The Third Cat Story Megapack: 25 Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New

by Damien Broderick

  “Don’t destroy anything, please!” she called out, and wished she could have kept the quaver from her voice. She bit down on her lip. Tammy huddled closer and the old woman stroked the cat, feeling the silky texture of the stray’s fur beneath her fingers.

  The burglar looked in her direction, then back at the jewelry box. “Relax, lady. That’s not my kind of thing. I’m here for the goods. I don’t get off on destruction.” He lifted the top and now with flashlight on he examined the contents, lifting earrings and necklaces and bracelets to inspect or put back down in the satin-lined tray for the moment. He had a small bag, like one used in gyms, with him she saw now, a bag he would put all her belongings in.

  Or rather, she corrected, the belongings that were worth anything.

  She couldn’t tell much about him. He was slender, dressed in black, and she didn’t know if he was black or white. For years Julia had insisted that Blanche lived in a “bad part of town,” and Blanche had been puzzled by that, until Julia had explained there were all these black families moving in and things were getting worse and real estate prices, she claimed, would be going down with this “undesirable element.” And Blanche had said she was ashamed to know that her daughter was a bigot and that she thought she had raised her better than that.

  The burglar sounded young, too, but she realized at her age that anyone sounded young, even those folks in their sixties and seventies, and she supposed, compared to her, they were young.

  He spoke well, she noticed, and he wasn’t particularly rude. Perhaps that was a bonus.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t do anything awful.

  On the other hand, she watched the nightly news, read the newspapers; she knew what was happening in this city and others across the country. Violence wore the face of the neighbor next door, who one day could smile at you and who the next day might slaughter his family with the gun he kept in the hall closet, the gun meant for intruders.

  Her burglar didn’t seem in a hurry, and that puzzled her.

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll call the police?” she asked after a moment.

  “I cut the phone line before I came in,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh.” She wondered what would happen if Julia tried to call. Would she get a busy signal, or a message saying the line was out of order? But it didn’t matter, really; Julia never called at night, not after she’d left for home.

  Once or twice Blanche had timidly had asked her daughter to stay the night with her, and Julia had simply stared at her with the cool grey eyes of her father and said she had her own life to conduct. Blanche knew that, and she appreciated what Julia did for her, however reluctantly that was at times, but sometimes…sometimes Blanche would have liked having someone stay with her at night, just to be another presence in the house, a presence beyond the cats, that is.

  It had been well over two decades since Randall had died. In all that time she’d lived alone, just her and a progression of cats. Sometimes her daughter came to visit, bringing her children; sometimes her son flew in for the weekend, and then he would be gone for another six months or more.

  She was lonely. Very lonely.

  She was glad, though, that she had the cats. They were someone to talk to during the long hours of the day, someone to love her, someone to stay with her during the lonely hours of night.

  Tammy licked the back of her hand.

  “What’s your name?”

  He was sorting the jewelry now, rejecting the inexpensive brooch that had been a present from a grandchild, and selecting the sapphire and diamond one given to her by Randall on their fifteenth anniversary. He laughed. “That’s a good one, lady. Think I’m going to tell something like that?” He shook his head.

  “My name is Blanche.”

  “Yeah?” He didn’t look up. He had scooped up the family bracelet she’d put together over the years, the one that held the gemstones for each of the grandchildren’s birthdays. “That’s an old-fashioned name.”

  Fluffy jumped up onto the bureau and paraded back and forth in front of the thief, trying to get his attention. She’s such a flirt, Blanche thought. Absently the thief patted the cat as he sifted through the rest of the jewelry.

  “Yes, well, I was born a long time ago.”

  “You don’t sound all that old, not ancient, I mean.”

  “I’m eighty-two, almost eighty-three. My birthday is next month.”

  “Oh yeah? Mine too. The fifteenth.”

  “Eighteenth.”

  Toby had joined Fluffy, obviously wanting to know what was going on, and they watched from their perches as the burglar pulled open the drawers of the bureau now, going through the contents, and she was embarrassed when he reached her underwear drawer. Almost immediately he found the box of silver coins hidden under her panties.

  He made a tsking noise. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to put something like this with your underwear, lady? It’s the first place guys like me look.”

  “Blanche,” she said.

  “What?”

  “My name is Blanche.”

  “Uh, right, Blanche. Anyway, didn’t anyone tell you that, huh?”

  “My son-in-law told me to put them there. He said no one would ever look at an old woman’s underwear.”

  The thief brought his head around and stared at her, and she thought she could see his features, and then realized it was the markings of a ski mask. “That wasn’t a very nice thing for him to say. What’s with this son-in-law anyway? And why aren’t you living with your daughter and him instead of by yourself and a bunch of cats?”

  “They don’t want me with them.” No one had ever said that to her, but it was plain enough; no one had to say the words aloud.

  “Yeah? What’s wrong with them? You’re their family. They should want to take care of you. You get around okay, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I just need help getting in and out of bed. It’s why I can’t get out now,” she said, almost apologetically.

  “You got all your marbles, right?”

  “Certainly!”

  He shook his head again as he put the box of silver coins in the bag. “Then what’s their problem? If you’d been with them, this wouldn’t be happening now.”

