Вики Майрон - Dewey's Nine Lives

Ninja wasn’t a fighter, though. He was just weird. He was all swagger, no bite. And that name, after Barbara finally acknowledged the depth of their bond, just didn’t seem right. Appropriate, maybe, but not right. Ninja, after all, was his prison name.

So Barbara started thinking about a new name. One night, she and Amanda were watching a nature program about bobcats. Ninja’s face, they realized, kinda sorta resembled a bobcat’s face.

“But he can’t be a bobcat,” Amanda said. “He has to be a bobkitten.”

Bob Kitten. Good, but not quite regal enough. So Barbara dubbed him Sir Bob Kittens.

At his next vet’s visit, Barbara told the assistant they had changed Ninja’s name. It was now Mr. Sir Bob Kittens. And yes, that was official. Put it on the form.

Of course, one name isn’t big enough for a cat like Mr. Sir Bob Kittens, even if that name does have four parts. Soon he was also Mr. Pumpkin Pants. Because he’s an orange kitten with big furry thighs, of course. Mr. Sparkle Pants followed soon after. Same reason: the thighs. By the time Barbara’s husband dubbed him Fluffalicious (fluffy and delicious, I guess), Amanda thought her parents were totally weird. But they didn’t mind. They loved Mr. Sparkle Pumpkin Kitten Pants.

The relationship wasn’t perfect. As Barbara always said, Mr. Kittens was a character, not a cuddler. He was always in the room with Barbara, but he preferred to lounge in a cozy spot ten feet away, as if it was a mere accident they ended up in the same space together. He only cuddled if he was in the mood, which was not that often and therefore extra special when it happened. He was a quiet cat, full of twitches and quirks but not much need for vocal communication. He almost never purred or meowed. Only if he really, really needed something would he bother to speak to Mom and Dad. That usually happened when he smelled his favorite treat: bacon. As soon as he smelled bacon, he bounced into the room on his hind legs, swinging his front legs in that demented ninja dance. If the bacon was really crispy, just the way he liked it, he went absolutely nuts. One day, James made the mistake of giving him bacon on the dining room table. After that, he bounced up on the table for his dinner every night. He wouldn’t eat anywhere else.

He was a good kid, though. Really he was. Yes, he grabbed Barbara’s legs and tried to trip her every time she walked up the basement stairs. He liked the surprise, the way she yelled when she nearly fell and broke her neck. Yes, he laid on James’s laptop whenever James tried to work. Even if he closed the lid on him, the cat wouldn’t move. He’d just lie there, hanging out both ends like a kitten gyro, a big goofy grin on his face. But Mr. Sir Bob Kittens was more than the class clown. Every morning, when Amanda was getting ready for school, he walked around her room, sniffing everything. He was like a big brother, standoffish and proud, not above a few tasteless jokes but always watching out for his little sister.

Or maybe Barbara just liked to imagine that. Maybe the morning sniffathon was just another part of Mr. Sir Bob Kittens’s daily routine, because Mr. Sir Bob Kittens was a cat who liked his routines. Every morning, he woke Barbara at exactly 5:00 A.M. for his breakfast. That was fine during the week, when Barbara had to get up for work, but not so nice on the weekends. Especially since she didn’t even get a thank-you nuzzle. Mr. Kittens preferred James, who always wandered in as the coffee was perking, for his morning dose of petting. He loved being petted in the morning . . . but only in the morning . . . and only by James, a routine that began in those first weeks when Barbara was trying to keep from loving the new kitten too much.

Yes, he was a handful. Yes, he was wild. But look at it a different way. His mad scramble for bacon, his crazed eyes, his fear of loud noises and aluminum foil, his extra furry pumpkin-pants thighs, and especially his demented karate dancing—they were hilarious . Who wouldn’t fall in love with a cat like Mr. Kittens? Despite his aversion to cuddling, Mr. Sir Bob Kittens was as close to Barbara as Smoky or Harry or Amber or Max or any of the other cats in her life had ever been. When she felt sick, he looked at her. When she felt weak one morning, he put his front paws on her knees and meowed in concern. When it was Barbara’s turn to collapse in the kitchen, falling first into the table, then clinging desperately to a chair, then slumping helplessly to the floor, Mr. Kittens was there to climb on her knees, look her in the eyes as she blacked out, and scream as loudly as he could.

The cause was bleeding ulcers. One had ruptured a blood vessel, and Barbara had lost three pints of blood. A short course of medicine and a new diet cured the problem, but during a follow-up exam, the doctors detected something not as easily treated: breast cancer, the disease that had killed her mom. Barbara’s comfortable life, the one she had worked so hard to craft out of a childhood of disappointment, came crashing down around her. She had surgery, followed by radiation. When the doctors told her chemo was recommended, but was her option, she thought of her mother in those terrible last days. Barbara was forty-one; she didn’t want to be on a ventilator at forty-five, with her daughter standing beside her hospital bed, watching her die.

She chose the chemo. She’s still on it. She has lost her hair, but she figures, hey, that’s five months without shaving her legs. And a great excuse for getting out of all that dreadful holiday stuff. Her daughter, a typical teenager, used to tell her she looked embarrassing and needed some makeup, but now, so what? Who cares? Every day could be your last. If it makes you happy, don’t regret it. She eats cupcakes, not all the time but sometimes, and she doesn’t feel any guilt. She appreciates them instead. She tries to appreciate everything, even Mr. Kittens nudging her out of bed at 5:00 A.M. every morning. She feeds him and pets him—yes, he sometimes lets her pet him now—and sits in the kitchen and marvels at the morning and the coffee and how very cute Mr. Sir Bob Kittens really is.

She has her husband, James. Her marriage, always strong, is stronger now. She has her daughter, Amanda, and the overwhelming desire to see her grow up. She has Mr. Sir Bob Kittens, who has started sleeping at her feet when she’s recovering from her treatment and even, occasionally, cuddling up beside her chest. He may not be the world’s best cuddler, but through these simple acts, she knows he cares. She knows that life is good.

And when life is bad? Well, Barbara Lajiness still gets to see Mr. Sir Bob Kittens up on his hind legs, swinging his forelegs and hopping down the hall in that wild, wonderful, demented karate dance.

How could anyone, anywhere, not laugh at that?

THREE

Spooky

“I had a cat for twenty-one years. . . . He shouldn’t have survived . . . yet he did survive to bring so many hours of joy to my life for so many years. And to this day, you can sometimes feel his wet nose touch your leg as he still waits for my spirit to join him.”

Bill Bezanson grew up on a family farm outside the small town of Romeo, Michigan. Even today, Romeo has a population of only three thousand people, a newspaper that costs eighteen dollars for a yearly subscription, and a downtown whose claim to fame is that it has never been destroyed by a major fire, something apparently quite common in the old logging communities of Macomb County. After living for thirty years in Spencer, Iowa, a town whose downtown was destroyed by fire in 1931, I agree this is quite an accomplishment.