A Tail of Two Kitties

by Tom Watson

  Stick Cat was about to ask her to stop looking altogether. He was certain he had seen some of these small silver circles before when Goose emptied his pockets on the kitchen counter after he got home from work. And he was also pretty sure that there was no way a lamp would fit into the space at the bottom of the couch.

  But he didn’t have to stop Edith.

  That’s because right then the music started.

  And when it did, Stick Cat and Edith crawled out from under the couch and sprinted across the carpet.

  Stick Cat would soon hear the most beautiful sound ever.

  Chapter 4

  MR. MUSIC

  As soon as they heard the first notes played on the piano across the alley, Stick Cat and Edith raced to the windowsill. This was almost always the highlight of their day—and they never knew exactly when it would happen.

  An old man with white frizzy hair worked in the piano factory across the alley. He wore overalls and carried a toolbox. The cats had named him Mr. Music. It was his job to keep all the pianos in tune—and there were a lot of pianos. You see, when a piano was sold in the store at street level, Mr. Music and another worker would pick out a new piano from these upper floors and bring it down a huge elevator to the store as a replacement. Keeping the pianos in tune and ready to sell was a big job.

  Mr. Music had been doing it for years and years. As long as he could remember, Stick Cat had watched him—and listened to him—every day from that windowsill. The music provided a gentle and melodic accompaniment to all the city noises—talking people, car horns, sirens, and other things—that drifted up to the twenty-third floor from the street.

  “Oh, he’s close today!” Edith exclaimed, and placed her paws under the window’s bottom edge.

  Stick Cat did the same. Together, they pushed the window up much higher than Goose had left it to create an opening, about twelve or fourteen inches high. They could hear the piano playing before, but now it came through even louder.

  “He is really close today,” Stick Cat confirmed.

  This was typically not the case. With so many pianos to tune, it was rare that the cats could actually see Mr. Music. He was usually far away on another side of one of the floors. Perhaps once every two or three weeks was he where Stick Cat and Edith could see him. This time he was at the piano directly across from Stick Cat’s window.

  Now, even if Mr. Music was completely out of sight, the cats could still hear him play the piano. That’s because he always opened several windows whenever he played. But today was the best combination of all: open windows and really, really close.

  The cats settled in to listen.

  Mr. Music followed the same routine with each piano he tuned. He played a few notes and then opened his toolbox and set it on the bench next to him. The box contained all the things he needed to work on a piano—and a package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and a cell phone. Next, he opened the top of the piano—today, it was a large, black grand piano—and began to test each key. He tilted his head a little as he listened. If he didn’t like the way a particular note sounded, Mr. Music would double-check it with a tuning fork and make an adjustment to that key’s corresponding string inside the piano.

  It was when he finished testing the individual keys that the concert for the cats began.

  He would put his tools back in the box, remove the box from the bench, and place it on the floor. Mr. Music would then open the Reese’s Cups and eat one—saving the other for after the concert. He would wipe his hands on his overalls, stretch his fingers, and begin to play.

  Stick Cat and Edith watched as this series of events unfolded. It was early in the key testing that Mr. Music found the first off-key note.

  T-wang! came a bad note from across the alley.

  “Ouch,” Edith said. She squeezed her eyes shut and scrunched her head down into her shoulders for a moment. “That was a clunker.”

  Stick Cat was used to these comments from Edith. She often provided play-by-play commentary during the piano tuning. With each off-key note, she almost always had something to say.

  D-oink! came another bad note several minutes later.

  “Yikes,” Edith said, shaking her head in disgust. “Terrible, just terrible.”

  Sk-link!

  “Please, please,” she said, drawing her paws up over her ears. “Make it stop.”

  Thankfully for Edith, Mr. Music was, in fact, done. He put his tools away and opened his package of Reese’s Cups.

  “He’s done, Edith,” Stick Cat said loudly. He wanted to make sure that she could hear him through the paws over her ears. Stick Cat was just as thankful that Mr. Music was done tuning the grand piano. He didn’t mind the sour notes that sounded out during the tuning process. It didn’t last long—and he considered it a small price to pay, considering Mr. Music spent a good amount of time playing beautifully when the tuning was complete. It was Edith’s comments about the tuning that he was happy to be done with. He said, “I always forget you have such a good ear for music.”

  Edith took this as a clear compliment. “Oh, yes, yes. It comes quite naturally to me. It’s just a special talent I was born with,” she said as she got herself into her favorite listening position now that the piano tuning was over. “My family is full of wonderful singers. Sometimes you can hear their beautiful songs in the middle of the night throughout the city. It’s like music to my ears.”

  “You mean it is music to your ears.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You mean it is music to your ears,” Stick Cat said again. “The cats singing in the middle of the night. It is music. It’s not like music.”

  “Oh, I suppose so,” Edith answered. She appeared to be slightly put off. “If you have to be haughty about it.”

