Shirley Murphy: Cat Seeing Double

"Tomorrow," she said, "I'll go into the library early." She gave him a guilty look. "I've made myself too scarce." She was, after all, official library cat, and she had let her chosen work slide. "Tomorrow is story hour. I'll snuggle on the big window seat with the children, let them pummel and pet me." She smiled. "Too bad I can't read to them, Wilma says I have a lovely reading voice."

"The kids would love it. Probably triple attendance."

But then she shivered. "I keep thinking about the bombing. And about those drug labs that might have killed as many people as the bomb would have done."

"It's over, Dulcie. Everyone's safe. Those people are locked up."

"And I was thinking about Marianna-Martie Holland. About her cruelty to Rock, to that sweet silver hound." Dulcie turned to look at Joe, her green eyes wide and dark. "That woman cares for no living thing. She cares for nothing but her own destructive schemes- as if she's linked to all cruelty in the world. As if hate and cruelty are one massive force that she's part of, a force that can shape itself into a million faces."

Joe Grey licked his whiskers. "But there's more that's good in life, Dulcie. Clyde and Ryan down there, so right and comfortable with each other. Charlie and Max at home together, safe and happy. The ladies of senior survival tucked away in their new home. Wilma, and our good police and detectives." Thinking about their human friends, he grew almost mellow. He looked hard at her, the starlight catching a gleam across his pale whiskers and dark eyes. "What they have, Dulcie, is way more powerful than evil." And the tomcat looked, not predatory then or teasing as he so often looked, but only wise. "The force of goodness is stronger, Dulcie."

"Goodness," she said, "and the little droll things, the humorous turns of life."

"Such as?"

Dulcie laughed. "Silver tomcat and silver dog like mirror images."

Joe Grey smiled. He guessed, in this case, comparison to a dog wasn't an insult. He purred deeply. "Despite bombs and lethal drugs, despite all the evil, there's far more that's good. The humorous things," he said, smiling. "The positive things."

And it was true. At that particular moment, their own bit of the world was safe and right. They were all together in their small village, the three cats and their friends. Those who would harm them were otherwise occupied, and no matter what disasters might visit among them in future, they were there for each other. Nothing, Joe Grey thought, nothing even in death could separate their closeness, could change the fact that they were family.

SHIRLEY ROUSSEAU MURPHYhas received seven national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year, two Cat Writers’ President’s Awards, the “World’s Best Cat Litter-ary Award” in 2006 for the Joe Grey Books, and five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards for previous books. She and her husband live in Carmel, California, where they serve as full-time household help for two demanding feline ladies.

www.joegrey.com

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