Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Came To Breakfast

"I could barely wait for you to see it!" she cried with excitement. "Wait till you see the inside! Come on in!"

"If you don't mind," he said, "I'd like to unload the cats first. They might express their emotions in some unacceptable way, if they don't de-coop soon. I'll feed them and then come in to register."

"Do you need catfood? Do you need litter?"

"No, thank you. We're well equipped."

Nick instructed the driver to continue around to the rear and then down the lane to the fourth cottage. The sandy lane was marked with a rustic street sign: PIP COURT. It reminded Qwilleran of a poultry disease and other illnesses, and he inquired about it. The spots on dominoes are called pips, he was told.

The five cottages, hardly larger than garages, were stained a somber brown, and the door of each was painted black with white pips. The fourth cottage was identified with a double-two.

"Yours is called "Four Pips," and it's deeper in the woods than the first three. The cats can watch birds and rabbits from the screened porch in back. Here's the key. You go in, and I'll offload everything."

The doorstep was hardly large enough to accommodate a size-twelve shoe, and when Qwilleran unlocked the giant domino, he stepped into the smallest living quarters he had experienced since an army tent. He was a big man, accustomed to living in a four-story barn, and here he was faced with a tiny sitting room, snug bedroom, mini-kitchen, and pocket-size bathroom. True, there was a screened porch, but it was minuscule and rather like a cage. How could he exist in these cramped quarters for two weeks with a pair of active animals?

There was more. Someone had painted the walls white and dressed them up with travel posters. Then someone had gone berserk and camouflaged furniture, bed, and windows with countless yards of fabric in a splashy pattern of giant roses, irises, and ferns.

"How do you like everything?" Nick asked as he looked for places to put the luggage. "Not much extra floor space," he admitted, "and the place gets a little musty when it's closed up." He rushed around opening windows. The kitchenette was new, he said, and the plumbing was new, although it took a while for the water to run hot. The cottages had originally been built for servants.

"Did I hear a gunshot?" Qwilleran asked.

"Just rabbit hunters in the woods. From Piratetown ... If there's anything else you want, just whistle."

Qwilleran switched on two lamps and mentioned that he could use a higher wattage for reading.

"Will do. And now I've got to take Jason back to the mainland. I'll see you next weekend ... G'bye, kids," he said to the occupants of the portable cage.

They emerged from the carrier with wary whiskers, their bodies close to the floor and their tails drooping. They sniffed the green indoor-outdoor carpeting. They sniffed the slipcovers critically and backed away. Qwilleran sniffed, too; "musty" was not quite the word for the pervading aroma. He thought it might be the dye in the gaudy slipcovers. They really belonged in the grand ballroom of a hotel in South America, he thought.

Before unpacking, he stripped the rooms of the homey touches that Lori had supplied and put them in drawers: doilies, dried flowers, figurines, and other knickknacks. The Siamese watched him until a knock on the door sent them scuttling under the bed. A small boy stood on the doorstep, holding out a brown paper bag.

"Thank you," Qwilleran said. "Are these my light bulbs?"

The messenger made a long speech that was unintelligible to a middle-aged, childless bachelor. Nevertheless, he made an effort to be sociable. "What's your name, son?"

The boy said something in an alien tongue and then ran back to the inn. In closing the door Qwilleran saw a notice nailed to an inside panel, along with a large No Smoking sign;

-

WELCOME TO DOMINO INN

For your pleasure, convenience,

and safety we provide the following:

-

At the Inn

Breakfast in the sunroom, 7 to 10 A.M.

Games, puzzles, books,

magazines, and newspapers

in the Domino Lounge

Public telephone

on the balcony landing

Television in the playroom

Fruit basket in the lounge. Help yourself

-

In Your Cottage

Set of dominoes

Two flashlights

Oil lamps and matches

Umbrella

Mosquito spray

Fire extinguisher

Ear plugs

-

The notice was signed by the innkeepers, Nick and Lori Bamba, with an exhortation to "have a nice stay."

Sure, Qwilleran thought, cynically anticipating rain, mosquitoes, forest fires, power outages, stray bullets from the woods, and whatever required ear plugs—all this in a rustic strait-jacket with slipcovers like horticultural nightmares. He located the emergency items listed on the door. Then he found the dominoes in a box covered with faded maroon velvet and put them in a desk drawer, out of sight. The drawers were hard to open, possibly because of island dampness; Yum Yum, who had the instincts of a safecracker and a shoplifter, would be frustrated. When she was frustrated, she screamed like a cockatoo; the ear plugs might be useful, after all. Koko was already eying a wall calendar with malice; it had a large photograph of a basset hound and a tear-off page for each month. It was a giveaway from a maker of dogfood.

Before dressing for dinner or even feeding the cats, Qwilleran went to the inn to register. On the way he noted that the five cottages were about fifty feet apart. Five Pips had the window shades drawn. Beyond it, at the end of Pip Court, was the start of a woodland trail that looked inviting. In the front window of Three Pips he could see an elderly couple playing a table game. A pair of state-of-the-art bicycles with helmets hanging from the handlebars were parked in front of Two Pips. One Pip appeared to be empty. At the head of the lane, a large cast-iron farm bell was mounted on a post with a dangling rope and a sign: FOR EMERGENCY ONLY. Three stray cats were scrounging around trash cans at the back door of the inn.

And then Qwilleran mounted the front steps of the inn, entered the lobby, and gazed upward in amazement. The Domino Lounge had a skylight about thirty feet overhead and balcony rooms on all four sides, and the entire structure was supported by four enormous tree trunks. They were almost a yard in diameter. The bark on these monoliths was intact, and the stubby ends of sawed-off branches protruded at intervals.

There were no guests in evidence at that hour, but the same boy who had delivered the light bulbs was sitting on the floor and playing with building blocks of architectural complexity. As soon as he caught sight of the man with a large moustache, he scrambled to his feet and ran to the door marked OFFICE.

A moment later, Lori came hurrying into the lounge.

"What do you think of it, Qwill? How do you like it?" She waved both arms at the gigantic tree trunks.

"Words fail me," he said truthfully. "Are you sure they're not cast concrete?"