Harry Cat's Pet Puppy (12 page)

“Thank you very much,” said Tucker. “But you can go home now, Lulu. We won't be—”

“No, man!” yelled the pigeon. “I won't abandon you now!”

“Lulu, do us a favor!” Tucker called up. “Abandon us!”

But she didn't. She guided them, at the top of her lungs, all the way uptown.

One plump pigeon up ahead, two fairish-sized cats, an extra-large puppy, and a rather small mouse—all in all, they made quite an odd procession, trudging through the winter night.

ELEVEN

A Cellarful of Memories

The basement of Mr. Smedley's apartment house was a clutter of cast-off things that the tenants above didn't really need but couldn't bear to throw away. (There were a few mice already living there, but when they heard the new arrivals clambering in through the broken window, they scurried into the walls through their holes and stayed hidden until the cellar was theirs again.) Tucker felt very much at home in the jumble and proceeded to do some heartfelt scrounging as the animals waited for morning.

No one could sleep—except Lulu, of course. She was able to take the wildest night's activities in her flight and said that if nobody minded she'd like to sack out for a couple of hours. But as soon as she got her head under her wing she started to snore so loudly that it was feared she'd wake the janitor, who had his apartment at the front end of the basement. Harry and Tucker shook her awake, made her waddle into a cardboard box on its side, and flipped the cover over on her. Inside, she sawed wood to her heart's content.

Huppy did a little exploring too. But unlike Tucker, who used his claws to turn things over, Huppy, since he was a dog, limited his investigations to some interested sniffing. “Here's something that smells like Miss Catherine!” he said.

“Smells?” Miss Catherine arched an eyebrow.

“Mind your manners,” Harry reminded the dog.

“I mean, it smells nice,” said Huppy. “Kind of perfumy.”

“Well, for land's sake!” Miss Catherine went over to the corner where Huppy was nosing around. “It's my good old mat!”

Her good old mat was an oval hooked rug. “That was yours?” said Harry. “It's big enough for a—that is, it's pretty big for a cat, isn't it?”

“Oh, my, yes. The edges fell way over the sides of the sewing basket. But Mrs. Smedley finished hooking it the very same day that I was acquired—at the Siamese Specialty Shop on Fifty-seventh Street—and she decided that instead of using it for a rug it would be my mat.” Miss Catherine laughed. “So impetuous Horatio's mother was—quite unlike her son in many ways. I remember that day very well. She dumped over the contents of the sewing basket, put the rug inside, as much as would fit, and then snugged me in, too! ‘There!' she said. ‘That can be Miss Catherine's mat.' It was she who named me, you know—right then. And quick as a wink I felt at home.”

“Home,” purred Harry.

“I've always wondered what happened to it. One day it was gone.” She reached out a paw and touched the mat gently, as if there was something alive in it. “Horatio must have thought that a rug wouldn't do for me. But I think it would—don't you, Harry?”

“If you wanted it to,” he rumbled softly.

Miss Catherine's eyes picked over the boxes and loosely tied bundles that littered the basement, seeking and sorting familiar things, selecting memories.

“Miss Catherine—there's still a couple of hours left, if you want to go upstairs and sleep.”

“No, no.” She shook the suggestion out of her whiskers. “
I
won't abandon you either. Perhaps I'll just browse awhile down here.”

Harry Cat went off to one side and curled up. His eyes closed until only a crack was left, but he was a very long way from sleep. Through the slit of vision he watched Miss Catherine carefully as she wandered through her past—a favorite bowl, cracked, for her cat food, a chipped saucer that had been for her milk—going deeper and deeper into her kittenhood.

“Look, Harry! My bell.” She tinkled a little silver bell with a ribbon attached to it. “At one time Horatio got it into his head that I must have a bell. Well, I put my paw down at
that,
I can tell you.”

In an upper corner of the cellar a dirty window showed a patch of night. A silver crescent, dropping westward, slid into view. And a single low note sounded through the cellar.

“Good Lord!” said Miss Catherine. “What's that?”

“Huppy, shh!” warned Harry.

“Come here,” Miss Catherine summoned the dog, who padded up in front of her. “Was that you howling?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I thought dogs only howled at full moons.”

“I like to howl at all different moons. I'm sorry if it bothered you.”

“Oh, no—it's quite pretty.”

“Us dogs think so.”

“‘We dogs,'” Miss Catherine corrected him. “Let's hear it again.”

Huppy tried another note, a higher one this time, and his voice cracked. He gulped in embarrassment. Harry and Miss Catherine shot a look at each other and shared a chuckle.

“Guess who's growing up,” said Harry.

“Bend toward me, Huppy,” the Siamese said. She sat up on her hind legs. “Such a thicket your hair is! Can you really see through it?”

“Oh, yes.” Huppy bowed his head to the elderly cat. “I switch around till I get an opening.”

“I think it might help if—” She sprung her claws. “Hold still now.” And started to comb Huppy's hair.

“Ow!”

“Hold
still,
I say! There's a monstrous knot here. There—isn't that better?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Huppy looked at her somewhat sheepishly—which was perfectly natural, since he was part sheep dog—through his now combed if still somewhat sooty hair.

Miss Catherine had her right paw lifted, to give him one finishing brush—but suddenly she pulled away and stamped that paw on the floor. “Oh, really!
really!
This
is
too much!” She turned on Harry, eyes flashing with what he knew was not rage. “All right, Harry Cat—you win!”

“I, Miss Catherine?” said Harry, with his own eyes as wide and innocent as a cat's eyes can ever be. (Not very innocent, at that.) “Win what?”

“You know perfectly well!” she fussed at him. “I shall try to inveigle Horatio into letting the animal—”

“Me?”

