It was still night-time and pitch-black when Minou met her sister on the roof of the Social Security Building.
The Bakery Cat had come to tell her, “Your sister’s waiting for you. It’s urgent. You have to come at once.”
Even before Minou saw her sister, she smelt the family smell. A very distinctive and very familiar smell of Home… and that was why she immediately said, “A quick nosey-nosey?”
“What do you take me for?” her sister scowled. “Not until you’re a proper cat again.”
“I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen.”
“Don’t worry about that. It will. Tonight. The opportunity is there.”
“I mean it’s possible now. It wasn’t possible before. And later it won’t be either. This is your last chance. So come with me.”
“You mean to your house?”
“I mean to our house. To our garden.”
The enormous sky over the roofs seemed to be growing a little lighter in the east. Minou could now make out all of her sister’s body. It didn’t make her look any friendlier.
“You chased me away,” Minou said. “You said you never wanted to see me again. You were angry about me taking the Woman’s case and clothes. Even though I really couldn’t leave without anything.”
“Forgive and forget,” her sister said quickly. “The Woman didn’t even notice. She’s got so many cases and so many clothes… you know that.”
“But you were most furious about me not being a cat any more. You chased me out of the garden with your claws!”
“That was then,” her sister said. “Tonight you can recover. Tonight or early tomorrow morning at the latest.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Perhaps you’ve heard,” her sister said, “that I almost had the same thing?”
“Yes, Aunt Sooty told me.”
“It wasn’t as bad as with you. But I’d eaten out of that rubbish bin as well. And terrible things started happening. My whiskers disappeared and my tail grew smaller and smaller. And I got some very strange urges. I wanted to start walking on my hind legs. And I wanted to have a shower. Instead of washing myself properly with spit.”
“And then?” Minou asked.
“A dusk thrush cured me,” her sister said. “I ate a dusk thrush, that’s all. You know how rare they are in our gardens. You hardly ever see them. They only pass through. But I just happened to catch one. And that reversed it. It cured me… I know that dusk thrushes eat certain herbs that are good for all kinds of diseases. Yours too.”
“And? Are they there now?” asked Minou.
“Only tonight. And maybe very early in the morning. That’s why you have to come with me right away. It’s already starting to get light.”
Minou stayed sitting there and thought about it.
“Come on,” said her sister. “Come home.”
“But I’ve got a home,” Minou said. “A home and a Man…” She fell silent. The attic and the Man seemed so terribly far away. And so unimportant. Her sister smelt so warm and so close.
“Remember how we used to catch starlings together in the garden?” her sister asked. “And how fabulous our garden is in spring? Think of the golden chain tree… it’s in flower now… Soon, when you’ve got your tail back, you can walk under the golden chain tree. You can sit on the Woman’s lap and purr. You’ll be able to do everything that’s cattish and normal. What is there to think about? You’re shivering, you’re cold. Come with me, and soon you’ll have your coat back.”
Minou was cold. It would be lovely to have fur again, she thought. To stretch out on the paving stones in the sun in thick ginger fur. The bliss of licking yourself with one paw up in the air… and then gnawing between your toes. The pure bliss of having claws you can retract or put out, whichever you choose. And spending ages scratching and scratching away at the leg of a brand-new chair.
“I’m coming,” Minou said. “Just wait a moment…”
“No, I’m not waiting… it’s almost dawn. What else do you need?”
“I just wanted… I thought… I have to get my case… and my flannel and that…”
“What?” her sister cried. “What do you need all that for? What good’s a case to a cat?”
“I thought… maybe I could return it… just leave it somewhere,” Minou spluttered.
“Don’t make things difficult,” her sister said irritably.
“But I have to at least say goodbye, surely?”
“Say goodbye? Who to? Your human? Are you crazy? He might not let you go. He’ll lock you up.”
“Let me at least say goodbye to the Tatter Cat,” Minou cried unhappily. “And explain what’s happening… It’s only four roofs away.”
“You stay here,” her sister hissed, “I’ll take care of it… otherwise you’ll just let him talk you into staying. Wait for me here. I’ll see the Tatter Cat there in your gutter.”
And off she went, over the dimly lit rooftops, passing Bibi’s attic window on her way to Tibble’s gutter.
When she came back she said, “I have to wish you luck.”
