by Blake Jon
Ah well, I said to myself. Better luck next time. I thought no more of it, till Kris sought me out in the playground.
It started as the usual type of conversation. Kris told me how beautiful I was looking, which he always said, without giving any clue whether he meant it, was joking, or just looking for a reaction. I tried to ignore him as usual, but his gaze had become strangely fixed on my right shoulder. I turned away, but he came with me, peering closer and closer, till suddenly he snatched forward and plucked something from my sweater.
“Don’t do that!” I barked.
Kris examined what looked like a piece of fine orange fluff. “That’s cat hair,” he said.
I died. “No it isn’t!” I snapped.
Kris nodded. “Yes it is,” he said. He peered again at my shoulder. “There’s even flea eggs,” he added.
“There is not!” I barked, covering the shoulder with my hand.
“Unless it’s dandruff,” said Kris.
“I do not have dandruff!” I cried.
“Just as I thought then,” said Kris. “Flea eggs.”
I made no reply. Was he bluffing me? I hadn’t seen any sign of fleas on Feela—but then, I didn’t know what the signs were.
“How long have you had a cat?” asked Kris, his eyes burning with need-to-know.
“I haven’t got a cat!” I snapped. “I don’t even know anyone who’s got a cat!”
“Ah,” said Kris. “So you didn’t get that hair off one of your rich friends’ cats.”
I cursed myself. Why hadn’t I used that excuse? Kris didn’t know I’d lost touch with everyone on the marina.
“You might as well tell me,” said Kris, “’cause I’ll find out in the end.”
This wasn’t an empty threat. Kris was dogged, and he was also smart. Not the kind of smart that passes exams, because he was useless at reading and writing, but the kind of smart that knows what’s what, that works things out, that seizes opportunities and holds on to them like a dog with a stick.
I considered the options. One was simply to tell the truth. If it had been anyone but Kris, I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing this. But I knew that Kris was the last person to tell the authorities. Kris hated Comprot (as Community Protection are generally known) and they hated him. They tagged him for two years after he sprayed CHILD BEATER on the front door of Kelis Hunt’s dad’s house. He got the tag off, ended up in a ruck with the compers, and after that it was any excuse to pick him up. One time they threatened to have a Ychip put in his head, and only a lastminute appeal from the Social Team stopped it.
Another thing about Kris, he never wore logos. He’d rather be seen dead than have a Nike swoosh on his cap, or a Viafara cat on his boots. No one owned him, he said, and he wasn’t anybody’s advertising space. I figured if he hated those companies, it was a good bet he was against the cat market.
Besides, what a relief it would be if I could tell someone else about Feela! I had so much I wanted to talk about, and it was obvious Kris knew stuff about cats. I might need that advice one day.
To hell with it—he’d find out anyway.
“OK,” I said, checking that no one else was listening. “I’ll tell you. But you must swear not to breathe a word of it to anybody.”
“I’m not stupid,” said Kris.
I took a breath. “We found it in the garden,” I said.
Kris’s eyes narrowed. “When was this?” he asked.
“About a month ago,” I replied.
Kris raised his eyebrows. “You naughty girl,” he said.
“We were going to tell the authorities,” I protested. “We just got kind of … attached.”
“I bet you did,” said Kris. “Male or female?”
“Female,” I replied.
“What color?” asked Kris.
“Ginger, black, and white,” I replied.
“Calico,” said Kris.
“Is that what they’re called?” I asked.
Kris nodded.
“How come you know so much about cats?” I asked.
“Research,” replied Kris.
“Research?” I repeated.
“Haven’t you heard of research?” asked Kris.
“Course I have,” I replied. “What kind of research?”
“Never mind,” said Kris.
There was no point in trying to get the whole truth out of Kris. But no matter. He was a partnerincrime, and I needed that partner badly. I started to pour out stories of how I’d trained her, what her habits were, how we’d hid from the Pets Inspector. Kris listened impassively, and after a while, impatiently.
“Can I see it?” he asked, interrupting me.
This, needless to say, was another matter.
“I’d have to ask Mum,” I replied.
“Oh, must ask Mummy,” sneered Kris.
“That’s right,” I replied. “I must.”
“Got to ask permission foreverything, have you?” asked Kris.
“It’s not like that!” I said. “She considers me, too!”
“Ahh,” said Kris. He was starting to annoy me now. There was no reason to diss me being close to Mum, just because he was cut off from his family, and lived in a slum, and wasn’t close to anybody.
“Go away now,” I said. “I’ll text you.”
Chapter Five
Mum hit the roof when she found out I’d told Kris about Feela. The trouble was, she’d never met Kris, so it meant nothing to her when I said he’d never rat us out. I had no choice but to grant Kris’s wish and invite him over, in the hope they’d get along.
As it happened, Mum was out when Kris stopped by, breezing in just as Feela was cleaning herself.
Feela’s cleaning routine never ceased to amaze me. She could get her tongue everywhere on her body except the top of her head, and to clean that she licked her wrist and ran it over her ears. The whole thing gave her such pleasure that she never even noticed the two of us by the door. I glowed with pride, glancing from Feela to Kris, Kris to Feela. At first he just watched, closely, but with no expression. Then just the hint of a smile came on to his face.