“Hush, child! Yes, you. Inveigle Horatio into letting the animal live with us! It won't be easy. If you think that I've been difficult—”

“What's the matter?” Tucker Mouse, who had heard her outburst, came pattering up. Without so much as looking at him, Harry silently flattened him to the floor and went on paying strict attention to everything Miss Catherine was saying.

“—well, you don't know Horatio! He has to be won over, too.” She glanced up at the window: gray light filtered through its screen of dirt. “We'll be out in the park at ten this morning.”

“That may be too early.”

“It
isn't
too early! We have no lessons on Tuesday morning—”

“Harry—if you wouldn't mind—let me up!”

“—and I only have to tap the door to let him know when I want my walk. In the meantime”—Miss Catherine prepared to go—“I advise
you,
Harry Cat, and
you,
Tucker Mouse—”

“Thanks, Harry. Uff—what a paw!”

“—to think of some way that this woolly young fellow can be made absolutely indispensable to Horatio Smedley's happiness! Good morning! And I'll see you later!”

“What's up?” yawned Lulu Pigeon sleepily, as she ambled into the conversation.

“Huppy gets to live with Miss Catherine after all,” explained Tucker. “At least, that's what we hope.”

“Hey, groovy!” Lulu clapped a wing around Miss Catherine's shoulder and patted her on the back. “But what took you so long, Kate?”

Miss Catherine glared—then sighed, and looked toward heaven, and left.

TWELVE

Riverside Park

Riverside Park is a narrow band of trees, shrubs, dirt, and other valuable things wedged by concrete against the Hudson River on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The great power of the place—it is like a huge magnet that draws everything toward it—is, of course, the steady and majestic Hudson. Even the trees seem to bend toward its beauty. Polluted though the river is, its current—deep, wide, strong—leads people to think of things that change and yet always remain the same. It is curiously comforting, but it makes a person feel very small. And it makes small animals feel even smaller.

They were all lined up on the promenade, a sort of broad sidewalk that runs beside the river's edge, peering through the openings of an iron railing. For a long time no one had said a word—not even Lulu. That's another of the river's strengths: it makes all pauses and silences feel peaceful, not embarrassing.

Splashes of wind tufted Huppy's fur. He craned through the bars and stared at the water. “It looks alive.”

“It looks cold,” said Tucker. “See?—ice.” Broken white chunks were scraping against the promenade's cement foundation.

Although it already was March and the day was sunny, the sky brilliant, and the river's surface dancing with light, harsh winter had not given up. The chill air pierced through the animals' fur and made their eyes water. There were weeks before the tight earth behind them would toss, like someone shaking off dreams, and then, at the touch of one warm day, wake up.

Harry judged by the sun it was almost midmorning. “You remember what we told you now, Huppy.”

“You didn't tell me much,” complained Huppy.

“We said—just be charming!” Tucker airily waved a claw.

“Yes, but how do you be charming?” Huppy waved his own paw and hit Tucker in the head by mistake.

“Not like that!”

“Do a real doggy thing!” suggested Lulu. “Like on television. Go up and lap old Smedley's hand, and stare at him stupidly and say ‘Woof!'”

“Grand!” said Harry Cat skeptically.

“Say!—here's a great gimmick!” Lulu's inspiration was now out of control. “Get a stick and drop it in front of Smedley. All dogs like to chase sticks, don't they?”

“Better they should chase pigeons,” grumbled Tucker Mouse.

“You drop the stick, you prance around in front of him, do cute little things with your paws—he throws the stick, you bring it back, and there you are! Buddies!”

“Unless he hits me on the head with the stick,” said Huppy dubiously.

Harry Cat was twitching his whiskers. “You know, that stick idea is not bad. If all else fails, Huppy, try it.”

“
What
else?” the dog asked frantically. “You haven't told me.”

Lulu was sitting on top of the railing and could see deeper into the park than the others. “Here they come! And will you look at that outfit Miss Catherine has on!”

Down a walk that curved to the promenade came Miss Catherine Cat and Mr. Horatio Smedley. The cat was leading him—perhaps he thought it was the other way around—at the end of a bright red leather leash, and she was wearing—in fact, they both were wearing—plaid sweaters.

“Identical sweaters!” said Tucker. “
Yich!
A dog may be too late for him, Huppy.”

“I didn't know cats could have sweaters,” said Huppy.

“In this city,” Tucker explained, “everybody gets clothes. Except mice.”

“If we get Huppy settled, Mousiekins, I'll knit you a sweater myself!” said Harry. “They're sitting down. Okay, Huppy, do your stuff.”

“I'm scared.”

“Get out there and charm, you lovable mutt!” Lulu Pigeon encouraged him. And then added, with great expectations of the coming scene,
“Oo! oo! oo!”

Harry and Tucker and the chortling pigeon retired behind a screen of shrubs while Huppy shuffled awkwardly up to the bench where Miss Catherine and Mr. Smedley were sitting. (Naturally, she was sitting on the bench beside him, the ground being chilly, dirty, and beneath her dignity.)

The dog sat down on his haunches and stared at Mr. Smedley, who eyed him back suspiciously. Miss Catherine, too, was watching him. She began to tap a paw with impatience. At last Huppy worked up enough courage to cough and clear his throat—Mr. Smedley lifted both feet—and get out a feeble “Woof.”

“Pure charm!” whispered Lulu.

“Shut up, Lulu,” said Tucker automatically, without taking his eyes from the bench.

Mr. Smedley made flicking motions with one wrist and said peevishly, “Shoo! Shoo!”—as if Huppy was nothing but a lump of soot that he could brush away.

Huppy sighed, and tried again, louder:
“Woof!”

“The kid's got a limited vocabulary,” commented Lulu Pigeon.

“
You're
the one who suggested ‘Woof'!” muttered Harry, beneath his breath.