CHAPTER ONE
It all began, as these things so often do, with
something very small. Sometimes it’s a pebble rolling down a mountain.
Sometimes it’s a butterfly landing on the butt of a guy who’s sunbathing
facedown. This time it was a hole in the fence. Not a big hole. Just a sort of
crack at the bottom. A gap between two boards slightly bigger than the gaps
between the other boards. Something most people probably wouldn’t even notice.
But it was enough for the
cat to get out.
If you were to ask the
humans who fed this cat in exchange for the pleasure of his company (they would
describe themselves as his “owners,” but what do they know?) they would tell
you that their faithful and obedient cat never left their yard. They would have
been thoroughly shocked to discover that their cat was neither faithful nor
particularly obedient and did, in fact, leave the yard through the hole in the
fence pretty much every night.
What do cats do when they
go out at night? All sorts of things. Sometimes they look for food. Sometimes
they chase birds or mice. Sometimes they just prowl around looking cool,
perhaps remembering a time when they were not so different from lions and
tigers. But most of the time they’re looking for love.
Well, maybe not “love” in
the sense that we use the word. In
their case, the urge is less romantic and more…let’s say “primal.” In any case,
this is supposed to be a kids’ book, so let’s just say that the cat—the one
that got out through the whole in the fence and whose name history does not
relate so let’s call him “Tom” to make things easier—went out at night to spend
time with female cats before going home to his yard where his delusional owners
were convinced he stayed every night.
One of the myriad female
cats that Tom would spend his evenings with was the beloved, purebred pet of a Wealthy
Woman who was just as clueless about her cat’s nighttime activities as Tom’s
owners were about his. In fact, had she known that her perfect, elegant,
immaculately groomed Puss (which is what we’re calling her for the purposes of
our story) was involved in an assignation with a mangy beast like Tom, she
would have been shocked.
But whether she wanted to
believe it or not, the evidence was undeniable. After a few weeks of increased
appetite, lethargy and barfing, the Wealthy Woman was forced to call the Veterinarian
who came ‘round at once and declared, “Puss is going to have kittens!”
The usual number of months
later, Puss did, indeed, give birth to a litter of six kittens. Five of them
were the image of their mother, with barely any trace off their ne’er-do-well
father in them. This pleased the Wealthy Woman as she was mainly concerned with
the way things looked. The sixth kitten however was, in this woman’s opinion,
horrible to behold.
He looked almost exactly
like his father, that is he was a tabby cat, orange fur with white patches. In
fact, he had four white patches on each of his paws, which rather made him look
like he had on shoes of some kind. But his feet weren’t the only reason the Wealthy
Woman disliked him.
The kitten was disfigured.
His left ear hadn’t quite finished growing and was short and shriveled. This is
what it looked like:
"How horrible!" cried the Wealthy Woman.
"What?" said the Vet, who, of course, had come to deliver the kittens. "He's not so ugly."
“Not so ugly? Are you
blind! Look at that horrible ear of his! And he looks like a mangy alley cat.
He’s a freak!” And she called for one of her servants to take the kitten to the
well and drown him.
“Well I’ll not have that
thing living under my roof!”
Any way you look at it,
she wasn’t a very nice lady, but that’s okay because she won’t be in the story
much longer.
“Then I’ll take him. I’m
sure I can find someone to give him a good home.”
“If you must,” said the
Wealthy Woman.
The Vet walked back to his
house with the newborn kitten in his arms. Of course, he would’ve been happy to
look after the cat himself. But he was so busy taking care of other people’s
pets he didn’t have time to keep one himself. But he was confident that, when
he got to his own village, he’d find someone willing to adopt the kitten.
“What’s wrong with your
cat?”
“Ugh! What a weird-looking
thing!”
“Mommy, is that cat sick?”
Everyone he passed saw the
kitten’s misshapen ear and wrote the poor little guy off as a freak. Nobody
wanted to adopt a cat who was deformed (however slightly) when there were
plenty of normal-looking cats in
town.
The Vet was just beginning
to lose hope as he passed through the market place to pick up some milk and
bread before going home. And that’s where he met Corie.
“Ooooh! He’s so cute!”
A little girl had spotted
the tabby kitten and ran straight up to the Vet.
“Yes, he is, isn’t he?”
said the Vet. “Would you like to hold him?"
He handed the kitten to
the girl. As she reached out for it, the Vet noticed a deep, red scar on her
left hand, as though she had been burned and it had not healed properly.
“Corie!”
A man’s voice called out
and the girl stopped smiling at once. She turned around to face her father who
was looking crossly at her. The Vet could tell at a glance that this was a
successful businessman. He wore fine clothes, as did the two boys with him, who
were clearly his sons.
That was the first time
the Vet noticed what the little girl was wearing: It looked suspiciously like a
boy’s suit that had been haphazardly resewn into a girl’s outfit. This struck
the Vet as odd. If her father was so rich, why didn’t his daughter wear new
clothes? Or, at least, girl clothes?
“What is that thing?” he
growled at the kitten in his daughter’s arms.
“It’s a kitten, Father,”
said Corie. “He belongs to this man.”
“You can have him if you
want him,” said the Vet. “I was trying to find someone to take care of him when
I—”
“Absolutely not!” roared
the girl’s father, eyeing the cat’s bad ear. “I know better than to buy damaged
goods. I’ve already spent enough gold today.”
“On a hat for Brian and a
flute for Sean,” said Corie, defiantly. “But I haven’t gotten anything. It’s
not fair!”
“Life’s not fair, girl!
And you’d do well to remember that and hold your tongue in the future!”
“The kitten is free,” said
the Vet. He was now determined that this girl should have this kitten. At first
his only concern was for the well-being of the cat. But seeing the way this
girl was treated by her father, he felt certain that she needed a companion as well.
“Free?” said the girl’s
father. He grumbled to himself as he thought it over. “Fine! But it had better
not be any trouble!”
“It won’t be, Father, I
swear.” She turned back to the Vet. “Thank you so much for…what’s his name?”
“You know, he doesn’t have
one yet.”
“I get to name him?” said Corie,
very excited. She took a good long look at the happy kitten in her hands. She
saw his deformed ear, just like everyone else, but she thought it was cute. And
then she looked at his paws. “He looks like he’s wearing little boots…That’s
it! Boots!”
“Hurry up, girl!” roared
the girl’s father. “Or I’m leaving you behind!”
Corie thanked the Veterinarian
again and ran after her father and two brothers, who were bragging about the
expensive gifts their father had bought and teasing their sister for her ugly
kitten.
But Corie didn’t care that
her prize hadn’t cost a single coin. To her, Boots was worth more than all the
gold in the world.
And, before our story is
done, he would prove himself a most valuable cat, indeed!
TO BE CONTINUED...