“Where d’you say you found her?” he asked.
“In the back garden,” I replied.
Kris nodded.
“Watch this,” I said. I whistled. Feela looked up, took us in, then got back to business.
“So?” said Kris.
I was so frustrated. Feela always came to me when I whistled. To make matters worse, she offered up her chin as Kris sat on the sofa beside her. He began softly stroking her throat, bringing her slowly under his spell. She seemed to be so quickly at ease with him that I felt a pang of jealousy.
“She’s like that because of me,” I said.
“Really,” said Kris.
“She really loves me,” I added.
“Uh-huh,” said Kris.
“Cats are just the most miraculous things,” I said.
“If you love them that much,” said Kris, “why didn’t you just buy one?”
I seethed. “We can’t afford a cat!” I snapped. “I don’t know why you think we’ve got so much money, because we haven’t! If we had money, would we be …”
I stopped, but Kris had already guessed what I was going to say.
“It’s all right, Jade,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t live around here unless you had to.”
I blushed. “There you go then,” I said. “We certainly can’t afford a cat.”
Kris, typically, wasn’t going to leave it at that. “Your old man must have been worth a lot,” he said. “Didn’t he have life insurance?”
“What’s that to do with you?” I asked.
“I’m curious,” he said. “Like a cat.”
“There was something wrong with his life insurance,” I explained. “Something in the small print.”
Kris laughed out loud. “Something in the small print!” he repeated. “Better read it next time, hadn’t you?”
I was getting really irked. “Yeah, well at
least I can read,” I snarled.
“I can read!” said Kris, and suddenly he looked like a wounded little boy, and I felt terrible. But Kris wasn’t the type who needed sympathy. Like most people around here, his favorite means of defense was attack, and right now that meant showing me his power over my cat. He gently rubbed the area at the base of her spine, just above her tail. She lowered her head and arched her back up towards his hand, holding her tail to one side and going into a kind of ecstasy. I’d never stroked her like that, or seen this reaction, and I was starting to get very fed up.
“You’ve seen her now,” I said. “Bye.”
Kris ignored me. He was totally concentrated on Feela, rubbing harder, smiling at the effect he was having.
“Bye,” I repeated.
“Not doing any harm,” he mumbled.
“Yes you are,” I snapped. “You’re disturbing her sleep-time.”
“What did you invite me for then?”
“I invited you to look at her, not to touch her!”
“What right have you got to say I can’t touch her?”
“She’s my cat!”
“What, you own her, do you?”
“Just get lost, Kris!”
At this point Mum walked in. It could hardly have looked worse—me in the middle of an argument with the person we could supposedly trust with our lives. But there was something about Kris which Mum instantly warmed to. I winced when he called her “Mrs. Jade’s mum,” but Mum liked a bit of cheek, and pretty soon they were sparring away as if they’d known each other years. Mum said how much she liked Kris’s earrings, and Kris said how cool she’d look with a nosering, and I started to feel like a total fifth wheel, all the more so as Feela was still on the end of Kris’s tickling finger.
Kris was doing it on purpose, that was for sure. He never bothered to charm anyone at school, hardly even smiled in fact, but here he was revealing his tombstone teeth at every opportunity. Maybe he was always like this with older women (except teachers of course), or maybe it was just a way of getting at me. Either way, I was relieved when he eventually left.
“What a nice boy,” said Mum. “Why haven’t you invited him around before?”
“He’s not that nice, really,” I replied, reclaiming my rightful place next to Feela.
“I can see he might be a bit of a devil,” said Mum, “but he’s good at heart.”
“Dunno why you think that,” I mumbled.
“He’s just got a look about him,” said Mum.
I ran my hand gently over Feela’s head, but her eyes were still fixed on the door through which Kris had left.
“What kind of look?” I asked.
“The fires of righteousness,” replied Mum.
“The what?” I gasped.
“Bit like your dad when I met him,” replied Mum. “Before he got worn down.”
I didn’t bother to respond to this. If there was any similarity between Kris Delaney and my dad, it was lost on me.
“So,” I said, “it’s all right I told him, then.”
Mum sighed. “I’d still rather you hadn’t,” she replied. “But if you had to tell anyone …”
“I’m not stupid,” I said.
“No, you’re like me,” she said. “I always had good taste in boyfriends.”
I leapt to my feet in a fit of outrage. “He is not my boyfriend!” I cried.
Mum laughed. “All right—good taste in friends, then!” she said. There was a pause, then, with a little smile, she added, “But I think he’s got a thing for you.”
“Mum,” I warned. “Please shut up. You’re making me feel sick.”
Chapter Six
After his first visit to our house, Kris obviously felt he didn’t need invitations. He was around the next day, carrying a disgusting pig’s foot in a bag, which he said was a present for Feela.
“I don’t think she’ll eat that,” I said.
“Why not?” said Kris.
“It looks horrible,” I said.
“To you, maybe,” said Kris, “but you’re not a cat.”
“I know that,” I snapped.
