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

are shouting. You sound different.

I’m not sure what you—

There is emotion in your voice. And you are a cat.

Well, yes.

This does not compute. There has never been a mistake before.

I got distracted on the way here. I ended up in South Carolina.

South Carolina?

There are beaches. Quite nice, if you don’t mind the sand. Or the water.

Listen to yourself.

I am. You are waiting at the geyser?

At your point of pickup, yes. You know the plan.

I know the plan. You will extend yourself over the geyser. I will jump into the geyser. I will be safe.

You must do it exactly right, despite your new circumstances.

Yes.

Hurry.

I am hurrying.

You have twelve minutes left.

I run.

Half a mile from Upper Geyser Basin, I nearly slam into a group of hikers, who part for me on the trail. “Wait,” one of them says, “that’s a house cat. Should he be out here?”

I appreciate her worry, I sincerely do, but when I cross the footbridge over Firehole River, Old Faithful is looming in the distance: a steaming mound of white earth, ready to blow. The hive’s collective energy grows stronger with every stride I take. I’ll be back with them soon. Soon Leonard will no longer be my name.

I’ve liked that name.

Even this body. It has a certain charm, doesn’t it?

No, comes the voice of the hive.

That was rhetorical.

You did not specify.

The ground rumbles beneath my paws. Old Faithful only erupts once an hour, and I must not miss it; the hive’s collective power only lasts for so long on Earth. If I botch the timing, they’ll move on to pick up other travelers. Sweeping my gaze around the rocky expanse, I spot the rangers right away—dotted about the area, mixed in with the crowd of tourists. Straw hats, green trousers, gray button-up shirts. Just like the photos. Just like I was supposed to be.

I thought I’d envy them. I thought my stomach would lurch at the sight of their glittering badges. Shouldn’t I be jealous of all that they are? Of everything I didn’t become? Look, I tell myself. Look at them with their pockets! Look at them with their Swiss Army knives, their human hands, their variety of pens for writing.

I do look.

And I realize that even though I’ve lived in a different body, I have really and truly lived.

Now, the hive says. You must run now.

A grayish vapor begins streaming from the geyser in puffs; the earth shivers, little tremors up my forelegs. All my strength curls within me, and I push it out, out into the world. Sprinting. Darting across the land. Swishing through the crowd. And the rangers—they’re running after me. Why? Why are they doing that? Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a chase. What’s one rogue cat in the middle of all this commotion? In the middle of tourists and summer, with the geyser about to blow?

I misjudged the attention I would draw, rushing toward a steaming pool of water, my back legs skittering under me. I’m very impressed with the rangers’ physical fitness! Look how quickly they’re flying!

“Clear back!” one of them yells.

“Everyone move!” another shouts. “He might be rabid!”

Rabid? They think I have rabies? Of all the assumptions to make, why would they jump to that one? Just because I’m foaming at the mouth, spittle flecking my chin, mad-dashing toward this geyser . . .

Tourists scatter.

A few of them scream.

Then I hear it. Her voice, piercing the crowd: “Leonard!”

I skid to a stop. I whip around.

Olive.

Olive on crutches—with Norma, Q, and Stanley by her side. All of them are slipping through the fleeing crowd.

Time is running out.

“Your . . . letter!” Olive is still yelling, heavily out of breath. “I need to talk to you about your letter!”

Wait, I tell the hive, the rangers right on my tail. I want to hear what she has to say.

No. Go now. Run.

Olive hobbles forward, out of the crowd—ten feet away from me. “You said ‘thank you for introducing me to your family.’ But it’s not just my family. It’s yours, too.”

My chest constricts.

“And I need you to know that! I really need you to know that. How much you mean to me. To all of us.”

Three rangers crash into our little circle. One of them—the man with gloves—grabs me squarely by the scruff of the neck, lifting me high into the air.

Bite him, the hive says. Bite him and run.

“We’re a family!” Olive gasps. “Leonard, you are my family!”

I blink at her, thinking.

When I was writing my ideas for human lessons, I left one important thing off the list, one thing I didn’t dare hope for. Become part of a family. I wanted to be in a Christmas photo, for someone to dress me up with a ribbon, posing me by a tree. I wanted a stocking of my own, hung next to Olive’s—and I wanted to see her, every day. Every year. Because my bucket list no longer includes things I want to do as a human. Just things I wish to do with Olive by my side.

I realize that as she limps another step toward me on her crutches. This girl. This human girl—who saved me from a flood, who just rushed a geyser, who loves me. Love. I can feel this, too. Half of the poetry on Earth focuses on love, and yet I didn’t truly understand it until now. There is a reason that cats only purr to their humans—no one else, not even other cats.

Olive is my family. Norma, Q, and Stanley are my family. Everyone one of them feels like home.

Bite the ranger! Bite him now!

Norma is wiping tears from her cheeks—because I think she might know. About me. About everything. Q looks ashen while Stanley yelps.

“Young lady?” the ranger says, his grip still firmly on my neck. “Is this your cat?”

YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS! NINE. EIGHT.

Family.

SEVEN.

She is my family.

SIX.

“I’m his human,” Olive says. “And he does not have rabies!”

FIVE.

I’m staying.

YOU WILL—FOUR—BECOME MORTAL—THREE.

Yes.

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE—TWO.

I do.

ONE.

I’m home.

Maybe one day