Hiro Arikawa - The Travelling Cat Chronicles

‘Tora, can’t you at least behave when we’re saying goodbye!’ Sugi tugged angrily at the lead.

Don’t be cross with him. He was trying to stop me leaving.

But what with Tora barking his head off earlier, Sugi thought he was still angry.

‘Is he upset?’ asked Satoru. He looked in the rear-view mirror at the receding figures. ‘His bark sounds different from before.’

That’s why I like you, Satoru. You’re perceptive about things like that.

The silver van gave a little beep of its horn before turning a corner, sending dust into the air and leaving the bed and breakfast far behind.

‘It would have been perfect if they could have looked after you.’

There you go again, Satoru. That’s just sour grapes. Mount Fuji’s now well behind us.

If you intend to come and fetch me back one day, then you shouldn’t leave me there in the first place.

I was standing on my hind legs and pawing the top of the back seat to see out of the rear window, and Satoru laughed. ‘The sea might not have been your cup of tea, but you do seem to have taken a liking to Mount Fuji.’

’Cause Mount Fuji doesn’t make that belly-shaking roar, and doesn’t have that perpetual motion that’ll swallow me up.

‘I hope we can see it again together. Yeah, let’s do that someday. And let’s visit Sugi and Chikako again. We had such a nice view of Mount Fuji from our bedroom, and also – you liked that old picture-tube TV, too, didn’t you?’

Yes, that’s the ticket! That box-shaped TV was perfect. Just the right size to lie down, all toasty warm. Say, Satoru, what if we were to get a box-shaped TV like that?

‘Sorry that ours is the thin type. They don’t sell tube TVs any more.’

Ah, such a pity.

But that’s okay. I can think of it as a special attraction for when we visit the Sugis next time.

And one other thing: the next time we visit, I bet you Toramaru will wag his tail at us.

IN THE EVENING, a reservation came in at the bed and breakfast for that night.

‘Maybe we should keep Toramaru tied up.’

‘True, he might still be worked up because of his fight with Nana.’

Sugi took Toramaru outside and chained him to the kennel. Then he turned to Chikako, who had followed him.

‘About what Satoru said a little while ago…’

‘What? Are you bothered by that?’ Chikako asked.

Ouch. That hit home. ‘No, it’s not that,’ Sugi stammered. ‘I was just wondering how you would have taken it if Satoru had told you he liked you when we were still in high school.’

‘Who knows?’ Chikako said, shrugging. ‘Unless we could go back in time, I don’t know how I would have reacted.’

A spot-on answer, to which he had no reply.

‘It might have been nice, though, to be a young girl wavering between the affections of two boys.’

‘Wavering?’

This took him by surprise and he couldn’t help but ask her what she meant.

‘Of course I would have wavered.’ Chikako laughed. ‘If I’d had two boys liking me at the same time, then that would definitely have piqued my interest.’

Sugi felt like weeping, but managed to control himself.

I don’t know which of us two she would have chosen, he thought. But at least I was included in the line-up.

And he felt his sense of inferiority and jealousy diminish a little.

The next time I see Satoru, I know I can be a much better friend.

Now that is a happy thought.

A HUGE WHITE ship was docked beside the wharf of the harbour.

The mouth at the bow was open wide and Satoru told me that we were going to drive our van right into it. It swallowed up any number of cars into its belly and yet it didn’t sink. I must say, humans really do create some amazing things.

I mean, who in the world came up with the idea of floating a huge lump of iron on top of water? Must have had a couple of screws loose, whoever it was. It stands to reason that a heavy object will sink. No other animal in the world would try to defy the laws of nature, but humans are a very peculiar species.

Satoru hurried over to the ferry terminal to buy our ticket, but when he came back his face was all flushed.

‘I’m afraid we’ve got a problem. They won’t let you travel as a passenger like me, Nana.’

He explained that he had written my name on the passenger form.

When the official at the reception desk found out that Nana Miyawaki (age six) was a cat, he had a good laugh, apparently. Sometimes Satoru can be spectacularly dense.

‘Shall we get on board?’

A string of cars was already lined up and driving into the gaping mouth of the ferry, and I was starting to feel just a little bit anxious.

‘Nana, why is your tail all puffed up like that?’

Oh, come on. If, worst-case scenario, the ship does actually sink, we’ll be thrown overboard into the sea, won’t we? I don’t think I can imagine a fate more terrible.

I recalled the sea we’d visited when we were on our way back from Yoshimine the farmer’s, and how that vast expanse of water, the weighty crash of the waves, had made me feel. The thought of being flung straight into it made even an intrepid cat like me shiver. Cats are no good at swimming and detest the water (though there are a few exceptions; some cats actually like to have a bath, but these are just instances of spontaneous feline mutation).

Even Satoru would have great trouble swimming to shore with me perched on top of his head clinging on for dear life.

Despite my misgivings, the silver van entered the belly of the beast. Walking with his suitcase in his left hand and my basket in his right seemed to wear Satoru out. Not long ago, he could have carried both easily.

Maybe I should walk on my own?

I scratched at the lock of the basket from the inside, and Satoru told me to stop. He tilted the basket so the door was facing upwards. Whoa, I said, and slipped backwards on to my bottom.

‘Animals aren’t allowed loose on the ferry, so you’ll just have to be patient.’

By animals, this would include dogs, too, I assumed. Fair enough. There are plenty of hotels that allow pets in general but turn away cats. They complain that cats sharpen their claws on the furniture, and so on. But for guests with cats, all they need to do is add an extra fee to cover any repairs, right?

Plus, this animal smell that bothers humans is much less strong in cats than it is with dogs, am I right?

Even so, this dogs okay, cats not okay attitude is really offensive from a feline perspective. In that sense, it’s much easier to accept if neither cat nor dog is allowed. The upshot? I was liking this ferry.

Satoru took me to the pet room in the ship, where all the travelling animals were kept.

It was a spartan, neat room, and several spacious cages were stacked up to the ceiling. Today, there seemed to be a lot of passengers travelling with animals, for almost all ten of the cages were occupied. There was a white chinchilla, but that was the only other cat. The rest were a mix of dogs of varying sizes.

‘This is Nana. Please be nice to him until we arrive.’

Satoru went out of his way to greet the passengers already in the pet room, and put me into one of the cages.

‘Will you be okay, Nana? You won’t be too lonely?’

Lonely, surrounded by all these other dogs and a cat? Hardly! In fact, I’d prefer somewhere more peaceful. The dogs seemed to want to talk, and because there were so many of them, they were all yapping back and forth. And muttering complaints about me, like, Well, look at this, will you? A mongrel moggy that the human dragged in. Well, hey, sooorry !