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

I fanned my whiskers, softening my eyes. You must say, “Who’s there?”

You know who is at the door? Intruder? Friend?

Well. Never mind.

Backing slightly away from him, I stretched. Stiffness ran through my limbs. One downside of having a body is that it can fail you. Sometimes you wake up and there are aches where there were no aches before. Feeling untidy, I started licking the white fur of my bib. The licking was a surprise to me, and I pulled back, hair on my tongue, startled. What was happening to me?

I tried not to dwell on it for too long.

Outside was the shrill call of seagulls, the sweet slap of waves. Hopping onto the windowsill, I could see that the floodwaters had receded. Everything was a flat plane of green and blue: marsh grass and trees, followed by a thin strip of ocean. I’d never viewed the ocean this close. From my galaxy, Earth is a pinprick, and water is just a color: not a moving, breathing, living thing. Not something to be painted and studied and waded in; you cannot dip your toes in a color, especially when you have no toes.

“Leonard? Leonard, where’d you go?”

Olive’s worried voice trailed through the house, and another new feeling invaded me: guilt. I felt guilty for leaving her, for slinking off in the middle of the night without saying where I was going. I called out to her with my voice, wishing I could speak words like In the kitchen! Right here! In return, the dog barked a mighty woof that was full-throated and admirable, and Olive was able to find me by the refrigerator.

“I see you’ve met Stanley,” she said, smiling a bit. “I think you’re going to be friends.”

I assumed that Stanley was the dog and not the refrigerator, but I made a mental note to check his collar later, just in case. Olive crouched down, petting the back of my neck. I’ll confess that I leaned in, just slightly. An early morning scratch is often the best kind.

A few minutes later, we crowded into the living room to eat breakfast, the little TV flickering on. The screen showed a small amount of wreckage from the storm—shingles flying, porches damaged—which seemed logical. More puzzling were the commercials. I’d seen several back on my home planet, but they were mystifying things. From what I was able to piece together, commercials were a sort of guidebook for humanity. They told you what salad dressing to buy, what mattress to sleep on, what type of medicine to consume. As a human, you should like your food “fast.” You should maintain a muscular physique. You should enjoy ball sports, play them frequently, and look forward to a time when you do absolutely nothing but golf. There was so much should, so much that made no sense.

Like everything on this planet, it was overwhelming.

I missed the straightforwardness of home: We are always calm. We notice the world. There is comfort in the beauty and peacefulness of our planet.

Still, I tried to focus on Earth’s positive qualities, the things I’d yearned for in my galaxy. An example: food. In this house, cereal was clearly highly important. Flakes don’t have the same appeal as cheese sandwiches (few meals do), but that first morning I was blinded by the variety: Coco Pops! Froot Loops! Cinnamon Toast Crunch! All in bright, colorful boxes. On the couch, Olive and Norma ate their cereal with metal spoons, exchanging words with each other.

“I’ll be honest with you, sailor,” Norma said to Olive, loosening the bandanna around her neck. “I’m out of practice with the ‘caretaker’ thing. Here’s what I do know: how to run a tight ship. That’s what we’re going to do this summer. Run on routine—like the tides. So we should start thinking about activities, things to schedule in. You like motorcycles?”

“Um . . .” Olive said, sheepish.

“Scratch that. I’ve got this motorcycle I’m fixing up—the sidecar still needs work—but I’ll put that on hold. What were you going to do this summer?” Norma drummed her fingers on her knees. “You know, before your mom and Frank decided to have you spend some time here.”

“Well,” Olive said, a hint of sadness seeping through, “my friend Hazel’s family owns a farm. They’d said I could help out with the horses and the goats and stuff. Did you know that each baby goat has a unique call, like a name?”

“No goats in Turtle Beach, I’m afraid. What we do have is marine life—an aquarium and an ocean full of it. We could also set up some good old-fashioned arts and crafts.”

From my position on the rug, I studied them—these people. Norma was stiff, rugged, like the core of an exoplanet. And Olive was a ball of energy, like a dwarf star. As she chewed, her feet moved to a soundless beat, and her eyes blinked sharply. Call it my hyper-intelligence, call it one species recognizing another, but I had the distinct sense that Olive was smart. Incredibly smart. Something about the way she carried herself, the way she observed.

“You haven’t touched your crunchies,” she said to me after finishing her cereal. A frown creased her forehead. “You’re not hungry?”

Oh, I was. There was a grumbling, rumbling sensation in the pit of my stomach. I’d been trying to ignore it, because if anything was going to signal this cat is not a cat, it would be this: I had no idea how to consume food. Even as I watched Olive’s jaw work, I couldn’t quite figure out the mechanics. I’d assumed that I’d have time to practice, as a Yellowstone ranger, in the privacy of my own cabin.

But I hadn’t eaten anything since my arrival to Earth. A hungry cat—a normal cat—would eat. So I had to think quickly, as she placed the bowl of crunchies in front of me. How would a cat eat? Surely not like humans, with delicate bites and dainty fingers. Did cats