by Tom Watson
Stick Cat moved to Mr. Music’s other arm and rubbed against the left bicep.
“That feels really good,” said Mr. Music. “I think I’m beginning to lose the circulation in my arms. I figured someone at the piano shop would wonder where I was by now. But I’m starting to think that maybe they won’t. I called Tony and left a message saying I’d be a little late. I don’t even know if he got it. I came straight up here instead of stopping in the shop first. Nobody knows I’m here, little kitty.”
Stick Cat gave each of Mr. Music’s arms another gentle rub with his side and jumped down to the bench and then down to the floor.
“He’s such a nice man,” Stick Cat said to Edith. He paced back and forth near the bench. “We just have to think of another way.”
“Maybe the problem is the direction in which we’re trying to get him out,” suggested Edith.
Stick Cat was willing to listen to any idea—mainly because he was having trouble coming up with one of his own. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we’re thinking that he has to get his arms out the way they went in,” Edith started to explain. “But maybe we could push him farther and farther into the piano until he is all the way inside.”
Stick Cat said nothing—primarily because he could think of nothing to say. This prompted Edith to continue explaining her idea.
“Once he’s all the way inside the piano, then we can go underneath and scratch and chew a hole through the bottom. Then he’d just fall out. End of problem.”
“You think we could chew and scratch a human-size hole in the bottom of a piano?”
“Sure, why not?”
Stick Cat nodded. “Okay, let’s keep that plan in mind, and we’ll use it if we don’t come up with something better.”
“Do you honestly think we can come up with something better than chewing a hole through the bottom of the piano?”
Stick Cat paused a moment. Then he said, “I’m just saying maybe we can.”
Edith nodded. And Stick Cat began to think even harder.
It was not long before Edith spoke again. “Okay, if we’re not going to chew him out from the bottom, maybe we could break the lid from the top.”
“Excuse me?” asked Stick Cat. You couldn’t really tell if he was so deep in thought himself that he didn’t hear Edith—or if he couldn’t believe what he just heard.
“We break the lid from the top. It shatters, and he gets his arms out. Simple.”
“And how do we break the lid?”
“Any number of ways,” Edith answered casually. This all seemed quite obvious to her, you could tell. “We find a way to drop a really heavy object on it. Or we get up there and jump up and down as high as we can. Or we find a sledgehammer and bash on the lid until it breaks. Whatever. There are a million ways.”
“But wouldn’t that crush Mr. Music’s arms?” Stick Cat asked.
Edith sort of pulled her head back. Again, she seemed astonished at Stick Cat’s question. She said, “Well, of course it would crush his arms.”
“I don’t want to do that!”
“Look, Stick Cat,” Edith said calmly. “You asked me for ideas to help Mr. Music out of the piano. You didn’t ask me for ideas to get him out without shattering his bones to bits.”
Stick Cat looked down to the concrete floor and shook his head back and forth ever so slightly. Eventually he lifted his head and said, “I guess I should have mentioned that.”
“Umm, ye—ee—ah,” Edith said. “I guess you should have.”
“We’ll keep that plan in mind too,” Stick Cat told Edith.
Now, you could tell Edith didn’t like it when Stick Cat refused to adopt her most excellent plans. She sighed a lot and shook her head every now and then. Her frustration seemed to grow and grow while Stick Cat continued to pace and think.
Edith finally stopped sighing long enough to say, “Well, if you aren’t going to use any of my great ideas, then I’m just going to sit down and wait for you to come up with one of your own.”
She plopped down in frustration.
Stick Cat continued to pace. Mr. Music sighed low and deep a couple of times. Edith shifted her weight trying to get more comfortable as she waited for Stick Cat to come up with a better idea than one of her own. She doubted he could.
This pacing and sighing and sitting went on for about thirty seconds more.
That’s when Edith did a most peculiar thing. And she screamed the strangest thing Stick Cat had ever heard anyone—cat or human—say.
Edith jumped up from where she sat. She ran in circles and stretched her head back to look at her tail.
She screamed, “My butt is talking! My butt is talking!! MY BUTT IS TALKING!!!”
Chapter 11
ANSWERING THE CALL
Do you know what butt dialing is? Sometimes people call it pocket dialing.
When someone sits down and accidentally presses a button on a cell phone in their pocket, it’s called butt dialing. They call someone by mistake. Or maybe someone’s keys bump against a button on a cell phone, and it dials someone accidentally.
It happens all the time. And when the person who owns the phone hears a voice coming out of their pocket, they reach in and get it and say something like this: “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have butt dialed you.”
Well, this is sort of what happened with Edith.
She sat on Mr. Music’s cell phone and butt dialed.
Literally.
When she plopped down to wait for Stick Cat to come up with a far-inferior idea to get Mr. Music unstuck from the piano, she sat down on his cell phone.
While Edith didn’t know she sat on Mr. Music’s cell phone, she did know it was slightly uncomfortable. So she shifted her weight to change her position. And when she shifted her weight to change her position, Edith butt dialed.
She pressed two buttons on Mr. Music’s cell phone.
Do you know what the two buttons were?
The redial button and the speaker button.