“Who from?” Minou asked quickly.
“Not your human,” her sister said, “I did see him. He came to the window and I left in a hurry. But the Tatter Cat wishes you luck. She said she hopes you’ll drop by soon when you have a tail again. She said I look just like you!”
*
For hours, Minou had been sitting in a tool shed in the back garden of the house on Victoria Avenue. Next to the lawnmower. She was still shivering a little, more from excitement than from the cold. But soon I’ll have fur, she thought. Soon… with any luck.
They hadn’t had any luck yet. Her sister hadn’t been able to catch a dusk thrush.
“Is it going to take much longer?” Minou asked through the half-open door of the tool shed. “The sun’s already up.”
“Yes, great, just hurry me, will you?” her sister snapped. “It’s a tremendous help, you hurrying me… But I’ll go and check the front garden.”
From the tool shed Minou could see the back of the house where she had been born and where she had lived as a young cat.
Soon she’d be allowed to go back inside and get a saucer of milk and be patted. And when she started purring, no one would say, “Shame on you, Miss Minou!”
Here in the garden, she knew every tree and every shrub. In the old days she had caught frogs here on the lawn and once she had even caught a mole. She had scratched in the flower beds. Digging a little hole between the begonias and then sitting over it with a quivering tail and thoughtful eyes, the way cats do.
And then scratching the soil to cover it up again when she was finished. She was starting to feel more and more cattish. It was going to work, she could feel it in her bones. Very soon now…
Then she was shocked by a terrible cheeping sound.
Her ginger sister was running towards her. She had nabbed one of the dusk thrushes from the front garden. In that same instant, Tibble and Bibi were standing at the front hedge, but Minou didn’t know that. Her sister trotted up triumphantly.
She couldn’t say anything with her mouth full of thrush, but in her eyes you could see her thinking, who’s the best hunter around?
The bird chirped and cheeped and fluttered hopelessly between her sister’s cruel jaws. For a second, Minou thought, Mmmm, yummy!
But when her ginger sister came closer, Minou hit her hard and yelled, “Let go!”
Her sister jumped and released her prey. The dusk thrush immediately flew off, wobbling and unsteady at first… then straight up into the sky, twittering its way to freedom.
“That is the last straw,” her sister said in a quiet voice full of menace.
“I… I’m sorry…” Minou said. She was utterly ashamed of herself.
“This really is the end,” her sister hissed angrily. “I’ve been running around all night for you… all night. Finally, using all my strength and all my cunning, I catch a rare dusk thrush for you. Because I know that it’s your last chance… because you’re my sister. And look what you’ve done!”
“I couldn’t help it,” Minou spluttered. “I didn’t stop to think.”
“You didn’t stop to think! That’s a fine remark. After everything I’ve done for you… You knock the bird out of my mouth. Bah!”
“I’d done it before I even realized,” Minou moaned. “And there is another one—didn’t you say there were two of them?”
“You don’t think I’m going to go hunting for you again, do you?” Her sister was now beside herself with rage.
“You know what you are? You’re a human! You’re just like that Woman of mine. That Woman of ours, because she used to be yours too. She eats chicken, but if we catch a bird it’s, Oh, no! Then she knocks the birds right out of our mouths. Remember? When you lived here… Remember we used to talk about it often. It made you furious. ‘The hypocrite,’ you said. ‘Eating chicken herself and taking our birds off us.’”
“I remember,” Minou said.
“So why did you just do exactly the same thing?”
“I don’t know. I think I’ve changed.”
“You’ve changed too much,” her sister said. “You’ll never recover. And now it’s over, you’re not my sister any more. Go away. Get out of my garden for good. And watch out if I ever see you here again!”
She hissed so viciously that Minou fled… farther into the back garden. And then through a hole in the hedge into the next garden and farther, through garden after garden, with her sister’s hissing screech still audible far behind her.
As she wandered on, she thought about what had happened.
How could something like that even be possible? All the while she had longed to hunt and catch birds again. Why had she done something so unnatural? So un-cattish?
Saving a bird… what an idiotic thing to do.
As she walked she tried to work it out. I could imagine the bird’s pain, she thought. I could imagine how frightened it was. But if you can imagine something like that, you’re not a cat any more. Not at all. Cats never feel sorry for birds. Ever. I think I’ve let my last chance slip by.