Children of Bast (6 page)

“I love hissing,” Adele said and turned on her side facing me. “The look on their face is priceless. It’s like they’re afraid we’ll attack and rip and tear. I mean, we’re little and fuzzy, but they’re scared we’ll kill them.”

“I would rip and tear if I had a chance. The worst thing about seeing a vet is cleaning myself later. What a sickening task.”

“I know exactly what you mean. But, I love how they gag and run from the room. I plaster my ears against my head and hiss away, and then let off a stream of khara that smears all over everything in site—I can clear a room in seconds. Love it, loved it, loved it.”

We laughed so hard we couldn’t stand up.

Wiping tears from my eyes, I said, “So, go on. You’re in the back yard, lucky amait, and you see this other amait peeking in.”

“Right. So, I run to the fence and shout, ‘Eih axbar?’

“He—it turned out he was a tom—turns to me and says, in a broken kind of language, ‘Uh, wazzup? Like the sky, hey, or maybe a tuyuur who’s lived long enough. Who are you?’”

“Just wanna talk.” I explained who I was and what I was doing there, so he sidles over to the fence and pokes his nose between the slats. We nuzzled, like we’re supposed to do when we meet other amai, and began to purr. Ralph, his name was Ralph, which to me was weird. I mean Ralph is a bašar name, not an amait.”

“What about Gaylord?”

“Told you I liked it. Anyway, he was a street amait. Always been a street amait. Born on the street. A tough guy, lemme tell you. Scruffy! Looked like a worn out broom.

“Anyway, he told me what his life was like and I told him mine, which he thought was sick because I couldn’t roam around like he was doing. But he did like the part about the food. He wasn’t keen on bašar, but he could put on a good show, he said, if they had something he wanted, like food. He told me how he’d meow, roll over and let them rub his belly for a few seconds until he could snatch the food and nip them before he ran like hell. Said he never drew blood, but they were so surprised they’d jump back, let him go.”

“Sounds like a pretty clever guy,” I said.

I met an amait like that, Chubby. A best friend. I’ll tell you about him later.

Adele went on: “Really clever. So, after listening to Ralph, I decided to jump the fence, something I knew I could do all along, and go with him. I looked at it this way: I could always come back. My pet parents would miss me, and if I didn’t like it, I’d go home, meow, roll over and get back in without a hitch.”

“Yeah. That’s what I figured when I escaped. Bašar are so easy it’s disgusting.”

“Meow and they melt. I’m so glad we amai don’t meow to each other. So stupid when rubbing heads is much more sensual.” She got up and rubbed my head with hers. “Mmm. So, good,” she said with a quick lick to my nose.

“Okay, you and Ralph . . .by the way, he ever tell you his amai name?

“Yeah. Some weird name that I don’t remember. Ralph came to him when he heard a bašar call another bašar Ralph. Said he just liked the sound. I hate it because it sounds like a kilaab barking.”

“All right, so you and Ralph are on the street. Continue, please.”

“Well, we struck up a pretty good friendship at first, until I came in.”

“Came in?”

“I forgot you’re dumb as a kilaab: the time when we can become queens. About every three or four weeks for me, but other mollies are different and in for longer times before they become queens. I stay in until I get settled. It’s been a while. No tom around here turns me on, except for you, Gaylord, and we’ll talk about that later.”

“But you told me not to touch you or you’d hurt me. What’s with that?

“That was me waiting to get to know you.”

“Oh. How am I doing?”

“Not bad. When I first warned you, you turned white and for a black tabby amait, that’s not easy.”

“Am I a tabby?”

“You got that frown all the time. Yeah, I’d say you’re a tabby. Have you ever looked at yourself in a mirror?”

“No. I’m not sure what a mirror is.”

“It’s glass like a window, and … wait a minute. The amait you saw from the window, what did he look like?”

