The Year the Cat Saved Christmas - a novella

The Year the Cat Saved Christmas

by

Barbara Bretton

Previously published by Berkley Books as
"Home for the Holidays" - The Christmas Cat Anthology

Acclaim for the novels of

Barbara Bretton

“Bretton’s characters are always real and
their conflicts believable.”

—
Chicago Sun-Times

“Soul warming... A powerful relationship
drama [for] anyone who enjoys a passionate look inside the hearts
and souls of the prime players.”

— Midwest Book Review

“[Bretton] excels in her portrayal of the
sometimes sweet, sometimes stifling ties of a small community. The
town’s tight network of loving, eccentric friends and family
infuses the tale with a gently comic note that perfectly balances
the darker dramas of the romance.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“A tender love story about two people who,
when they find something special, will go to any length to keep
it.”

— Booklist

“Honest, witty... absolutely
unforgettable.”

— Rendezvous

“A classic adult fairy tale.”

—
Affaire de Coeur

“Dialogue flows easily and characters spring
quickly to life.”

—
Rocky Mountain News

Publishing History

Print edition published by Berkley 1996

Copyright 1996
, 2013 by Barbara
Bretton

Cover
design by Barbara Bretton

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book, except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews, may be reproduced in any form by any means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written
permission from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, business establishments, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Epilogue

More Ebooks from Barbara
Bretton

About the Author

Prologue

As a rule, Sebastian endured Christmas with
the good grace for which the best cats were known. He never
indulged in merrymaking. His self-defined role as elder statesman
precluded such a loss of dignity. Instead he held himself aloof and
watched with great indulgence as his humans did the strangest
things.

Once a year, around the first snowstorm, they
opened the front doors wide and dragged in a big pine tree from
outside. The same people who scolded him when he came in with muddy
paws ignored bugs and dirt and sap and set the tree right smack in
the middle of the living room carpet. They hung round, shiny
objects from the branches and strung twinkling lights from top to
bottom. Then, when that was all done, they placed boxes tied up
with bows underneath the lowest branches.

Everyone who came to visit gathered around
the tree to sing songs and drink something called eggnog and to
give each other presents that weren't half as much fun as catnip or
a ball of yarn. All things considered, it was a most puzzling time
of the year.

At Christmastime a cat had to learn how to
cope or he'd find himself with a Santa Claus hat on his head and a
ribbon around his neck, posing for some stupid holiday card picture
that would embarrass him for the rest of his days. The dog and the
parrot were perfectly happy to make fools of themselves and wear
all manner of ridiculous outfits to make their humans laugh, but
not Sebastian. The first person who tried to make him wear snow
boots or a bow around his neck would find himself picking kitty
litter out of his teeth for a year.

Sebastian did not suffer fools gladly.
Christmas was not his favorite time of year. He preferred
Thanksgiving, thank you very much, with that big juicy roasted bird
on the table and lots of leftovers. When Christmas got too loud and
confusing, he retreated to his hiding place in the Girl's room
where a cat in his golden years could sleep in peace and quiet
until things got back to normal again.

This year, however, something was wrong.
There was no tree, no beribboned packages, no friends and relatives
gathered around singing songs to torment the ears of innocent cats.
The Boy and Girl moped around in their rooms and not even talk of
Santa Claus could make them smile. And what worried Sebastian most
was that their parents weren't smiling either.

When it all began, the Man slept downstairs
on the sofa while she had the big bed all to herself. Sebastian,
with the sensibilities of a diplomat, had tried to divide his
attentions between the two of them but his twelve-year-old legs
weren't what they used to be. The stairs took their toll on his
rickety knees and made him wheeze like a bulldog, so most of the
time he slept on the landing so he could be near them both.

Finally the time came when he didn't have to
do that any longer, because the Man packed his bags and moved to
something called a hotel.

The dog refused to believe anything was
wrong. The parrot thought Sebastian was making a mountain out of a
molehill, but Sebastian knew in his ancient bones that change was
in the wind. He had been around since the beginning and he knew how
it used to be when they were happy. There had been so much laughter
in the little cottage that he couldn't hear himself purr. Now he
couldn't remember the last time he'd even seen them smile.

He found himself dreaming about the little
cottage where he'd first lived with them and how happy they'd been.
It was as if the cottage itself were somehow calling him back home.
The Woman used to sing while she cooked dinner and sometimes the
Man came into the kitchen and drew her into his arms and they
danced around the floor. Sebastian would even get into the act.
He'd wind his way between their ankles until, laughing, they would
bend down and stroke his fur just the way he liked it. Ah, those
were the days....

He'd been young then and fast. A better
mouser never lived than Sebastian in his prime. He'd bring his
treasures home proudly and place them on the front porch but she
never seemed to appreciate them the way Sebastian thought she
should. As far as Sebastian was concerned, it didn't get much
better than dead mouse.

