Paul Gallico - Jennie

“And then, anyway,” Jennie concluded, “it’s a good idea on general principles not to rush into things. When you go out there are very few places to go to that won’t be there just the same five minutes later, and the chances of your getting there will be ever so much better. Come here and squat down beside me and we’ll just have a look.”

Peter did as she suggested and lay down directly in the opening with his paws tucked under him, and felt quite natural doing it, and suddenly he was glad that Jennie had stopped him and that he hadn’t gone charging out into goodness knows what.

Feet went by at intervals. By observation he got to know something about the size of the shoes, which were mostly the heavy boots belonging to workmen, their speed, and how near they came to the wall of the warehouse. The wheeled traffic was of the heavy type – huge horse-drawn drays, and motor-lorries that rumbled past ominously loud, and the horses’ feet, huge things with big, shaggy fetlocks, were another danger. Far in the distance, Peter heard Big Ben strike four. The sound would not have reached him as a human being, perhaps, but travelled all the distance from the Houses of Parliament to his cat’s ears and informed him of the time.

Now he used his nostrils and sniffed the scents that came to his nose and tried to understand what they told him. There was a strong smell of tea and a queer odour that he could not identify, he just knew he didn’t like it. He recognized dry goods, machinery, musk and spices, and horses and burned petrol, exhaust gases, tar and soft coal smoke, the kind that comes from railway engines.

Jennie had got up now and was standing on the edge of the opening with only her head out, whiskers extended forward, quivering a little, and making small wrinkly movements with her nose. After a moment or so of this she turned to Peter quite relaxed and said, “All clear. We can go now. No cats around. There’s a dog been by, but only a mangy cur probably scared of his own shadow. There’s a tea boat just docked. That’s good. The Watchman won’t really have any responsibilities until she’s unloaded. Rain’s all cleared away. Probably won’t rain for at least another forty-eight hours. Goods train just gone down into the docks area. That’s fine. Means the gates’ll be open, and besides, we can use the wagons for cover.”

“Goodness!” Peter marvelled, “I don’t see how you can tell all that from just one tiny sniff around. Do you suppose I’ll ever—?”

“Of course you will,” Jennie laughed, and with a bit of a purr added, “It’s just a matter of getting used to it and looking at things the way a cat would. It’s really nothing,” and here she gave herself two or three self-conscious licks, for, truth to tell, she was just a trifle vain and nothing delighted her so much as to appear clever in Peter’s eyes, which was only feline.

“Well, I don’t understand—” Peter began, saying just the right thing and giving her the lead which she was quick to take up.

“It’s really quite simple,” she explained. “For instance, you can smell the tea. Well, that wasn’t around last time I was outside. Means a tea boat has come in and they’ve opened the hatches. No cats about – I don’t get any signals on my receiver, at least not hostile ones. The dog that went by, well, goodness knows, you can smell him . If he had any class or self-respect that might lead him to chase cats, he’d be clean, and a clean dog smells different. This one was filthy, and that’s why I say he’s nothing to worry about. He’ll be slinking along down back alleys and glad to be left alone. And as for the goods train that went by, after you get to know the neighbourhood it’ll be easy for you too. You see, the smoke smell comes from the left, down where the docks are, so of course it went that way. And you know it was a goods train, because you can smell everything that was in the wagons. There, you see how easy it is?”

Peter again said the right thing, for he was learning how to please Jennie. “I think you’re enormously clever,” he told her.

Her purr almost drowned out the sound of a passing horse-drawn dray. Then she cried to him gaily, “Come along, Peter! We’re off!” and the two friends went out into the cobbled street.

THE PAIR WENT off down the busy commercial street towards their destination not at a walk, lope, trot, or even a run, but a series of short, swift charges, a kind of point-to-point dash, and again Peter learned something about the life and ways of a homeless city cat that has no friends and must fend for itself.

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