Stick Cat smiled. He couldn’t help himself. He knew exactly what he would see when he went into the bathroom to meet up with Edith. She would be stuck in the wall between their apartments again.
The two of them had scratched and clawed a hole in the wall at the back of their respective bathroom cabinets. Edith climbed through that wall almost every day to come to Stick Cat’s apartment.
They treasure hunted together, found things in Stick Cat’s kitchen to snack on, or napped together on the windowsill. Sometimes, their days were far more exciting—like the time they rescued Mr. Music when his arms were trapped inside a grand piano across the alley.
Stick Cat wondered what this day would bring.
One thing he didn’t wonder about was where he would find Edith. He was quite certain she would be stuck in the hole in the bathroom wall. It had been happening more and more lately. In fact, in the past couple of months, Stick Cat figured he must have yanked Edith out of her wedged position more than twenty times.
“Stick Cat!”
“I’m right here,” he said upon entering the bathroom. “I’ll pull you out in just a second.”
“Pull me out of what?” Edith asked loudly.
“Out of the hole in the wall,” he said, and opened the bathroom cabinet. “Just like I’ve done—”
But Stick Cat didn’t finish his sentence.
That’s because Edith wasn’t stuck in the wall at all. She hadn’t even started climbing through yet. She just stood on her side looking through the hole.
“Oh, I thought you were, umm . . . ,” Stick Cat said, and stopped himself.
“You thought I was what?” Edith asked. She seemed offended.
“I thought you were, you know.”
“What?”
“Umm,” Stick Cat said, and began to slap gently at a loose edge of toilet paper on a spare roll in the cabinet. “Hey, look at this! This is really fun. Look how it flutters away and then settles back into its original position. Pretty neat, hunh?”
“You thought I was what?!”
“I thought you were, umm,” he said, stalling for time the best he could. It only took him a few seconds to decide that honesty was probably the best course of action. “I thought you were stuck, Edith. I thought you were stuck in the wall. Like all those times before.”
Edith’s eyes narrowed. “All what times before?”
“You know, the previous times.”
“You make it sound like I’ve been stuck a million times!” Edith huffed. “I haven’t! I know what you’re implying—and I don’t like it.”
Stick Cat, being a clever and wise cat, decided to retreat as quickly as possible. “I wasn’t implying anything at all. I just heard you call and thought you needed help in some way, that’s all. And you’re right: it hasn’t been that many times. Twenty times at the most.”
“TWENTY?!”
“Less than twenty,” Stick Cat said immediately. “Way less than twenty. Ten.”
“TEN?!”
“Did I say ten? I meant five. No, three.”
“Maybe three,” Edith said, and un-squinted her eyes.
“Probably even less than three.”
“Probably,” Edith said. She seemed satisfied now.
One of the things that Stick Cat loved best about Edith was how she could instantly do something—whether it was fall asleep, get over hurt feelings, or even jump from one window ledge to another. And he was happy that she suddenly seemed done with this part of their conversation.
“Why were you calling me if you weren’t—” he began, but then started again. “Why were you calling me?”
“Stick Cat, I was thinking about something this morning,” Edith replied. “I was up on the kitchen counter after Tiffany left. She had a donut this morning. She left me some really tasty crumbs.”
“That was nice of her,” Stick Cat said.
“Tiffany always does nice things like that,” Edith said. “Well, I was up on that counter after licking the plate. You know, just hanging around up there. And it reminded me of that time we were on Goose’s counter after finding those blueberry muffin crumbs he left for us. Do you remember that?”
“I do,” Stick Cat said. “Those were good.”
“And I was thinking how nice it would have been to share those donut crumbs with you like you shared those blueberry muffin crumbs with me.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I can’t now, of course. Because I ate them all. You know how donut crumbs are. You can’t eat just one. You have to keep going. There’s absolutely no way to stop. So I’m not saying I actually have donut crumbs to share or anything.”
“I understand.”
“I just don’t want you to think there are any donuts over here is all I’m saying. I’m simply saying I thought about sharing them. Not that I could. Because they’re all gone. And not because I chose to eat them all. They’re just donut crumbs and it’s impossible not to eat them all once you’ve had a taste.”
“I understand,” Stick Cat said again.
Edith sat back on her hind legs and licked her front left paw as she continued to speak. She stopped to examine the placement of each strand of fur every now and then.
“So when I thought about sharing those crumbs with you—even though I can’t—something occurred to me,” Edith said.
“What’s that?”
“You’ve never been to my apartment, that’s what!”
It was an intriguing thought to Stick Cat—for a couple of reasons. First, it had never occurred to him that he and Edith would spend the day at her apartment. It just seemed natural for her to come to his house. It was the way they had always done it. It was also intriguing to Stick Cat for another reason: Edith had thought of it and he hadn’t.
“You know what?” he asked, and smiled. “You’re right. I never have.”
And with that Stick Cat began to climb into the bathroom cabinet. In just a few seconds he had climbed over the spare toilet paper rolls and begun to poke his head through the wall into Edith’s apartment.
But he didn’t make it any farther.
“Hey!” Edith shouted. “What are you doing?!”
Stick Cat pulled his head back through the hole quickly. “I’m coming over.”
“Humph!” Edith said, simultaneously closing her eyes and turning her head. “I don’t think so, buster.”
“Why not?”
“You weren’t invited, that’s why not!”
“But I thought when you said—” Stick Cat began and then stopped himself. He sat down in the bathroom cabinet and looked through the hole. He could see Edith sitting there with her head still turned away from him. Stick Cat figured the best thing he could do was wait.
Finally, Edith spoke.
“Stick Cat?” she asked formally. Edith had now turned to face him.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to come to my house today?”
“I’d love to,” he answered, and nodded. He came closer to the hole in the wall, but stopped one step short of it. “When would be a convenient time?”
“How sweet of you to ask,” Edith answered. She seemed to appreciate this formal tone of voice from Stick Cat. “Right now would be fine.”
“It would be an honor,” Stick Cat said, and climbed through the hole, comfortable now that he would be welcomed completely.
Once he was in Edith’s apartment, things became significantly more informal.
Edith led him out of the cabinet and into the bathroom, which looked exactly like Stick Cat’s, except there was a green and yellow polka-dotted shower curtain instead of a plain blue one.
“Can I show you around?” Edith asked as they exited the bathroom.
“I’d like that.”