cuckoo. “You should try to think about other things when you’re in his chair.”

  “I do,” said Well Known’s friend. “Today I was thinking about the white car. I know Elephi had something to do with it. I don’t know what, but something . . . the way he was curled up on the seat when Miss Blaster came . . . the way Walter found it to begin with.”

  “Supposing he did have something to do with it,” said Mr. Cuckoo. “Why would he want a Fiat for a toy?”

  “I don’t think he wants a toy exactly,” said Mrs. C, “I think he wants a companion.”

  “That’s cuckoo,” said Mr. Cuckoo.

  “Why cuckoo?” she asked. “All young creatures need playmates.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Cuckoo, weakening, “Well. . .”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Mrs. Cuckoo. “This afternoon as I was waiting for the bus, two Presbyterian children with their older sister stopped to show me a picture one of them had made. I couldn’t tell what it was meant to be and so I asked. They told me it was a mother cat with four kittens.”

  “Mmmm,” said Mr. Cuckoo and rattled his newspaper.

  “So naturally I inquired.”

  “Naturally.”

  “The kittens are six weeks old,” said Mrs. Cuckoo. “Their mother is a silver tabby and their father is a black Persian.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Presbyterian children said they would give me one for Christmas.”

  “I’m sure they would.”

  “Oh, please! It would make Elephi so happy!”

  “All right, all right,” said Mr. Cuckoo. “Can’t have an unhappy cat around the house. Where is the rogue, by the way?”

  The rogue came out from behind a row of rare books and knocked several of them onto the floor.

  “I know you stole that car,” said Mrs. Cuckoo, “but how did you manage to do it?”

  “Are you sure he wants a Presbyterian kitten?” asked her husband.

  Elephi answered in this way: he purred thunderously. He chased his tail with joy. He boxed the curtain pull, getting into practice for sparring matches. He sprinted down the hall, pawed his personal walnut, yanked up a window shade, found the green rubber birthday mouse and chewed its ear smack off.

  The savage cat, as fearless as a lion, dragged the mouse by the tail and laid it at Mr. Cuckoo’s feet.

  “Thank you, Elephi,” said Mr. Cuckoo. “May I keep this mouse? Or is it only on loan?”

  “He can have the kitten, can’t he?”

  “He can have the kitten if I can have this excellent green rubber mouse,” said Mr. Cuckoo.

  Suddenly Elephi was so tired that he had to lie down. He had been working hard the last few days and he needed a good long sleep.

  The last thing he heard, before Mr. Sandman came to take him to the Land of Nod, was Mrs. Cuckoo saying, “I daresay you realize that I accepted the kitten without asking you if I could. The children are bringing him first thing in the morning.”

  Oh, goody!

  Games!

  Secrets!

  But right now:

  Snooze.

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