“I don’t know: black hair, dark coppery eyes, worried expression, a frown maybe. Large ears with black tufts. I don’t remember too well.” She looked at me with a puzzled expression, then dropped over on her side and laughed like she was insane.

“Oh, sweet Bast! You saw yourself in a mirror. I cannot believe this.”

I was getting a little pissed at her now, Chubby, because she was always cutting me down, someway. Okay, I was a greenhorn, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew a few things, but she always made me feel small, like I was so dumb I didn’t count.

“Look, can you get on with your story of Ralph,” I said with just an edge of anger in my voice.

“Okay, okay. It’s just so funny, though.” After she recovered, she went on. “Okay. Ralph saw that I had come in, and I guess he assumed I was his. You know, I belonged to him. Now, and I know you don’t know this because you’ve never been around a mollie before, but…”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I had a maama and a sister.”

“Were they fixed?”

“Dunno, but they’re mollies, right?”

She sighed and laid down again, facing me. “Okay, nice and slow, little kith. When mollies come in, we get nasty. I mean we are very scary. It’s not that we hate everyone, but we ache, we rub our backsides raw on anything that’s tied down, and when toms come around, we get really testy because we have to choose one to get the honor first. And only the best will do. Don’t want a bunch of idiot kiths sucking on you.”

“Honor?”

“Just shut up and listen. I’ll explain later. Anyway, Ralph decides he’s gonna to get the honor, but in spite of the screaming fire raging in me, when I looked him over, I found him disgusting. He was dirty, he stunk, he didn’t wash his face a lot and he only did a casual swipe of himself after he dropped a load or took a whiz—he was dumpster that never got dumped. I started to ask what she was talking about, but she put a paw in my mouth and hissed. “I rejected him for a beautiful fluffy orange guy who was new to the neighborhood like you are. Ralph goes ballistic. Screaming at me, yowling, hissing. He was a wreck. So, I’m done with fluffy yellow guy whose name I never learned . . .”

“Done with fluffy guy?”

“Okay, if you have to know, mollies get settled three or four times. Don’t know why; just know that’s the way it is. Dig?” I was clueless. “So, Ralph is screeching his lungs out, and goes around back of me, mounts me, grabs my neck and starts to put it to me. I screamed, rolled over and caught him right across his eyes with full claws. I was so mad I started in on him, and I gotta tell you, I messed him up pretty good. Ripped his left ear, pulled out some faraawi on his side, which tasted like puke, and slammed him hard about a dozen times while I scraped his belly with my back claws. He took off like he’d had his tail stomped by bašar, and I haven’t seen him since.”

My mouth must have been open because she pushed my jaw up and I caught the tip of my tongue. After I pulled myself together, I said, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. Just remember what I said in about three weeks when I go nuts. Best thing to do when that happens is to move away and let me make the moves. You’ll be safer and happier.”

“One question?”

“Shoot.”

“Did you have kiths?”

“Yeah. So what?”

Chapter 5

I put down my book, The Meaning of Zen, and see the cat smiling into her fur as she delicately combs it with her rough pink . tongue. “Cat, I would lend you this book to study but it appears you have already read it.” She looks up and gives me her full gaze. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she purrs, “I wrote it.”
Dilys Lai

“
J
ust wondering. Where are they?”

“Who knows? Around. When I get tired of being sucked on and mauled every minute of the day and night, I run them off.” She smiled at me probably because I was so awestruck at her story that I looked stupid. “I’m not like your maama, trapped with kiths. Here, we do or die. I hope they’re doing okay, but life goes on.”

By mid-afternoon we’d eaten all we needed, so Adele continued to teach me what she called tricks, the way to live the easy way on the street. “I want you to meet somebody” She walked, tail up, toward a building that looked ready to fall over, and you know where that is, old friend.

“Yup. Right here.”

“Exactly.”

“Oh.” She stopped and turned to me. “Your name, Gaylord, is not going to work with Chubby, who thinks fixed toms are light on their paws.”