Needless to say, Feela ate the pig’s trotter, and the fishhead Kris brought the next day, and the chicken livers he brought the day after. Mum was well impressed with Kris’s thoughtfulness, but I knew there was more to it than that. He just wanted to be inside my home, like a hermit crab, probably because he resented me having a home when he just moved from one place to another, from one supposed uncle to another supposed cousin, with no stability at all.
Maybe he secretly wanted to live with us. He always said he hated cozy, domestic life, and if he had his own way he’d still live on the road, but it certainly didn’t bother him to sit down in front of the screen with a cup of tea, passing the time of day with Mum.
Then again, maybe he just wanted to be with Feela. For me, her appeal was that she was beautiful, and responsive, and fascinating in everything she did. But for Kris, she was what the rich people had. She was something stolen, illegal, something denied to us which we’d taken anyway—except it was me who’d taken her, and Mum who stood to go to jail if they ever found her. So Kris could have all the pleasure of her with none of the risk.
And then, to top it all off, Mum gave him a key.
I wasn’t at home when it happened. I only found out about it later that evening, when Mum happened to casually drop it into the conversation.
“What?” I cried. “You mean he can just let himself in, any time, night or day?”
“He’s not going to let himself in,” replied Mum. “It’s just for emergencies.”
“What kind of emergencies?” I asked.
“Supposing something happened to us,” said Mum. “Someone would have to feed Feela.”
“Be cheerful, why don’t you?” I scoffed.
“Jade, we’ve got to be prepared for any eventuality,” said Mum. “There’s no one else we can ask.”
I folded my arms and scowled. “I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t want Kris having a key to my house and you should have asked me!”
“That’s why I didn’t ask you,” said Mum.
“There isn’t going to be an emergency,” I muttered.
“Please, love,” said Mum. “Don’t go on.” She reached for her heart pills and I left it at that, hoping against hope I hadn’t tempted fate by what I’d just said.
It was just three days later that Feela didn’t come to wake me up. By now our routines were so settled that I immediately sensed something was wrong. I went downstairs and found her, still asleep, on top of the freezer. The food we’d put down for her hadn’t been touched.
“Feela?”
I raised her chin gently on my finger. Her eyes half opened.
“You all right, kitten?”
I lifted her down, carried her through to the living room, and set her beside the sofa. She loved to sharpen her claws on the arm, no matter how much we told her off. Today, however, she barely sniffed at it, jumped weakly on to the cushion, tucked her paws beneath her breast, and closed her eyes.
Just before I was about to leave for school, Feela began making an unearthly crying sound. Then she stretched out her neck and was sick twice. Almost immediately she was asleep again, but now her breath was becoming labored. Mum and I began to fear the worst.
“We should have expected this,” said Mum.
I tried to look calm and responsible, but within me was flat panic. Not just for Feela, but for myself. If this was that deadly disease …
“We’ve got to do something,” I pleaded.
But what?
Feela, meanwhile, had climbed up onto the kitchen counter, eyes glazed forward.
“Come on, lovely,” I said. “You know you’re not supposed to be up there.”
I reached up to take Feela down, as I’d done many times before. But this time she reacted differently. I don’t know if it was because she felt vulnerable, but she hissed like a snake and swiped at me with her paw. To my horror,
I looked down to see three scratch lines across the back of my hand. As thin lines of blood began to fill them, so I began to panic.
“Mum!” I cried. “She’s cut me!”
Mum purified some water and made me wash the wound. As usual she was full of sureness and common sense, but I could see the anxiety in her eyes. She’d always been more scared than me that Feela could be carrying HN51. And if this was it …
“You’ve got to get it checked out,” she said.
“But they’ll ask questions,” I protested.
“You can say it was someone else’s.”
“They might need to see the cat.”
“Jade, you could die!”
All Mum’s hidden fears were suddenly bursting into the light. Five children had already died at our school since New Year. Not that their deaths had anything to do with cats.
“OK, OK!” I assured her. “I’ll go and see the medic.”
I didn’t. I went to school. But I couldn’t concentrate for a second, and as the hours ticked by, so my fears grew until my veins were awash with adrenaline and the panic inside me was unbearable. I felt ill—really ill. My skin felt sore and my forehead burned. Was this it? Was this the disease which could kill within a day?
I made an excuse and went down the clinic. My heart thumped in that waiting room, and by the time I got to see Dr. Amso, I was so nervous it was unreal.
“I think I need a blood test,” I told him.
“I see,” he replied. “And why’s that?”
I listed all the symptoms I‘d read about, all the symptoms I was convinced I’d now got. I didn’t mention cat flu, because I was hoping he’d give me the test without trying to diagnose what I’d got. But his suspicions were obviously aroused, and when he caught sight of the scratches on my hand his manner became urgent.
“How did you get these?” he asked.
My heart began to race. “Off our roses,” I replied.
Dr. Amso shook his head. “This is an animal scratch,” he declared.
I flushed a little. “It must have been my rabbit,” I blurted.
“Not the roses then,” replied Dr. Amso.
“I was trying to get it out of the garden,” I gabbled. “I felt a scratch, and I thought it must have been the rose, but maybe—”
