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

I’ll be human. Maybe I’ll return, after I’ve shed this body—after I’ve lived my life fully as a cat. I can still picture myself with human hands, reaching out for books, cutting the crust from peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (I might like those even more than cheese.) But in this life, I’ve embraced myself for who I am.

“One heck of a cat,” said a Yellowstone ranger, as Norma was writing him a check. We paid an enormous fine after the geyser incident: every cent in Olive’s piggy bank and more.

“I guess it’s worth it,” Olive said, “to see the inside of a rangers’ station.”

I told her it was worth it to stay, here on Earth with her. With everyone.

You don’t have to be born into a family to call it your own.

Now, it’s two days later, and cacti are flicking by. We’re somewhere in the middle of Nevada. Stanley’s head is firmly out the window, his fur flapping with wind. Norma’s behind the wheel, humming along with the radio. In the hospital, she started to figure it out herself—that Q and Olive weren’t making a fuss over just any cat. Olive broke the news gently over the course of an hour. Norma had to sit down for a long moment. Then she got right back up again.

Apparently, if you have to recalibrate your whole way of thinking, who better to do it for than a granddaughter?

“Did you see this?” Olive says, smiling as she plunks down a newspaper. I examine the headline with powerful concentration.

“Man, Leonard,” Q says, plopping on the couch beside me. His coffee mug reads America’s First National Park, and he takes a sip from it slowly, swishing the liquid around his mouth. “When you vacation, you vacation hard. I’m thinking that next time we do Disney World. Get you some Mickey Mouse ears. Maybe a snow globe.”

Both of us squint at the image beneath the headline, and there I am, caught midstride in a tourist’s photo. My eyes have never looked bigger; my ears are back as far as they can go. The cat in that picture, he’s wild, possessed. I wish they’d gotten my better side.

“At least they got your good side,” Q says.

Olive delicately folds the paper on her lap. “When we get to California, I’ll have this framed. Or we can put it in a scrapbook—that way we can fill the rest of it up with all of our adventures. Because there will be more, I’m sure of it.”

“Just as long as they don’t involve geysers,” Norma pipes in. “I think we’ve had enough water rescues for one summer. Not that you’re not worth it, Leonard. You are.”

“You are,” Olive repeats.

“You really are,” Q says.

I know the truth now: Sometimes you need to lose yourself to find yourself, even if where you find yourself is on another planet, in a strange body, with a seemingly unlimited supply of fur. I wasn’t just dropped into these people’s lives. I was placed here, just as they were placed into mine.

“Bowling!” Norma suddenly says, pulling into a parking lot.

My head whips toward the sound of her voice.

“What?” Olive says, genuinely confused.

“Didn’t you say that Leonard wanted to bowl? Well, I plugged it into the GPS, and ta-da. I’m not sure this place allows cats, but I think we can make it work.”

“This isn’t just any cat,” Q says, perfecting the line. “This is Leonard, Champion of Geysers, Wearer of Raincoats, Best Cat of the Aquarium. You ready, kid?”

And we are.

I’m surprised to learn that bowling lanes are delightfully slick. I like the noises, the smell of popcorn in the background. I like that when I glance up, after watching my ball teeter down the lane, my humans are there. My family is there.

Olive isn’t even embarrassed to bring in her cat on a leash.

“Maybe it is weird,” she tells me, scratching right behind my ears. “Maybe I’m weird, but that’s okay. You taught me that.”

Then she touches her dry nose to mine.

I have been thinking lately about the idea of soul mates—identifying your soul in another. How we may not be made of the same materials, of fur and air, but we can recognize each other across a crowded room. When we catch each other’s glance, our souls will say, Yes, I know you, and Yes, this feels like home. I understand what it feels like now, to know a place. To give yourself up to gravity.

To rescue someone—just as much as they rescue you.

After everything—after the road trip and Yellowstone and summer—there is snow. It spills over the backyard in magnificent clumps, falling gently from the sky. This is Maine. This is our house, a few miles from the ocean; we can see the water from Olive’s bedroom—our bedroom, which we’ve painted yellow like our raincoats.

“Leonard!” Olive calls from the foyer. “You coming?”

Downstairs in the kitchen, eggs are frying. Lifting my nose to the air, I can smell them: the pancakes, too. Olive says that her mom always makes pancakes on Christmas. “Sometimes she puts strawberries in them.” Whatever they taste like, I’m thrilled just to be here, on a human holiday, with my human family. Because this is my family—each one of them. Olive’s mother, with her denim dresses and kind smile. Norma, who learned how to scratch underneath my chin, in exactly the way I like. And Olive, who finally told her mother about Frank. About what he said.

Now Frank is back in California. Frank is staying in California, alone, without Olive’s mother.

And we are staying here.

I stretch on the windowsill, a full arch in my back, then pitter-patter downstairs—where Olive is waiting, black boots laced to her knees. She’s dressed in layers: fleece under her overalls, hat over her daisy barrettes. My fur coat has grown thick, thicker than I imagined it could, which comes in handy for the outdoors. Olive’s mom has installed a small cat door that latches at night, so