  “I know,” she said, and she couldn’t keep the sadness from her voice. Sylvester moved closer to her feet, and Tammy licked the back of her hand again, the narrow tongue rasping so much it tickled.

  He was examining the rest of the room now. “Got a safe in here or downstairs?”

  “No. Randall—my late husband—always planned on putting one in, but he never did.” There had been many things Randall had planned on doing; we have all the time in the world, he would always say, plenty of time. But of course, there hadn’t been. “Why are you doing this?”

  He looked at her. “Stealing?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need the money.”

  “Don’t you have a job?”

  “Yeah, and I work my butt off. But I need more money than I can earn at that.”

  “Why? You aren’t on drugs, are you?”

  He laughed, harshly. “No, hardly. I got an angry ex-wife who’s out to make my life hell. She wants more and more, and the courts don’t much seem to like me. So I steal. I take what I get and pawn it, and it’s a bit more to help ends meet.”

  “But that’s not right—not fair to you. You should find a judge who’s sympathetic, who’s—”

  “This isn’t L.A. Law, la—Blanche. The real world doesn’t work that way.”

  “Sometimes it does.”

  He laughed and headed toward the open door of the bedroom. Bear growled at him and arched his back.

  “This cat bite?”

  “Not usually. But maybe he thinks you’re a threat.”

  The thief brushed by Bear and the other cats, and Bear snarled and lashed out at the man’s leg.

  “Damnit! He got me with his claws!”

  The thief kicked out with his foot and Bear jumped onto the bed,
narrowly missed being booted.

  The thief turned his light onto the flesh below his pulled up pants leg. Blanche could see several rivulets of blood.

  “Goddamnit.” He rubbed away the blood with his gloved fingers, but new droplets sprung up in the gouges. “I hope that cat’s got all his shots.”

  “They all do.” She was stroking Bear’s thick ruff; the big cat squatted on the bed and as he watched the thief, his tail snapped back and forth. Blanche could hear the low growl in his throat.

  “I’m going downstairs,” the thief said.

  She heard him reach the first floor and listened as he searched there. He didn’t make a lot of noise, so she guessed he really wasn’t trashing her house. He would find her antique silver service in the dining room hutch, and some money in her pocketbook although she never carried much more than twenty dollars at a time; there were one or two pieces of cut crystal, and some odds and ends, but most of the good stuff was in her bedroom. There was nothing in the other bedroom, although she supposed he would check on that when he came back.

  He did, and when he came back into her room a few minutes later, he was limping a little.

  “I’m sorry my cat hurt you,” she said, and she was. She thought she might have grown to really like this young man—if he hadn’t been here to rob her.

  “Yeah. Me, too. Guess I’ll put some iodine on it when I get home.”

  “Be sure to wash it out thoroughly with warm water and soap first. Cats’ claws can be dirty. From the litter boxes, you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  He stood over the bed now. Bear’s growling increased, and she rubbed his head, trying to get the cat to relax.

  “I’m sorry, la—Blanche. I’m sorry that you turned out to be such a nice lady. I don’t usually meet many people in this line of work. Usually they’re out of the house, or they sleep through my burglary.”

  “I hope you go to court and get those payments lessened, so you won’t have to do this anymore. I would hate to see you get hurt.” And she meant it.

  “Yeah. Maybe I will. And give your daughter and son-in-law a real chewing out for me, okay? They should be taking better care of you, you know?”

  Briefly his fingers touched the top of her head, and then he was crossing the room. He slung the strap of the bag across his shoulder, and tucked the penlight into a pocket. He climbed back through the window and was about to start down the ladder when Bear with a blood-curdling yowl launched himself from the bed.

  “No, Bear!”

  The cat, who weighed close to twenty-five pounds, hit the thief solidly in the chest. The man’s fingers slipped from the ladder, and his arms flailed as he lost his balance. Desperate, he tried to grab the ladder. It was the wrong thing to clutch. Ladder and man fell away from the house. Bear yowled again and leaped to the branch of the tree outside.

  There was a thud, and an agonized cry, then nothing.

  “Hello?” Blanche called, horrified by the turn of events. “Hello?”

  Maybe he’s been knocked unconscious, she told herself, but as the minutes passed, she began to think it was more than that.

  Bear paced along the branch. Blanche could see his silhouette on the branch’s shadow, and after a while, the cat leaped lightly onto the window sill, and sat there with his tail hanging down over the sill and washed his paw as he stared down at the motionless man below.

  And alone, Blanche wept.

  PUSS IN BOOTS: Two Versions, by Charles Perrault and Dinah Maria Mulock

  FIRST VERSION, by Charles Perrault

  There was a miller, who left no more estate to the three sons he had, than his Mill, his Ass, and his Cat. The partition was soon made. Neither the scrivener nor attorney were sent for. They would soon have eaten up all the poor patrimony. The eldest had the Mill, the second the Ass, and the youngest nothing but the Cat.

  The poor young fellow was quite comfortless at having so poor a lot.

  “My brothers,” said he, “may get their living handsomely enough, by joining their stocks together; but for my part, when I have eaten up my Cat, and made me a muff of his skin, I must die with hunger.”