“I told you I’m not a gib. I’m whole.”

“I know, I know, but with Gaylord, Chubby might think you are. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She came straight at me and stared right in my eyes.

“No.”

“Look, trust me?”

“What else can I do?”

“All right, let’s rename you.”

“You name me. You’re the expert out here, so you do the honors.”

“Geives.”

“What?”

“Geives. That’s your name.”

“Where in the world did you come up with that? Geives. Sounds like an apology, or a sneeze.”

“I knew a Geives,” she said. “A really sweet tom who, I think, was my brother, although that’s probably wishful thinking on my part. But, buried deep in my memory, I remember Geives.”

“So, I come from a fog of your memory?”

“You are kind of foggy when I come to think about it. You’re in a haze out here, Foggy. Get it? In a fog, a haze?” I must have gone blank because she cuffed me lightly on the chin and giggled. “Come on. If you don’t like the name, we’ll change it later, okay? We have to hurry, now, because Chubby leaves before Time of Owls.”

I was Geives, now, trotting along behind pretty Adele who was scrambling my brain with her tricks. I admit I was green, Chubby, even in a haze much of the time. Living in a few cold rooms at a seminary had not made me an amait of the world, but she still pissed me off with her snobby attitude. She soon became the very love of my life, but she mocked me then as she led me around and tricked me out, as she put.

Sometimes I felt like I knew stuff already. It was like forgetting how to do something, but remembering very quickly when the situation presented itself. Grass, like I told you. I’d seen grass out a window, but how did I know to eat it? I told Adele about this and other things I just knew because I knew, but she was unimpressed. It was one of the few things I didn’t like about her.

~ ~ ~ ~

Chubby yawned. “Everyone has faults, Gaylord, even you. Me? Well, perfection is hard to bear, but someone’s gotta do it.”

“Has anyone ever told you what a pain in the tail you are?”

“Many, many. To their great regret, of course.” We chuckled at our jokes on each other as we crawled outside to get some air.

“Anyway, old Chubby, that’s how we met, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

He looked toward the street and didn’t say anything for a long time. A soft expression spread across his face, and I could tell he had departed the moment and was seeing Adele. He sighed and smiled. In a thickened voice, he said, “She called me the clowder’s old wise raeed. Greatest alley fighter of all times, hunter of the best food like those tiny mice I’d find in burrows. She loved them so much.” His eyes got shiny with tears. “She said I might be the father of over a million kiths.” He turned to me, tears dribbling down his face. “That may be a low count.” His smile didn’t fit with his tears.

By this time I was crying, too. I managed to say, “Yeah, well, she touched a lot of us.” I hugged him and he looked at me. “It’s okay to remember her, Chubby, because that way she’ll never really be gone.”

We said nothing for several minutes, then ducked back under the shack and settled. As I looked at my friend, I realized Adele’s loss had been harder on him than I thought. Chubby was an old amait when Adele met him, and she no doubt aroused feelings in him he’d forgotten. Maybe he felt he was too old to do anything about those feelings, so losing her began then. Now that she was dead, all he had of her was memories. I could understand that well; it’s all I had of her, too.

I started to laugh.

“What’s so funny,” he said, his voice flat.

“Do you remember what a newbie I was?”

He chuckled. “It gushed outta every pore in your plump body.”

“I was a new born kith. I remember she grudgingly defended me, saying I was doing all right, and I was smart, not painfully stupid like most house amai.”

“She sure loved you, Gaylord. When you left she disappeared inside herself. She seldom visited me. I’d spot her now and then jumping in or out of a dumpster, but then she’d disappear. We were all baffled by her behavior because Adele was the most independent among us, and vibrant, charged with life. We never thought she’d latch on to anyone until you came along.” He turned and looked straight at me. “What happened? Where’d you go? How could you leave someone as gorgeous, loving and bright as she was? Tell you, if I’d been younger, I’da been first, not you.”