When someone answered the phone and it came through the speaker, Edith jumped up and yelled, “My butt is talking! My butt is talking!! MY BUTT IS TALKING!!!”
And while Edith didn’t recognize what had happened, Mr. Music instantly did. And when Mr. Music instantly did, Stick Cat understood what happened too.
He leaped to where Edith was circling frantically to find out where the voice was coming from on her body. He grabbed her by the shoulders, calmed her spinning ways, and pointed toward Mr. Music.
“Max? Max? Are you there?” came the voice from the phone. Apparently, Mr. Music’s name was Max.
Mr. Music stretched his neck, turning his head as far as possible to project his voice toward the cell phone down on the floor. “Tony! Tony! It’s me!” he yelled. “Whatever you do, don’t hang up!”
“I can barely hear you, Max” came Tony’s voice from the phone. “You sound far away. I got your message. You said you’d be a little late. Do you need to stay home the whole day?”
“No!” Mr. Music yelled. There was the tiniest hint of desperation in his voice.
“No, I’m already here, Tony. I’m up on the twenty-third floor. I got a problem up here—and I need your help!”
“Twenty-third floor?”
“Twenty-third floor!” yelled Mr. Music. “I’m okay. But I do need you to hurry.”
“Let me take care of this customer real quick, then I’ll close the shop and come up,” Tony said. His talking got faster—you could tell he was going to hurry. And then the call ended with a click and a buzz.
Stick Cat smiled the biggest smile he had ever smiled. Mr. Music was going to be okay after all. Mr. Music rested his head sort of sideways on his shoulder. It was clear that a combination of exhaustion and relief had overcome him. He smiled slightly.
“You did it!” Stick Cat said to Edith. “You saved Mr. Music!”
Edith’s eyes opened wide. She had put all the pieces together and just now understood what had happened. She said, “
Well, of course I did. I’m Edith.”
Stick Cat pointed toward the window. He knew they had to get out of there before Mr. Music’s coworker arrived. He didn’t think there was much danger, but he didn’t want them to be mistaken for strays and taken away or something. He couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from Goose.
“Come on,” he said urgently. He rubbed up once more against Mr. Music’s pants leg.
“You’re a good kitty,” Mr. Music whispered, but didn’t open his eyes. “If you’re really there.”
Stick Cat purred and then turned toward the window, preparing to sprint. “We have to get back. Fast!”
Edith heard the urgency in his voice and turned to race back to the window as well.
But something stopped Stick Cat just then.
“Oh, no,” he said quietly, and held completely still.
“What is it, Stick Cat?”
It wasn’t Mr. Music saying something—he appeared too tired even to speak anymore. It wasn’t a sound. It wasn’t a movement. It wasn’t the dangerous prospect of crossing back using the clothesline.
Do you know what it was that had Stick Cat so concerned?
It was a smell.
“What is it, Stick Cat?” asked Edith again.
“Mrs. O’Mahoney,” he whispered.
“What about her?”
“She’s baking bread.”
Chapter 12
DING!
Stick Cat could smell the aroma of freshly made bread in the air. Mrs. O’Mahoney was baking. And when Mrs. O’Mahoney baked, she always wore her apron.
They sprinted to the window, but Stick Cat already knew what they would find.
There was no apron on the line.
Far across the alley, Stick Cat could see Mrs. O’Mahoney in the kitchen window. She had just taken a sheet of four freshly baked bread loaves out of the oven. After she pushed another tray of four doughy loaves into the oven to bake, she left the kitchen.
And as Stick Cat had guessed, Mrs. O’Mahoney was wearing the apron.
“Excellent!” Edith said, recognizing the dilemma.
“What’s excellent?!” Stick Cat asked. “The apron’s gone!”
“We can go back to my idea about grabbing two pigeons by the legs and flying across,” Edith explained. “I’ve always liked that idea.”
“Okay, sure,” Stick Cat replied, and began to reel the clothespin bag over to their side as fast as he could. He glanced toward Mr. Music at the piano. He still stood there, of course. His eyes were closed and his head rested against his shoulder. He looked incredibly tired, but also relieved to know that help was on the way. Stick Cat took comfort in that—and refocused his concentration.
He knew there was no choice—and no time: they would have to use the clothespin bag hanging on the line. It was much smaller than the apron pocket and full of clothespins. He concentrated on reeling it across. To Edith he said, “Let me know when you see two pigeons flying close enough to jump out and grab.”
“I’m on it,” Edith said, and got into her ready-to-leap position on the ledge. She snapped her head back and forth to look for incoming pigeons.
It took only a moment for Stick Cat to reel the bag halfway across.
“No pigeons,” Edith said to update Stick Cat.
“Keep looking,” Stick Cat said as he retrieved the bag the rest of the way. As soon as he did, he began to empty out all the clothespins. He had to make room in the bag for them to get across. The bag was filled all the way to the top. He piled as many clothespins as he could on the ledge, but there wasn’t much room—and he had to be careful. He didn’t want any of them to drop down to the street. He knew if one fell from twenty-three floors up, it might hurt somebody on the sidewalk. He also knew it might draw attention to them—and he certainly didn’t want that.