  The Cat, who heard all this, but made as if he did not, said to him with a grave and serious air:

  “Do not thus afflict yourself, my good master; you have only to give me a bag, and get a pair of boots made for me, that I may scamper thro’ the dirt and the brambles, and you shall see that you have not so bad a portion of me as you imagine.”

  Tho’ the Cat’s master did not build very much upon what he said, he had however often seen him play a great many cunning tricks to catch rats and mice; as when he used to hang by the heels, or hide himself in the meal, and make as if he were dead; so that he did not altogether despair of his affording him some help in his miserable condition.

  When the Cat had what he asked for, he booted himself very gallantly; and putting his bag about his neck, he held the strings of it in his two fore paws, and went into a warren where was great abundance of rabbits. He put bran and sow-thistle into his bag, and stretching himself out at length, as if he had been dead, he waited for some young rabbit, not yet acquainted with the deceits of the world, to come and rummage his bag for what he had put into it.

  Scarce was he lain down, but he had what he wanted; a rash and foolish young rabbit jumped into his bag, and Monsieur Puss, immediately drawing close the strings, took and killed him without pity. Proud of his prey, he went with it to the palace, and asked to speak with his Majesty. He was shewed upstairs into the King’s apartment, and, making a low reverence, said to him:

  “I have brought you, sir, a rabbit of the warren which my noble lord the Marquis of Carabas” (for that was the title which Puss was pleased to give his master) “has commanded me to present to your Majesty from him.”

  “Tell thy master,” said the King, “that I thank him, and that he does me a great deal of pleasure.”

  Another time he went and hid himself among some standing corn, holding still his bag open; and when a brace of partridges ran into it, he drew the strings, and so caught them both. He went and made a present of these to the King, as he had done before of the rabbit which he took in the warren. The King in like manner received the partridges with great pleasure, and ordered him some money to drink.

  The Cat continued for two or three months, thus to carry his Majesty, from time to time, game of his master’s taking. One day in particular, when he knew for certain that the King was to take the air, along the river side, with his daughter, the most beautiful Princess in the world, he said to his master:

  “If you will follow my advice, your fortune is made; you have nothing else to do, but go and wash yourself in the river, in that part I shall shew you, and leave the rest to me.”

  The Marquis of Carabas did what the Cat advised him to, without knowing why or wherefore.

  While he was washing, the King passed by, and the Cat began to cry out, as loud as he could:

  “Help, help, my lord Marquis of Carabas is drowning.”

  At this noise the King put his head out of his coach-window, and finding it was the Cat who had so often brought him such good game, he commanded his guards to run immediately to the assistance of his lordship the Marquis of Carabas.

  While they were drawing the poor Marquis out of the river, the Cat came up to the coach, and told the King that while his master was washing, there came by some rogues, who went off with his clothes, tho’ he had cried out “Thieves, thieves,” several times, as loud as he could. This cunning Cat had hidden them under a great stone. The King immediately commanded the officers of his wardrobe to run and fetch one of his best suits for the lord Marquis of Carabas.

  The King received him with great kindness, and as the fine clothes he had given him extremely set off his good mien (for he was well made, and very handsome in his person), the King’s daughter took a secret inclination to him, and the Marquis of Carabas had no sooner cast two or three respectful and somewhat tender glances, but she f
ell in love with him to distraction. The King would needs have him come into his coach, and take part of the airing. The Cat, quite overjoyed to see his project begin to succeed, marched on before, and meeting with some countrymen, who were mowing a meadow, he said to them:

  “Good people, you who are mowing, if you do not tell the King, that the meadow you mow belongs to my lord Marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as small as mince-meat.”

  The King did not fail asking of the mowers, to whom the meadow they were mowing belonged.

  “To my lord Marquis of Carabas,” answered they all together; for the Cat’s threats had made them terribly afraid.

  “Truly a fine estate,” said the King to the Marquis of Carabas.

  “You see, sir,” said the Marquis, “this is a meadow which never fails to yield a plentiful harvest every year.”

  The Master Cat, who still went on before, met with some reapers, and said to them:

  “Good people, you who are reaping, if you do not tell the King that all this corn belongs to the Marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as small as mincemeat.”

  The King, who passed by a moment after, would needs know to whom all that corn, which he then saw, did belong. “To my lord Marquis of Carabas,” replied the reapers; and the King again congratulated the Marquis.

  The Master Cat, who went always before, said the same words to all he met; and the King was astonished at the vast estates of my lord Marquis of Carabas.

  Monsieur Puss came at last to a stately castle, the master of which was an Ogre, the richest had ever been known; for all the lands which the King had then gone over belonged to this castle. The Cat, who had taken care to inform himself who this Ogre was, and what he could do, asked to speak with him, saying, he could not pass so near his castle, without having the honor of paying his respects to him.

  The Ogre received him as civilly as an Ogre could do, and made him sit down.

  “I have been assured,” said the Cat, “that you have the gift of being able to change yourself into all sorts of creatures you have a mind to; you can, for example, transform yourself into a lion, or elephant, and the like.”