Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Talked Turkey

“What does he look like?”

“His coat is soft and dense and huggable, Moira says. His color is a rich cream with tabby markings in soft apricot! And he has large green eyes! Can’t you imagine him, Qwill, against a background of lively green carpet—lively green, not the somber forest green used in public places, although Fran Brodie may not approve. She has her own ideas, you know.”

“The K Fund is hiring her to design the interior,” he said. “Just tell them what you want, and they’ll tell her! And that’s the way it will be!” He detected a sigh of satisfaction. There had never been a friendly rapport between the designer and Polly—or between the designer and Yum Yum, for that matter.

“Then you approve, Qwill?”

“Provided he doesn’t turn out to be one of those thirty-pound marmalades that get all the publicity.”

“No! No!” Polly assured him. “Dundee has good genes.”

“Dundee? Is that his name?”

“Isn’t that adorable?” Polly said. “Especially since his ancestors came from the city associated with orange marmalade! Well, I had to call you. The news was too good to keep.”

“I’m glad you did, Polly.”

“À bientôt,” she said in the voice that was always full of warmth and meaning.

“À bientôt.” He leaned back in his chair and let his mind wander.

A few moments passed, and then he was aware of a slight commotion beyond his door. Whenever the Siamese wanted to attract his attention, they staged a cat squabble. He opened his door and they tumbled into the room.

“You fakers!” he scolded.

They scampered down the ramp to the broom closet on the main floor. Their message was clear. They had been shut up indoors for too long.

A canvas tote bag advertising the Pickax Public Library was brought from the closet, and they jumped inside, contracting their bodies and snuggling together to fit in the bottom of the bag. They had no objection to being buried under some magazines, a bottle of Squunk water, a cordless phone, some writing materials, and a worn-out necktie. It was all part of a trip to the gazebo, a journey that lasted the better part of a minute. Then they hopped out of the conveyance and prepared for a game of Nip the Necktie.

Qwilleran moved some furniture to provide a suitable arena, then swished the tie through the air—back and forth, up and down, around in circles—while the cats leaped, grabbed, missed, fell on their backs, shook themselves off, and leaped again.

When they had had enough, they crept away to their favorite corners of the gazebo to watch anything that moved on the other side of the screen panels.

Qwilleran did some more hard thinking about the month of June. He could invite his readers to compose original jingles about the sixth month. As prizes he would offer the usual yellow lead pencils with “Qwill Pen” stamped in gold.

As he brainstormed, he became aware of a familiar chattering sound: “ ik-ik-ik. ” Koko reserved it for snakes, large dogs, and trespassers with hunting rifles. Both cats were staring at the shrubbery in the bird garden. Qwilleran stared, too. He had only his eyes; the cats had their sixth sense.

As he concentrated there was movement in the dense foliage, and three long-legged birds emerged. They were the strangest he had ever seen—long snakelike necks, small ugly heads, scrawny bodies, and those long, scaly legs!

They surveyed the scene calmly, as if they considered buying the property . . . until an unearthly roar and shriek from Koko’s throat sent them back into the shrubbery.

The three in the gazebo were speechless: the cats with bushed tails, and Qwilleran with exactly the same sensation in his moustache. His first thought, upon returning to rationality, was to call Thornton Haggis, who had lived in Moose County all his life and knew all the answers—or where to get them. Recently named Volunteer of the Year, Thorn could always be found pushing wheelchairs at the Senior Care Facility or manning the reception desk at the hospital. Qwilleran found him answering phones at the Art Center.

“Just holding the fort while the manager gets her hair done,” he said. “I bet I know why you’re calling, Qwill. About the research on the Great Storm! I’ve done all the legwork, and now I’m organizing the material for you. I can drop it off at the barn tomorrow. Will you be there?”

“If I’m not, you can leave it in the old sea chest.” Outside the kitchen door there was a weathered wood chest for receiving package deliveries, catered food, and—once—two abandoned kittens.

“By the way, Thorn, I had a strange experience a few minutes ago. I was in the gazebo when three ugly-looking birds walked out of the woods.” He described them. “And they were between two and three feet tall. And weird-looking. They had red pouches hanging from heads that can only be described as rapacious.”

After a moment’s silence, Thorn said facetiously, “What did you have to drink for lunch, Qwill? They sound like wild turkeys, but we don’t have wild turkeys in Moose County—not for the last thirty years. My sons are experienced game-bird hunters, and they have to go to Minnesota or Upper Michigan for wild turkeys.”

“Interesting,” Qwilleran said. “The cats saw them, too. Koko snarled like a dragon and frightened them away.”

Qwilleran had long wanted to find an explanation for Koko’s remarkable intuition. Now he expressed his thoughts in a letter to himself, in his personal journal.

Thursday, June 12—I’ve been reading

The Tiger in the House

again. Beautiful work! I’ve always wanted to write a scholarly tome requiring years of research, but I lack the temperament.

The book inspired me, however, to pursue the mystery of Koko’s heritage. Is he descended from the supernormal lines of old Siam? How many generations have passed between him and his royal ancestors? What do I know about him? Very little. Only that he lived Down Below with a man named Mountclemens, who apparently acquired him from a sister in Milwaukee.

I was writing for the

Daily Fluxion

and renting an apartment from the art critic, who owned an old Victorian mansion. He called himself George Bonifield Mountclemens the Third. He was a pompous donkey!, and no one really believed his name. But he lived upstairs among his art treasures with a Siamese cat named Kao K’o Kung. When Mountclemens was killed, the cat moved in with me and became known as Koko.

But I always thought, If I ever meet anyone from Milwaukee, I’ll ask some questions: Is there a Mountclemens family there? Is there a cat breeder specializing in Siamese in Milwaukee?

This “Lish” person may be the one to ask.

FOUR

On Friday morning Qwilleran finished writing his discourse on the month of June, making it a little shorter than the traditional thousand words. In the last few weeks he had appended his column with a few words of catly wisdom from Cool Koko’s Almanac.

“Cool Koko says: Half a dish of cream is better than none. . . . Opportunity only knocks once; grab that pork chop while no one’s looking. . . . Why sing for your supper? It’s easier just to stare at your empty plate.”

The “Cool Koko” stunt had started when Qwilleran was researching Benjamin Franklin for his column and decided to parody Poor Richard’s Almanack. It had been intended as a onetime spoof, but readers loved Cool Koko and clamored for more. He had obliged with: “Man works from sun to sun, but cats get by without lifting a paw. . . . A dog by any other name would smell like a dog. . . . Dumb animals know more about humans than dumb humans know about animals.”