Sebastian didn't do much mousing anymore and
his birding days were a thing of the past. He hadn't gone exploring
in longer than he could remember, content instead to stay close to
home in case he was needed. Sometimes he thought he caught the
mourning doves laughing at him as he lay on the back steps and
sunned himself. He pretended he didn't notice them waddling by, but
he did. It was a sad day when a proud cat like Sebastian couldn't
catch a mourning dove but time marched on and, like it or not,
there wasn't anything he could do about it.

Not long ago a sign appeared in the front
yard and every day strange people marched through the house.
Sebastian refused to acknowledge their presence as they peeked in
closets and peered under the beds. He didn't know exactly what was
going on but he knew enough to understand his life was about to
change.

He hadn't seen his people together in a long
time. The Man hadn't been around much since the sign appeared. The
other day Sebastian had heard his voice through the answering
machine and he'd winced as the dog danced about with delight. Poor
Charlie just didn't understand the difference between a machine and
the real thing. For a minute Sebastian had wished he didn't either.
He wanted to believe that his people would be together again and
things would be the way they used to, but he was starting to
suspect it never would.

When the big long truck pulled into the
driveway that morning, Sebastian knew it was all over. He sat in
the foyer and watched with growing dismay as the televisions
vanished into the truck, along with the piano and dishes and even
the paintings on the walls.

A snowy boot nudged his flank. "Move,
fatso."

Sebastian aimed a malevolent look in the
human’s direction but he didn't budge an inch. It was his house.
Let old Snow Boots move.

"Hey, tubs." The brown boot nudged a little
harder. "I got a twelve foot couch to move. Get your furry ass out
of my way."

Sebastian considered turning the human's
pants into confetti but thought better of it. Instead he leaped
onto the sofa with a surprising display of agility and curled up in
the corner as if he hadn't a care in the world. He was having
trouble catching his breath but he refused to let on.

"Hey, lady!" the human bellowed. "Do
something about this cat, will you?"

"Sebastian!" She appeared in the doorway.
"Scat! Stay out of the moving man's way."

Sebastian arched his back and hissed. Scat?
Since when did she tell him to scat? She'd never embarrassed him in
front of strangers before and he didn't like it one bit.

"Bad cat!" Her voice shook as if she'd been
crying. "Don't you ever do anything right?"

Her words cut him to the quick. He jumped
down from the sofa, landing hard on his paws. Pain shot up his legs
and along his back. He was getting too old for gymnastics. He
waited for her to come see if he'd hurt himself but she turned away
as if she'd forgotten he was even there. That hurt most of all.

"You gonna stand there all day, fatso?" the
human asked, aiming that boot in Sebastian's direction one more
time. "You heard what the lady said. Now scat!"

Sebastian couldn't help himself. There was
only so much a cat could take before he defended his honor. With
one graceful swing of his paw, he turned the moron's right pants
leg into a windsock and then he marched out the front door, tail
held high. Maybe next time the human would think twice before
insulting an innocent feline who was just minding his own
business.

He strutted out onto the porch and surveyed
his domain.

Snow was everywhere he looked: on the porch,
the driveway, all over the yard. Sebastian's whiskers quivered with
distaste. He hated snow. It was cold and wet and reminded him of
baths and other indignities. Maybe if he looked pathetic enough,
she would come out and rescue him. An apology would be nice but he
wouldn't insist.

He waited patiently, watching as tables and
chairs and beds and tables disappeared into the big truck parked in
the driveway. It seemed a very strange thing to do and he was
pondering the mystery when he suddenly remembered the last time
something just like this had happened to him.

The Boy and Girl had been babies then, too
little to do anything but sleep and eat and cry. Sebastian would
have suggested they leave the babies behind but his people had a
strange fondness for the little roundheads, a fondness Sebastian
learned to share only after they were out of diapers. In his
opinion, litter boxes made a great deal more sense.

He remembered that summer as if it were
yesterday. All of their furniture had disappeared into a truck that
time, too, only back then there hadn't been quite as much of it,
and most of what they had boasted claw marks.

"Don't look so sad, Sebastian," the Woman had
said, chucking him under the chin. "You'll love the new house!"

"Wait until you see the backyard, old boy,"
the Man had said with a laugh. "Slower birds and plumper mice and
lots of shady places to take a nap."

Was that the last time they'd all been happy?
The Man worked harder than ever and was home less and less. She
worked harder too, sitting alone at the computer late at night
while the Boy and Girl slept. Sebastian never saw them curled up
side by side on the sofa or dancing in the kitchen or heard them
laughing together in their room late at night.

The moving men bellowed something behind him.
Sebastian scampered down the icy stairs and darted under the porch,
just in time to avoid being flattened by work boots and the big
couch from the den. Snow brushed against his belly and made him
shiver. He hated the cold almost as much as he hated the
three-cans-for-a-dollar cat food his people sometimes foisted on
him. At his age he should be curled up in front of a roaring
fireplace with a platter of sliced veal and gravy, claiming his
rightful place in the family.