The fight didn’t last very long.
We rolled around under the tree for a while. Tom got to his feet and took off. I was hot on his heels. He faked one way, then turned the other. As soon as he turned, I leaped and rolled him again. I bit him once, but that was about it. Aside from the hissing and scuffling, it really wasn’t much of a fight.
It’s kind of hard to rip somebody to shreds when they’re laughing their fur off. I was mad and ready to tear Tom apart. Only when he didn’t fight back and just kept laughing . . . well . . .
“I really do wish you’d quit with that ‘Upchuck’ stuff,” I panted.
Tom ruffled his fur and used his hind foot to scratch the place where I’d bitten him behind the ear.
“Oh, lighten up,” he laughed. “Can’t believe you get so bent out of shape over your stupid name.”
“It’s not my name! It’s a nickname, and I hate it!” As I thought about it—remembered—my tail flipped one way, then the other. I didn’t flip it. It was kind of like my tail had a mind of its own and it flipped itself. “When I came to live with my Katie, she was dating this guy named Chuck.” My tail jerked so hard I had to move my hind foot to keep my balance. Tom stopped scratching behind his ear and leaned toward me.
“Wait a minute,” he interrupted. “I know you’ve told me this before, but go through that dating stuff again. I’m still not too clear on what dating is.”
“Okay. She thought this guy was really cute and all that stuff. I guess he liked her, too. Anyway, when a boy-people and a girl-people like each other, they go out on dates.”
“Like?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Like they go out and eat, or they go to a show, or they just sit on the porch and hold paws.”
“What’s a show?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you got an idea.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “I think it’s kind of like the Noisy Box in the living room . . . you know?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, my people have one, too. They sit in front of the thing a bunch. I don’t know why, but they just sit there with their mouths open and look dumb. Right?”
“Right. Anyway, I think a movie is kind of like that, only bigger. And instead of one or two people watching it, there must be a whole bunch, because when they got home I could always smell lots of people and popcorn all over them. Katie would talk about how good the show was, and about buildings blowing up or people shooting each other or kissing and romance—all that junk.”
Tom stretched out and rested his chin on his paws. “Okay. I think I’m with you. But why do they do that?”
My tail flipped so hard it jerked my rear end the other way.
“I don’t know. They just do. Anyway, she liked this guy named Chuck, and they were dating when I came to live with her—so, she named me Chuck. Then she and Chuck decided they didn’t like each other anymore, so they broke up and she started dating Jimmy.”
“Only Jimmy didn’t like Chuck, right?”
“Right,” I nodded. “Every time Katie talked about Chuck, Jimmy would give off this mad smell and his eyes would kind of scrunch up. If I was around, or if Katie wanted me to come so she could pet me or scratch behind my ears, she’d call, ‘Here, Chuck. Here, Chuck,’ and Jimmy would get mad. Every time he so much as looked at me, he’d give off that mad smell.”
“And you threw up on him, so he changed your name to Upchuck?”
“No!” My lips curled back so my teeth showed, and I hissed at him. “I didn’t throw up on him. It was his convertible. And it wasn’t my fault. When they came home from a date, he always parked it next to the carport. In the evenings, I like to sit on the roof. It was easier to jump to the car, then to the ground. So I’d wait for them to come home. It was kind of fun to sit on the roof until my Katie and Jimmy were hugging on one another or playing kissy-face—you know, when they weren’t paying attention. Then I’d land on the soft, cloth roof of his convertible and they’d both jerk like they’d been shot.
“But this one day, the Mama changed my food. The new food was really good. So instead of eating part of it at supper time and then coming back for a midnight snack—I ended up gobbling the whole can down in one sitting. Trouble was, the new food really upset my stomach. I was just about to jump down and go eat some grass—you know, to settle my stomach? But right then, Jimmy drove up. Well, I was feeling really bad, so as soon as he stopped, I jumped to his roof. Only he didn’t have the roof up. I mean, I was in midair before I noticed there was no roof to land on. Well, that scared me—and, along with already being sick to my stomach . . . I . . . well, I landed in the backseat. And . . . well . . . the minute I landed, I threw up.”
“All over his backseat.” Tom licked a paw and smoothed his whiskers.
“All over his backseat,” I repeated with a sigh. “That’s when he started calling me Upchuck. I didn’t mind him doing it, but when my Katie would tease me and call me that . . . it really hurt.” I noticed that my tail had stopped flipping. I curled it to the side and sat down. “I don’t know why people make such a big fuss about throwing up. I mean, it’s as natural as eating or going to the bathroom or chasing mice. Why do they get so bent out of shape over something that natural?”
Tom shook his head.
“People-animals are just weird. I went to my drinking bowl the other day, but my Pat forgot to fill it up. So I went to the bathroom to get a drink from the big drinking bowl. She came running in, screaming and yelling at me. They’re just weird.”
We laid around, talking about people-animals and how strange they acted. Tom said that when people-animals tease, it means they really like you, and they aren’t being mean. He told me I shouldn’t get so upset about my nickname. We talked about my Katie getting ready to leave for a place called college, and we wondered what that could be. We talked about growing up and chasing mice and all sorts of things. When the conversation finally got around to food, we remembered that we were headed to Luigi’s when the fight started. Suddenly, both of us were starving again.