“No pigeons,” Edith said, providing another update.
“Keep looking,” Stick Cat repeated.
When he ran out of room on the window ledge, Stick Cat began to clasp the remaining clothespins to himself. They pinched his skin, but not too badly. And he was truly in too big of a hurry to care anyway.
Edith, of course, was unaware of any of this. She was far too busy scanning the area for incoming pigeons.
Stick Cat removed the final clothespin and clasped it onto one of his ears.
Edith said, “No pigeons.”
“Forget it,” Stick Cat said loudly enough to get her attention.
She turned to him and opened her eyes wide at the sight. She stared at him and backed away as far as she could on the ledge. With fear in her voice, Edith asked, “Did the clothespins attack you?”
“No,” Stick Cat explained quickly. “I had to put them somewhere to make room in the bag.”
Edith relaxed immediately and said, “You look ridiculous.”
“I’m sure I do. But I have a question for you,” he said, and smiled. “Do you want to go for another ride?”
Edith didn’t take the time to answer. She leaped from the ledge and into the clothespin bag. This time Stick Cat didn’t protest at how quickly—and how dangerously—Edith jumped into the bag. He knew there was very little time.
It was far less roomy than the apron pocket, and Stick Cat could tell immediately there would not be space for them both. Mr. Music’s coworker was bound to get to the twenty-third floor soon. Stick Cat had to move fast.
As he yanked and reeled the line with his paws to begin Edith’s journey across, he shouted instructions to her.
“When you get over there, I’ll reel the bag back,” he called. There was true desperation in his voice. “When I get into the bag, you reel me across, okay?”
“Okay, sure,” Edith said in a way that kind of made you think she was distracted. Then the clothespin bag started to sway back and forth on the line and she yelled, “Wa-hoo!”
Stick Cat’s arms and paws never worked so fast as they did getting Edith across that alley. As soon as the bag bumped against Mrs. O’Mahoney’s ledge, Edith jumped out. And when Stick Cat saw that she had firm footing, he pulled the bag back as fast as he could. His arms started to throb and hurt, but he kept churning them over and over.
When the bag was about halfway back, Stick Cat heard a sound.
It was a single sound.
Ding!
He had heard that sound many times before from Goose’s apartment. It seemed to come from out in the hallway of their apartment building. But this time it came from inside the piano factory.
You probably know what it was, right?
It was an elevator getting ready to open.
But Stick Cat had never seen an elevator before. He probably rode one once when Goose brought him home as a kitten, but he didn’t remember that at all.
So think about this: if you didn’t know what an elevator was and then suddenly you heard that sound—ding!—and a wall opened up and somebody stepped out of the wall, it would be pretty strange, right? And maybe even a little bit scary, right?
That’s exactly what happened to Stick Cat. There was the ding! sound. The wall opened up. And Tony, Mr. Music’s friend and coworker from the piano store, stepped out.
Stick Cat found it all very, very scary. He turned on the ledge, and saw that the empty bag was still four or five feet away.
He aimed for the opening at the top of the bag. He pushed off with both back feet and flew through the air.
Stick Cat missed his target.
Chapter 13
STICK CAT IS NOT TALKING ABOUT EATING PEAS
Stick Cat did not land in the bag.
About halfway through his jump, he could tell he was going to miss. He forgot there were clothespins clasped to his back paws, and they interfered with his push-off. He was coming at the bag too low.
With sheer and rapid instinct, he pressed his front claws out from his paws and dug them into the side of the bag as fast and as deep as he could.
He grabbed the bottom of the bag—and hung on for dear life.
&n
bsp; And hung.
And hung.
And hung some more.
He looked over at Mrs. O’Mahoney’s window ledge. Edith was there licking her front left paw. It seemed the ride across in the clothespin bag—the very clothespin bag that Stick Cat now hung from twenty-three floors above the street—had messed up her fur. And Edith was fixing this problem while Stick Cat hung.
And hung.
And hung.
“Edith!” he yelled.
She looked up from the ledge and tilted her head. Then, as if she suddenly recognized the danger, she began reeling Stick Cat across.
Stick Cat took one look down to the street. He just couldn’t help himself. The street was so skinny. There was a red siren turning on top of a parked police car. The cement truck was still there and so was the broken streetlight and the wrecked car. The whole scene seemed to be waving, wobbling, and melting in his vision.
“Do not look down again,” Stick Cat whispered to himself. He lifted his head and stared right up at the bottom of the bag as he made his way slowly across the alley.
Until he stopped moving.
Edith had stopped reeling.
“Stick Cat?” she yelled.
“Yes?” he mustered. He was only about one-third of the way back. He didn’t even know if she could hear him answer. His claws felt as if they were being slowly pulled from his paws. It was a terrible feeling.
“Do you think we could play StareDown when you get here?” she called.
“Sure. That’s fine,” he yelled back.
He started moving again. Stick Cat closed his eyes and concentrated all his energy on his claws. He tried to keep them perfectly still as they dug into the material. It seemed that when the bag rocked a little or when the line jerked a little, his claws would rip into the clothespin bag material and tear it just a fraction. He definitely didn’t want that to happen anymore.
