Henry Van Kuren was a methodical
young man who liked things just so. In college, his well-ordered
plan had been to earn an engineering degree, land the perfect job,
and marry Dorothy, his best girl. He had done these things on schedule
and was proud of the home he and Dorothy had made together. The
house gleamed with oriental carpets, original art work, and an eclectic
assortment of antiques. Henry was especially proud of his hobby
room, where he spent many enjoyable hours working on his classic
model cars.
As time went by, Henry's employers
increased his responsibilities until his perfect job weighed him
down. His meticulous, well-kept home became his refuge from the
world—until Cooney hit town.
Henry came in on that memorable thirtieth
birthday and hung his coat in the foyer closet. A bottle of his
favorite Chardonnay was chilling, and Dorothy had taken the day
off to prepare his favorite dinner. The garlicky fragrance of rosemary-roasted
pork promised imminent, gastronomic delight. Inhaling deeply, Henry
studied his reflection in the hall mirror. An approving smile appeared
on his clean-shaven face. A careful exercise regimen had kept his
tall, athletic form trim; his neat brown hair showed no sign of
gray. The smile grew. Not only was all as it should be, but tomorrow
was Saturday. Henry meant to spend the day working on his latest
model car, a 1965 Chevy Camaro.
He turned toward the kitchen. A flash
of white fur whizzed past his feet. Dorothy came running after it.
Strands of her blue-black hair had escaped their neat twist, and
fell in an untidy—and unusual—mess over her forehead.
Her green eyes widened when she saw him.
"Hello, Henry," she said.
"I didn't hear you come in. Happy Birthday."
They kissed, and Henry said, "What
was that thing, Dorothy?"
The "thing" zoomed by again.
This time, however, it stopped, turned sideways, and arched its
furry back in an unmistakable challenge. The fur puffed up, and
one end of it hissed.
"A cat? Dorothy, we can NOT have
a cat. I don't like cats."
"I know," said Dorothy.
"He's a birthday present from your mother."
"My mother? She knows I loathe
cats. Where is she? In the kitchen?"
"No, Henry. Your parents had
to catch a plane. They went to Rome for two weeks, remember? They
came to see you for your birthday, but you got home too late."
Dorothy smiled. "Your mother said Cooney could be her grandchild
until a real one comes along."
Henry stared at the tiny, spitting
feline who seemed to think he was a saber-toothed tiger. Sinister
aqua eyes stared back at him from a chocolate face. That same chocolate
tinted the tips of the ears and shaded the paws and tail of the
otherwise all-white kitten. Suddenly, it jumped up, turned in midair,
and scrambled down the hall.
Henry struggled to remain calm. "We
simply cannot have a cat, Dorothy! Look at this place. It will ruin
everything!"
"‘He', Henry. ‘He'
will ruin everything. His name is Cooney. He's a purebred Tonkinese.
A Champagne Mink."
"I don't care what his pedigree
is! He goes!"
Dorothy sighed. "We'll have to
keep him until your mother comes home. I don't know who the breeder
is."
A crash from the living room interrupted
the conversation. Henry flew down the hall and found a bronze table
lamp on the floor, its silk shade bent sadly out of shape. Dorothy
ran into the room behind him.
"Poor Cooney," she cried,
scooping the trembling kitten from the multicolored Chinese rug.
"That big bad bang must have scared you!"
Henry set the lamp back on the table.
With a loud gasp, he knelt and ran his fingers over a splintered
depression in the floor. "There's a dent in our Brazilian Cherry
floor, Dorothy!"
"I'm sure we can have it fixed,
Henry," she said. Cuddling Cooney, she left the room.
Henry shot to his feet and followed
her. "Lock him in the basement!"
"Don't be silly, Henry. He didn't
mean it. He's only twelve weeks old. Tomorrow I'll get him some
toys, and he'll leave our things alone. I'll put him in the laundry
room for now, and we'll eat."
