"The cat's job is to be pretty!" Sheila said with some asperity. "That's all a cat in my house has to do. Purr once in awhile, let me touch it, and be pretty. What more would you have a cat do?"
Greg shook his head sadly. They'd only moved in together three days ago and things had looked so bright. This might not work out after all...
"Well, for starters, I expect the cat to sleep in the same room I do. It helps guard against things that come in the night. It gets the flies that buzz around in the summer. It kills the smelly socks, finds the balled up trash paper, hides the extra pens and puts them away -- normal stuff for a cat -- and it reminds us the world is not run for our convenience."
The cat at hand was majestically above such discussions. So gray it was nearly blue, with a large squarish face and a wonderful tuft of fur on each large ear, this was no ordinary cat. This was the cat who lived here. It felt, without ever putting it into so many words, of course, that what a cat does is solely up to the cat.
"Come now, Greg. Really, I don't mind your cat sleeping in the same room with us, though I don't think it ought to stare at us that way when we make love. I don't even mind if it sleeps at the foot of the bed. But I don't think we have to keep that stupid bag of his..."
"Hers! I told you that ‘Landy' is short for Mrs. Landsdale!"
"Whatever! Just let me get rid of that bag!"
"Sheila..." he said and now the argument moved out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Landy continued to sit serene on the kitchen floor for several moments and then jumped without preamble to the table, with a good view of the bag.
The argument wandered around the townhouse as the couple got ready to go out. It stayed for a few moments in the bathroom while he shaved; it meandered into the bedroom while she changed her blouse twice, decrying the weather forecast, then it moved into the upstairs hall as he searched again for the new can of deodorant in the linen closet.
"But you were serious," she said again. "I like you, Greg. I love you. I like Landy. But I know when you're being serious and I don't think people are going to think we're quite sane if we keep a beat-up old grocery bag on the kitchen floor all of the time. You sounded so damn serious and convincing last night when you told everyone that Landy's job was to guard the monster in the bag!"
Slowly into the front bedroom went the argument, the bedroom that doubled as the electronic entertainment center. "I promised him a tape last night. Somewhere. Somewhere..." Greg said as he stared at the wallful of tapes, until finally saying, "ta-da!"
He turned to Sheila as if finding the tape had made his point.
"Sheila, listen to me. Landy has been with me ever since she was a kitten. Seven years. In those seven years she's had two or three toys, a couple of pets, and a couple of jobs. You know, things that she took a shine to and played with or watched or what-have-you. I want to keep her happy, because I've only had good luck since she's been with me. So what if I say she catches the monsters? It keeps me happy and it keeps her happy. It can keep you happy, too, if you'll give it a shot."
Downstairs, from the kitchen table, Landy spotted a subtle movement in the bag. She was positive that the little bunch of paper there in the back, next to the second crease north of the red "F" in Frank's Foodarama had moved again. Twice this week it had moved!
Cautiously, Landy moved herself to alert, changing her casual side-lean into a genuine crouch. Her ears were near tuft-forward, she was concentrating so hard, and all four feet were firmly under her. She didn't try to control her tail; the tip of it started the count of a proper launch rhythm as she waited.
Now the bag appeared to puff a little, to expand.
They were trying to sneak through, again. Hah! As if she'd ever let one in without a tussle!
NOW!
The ugly green-black of the silent tentacle slid out of the bag, slowly, as if testing the air, as if vivid memory might have lent some caution...
Landy leapt, uttering a war-cry a thousand generations old as she pounced on the very tip of the insidious invading pseudopod.
She felt it move as she landed on it, felt it try to wriggle away to the left and she attacked it there, too, threatening to get her good, strong claws into the ugly flesh and drag it into the light, to blind it forever and then carry her trophy to Greg...
That fast it was gone, withdrawn into the world that two-legged people can't see at all and which cats -- special, big gray cats -- can sense just the edge of.
Greg stood at the top of the stairs, a proud grin on his face, a grin punctuated by laughter and the soothing call of "Good Landy, brave Landy! You saved the world again!"
"And that noise!" came Sheila's voice, half in laughter. "What will the neighbors think is going on over here?"
Sheila stepped from the bedroom, found herself swept into a strenuous hug.
"Lady of mine, it comes to this. Landy stays with me because I feed her and appreciate her for what she does, not just because she's another pretty face or because she purrs good. And what she does best is save the world. If I convince some of our party-hearty friends that she saves the world, what's to hurt? It's only the truth. Getting rid of her bag would be like forcing her to retire. Let's let her keep the bag, and that way you get to keep me..."
She hugged back, shaking her head.
"I still think you're serious," she said as she gently bit him on the nose. "But you're right, I do want to keep you...and if that means keeping the world's bravest cat happy, we can do it."
"Good," he said, and leaned the hug into a firm kiss as they stood on the landing at the top of the stairs.
Down blow, Landy had barely caught her breath, and now...the wrinkle above the first "A" in Foodarama twitched, very, very slightly.
Landy ignored the couple, eyes and tufted ears intent. You never knew when the world might need saving!