Leonard (My Life as a Cat), Carlie Sorosiak [7 ebook reader .txt] 📗

Maybe she is right about the ocean, I thought, my fur puffing slightly. Yet my mind brought me back to the flood—all alone in that tree—and I remembered just how much danger I was in that night. How Olive saved me then and would surely save me now, if the occasion called for it.

So I dropped my paws from her knees. My leash extended quite far, but Olive never strayed; she remained very much by my side as we stepped into the ocean. The first sweep hit my paws in a bubbly burst. Cold. It was colder than I expected for such a warm climate, but the feeling was not altogether terrible. In fact, it was refreshing.

Olive said, “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” And I flexed my toes, sand dimpling beneath me. With my night vision I could see the ocean’s never-ending plane, extending on and on. Perhaps this is as close as humans will come to infinity: gazing out at the sea, toes in the water, feeling a part of something huge, yet being very, very small themselves.

I’m not sure how long we stood there. Eventually Stanley approached us, rolling his whole body in the shallow waters, then shaking out his great mane. He was at home here—in this town, in this ocean—and I wondered if I would ever have that much comfort anywhere. If I could give myself up entirely to a landscape and a moment and a feeling.

“It’s getting late,” Norma said after a while. “Should we head back?”

So we walked back, our reflections nothing but shadows on the ground—and that night I made a list at Olive’s request, typing in the dim glow of the turtle night-light.

Human Lessons

1. Go to a real movie theater

2. The creation and enjoyment of poetry

3. Bowling and recreational board games

4. Preparation and consumption of a cheese sandwich

5. Host a dinner party

Sitting back on my haunches, looking at the list, I was rather impressed with the sophistication of the typing (I’d figured out capital letters with the help of the shift key); it was also dangerously brave, a list that would push me out of my comfort zone. Sure, I could have added more—a note about music or dancing or extreme sports. I could’ve written a never-ending list, because weren’t there so many things? How could one possibly choose between the splendor of a midnight countdown, with party poppers (very tempting), and the humanness of baking a cake?

But we only had so much time.

Five things seemed good enough.

“A cheese sandwich?” Olive said, cross-legged in her striped pajamas. “I think we can give you a bite of one, but aren’t cats lactose intolerant?”

I wasn’t familiar with the word lactose, so I shrugged this off with a shiver of my fur.

Olive cocked her head. “The dinner party thing we can do. How many guests do you want, though? Because I don’t really know anyone here, besides Norma and Q. It would have to be small.”

Small is good, I typed at the bottom of the list. Thank you thank you.

“Welcome, welcome,” Olive said, scratching just behind my ear. She was smiling in this peculiar way. “I still can’t really believe this—any of it. I don’t think that anything this extraordinary will ever happen to me again.”

Probably not, I typed.

And for some reason, she laughed.

Please don’t get me wrong. There were many terrible things about being a cat.

Pots and pans, the garbage disposal, the whoosh of the shower curtain—any loud noise sent me skittering; sometimes I bolted so quickly that it was difficult to slow down, the rug bunching beneath me. Houseplants were nice to shove in my mouth and chew, but my cat stomach couldn’t take it. And I developed a worrying obsession with flinging myself at the window screens, clinging to them, climbing with my claws. Don’t ask me why. I can’t explain it myself.

But there were good things, too. My reflexes were sharp. Anything moving, darting, or flashing, I could see perfectly. And Olive—there was Olive. For a flicker of a second, as we spoke about my human lessons, a thought did occur to me: Despite my homesickness, would it be the worst thing, to get stuck on Earth?

I quickly swiped it away—and focused on the movies.

It may not surprise you to know that cats aren’t allowed in movie theaters, that the seats are not formed to the size and shape of our bodies. There were so many places that I couldn’t go, solely based on my fur, my claws, my relatively short legs. But The Wizard of Oz was playing at Turtle Beach Cinema for one night only, so Olive told me that we had to try.

“I just don’t want to stick you in my backpack,” she said as we were getting ready to go. “Not after what happened on the bus. Cats really shouldn’t be in backpacks. But I’m trying to figure out the best way to sneak you in.”

Norma was in the kitchen searching for her motorcycle keys. I heard rustling, the smack of boots against the floor. “Got ’em,” she finally said. “Ready?”

“Snap decision,” Olive whispered to me. “I have an idea.”

“So,” Norma said to Olive, “remind me again why you’re wearing my windbreaker?”

We were standing in line at the movies. Well, I wasn’t standing. I was suspended in the bib of Olive’s overalls, comfortably tucked underneath a large coat. She’d zipped it up to her neck, but there was plenty of air flow—thank goodness. The ride over in the motorcycle’s sidecar was rather touch and go; against every swerve, I tried not to grip too tightly. We’d made it, though, and surely that’s what counted.

“It gets cold in the movies,” Olive said, shifting from foot to foot.

“You look lumpy,” Norma said.

Another human voice added, “Here you go! Two tickets to see The Wizard. Round the corner, to the left.”

I felt Olive grab her ticket and scamper away, one hand clutching the coat zipper.

“Wait a second,” Norma said behind us. “Olive. Olive!”