Cat Tales

Cat Tales

Alma Alexander

Copyright Alma Alexander 2011

ISBN 978-1-4524-2131-5

Published by Kos Books at Smashwords

Kos Books

A & D Deckert

343 Sudden Valley Drive

Bellingham WA 98229

Publication Record

Homemaker, Renard's Menagerie, July 2007

Hourglass, Jim Baen's Universe, Feb. 2008

Safe House, published for the first time
here

Smashwords License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Homemaker

Hourglass

Safe House

Reviewers Say

Other Books by Alma Alexander

Contact Alma Alexander

About the Author

At a recent social gathering, someone left a
knot of people talking about a random topic, was away for a short
time and by the time that he returned the subject had already
changed … to cats.

"What is it about writers," he asked,
apparently genuinely puzzled. "You leave them alone for five
minutes and they start talking about cats?

I don't know about writers, but cats… have
had a certain kind of mystique to them ever since the first one
deigned to permit itself to become "domesticated" and call a human
hearth its home. They are the perfect subject for so many things –
not least being writerly conversations at literary parties. They
are walking metaphors, they were once worshipped as gods and they
have never forgotten it, and even the most klutzy or stupid cat
manages to give an impression of a certain kind of focus and
concentration and insouciance, as if they all know precisely where
they are going (if not exactly how they plan on getting there).
Cats are just walking stories, waiting to be told. And because they
are so mysterious, so self-possessed, often remote (as though they
lived on a different world, as perhaps they do), the stories that
lie hidden behind those calm eyes of emerald green or warm amber
are always mysteries. A cat does not kiss and tell. But they DO
seem to tease, and flirt, and invite you to find things out… if you
can.

Cats have (naturally) played a certain part
in several of my own stories. I present three of them for your
enjoyment.

Welcome to the Alexander Triads, Book 2: Cat
Tales.

Alma Alexander

Summer 2011

'Homemaker' was one of those
oddball stories, written because I heard it call me but then left
behind in a drawer (or, in this instance, a hard drive) because
there was no obvious thing to do with it. The story, told from the
point of view of a cat, was strongly anthropomorphic, and it had an
oddly 'young' feel as though I had been aiming it at children –
which I hadn't, which I rarely do. When a magazine by the name of
Renard's Menagerie turned up, some years after this story was
written, and asked for stories just like this one – stories that
were animal-centric and even stories written from the animal's POV
– the market seemed tailor-made for this particular tale. I sent it
in, and they published it in July 2007
.

I'd been keeping an eye on Janine Murray for
some time from the safety of the bushes behind her home. She was
the new kid in town, skinny and shy, with a pair of John Lennon
spectacles always half-falling off the end of her nose. I'll admit
she wasn't exactly promising material. This one would be a pushover
to win. But to make something of her… to Make this family… that
would be a different story. However, I always did thrive on
challenges.

"Mom," Janine called the first time I allowed
her to see me, shivering on the back porch, "there's a black
cat…"

But I was gone. In the first few encounters,
it was important to keep the mystery going.

The next time, I stayed a little bit longer.
After that, I almost allowed her to touch me. And then I came to
within a whisker's breadth of the saucer of milk she was offering
before diving back into the bushes as if something had startled me.
The more elusive I was, the more determined she became to "tame"
me.

"We don't need a cat," I heard her father
snap one evening. He was always banished to the back porch for his
evening smoke, by himself, and it was a good time for either Janine
or her mother to get him alone and ask him for things. That comment
was good news, actually – Janine had obviously asked if they could
keep me – but the tone of her father's voice was not exactly
encouraging. But I would give it time. I could see that they needed
me.

The first time I allowed Janine to see me
actually lapping at her offering on the porch I waited long enough
to know that she had gone to get her mother and that they were both
watching me eat from the back door. I sat back and started cleaning
my whiskers, deliberately ignoring them.

"Isn't she pretty?" said Janine. There – I
knew the girl had taste.

"She's a moggy, darling – and she's so
painfully thin – and how do you know it's a she anyway?"

"I know."

"Oh, dear. You know that would mean a trip to
the vet. If she stayed."

I looked up at that, mid-motion, and then
flung myself off the porch into the bushes.

"She's probably somebody's," said Janine's
mother. "She seemed to understand the word 'vet' perfectly well,
anyhow."

