Children of Bast (21 page)

She stared at me with those darkening eyes. For an instant I was afraid she’d jump me. Then she hissed at me and backed away. “You are the most arrogant, insufferable amait I have ever known. So you’re a real amait. What’s that make us poor sniveling little beasts? Unreal amai?” Her eyes were nearly black and she was growling low in her throat. She reacted exactly like Adele had.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant I have more experience, that’s all. I mean, am I right in saying that none of you have ever hunted and killed a meal? If I’m wrong I apologize.”

“I don’t know if you’re wrong. I just know you’re disgusting in your attitude. Who do you think you are coming in here and telling me that you’re better than we are because you’ve eaten a rat or singaab or whatever? Just because we’re indoor amai and haven’t had to struggle to exist, does not make us lesser amai. Maybe some of them have lived on the street, I don’t know. But whether they have or haven’t, they are just as good as you are.”

“No, Millicent, they’re not. There’s not one of you who could make it for a day on the streets without help.”

“Will you get out of here! Go out now for a beh yeh and just keep going. You don’t belong here. We don’t need to have you around looking down on us. Leave!”

She hissed again and screamed at me, arching her back and baring her claws. I didn’t want her to come at me because I didn’t want to hurt her, so I backed off, turned and went for the swinging door. Once outside I cleared the fence and took off across the field.

Chapter 20

It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming.
Adlai Stevenson

I was b
ummed out and depressed, so I headed to the lake to find Fergus. Millicent’s voice and her screams rang in my ears, and as I ran I got madder and madder at her. I was not attacking her or the rest of those amai, Chubby. I was trying to point out, just as she pointed out, that we all come from different places and we all carry loads of stuff with us. Good stuff and bad stuff. I admitted to myself that I had poured it on a little strong about my experiences in the street, but it was true. I can survive anywhere and anytime. And I am an expert hunter and killer. If that makes me better than they are, so be it.

~ ~ ~ ~

“You are so full of yourself. You know that, don’t you?” Chubby was up yawning and stretching.

“But I don’t think I’m better. I think I’m just more experienced in a different way. All of us are good at something, Chubby. Adele was an expert at finding food in dumpsters, and loving everyone. Fergus was great at bringing tuyuurs down, and Mutt . . . well, Mutt was good at just about everything. And you, you old mouser, is there anything you can’t do?”

“At my age? Yes, and don’t get smart mouthed.”

“I’ll be good, but I was sure all those amai at Pauly’s house, including Millicent, were good at lots of things.” I took a deep breath and yawned, too. “So, I decided it was a losing fight with amai like Millicent. They’d never understand, so I put her out of my mind.”

“You’re still full of yourself, and full of khara, if you don’t mind me saying. You’ve got every reason to be proud of what you’ve done, but nobody’s interested, Gaylord. Live what you are, don’t wear it on your tail.”

“Yeah, Chubby, you’re right. I soon learned.”

~ ~ ~ ~

It was Time of Owls when I found Fergus on his porch curled up in a chair. It felt good to be back in the old neighborhood, and it was especially good to see Fergus, who was knocked out when he saw me.

“Nebibi!” He jumped from the chair, tackling me and almost rolling us off the porch. “Where did you come from?” He was licking me to death.

“I really don’t know,” I tried to dodge his tongue without success. “It’s a long story and I’m hungry. Let’s get us a fat rat apiece.”

“You’re on.” He licked me several more times on the side of my face and purred up a storm. I was home with my brother.

Our meal was easy to find, two rats in the basement of an apartment building. After gorging ourselves, we started cleaning and Fergus asked me to fill him in. I told him everything: about Adele and getting her settled, about her getting killed and how I took care of the kilaab, about getting picked up and taken to Pauly’s, and about Millicent.

“Did I do something wrong when I said what I said to Millicent?” Fergus was older’n me and, just maybe, a little wiser.

“Yeah, you did.” Fergus was always blunt. “Look, she’s a mollie, okay. Wonderful, wonderful things, mollies, but they are different from us. Now, I didn’t say better or worse; I said different. They’re complicated, passionate and their feelings are on the surface. Respect is what they want, and you insulted her when you said you were better.”

“But I am better.”

“So?” He ginned.

“It’s simply the truth. No, no, I take that back. I’m not better. I’m more experienced at being a real amait.”

“See, that attitude even gets to me a little. Experienced at being a real amait. I hear you saying, I’m not a real amait.”

“Fergus! For Bast’s sake.”

“Just hold on there. I know what you mean because I’m a real amait, too, but even though I know it, doesn’t mean every amait has to know it. You live it. You don’t go ‘round braggin’ about it.

“See what I mean? Millicent’s a mollie that has lived a sheltered life. You, Nebibi, are an amait that’s been around, and you scared her. And when you went bigheaded on her, she blew up. I can understand that. You’re a great amait, but you gotta lot to learn about how to handle other amai, especially mollies. It’s called finesse.”

“What’s finesse?”

“Not a clue. I heard some bašar use it and I liked the sound of it. I think it means keep your mouth shut about yourself and only reveal little bits. Stay mysterious. Let them ask about that sleek black tom with coppery eyes, the one who can fight better than any amait in the clowder. Don’t spill your guts or your guts may be spilled.”

When End of Light came, we went frolicking on the beach. We pitched and tumbled with each other in the cold sand, and chased one another up and down the beach until we were exhausted. Fergus was as strong and quick as ever, but I found I was slower.

“Livin’ lazy like you’ve been is bad.” He sprawled and panted at the bottom of a small dune.

I dropped beside him. “I think I’ve gained some weight.”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything, bein’ that I’m a polite amait.” He yawned.