  “No, no. I didn’t mean to cause offense,” Stick Cat said, and shook his head. In truth, however, he had grown tired of Edith’s attitude during the piano tuning. He had come to think of Mr. Music as a friend of sorts—someone who provided a beautiful interlude in Stick Cat’s day. In some sense, Stick Cat felt he should defend him a bit. “Do you have this musical ability too? Like your family?”

  “Of course,” Edith answered immediately. “It’s in my blood.”

  “Well, before he starts playing a song,” suggested Stick Cat, “maybe you could sing a little bit right now.”

  Edith accepted this invitation with great enthusiasm. She went through a quick series of breathing exercises. She panted quickly for a few seconds and took several deep breaths. She coughed out a hair ball and panted a few more times.

  “I would really rather warm up my voice a bit first,” she said, and opened and closed her eyes a couple of times rather slowly. “But with a voice like mine, the natural talents should shine through nonetheless.”

  All Stick Cat could think to say was “I’m sure that’s true.”

  Edith sat up straight, inhaled, and began to sing.

  She did not go into the job slowly or with ease. She did not build up to bigger, louder notes. She did not concern herself with developing a melody or a chorus. No, Edith did none of that.

  Instead, she opened her mouth and began to sing as loud as she could. She thrust her right forepaw out high and in front of her—like an opera singer trying to project her voice as far as she could through physical force. While singing, Edith opened her eyes wide and looked at Stick Cat in a pleading, don’t-you-think-I’m-a-wonderful-singer kind of way.

  Stick Cat had never heard anything so terrible in his life.

  The sound coming out of Edith’s mouth was definitely not singing. It wasn’t even close to singing. It was more like squealing. No, not squealing—more like screeching. Nope, nope, not even screeching. That doesn’t do this ear-splitting sound enough justice.

  Let’s see, let’s see. Okay, I think I got it.

  Imagine this: A girl in your class with long fingernails is scratching a chalkboard repeatedly while screaming at the top of her lungs. Oh, yeah, there are also three dozen donkeys
braying in the hallway while they stomp on harmonicas.

  Can you imagine that?

  Okay, now that you have imagined that, let me just say this: Edith’s singing was worse—way worse.

  And what could Stick Cat do? Nothing.

  That’s because while that terrible noise emitted from Edith’s mouth, she kept staring at Stick Cat with that don’t-you-think-I’m-a-wonderful-singer look.

  For the next thirty seconds, Stick Cat smiled and nodded and used all his strength and willpower to resist slapping his paws over his ears.

  There were other sounds all around them as Edith continued to, umm, sing. Cars honked and jackhammers rattled from the construction site around the corner. Stick Cat could also hear windows slam shut all around his apartment. Mrs. Maria O’Mahoney, the kindhearted Irish woman next door, yelled out her window, “Shush up, you old alley cat!” before slamming her window shut. Edith apparently didn’t hear her though. She was perhaps too focused on—or maybe too deafened by—her, ahem, singing.

  Then, finally, Mr. Music began to play his first song.

  This made Edith stop singing. She wanted to listen too.

  To Stick Cat, that combination—when Mr. Music started to play and Edith stopped singing—was the most beautiful sound ever.

  What Stick Cat didn’t know was that in a few minutes he would hear the worst sound ever.

  Even worse than Edith’s singing.

  Chapter 5

  ONE TERRIBLE MUSICAL NOTE

  “Did you like my song?” Edith asked. She fell out of her opera-singing pose and settled back down on the windowsill.

  Stick Cat positioned himself to listen to Mr. Music’s piano playing as well. He curled himself almost into a circle and rested his chin on the sill. He didn’t know quite how to answer.

  “‘Like’ is not the right word,” he said.

  “‘Admire’?” Edith asked. “Did you ‘admire’ my song?”

  “That’s not quite what I was thinking of either.”

  “‘Adore’?” Edith asked. “Did you ‘adore’ my song?”

  Stick Cat pressed his lips together tightly and shook his head.

  “‘Love’?”

  “Those are all such wonderful words,” Stick Cat said. “But even those words can’t accurately capture the feelings and sensations that your song brought out in me. I don’t think any word could do your singing justice.”

  Edith didn’t say anything at all for about twenty seconds. Stick Cat tried not to look at her, thinking his facial expression might give something away.

  Finally, Edith spoke. “Stick Cat,” she said. There was genuine emotion in her voice. “That’s the most wonderful thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you.”

  Stick Cat exhaled and said, “You’re welcome.”

  And they settled in to listen to Mr. Music.

  He usually played for ten or fifteen minutes after he had finished tuning a particular piano. And today was no different. Stick Cat wasn’t quite sure, to be honest, whether Mr. Music’s playing was just the final test of the piano’s tunefulness—or if it was just how he took a break after each job.

  It didn’t matter, of course, to Stick Cat. The songs Mr. Music played poured out through the open windows and drifted sweetly across the alley to where he and Edith simply listened and enjoyed them.

  Mr. Music had a style of playing that allowed the notes to begin slowly, rolling in rhythm out in the air. Then, in the middle of a piece, the pace would quicken, and a deeper sub-sound would serve as a sort of background to the song. Finally, in the closing minute or two of each tune, Mr. Music’s frizzy white hair would begin to shake and bounce. His shoulders would jerk up and down a bit. The piano notes would come in a final flourish and then fade slowly and quietly away.

