Lilian Braun: The private life of the cat who...: tales of Koko and Yum Yum from the journal of James Mackintosh Qwilleran

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The private life of the cat who...

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2003 by Braun, Lilian Jackson

This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

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ISBN: 0-7865-5201-8

A JOVE BOOK®

Jove Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

JOVE and the “ J ” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

Electronic edition: November, 2004

Also by Lilian Jackson Braun

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern

The Cat Who Turned On and Off

The Cat Who Saw Red

The Cat Who Played Brahms

The Cat Who Played Post Office

The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare

The Cat Who Sniffed Glue

The Cat Who Went Underground

The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts

The Cat Who Lived High

The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal

The Cat Who Moved a Mountain

The Cat Who Wasn’t There

The Cat Who Went into the Closet

The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

The Cat Who Blew the Whistle

The Cat Who Said Cheese

The Cat Who Tailed a Thief

The Cat Who Sang for the Birds

The Cat Who Saw Stars

The Cat Who Robbed a Bank

The Cat Who Smelled a Rat

The Cat Who Went Up the Creek

The Cat Who Brought Down the House

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

The Cat Who Had 14 Tales

Short and Tall Tales

Dedicated to Earl Bettinger,

The Husband Who . . .

foreword

James Mackintosh Qwilleran is a journalist who wrote for metropolitan newspapers from coast to coast before relocating in Pickax City, four hundred miles north of everywhere. Now he writes a twice-weekly column for The Moose County Something , and also keeps a personal journal of his off-duty experiences.

Koko is a “real cool cat” who happens to have sixty whiskers instead of the usual forty-eight. Yum Yum the Paw, as she is known, is an adorable female who will steal anything—including hearts.

These excerpts from Qwilleran’s journal include memories, thoughts, and ideas from the “Qwill Pen” column. Altogether it’s a drama starring two feline celebrities.

Raise the curtain!

I’ll never forget those days! I was getting my life back on track. I had a job, writing features for the Daily Fluxion. I had a place to live, an apartment on the ground floor of an old mansion. And soon I would be getting a roommate!

My landlord, who was art critic for the Fluxion, lived upstairs with his art treasures and a Siamese called Kao K’o Kung. Although I knew nothing about cats, I was enlisted for cat-sitting when the critic was out of town.

He wrote his reviews at home and never went near the news office. According to conventional wisdom, he never went near the art galleries either, but wrote his nasty criticism off the top of his head. Among local artists he was well hated, to coin a phrase. So no one was surprised when he was murdered in his own backyard.

That was the first time I heard the cat’s “death howl,” a blood-curdling experience!

Kao K’o Kung—that smart cat!—then walked downstairs and moved in with me. I recall giving him some turkey from the Press Club that I had been saving for myself.

So here we were! Thrown together by fate! First thing I did, I changed his name to Koko.

He made no objection. He knew which side his bread was buttered on! In the days that followed we invented games to play, both athletic and intellectual. I was at work all day but made up for it by reading to him every evening—either the Daily Fluxion or the dictionary; he was not particular.

Then I began to find fault with the old mansion. It seemed to be the ancestral domain of a dynasty of moths, which were eating holes in my bathrobe and neckties. But where could I move? Apartments in my price range specified “no pets allowed.” I discussed the problem with Koko, who listened thoughtfully. I told him that a friend of mine was going to Europe for three months and had suggested that I house-sit. Koko squeezed his eyes. We were getting to be pals. Then, to my surprise, he turned out be a self-appointed bodyguard and somewhat of a bloodhound!

One day he wanted to go upstairs to his old haunt. The murdered man’s treasures had been removed, but I had a key to the apartment and the supply of cat litter. But that cat seemed to have his own urgent reason; he ran up and down the stairs ahead of me in anticipation.

Sure enough, there was a large tapestry still hanging in a hallway, and Koko was determined to paw his way behind it. When I went to his assistance, I discovered a door back there, which the landlord had found it advisable to conceal. It led downstairs to a small ground-floor apartment in the rear of the building, and it was filled with clues to the recent crime. It had been used as an artist’s studio and still had an odor of turpentine.

Just as I was snooping around in amazement and Koko was getting some kind of catly high from the paintbrushes, I heard a key turn in the rear door leading to the backyard, and a big man walked in. For a moment we were both frozen in surprise. Then he looked about wildly, grabbed a palette knife, and came at me!

Before I could find a chair to swing at him, Koko threw a catfit! The room seemed filled with snarling animals, attacking him from all sides with claws extended! I was able to clobber the guy, and we left him on the floor while we called the police. Koko spent the next few hours licking his claws.

I was glad to move into my friend’s posh apartment on the fifteenth floor of the Villa Verandah. Koko seemed happy, too. I think he liked the view. Then one day I came home from work and found a large hole in the green wool upholstery of a fine wing chair. As I examined it, with horror, Koko jumped onto the chair seat and upchucked a green fur ball—still moist!