Henry hmmphed, until Dorothy served
a spectacular dinner, complete with birthday presents. He thought
that if she confined the kitten to the laundry room, all would be
well.
Later that night, however, squeaking
outside the bedroom door woke Henry from a pleasant dream. Disoriented
at first, he sat up and recognized the sound for what it was. He
had no compunction about waking his wife.
"Dorothy, that cat is crying
outside our door."
"Hmm? What?"
"I said—"
"I heard you. He's lonely, Henry.
He can sleep with us."
"What? In our bed?"
"He's too small to climb up here.
He has his own bed in the laundry room. Be a love and get it. He
can sleep in the corner—unless you'd rather listen to him cry
all night."
Henry got the bed. Dorothy set it
in the corner, then set Cooney in the bed. After a few restless
turns, the kitten settled down.
In the morning, Henry woke to see
a furry, chocolate face only inches from his. Cooney was sleeping
on his pillow. The kitten's aqua eyes opened then. With a yawn and
a mighty stretch, he rolled over, licked Henry's nose, and started
purring.
Prepared to voice his indignance,
Henry raised himself on an elbow, but Dorothy was already gone.
Then he remembered it was Saturday. His mood improved. He lifted
Cooney from the pillow, resisted the urge to toss him like a basketball
to the cat bed in the corner, and simply dropped him on the floor.
Cooney landed well and scampered from the room.
Eager to start work on his Camaro,
Henry forgot the cat. He showered, dressed in old clothes, and went
downstairs. By habit, he checked Dorothy's efficient notes on the
kitchen calendar—she always included telephone numbers—and
saw that she had an appointment that morning with her hairdresser.
She had also inked in an appointment for the kitten to see the vet
the following Wednesday. Henry scowled and poured himself a cup
of the imported Guatemalan coffee she had left for him.
While he sipped, he envisioned assembling
the model car's chrome-plated parts and V-8 engine. He could almost
smell the custom interior and black vinyl tires. So excited he couldn't
finish his coffee, he dumped it in the sink, rinsed the cup, and
placed it neatly in the dishwasher.
Five minutes later, he was sitting
at the work table in the center of his hobby room. A bright light
shone overhead. Wooden shelves lined three of the room's four walls.
Each shelf sported clear, stackable display cases filled with model
antique cars that ranged from a 1901 De Dion Bouton to a 1967 Corvette
Roadster. Henry had arranged them by year, leaving spaces for the
models he intended to complete in the future. A workbench against
the fourth wall held his air brush compressor, paint stand, and,
his latest acquisition, a spray booth with a built-in electric fan
to speed-dry paint.
With a surgeon's precision, Henry
set out his tools. To his right, he arranged clamps and locking
tweezers, trimmers and cutters, burnishers and needle-nosed pliers,
and a wide assortment of sable brushes. Bottles sat like a symphony
orchestra to his left, its sections divided into glues and cements,
acrylic and enamel paints, and primers and thinners.
The windows were open to let in the
spring breeze. Classical music wafted from ceiling speakers. All
was ready. Henry slid the heavy base of the hands-free magnifying
glass toward him, and, with a sensual chuckle, opened the box that
contained the bare bones of the Camaro destined for the space between
the 1958 Plymouth Belvedere and the 1966 Ford Fairlane. He lifted
the light gray chassis from the box.
The needle-nosed pliers moved. And
the tweezers. When Henry turned to look, a brown-tipped paw was
poking his tools. Two aqua eyes peeked over the edge of the table.
Pointed chocolate ears twitched like antennas homing in on trouble.
The invasion of his sanctuary outraged
Henry. Even Dorothy never trespassed here. Then, with astounding
impudence, Cooney leapt onto the table, picked up a clamp in his
teeth, and trotted straight to Henry. He stood there, as if expecting
something.
Henry stared with disbelief at the
tiny, high-spirited feline. His outrage melted away.
"So you want to play, do you?
Well, I don't have time to play. Now go away." He plucked the
clamp from Cooney's mouth and tossed it out the door. The kitten
bounded after it, retrieved it, and leapt onto Henry's lap.