  But that wasn’t what Stick Cat appreciated most—though he did greatly admire Mr. Music’s talents. What he appreciated even more was the way the song would often combine with the noises all around them. It was a uniquely city sound, he thought. Sometimes it seemed as if the city was trying to accompany Mr. Music’s song. The clattering of an old taxicab, or a traffic policeman blowing a whistle, or groups of cars accelerating and decelerating at stoplights often seemed to work with the rhythm of the song.

  And sometimes, Stick Cat thought, it was the other way around. Sometimes it seemed that Mr. Music played music to blend rhythmically with the beats of the city.

  Today, two sounds from the construction site down on the street seemed to work in conjunction with Mr. Music’s song: a jackhammer and the beeping of a cement truck as it backed down the alley.

  It all worked together beautifully as Mr. Music finished the concert.

  Edith sighed in satisfaction. “It was almost as good as my singing,” she commented.

  Stick Cat did not say anything but did watch as Mr. Music finished his routine at the piano. Stick Cat knew what Mr. Music would do now. He would stand up and stretch. He would lean forward and close the piano lid. And then Mr. Music would sit back down on the bench, eat the second Reese’s Cup, and make a phone call.

  Stick Cat watched him stand up and stretch his arms above his head and spread his fingers wide. Mr. Music held that position for a few seconds and then leaned forward to close the piano lid.

  Stick Cat glanced down at the cement truck in the alley.

  It continued to back up and beep—and gain speed. It was going way too fast. Stick Cat had seen plenty of trucks from his window, and whenever they backed up, they always went slowly and made that beeping sound.

  But not this cement truck.

  Something was wrong.

  The truck slammed into a light pole and a car that was parked in the alley. It took a second for the tremendous, metallic CRASH! to travel up to the twenty-third floor where Stick Cat and Edith could hear it. And it took another second for the vibration of the impact to travel up to them. It shook the building.

  They both grabbed on to the sill to keep their balance. As they did, another huge and horrible sound erupted.

  It was as if all the bad musical notes a piano could make were played all at once. It was one thunderous crack of sound—one terrible musical note. It seemed to echo and shake in the air.

  Stick Cat looked across the alley at the piano factory.

  Mr. Music stood awkwardly there at the piano.

  And he wasn’t moving.

  Chapter 6

  IT WAS THUNDER

  Stick Cat could tell instantly what had happened.

  Mr. Music’s arms were stuck in the piano.

  The vibration from the cement truck crash had jarred the building across the alley too—and the piano lid shook loose from its prop and smashed down just as Mr. Music reached inside to close it himself. When the lid smashed, that awful combination of musical notes had erupted from the piano.

  Looking closer, Stick Cat could now see that Mr. Music was in fact moving a little. He tried to pull his arms free, but it was clear the lid was far too heavy.

  He was trapped.

  Stick Cat saw him turn his head and look down at the toolbox on the floor next to the bench. His cell phone was there next to the remaining Reese’s Cup—they had both been jostled off the bench when the building shook. Mr. Music tried to pull the phone closer with his foot, but it was at least three feet out of reach. He kept wriggling his arms, shoulders, hips, and legs, trying to find some kind of position that could help him escape.

  It was then that Edith spoke up.

  “What’s he dancing for?” she asked. “Doesn’t he know the music’s over?”

  Stick Cat turned to look at her.

  “I mean,” she continued, “he was the one playing the music. You’d think he’d know that it stopped. You know what I mean?”

  “Umm,” said Stick Cat. He needed to explain things to Edith and then try to see if there was something he could do to help. “I’m pretty sure he’s not dancing. I think his arms might be stuck in the piano. I think the lid might have come down when he wasn’t
expecting it.”

  “How could that have happened?” Edith tilted her head and looked across the alley at Mr. Music again. “Do you think it’s like a monster piano or something?”

  “No-o-o,” answered Stick Cat slowly. “I don’t think it is a monster piano. I think maybe when that cement truck crashed down in the alley a minute ago that—”

  “What cement truck?” interrupted Edith. “What crash?!”

  Stick Cat held very still for a moment. He really wanted this to be over with. “Umm,” he finally said, and pointed to the alley. “You know that loud sound we heard a minute ago and then the building vibrated? It was that cement truck down there. It smashed into a light pole and a parked car.”

  Edith cast a doubtful glance down to the alley.

  “I think that was thunder, Stick Cat.”

  Stick Cat looked up. Despite being surrounded by some pretty tall buildings, he had a fairly good view of the sky. It was clear and blue—not a cloud anywhere. “Thunder?” he asked.

  “Thunder. That’s what it was.”

  “Do you see the wrecked cement truck down there?”

  “I think it’s just parked.”

  “Just parked?”

  “That’s right, just parked.”

  Stick Cat resisted shaking his head. “But do you see the smashed car down there? It’s all crumpled up. And the streetlight lying in the street?”