It was weeks before I came close enough to
explore the house. It had had a cat door before they moved in, but
they had no pets so they had locked it shut. After a while, though,
I realized that Janine had stealthily unlocked the cat door and was
leaving the house accessible. The first time I came in it was well
after midnight, and they were all fast asleep. It was a pleasant
house, and it had all the right things. I tried out one of the
cushions on the sofa – it was just right. I had an excellent nap
before I made my escape in the morning before the rest of them
stirred. But I made sure that they would know I'd been there.

The next time I snuck in, there was a saucer
of milk by the fridge. I could feel my whiskers twitching. They
were doing well.

I allowed myself to fall asleep on one of the
wicker chairs on the back porch one or two days later, knowing they
would find me there. When I felt Janine's thin hand on my back, I
kept my eyes closed and started purring.

"Listen," Janine said happily, "she enjoys
it."

"Your Dad doesn't like the idea, Jan," said
her mother. "Now go inside, you have homework."

"Michelle thinks we're lucky," Janine said.
"Black cats are supposed to be lucky…"

"Funny, that," said her mother. "I always
heard just the opposite. Homework."

Michelle. Hmmmm. It was working already.

When I let their next door neighbors catch me
stalking the cage with their budgies, they had already seen me on
Janine's back porch often enough to assume I belonged there. So it
was to that house that they directed a complaint.

"She's not our cat," Janine's mother said
apologetically. "But come in. Would you like a cup of coffee?"

The neighbor from the other side subsequently
popped over to tell Janine's mother what a fusspot the woman with
the budgies was. They too shared a cup of coffee. Then Janine's
family was invited there to dinner one night. Michelle came to hang
out with Janine, and soon there were other girls there, too. I
allowed myself to be seen and stroked. They all thought I was
beautiful, and I was gracious enough to accept the compliment – as
well as the small can of tuna which they sneaked off the pantry
shelf to give me.

I started sleeping in the house. The family
didn't seem to mind. A beanbag appeared beside the TV one night,
and it was just the right size for a cat. I appreciated their
thoughtfulness. But it was still best when I climbed into Janine's
Dad's lap when he least expected it and sat there kneading his
legs. He always protested, but I could tell that he enjoyed the
attention, especially when he knew that Janine was jealous – she'd
sort of discovered me and she rather thought of me as "her" cat.
But her dad smelled nice – a sort of musty male smell with a whiff
of leather from the patches on the elbows of his sweater, and
tobacco. He had a moustache – whiskers almost as respectable as
mine. If he'd been a cat he would have made a very good mouser.

The family seemed nicely established now. The
left neighbor got Janine's mother and father involved in a bridge
club. The right neighbor said that Janine could come over and play
on the Internet on his computer if she liked. The neighbor two
houses down the road asked if Janine could baby-sit. Michelle
practically lived at Janine's place. And in the middle of it all –
as there should be – there was a contented cat drowsing before the
TV. The center of the circle, the heart of the house.

It was probably time for me to go. I had done
all I could here. Janine couldn't help being skinny and shy – but
she had had her hair streaked gold and she wore a different pair of
glasses which did far more for her than the ones she had been
saddled with when I had first seen her. I knew that she was getting
second looks in the street.

And there was another kid down the road – a
boy who sat alone for hours on the steps leading up to his front
door, a boy who missed the dog his family had left on another
continent. Another challenge. Another day. Another family that
needed me.

All the same – I stood in the road for ages
when I walked away from Janine's house. It was getting harder and
harder to leave every time. I Make a good home – and when I get it
just about perfect, that's when I'm called to leave, and start
again. Perhaps there will come a time when I will be allowed to
Make a home for myself – and stay sleeping by someone's fireside
during the long cold winter nights. But until then, I have work to
do.

I am a Homemaker.

'Hourglass' was actually
the third story I wrote about the character named Aris – the
gleeman, or singer, or travelling troubadour (call him what you
wish) whose defining characteristic was that he had the same
relationship to magic as those poor people who are allergic to cats
have with every cat in creation – the cats know their presence is
not wanted and this particular fact makes them perversely
determined to ingratiate themselves with precisely the people who
cannot endure their presence.

Magic pursues Aris
relentlessly, never quite letting him out of its sights – and all
he has ever wanted was a perfectly decent and ordinary life. But
cats and magic – what can I say. They have minds of their own. This
story was published in Jim Baen's Universe, in February 2008 –
submitted, accepted, and published all within the space of a
handful of weeks, which is unprecedented for a sale like this. But
they liked it. And their version (you can look it up it's still
online as far as I know) had a perfectly wonderful illustration of
the cat at the heart of this tale…

-----0-----

I could get RICH in Ghulkit!