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

how it’s screeching and swooping—circling around me. I don’t even have my raincoat for protection: no slick layer of fabric between those talons and my fur.

The bird lets out a sharp cry.

And then it snatches my raincoat, right from Olive’s arms.

It just glides down and steals it, carrying it away into the woods. My raincoat! With my Yellowstone badge! There are treats in the pockets and everything.

“What just . . . ?” Norma says.

“Hey!” Olive says, breaking into a sprint after it. Of course, I scamper by her side, my stride long, my paws barely touching the ground. Stanley howls. Really and truly howls. He pulls so hard on the leash, it drops from Norma’s hands. His eyes are intensely alert, his paws mud-flecked as he stamps the ground—thud, thud—until he’s chasing the owl alongside us. It’s darting through juniper trees, my yellow raincoat dangling from its talons.

It should occur to me that this is dangerous. That this is foolish. Not too far away is the sound of rushing water. The earth is already wet and splintering beneath us.

But that’s my raincoat, with my badge.

I want it with me to the very end.

The owl changes course, flitting sideways, and we skitter around a bundle of pines, trying to close the gap. Flecks of spittle are forming in the corners of Stanley’s mouth. He won’t stop barking. Norma won’t stop shouting.

We crest the hill in a single, pulse-pounding moment. I stagger, my paws slipping in the slick mud, and I try to grip on to the tangle of weeds, the spongy layer of moss. No use. It’s no use. Our feet are running faster than we can catch. The three of us—Stanley, Olive, and me—slide forward. Slide down.

It doesn’t even matter when the owl drops the raincoat.

Because Olive is falling, her ankle twisting on clumps of thistle—bending more as she tumbles along the rocks. Before I can stop her, warn her, help her, she skids into the river with a terrible gasp, her body smacking the water. Stanley has managed to dig his paws into the hillside, and we shriek together as Olive slips below the surface. The sound is raw in my throat, raw in my ears. Everything is ringing—and it’s two seconds, three seconds before she resurfaces, black hair slick against her forehead. She’s breathing in great gulps.

Barely afloat, arms flailing, she yelps out a word: “Leonard!”

It echoes through the forest. Echoes into me.

The birds! The birds! Stanley is saying, over and over again. Now I understand, now I really do, that he’s been trying to warn me about birds all along.

Drawing upon my memories from the summer—Olive dunking under tanks, Q swimming in the ocean—I rise on my haunches, catapulting off the shore and into the river. No, cats aren’t designed for swimming; the water reminds me with its coldness, with the heaviness of its current. My little white paws flit pathetically beneath me as my tail struggles to find something to do. Should I use it as a dolphin might? Or a sea otter, propelling myself through the water? I try to imagine that my toes are webbed, that the water is warmer—that I am, most of all, unafraid.

Olive matters more than anything else.

My lungs flatten when I realize that I’ve lost sight of her. I blink wildly, unable to wipe the water from my eyes. Everything about me swivels—my ears, my body. I’m turning and turning in the water; if I listen hard enough, paddle close enough, I might catch a fragment of Olive’s voice. But the current is sloshing water up my nose. I open my mouth, gagging at the spray, and will my legs to keep treading water. These earthly legs that I barely trusted a month ago.

“Leonard!” Olive says again, sounding terribly far away.

I pivot my ears toward the sound, swimming purely on instinct. Swimming toward her with all that I have.

Relief floods me when I feel the light touch of her hand, fingers waggling through the water. She grasps onto my foreleg and, with one arm, tucks me close. “I can’t . . .” she says, head bobbing at the surface, “believe you . . . did that . . .”

The two of us struggle against the current, panting as we reach the shore. It’s only my second experience with panting, the pink of my tongue lolling like a dog’s. It alarms Stanley; gently, he mouths my neck, dragging me safely onto the mud. Olive holds him, too, until we’re all out of breath, backs to the earth, staring up at swirling stars. My heart has never beat faster.

“I called your name . . .” Olive gasps, “to tell you to stay on shore . . . You could’ve been—”

“Olive!” Norma shouts behind us.

At the sound of her name, said with such worry, Olive begins to cry.

“You’re okay,” Norma says, catching up. Her knees sink to the mud, and she’s cradling Olive’s head, stroking her hair. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

I believe this is a thing that humans do: Trying to speak words into existence. Trying to change what is very clearly in front of them. Olive’s jaw is clenching, and her eyes are tearing, and her ankle is swelling.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers to Norma. “I wasn’t . . . I wasn’t thinking, and I didn’t mean to shock you, or hurt you, or—”

“Hurt me?” Norma asks, uneasy. “Are you hurt anywhere? Do we need to go to the hospital?”

“No hospital,” Olive insists, shaking her wet head. Tears slip down her cheeks as Stanley nudges his way in, trying to lick them away. “We need to keep going. We’re so close. I have to do this . . . this one thing right.”

Norma’s face is inconsolable, her voice tender. “One thing? What do you mean one thing? What’s this all about?”

Olive winces, attempts to sit up. “I just thought,” she says, “if I can get him there, that’ll mean something, and maybe I’ll feel better about everything else.” Her words are flowing