“When have you ever been polite?” I cuffed his head, which, of course, started another round of wrestling and chasing. When we finally stopped, tangled together in a knot, I was starving.

“I have to have food,” I managed to grunt while gulping air. Fergus’ whole body was throbbing violently as he gasped for breath.

“Soon . . .as . . .I . . .return . . . from . . .the . . .dead, we’ll go.”

We laid there until we shivered, then limped off toward the apartment building we had hunted in earlier.

“All we might find are mice. Bašar been settin’ traps for rats and laying out poison for them. Big move to get rid of rats. Guess we ain’t good enough.”

“Yeah, well, rats are stupid enough to get trapped. And they’ll eat anything. How come the mice aren’t affected?”

“Some are, but the traps are too big to catch ‘em. The poison can get to them because they’ll eat anything, too, you know.” We crawled in the crevice once again and looked around. “Not a rat in sight,” Fergus said. “We were just lucky this afternoon when we found those two. I think it’s gonna be mouse for dinner.”

He crouched low and began to advance toward the sound of mice squeaking. I followed. Before long we’d killed a bunch of mice and collected them in a pile just outside the crack.

“Well, let’s eat,” I said. We dove in and gobbled them like it was the first meal we’d ever had.

Now, as you know, Chubby, eating mice is not my favorite thing. No offense, but, I mean, they’re all right, and I would eat them all the time if I was starving and that’s all I could find. But to me they just don’t taste as good as a fat old rat. And, man, is that a change from when I first hit the streets, as I told you. I puked ‘em, hey. Besides the taste, which I dig now, there’s more to a rat; you gotta eat a lot of mice to make up for one rat.

My maama used to tell me, while we gobbled down some food I thought was delicious at the time, that we were supposed to eat mice. She said that in olden times, mice were all we had to eat and that we were expected to eat them or go away. Bašar back then kept us around to eat the mice so as to get rid of them. They didn’t like mice around. I asked her how they tasted, and she said she didn’t know because she’d always been a housie and never had to hunt. That was another reason I ran away; I wanted to hunt. But I always wondered how she knew all that stuff about rats and mice being a housie all her life.

Anyway, although rats are my favorite, with Fergus chomping away on mice with me they tasted better. Of course Fergus would eat anything as long as he killed it. Something that smelled rotten was not for him. Mutt? Well, all he had to know was that it was dead. How long didn’t matter. We missed Mutt a lot. I washed my face. “I’m stuffed, Fergus. I think I’m going to explode.”

“Ah, the delight of being painfully over fed.”

It was way into End of Light and colder’n ice, so we decided not to go rambling all over town but to find a warm spot to stay. Fergus knew a place down near the train station that was warm and quiet. We headed there, not running because our bellies were so full, but walking fast enough not to freeze to death. It was that grate I told you about with a warm cloud puffing up, and it was in back of the train station out of sight. Flopping down close together with our tails wrapped around ourselves, we were fast asleep in an instant.

And then it began.

Chapter 21

Lovers will no doubt point out that the elegance and dignity of cats are the consequence of their sojourn in the temples of the gods, where their attitudes and movements were regarded as divine prognostications. Be that as it may, it is obvious that the cat’s wealth of expressions make it an ideal candidate for such a role. Unlike the dog, which either wags its tail or does not wag its tail, the cat possess a wide range to convey its emotions: It arches its back, makes its fur stand on end, meows, rubs itself against furniture and against humans, purrs, lashes its tail, spits and hisses. The priests of Bast, therefore, had ample material for interpretation.
Phillippe Diole

W
ithout warning I was ripped from sleep by a pain in my belly that felt like I’d been hacked in two. I puked and began to shake. Fergus was up immediately.

“Nebibi? What’s going on?” He licked my ear.

“Sick.” I puked again. “Feel horrible.” I tried to get up but couldn’t, so I rolled on my side and stretched out. Fergus licked my face and laid down beside me. I looked at him and saw he was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear him. His face dimmed and I fell into a dark place. A buzz sang in my ears, and I felt myself flip over once, then everything went black.

The next thing I knew I was walking along a street in a strange town. The street was paved with stones, and on my side white buildings with dark lines running down had upper parts hanging over the street so I could walk under them. On the other side were stonewalls with trees growing out of them. Strange scents I could not identify swirled around me as I walked slowly toward a house at the far end of the street. It had white walls, too, with dark stripes and a high roof.

When I got closer to the house, an old man with white faraawi on his head and face came out, followed by a small black and white mollie. The man sat a bowl of food down, stroked the amait who stroked him in turn with her tail, and went back into the house.

“Join me,” the amait said, looking at me with beautiful green eyes, which surprised me being in a black and white amait.

“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

“You must be after being so sick” She smiled.

“How did you know I was sick?” I was astonished and scared. I stepped back.

“Don’t be scared. Come and eat a little bit. You’ll feel better.”

I went into the yard and noticed it was a garden with beautiful flowers growing everywhere. That was the strange scent. She stood back and purred when I took a bite of her food, but when I looked up, huge trees surrounded me and blotted out the light. I was terrified, Chubby. So terrified that I couldn’t move. I wrapped my tail around myself, hunkered down and began to wail. I was totally lost. It was a dream, only I could see and hear and taste and, most of all, smell. No other dream had let me to do any of that.

Fog appeared, which scared me more, and I heard rustling near me accompanied by a scent I recognized--Adele. I froze. A shadow came out of a large bush not far from me and walked in my direction. It crossed a splash of light, and I saw who it was and almost fainted. My mouth went dry and I couldn’t blink my eyes. It was Adele.

All I could do was stare as she approached. Touching my nose with hers, nibbling playfully and licking my ears, she caressed me with her tail and laid down, snuggling to me. I had stopped breathing by then.