Why Some Cats are Rascals - Book1 by Boszenna Nowiki

PART 1

QUEST FOR FREEDOM

 1

Rascal was sitting on the windowsill watching the rain.  His eyes lazily followed the drops as they fell from the gray sky.  The soft cat song he was humming was the only sound in the quiet attic.  There wasn’t much light either.  Two small windows facing the north side barely chased away the darkness, and long shadows cast odd shapes on the bare wooden walls.  Rascal peered through the rain soaked window at the mountains that loomed in the distance, half hidden in thick clouds.  He had gazed at them so many times before, but he had never ventured off that far.

     He sighed deeply and said, “Starting today I’m writing a diary.”

     Lumby, a three-month old white and black kitten with long hair and two black hearts on the back of his white feet, leaped off the box he was sitting on and sat in front of Rascal, looking up at him curiously. “What’s a diary?” he asked.

     “You will see!  All of you I will blacken!” 

     Lumby took a step backwards, scared by Rascal’s little joke.

     Rascal smiled and continued, “A diary is a memoir, a work of art in which every day portrays only truth and more truth.  If I forget the truth, I will invent the truth, but truth it will always be.”  He smiled slyly and jumped into the third drawer of a five drawer white cabinet.  Cracking open a small leather diary, Rascal fetched his pen and began to write.

     This morning I looked in the mirror and I was amazed at how Nature gave so much beauty in one body…in a few words I will introduce myself.  I’m amazingly beautifully orange on the nose and my lip is full of black spots.  My name is Rascal.

     Just as he was admiring his own words, another cat, much bigger, poked his nose into the drawer where Rascal was writing.  “Hey, what are you doing there?” the fat cat asked. 

     It was Rascal’s brother, Philosopher. He looked at Rascal’s writing and commented, “Eeeee, your writing is not worth one pound of tuft, Rascal.” 

     Rascal just glared at him.

     Casually licking his paws, Philosopher continued, “Why don’t you write this: I have a brother my age, three years old.  He is fat, his fur is grayish-blue, his collar and socks are white.  His name is Philosopher and he has a white spot on his nose.  He is very slow but he reads a lot and thinks even more.  Sometimes from his thinking he catches a mouse.  He has a cat’s patience.  I prefer flies; they are easier to catch than mice.”

     Meanwhile, small Lumby, with short jumps, had left the two brothers for another part of the attic to visit with Grandma, an older calico cat.  Everyone called her simply “Grandma,” though Lumby was pretty sure that wasn’t her real name.  He looked up at her with his big eyes and said, “Please, Grandma, tell us one of the cat’s legends. A funny one.”

     Two orange ears, a white mustache and a freckled nose peeked from the third drawer to listen.  Rascal wrote:

     So, Grandma is very old; soon she will have 22 winters.  Must be some kind of secret, because I’ve never heard before about such an old cat.

     Grandmother stretched.  Lumby could hear her bones creaking and popping.  It made him a little scared, but then Grandma smiled, cleared her throat and began.  “A long time ago, when I was young…”

     “Grandma was young?” interrupted Lumby.

     “Yes, child, and I used to love to listen to the old legends too.”  She sighed and spoke as to herself or to the window.  “The clouds in the sky were smiling at me, stars and sun came back for me every day.” 

     Lumby waited patiently for her to continue.  It was very quiet in the room. Outside the window the dark clouds continued to hide the midday sun. But the rain seemed to pause and listen to the calico.  With great melancholy, she said, “I was running with the wind, jumping and playing.  This was freedom!”

     “Is it true?” asked Lumby, his eyes widening in surprise.

     “Grandma never lies,” the old cat said in a serious tone.

     “I was thinking that,” said the happy kitten, nodding his agreement.

     The old calico continued.  “A real cat counts only on his own strength.”

     After those words the rest of the cats sat around Grandma.  There was a five-year-old snow-white cat named Snow, and her husband, Dandy, a black cat with a smattering of white under his jaw.  He was fond of fashion.  Also there was Sofia, a white and black cat from Poland, and Bunny, a one-year-old white and gray without a tail, which made him look like a Japanese Bobtail.  And of course, Lumby, who was from the country.  He was always very happy, smiling, jumping and playing around.  His name came from the small town where he was born, close to Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada. 

2

Apart from the others, Rascal lay curled up in his cabinet drawer, busily writing down everything.  Philosopher was watching from the highest shelf close to the door.  Uncle Toothless, a 14 year old cat without teeth, yellow with a white tummy and white socks, spent his time in the other parts of the house and went to the garden sometimes.  The rest of the cats were closed in one north room with two windows and a view of the big mountain, named Grouse Mountain, and to the left two peaks named Two Sisters.

     Grandma looked around at the cats gathered all about her and said, “I’m happy seeing you, soon I have to go.”

     “Gee!” uttered Lumby.

     “Gee!” said the rest of the cats.  “Please don’t go!”

     She smiled softly and Lumby jumped up and embraced her.  She was not used to cats caressing and shyly said, “Watch out, you will overturn me!”

     Grandma was really very happy, however, and she stealthily licked his nose.

     Rascal was carefully watching the entire scene.  Clutching his pen, he again began writing in his diary:

     “Grandma never was like that before; it looks like something is in the air.  Always she beat us with her paws and never allowed us to come too close to her.  Discipline was her best model of virtue.  But she was different to the humans; she always was very friendly to them and wanted more petting.  She would cuddle up to them and purr…Something is wrong with our Grandma.”

     Grandmother was talking about “the olden days,” the days of her youth.  She sparked the imaginations of the younger cats with her tall tales of sleeping in the rubbish can and under the stars, about the fancy Ball that the cats used to organize two times a year, and the competitions that they once had walking on the wooden fence.  She also spoke dreamily of the freedom of cats she knew, who lived in the wild.  Old Grandma seemed to get more energy while talking about her younger days.  “Always be very active,” she warned.  “There are lots of lazy cats without ambition.  Their life is only to do the minimum: sleep and eat until death.  That’s no way to live!  Listen to me, you youngsters.  To be alive means to have a goal.  Lots of cats have nice ideas but never use them.  It is not enough just to think success or think ideas; they must be demonstrated.  So thinking success alone does not make you successful.  But all actions start from your thoughts.”

     Lumby opened his mouth to say something, but then Grandma breathed heavily and continued, “But it is also true that in that moment you decide to be successful you will encounter lots of obstacles.  So remember, for real cats they are not obstacles!”  She stopped and looked like she was asleep.

     All the cats talked quietly amongst themselves.  Grandma seemed to have fallen asleep and none of them dared to awaken her.  Philosopher sat in silence with his right ear to the front and left ear to the back as he looked out the window.  When the old cat opened her eyes he asked, “Do you know, my Grandma, where there are some good mouse holes close by?”

     The old cat instantly seemed wide awake again.  She smiled.  “Yes, my son.  In old houses there are incredibly gorgeous mice,” she said and started licking her fur.

     Philosopher scrunched up his face, a habit he had when he was curious about something.  “Are those old houses somewhere close by?” he asked.  This time his left ear moved to the front and his right ear moved to the back.