Henry chuckled. "All right,"
he said, "but just once more. I'm busy."
They repeated the game several times
until, when Dorothy returned, Henry remembered that he was supposed
to be angry.
"Dorothy!" he shouted. "This
cat is in my hobby room!"
Dorothy came to the door carrying
a bag marked "Pets N Such." She smiled that smile that
said he wasn't fooling anyone. "Why didn't you shut the door?"
she asked, and snatched the kitten from his lap. "Come on,
Cooney. I bought you some pretty things." She left and closed
the door behind her.
"Hmmph," said Henry. He
soon lost himself in the intricacies of bringing the Camaro to life.
When at last he called a halt to his endeavors, he had made great
progress, and was ready to paint. Tomorrow morning, he thought.
Hungry and happy, he shut out the lights and headed down the hall
to wash up in the lav.
When he reached it, Dorothy was there,
standing stock-still. She put a finger to her smiling lips and pointed
toward the bathroom floor.
Cooney was creeping backwards with
the end of the toilet tissue in his mouth, unwinding the roll as
he went, growling as if he held the haunch of a Serengeti zebra
in his leonine jaws. He had nearly backed clear across the kitchen,
dragging his kill with him, when Henry burst out laughing. Startled—or
perhaps embarrassed—Cooney dropped his prey and bolted down
the hall.
After supper, Dorothy displayed the
cat toys she had bought that morning. Henry assembled the fishing
wand and soon had Cooney leaping all over the kitchen trying to
catch the feather on the end of the string. Then he remembered Dorothy.
He looked up and saw her watching him. "I'm only being a responsible
pet owner, Dorothy," he said.
Dorothy smiled that smile again.
Sunday morning, Henry prepared his
hobby room and opened his paints. The Camaro would be bright red,
of course. He had just turned on the air brush compressor when Dorothy
knocked to say that his mother was calling from Rome. Henry took
the call in the kitchen. He thanked his mother for her thoughtfulness,
but insisted that the cat must go back to the breeder—though
he forgot to ask the breeder's name.
When he returned to the hobby room,
red paint was flowing over the table and onto the ceramic-tiled
floor. From his perch beside the overturned Camaro, Cooney sat contemplating
both the drips and the growing crimson puddle.
Henry's hands became fists. Rage scorched his cheeks. "Out!"
he shouted. "Out, out, out! You fiend! You evil beast! Is this
what I get for being kind to you? Get OUT!"
Cooney looked up at Henry, his aqua
eyes big and innocent, and squeaked.
"Dorothy!"
"I'm right here, Henry. What—?
Oh, dear."
Dorothy whisked Cooney to safety.
Fortunately for the kitten, the Camaro had suffered no damage. Henry
spent the next hour muttering to himself and cleaning up the mess,
then went to the craft store to replenish his supply of red paint.
Monday morning, the sight of Dorothy
preparing for work had Henry sputtering. "You don't mean to
leave the little demon alone? He'll destroy the house!"
"Then you stay home," she
said. "I took Friday off. I have to go in."
"I can't be responsible for that
creature's safety if I'm left alone with him, Dorothy."
"If you had closed the door,
he wouldn't have gotten into your paint."
Henry sighed. "I know. He was
probably looking for the clamp we were playing with."
Dorothy's eyebrows shot up. "Playing?
You were playing with him?"
Henry sniffed. "Not exactly.
I was being a responsible pet owner."
Dorothy kissed him. "Don't forget
to feed him. And scoop his litter box."
Henry wrinkled his nose and carried
out his orders, unable to decide which smelled worse: the salmon
paté or the flushable clay. He completed his duties and decided
to take advantage of his day off with a workout in the exercise
room. The sound of gagging froze him in his tracks.
He found Cooney in the living room,
choking. On what, Henry couldn't tell. He knelt to get a better
look. The kitten stopped choking, though he was breathing hard.
Then, he was choking again. His little paws swatted his mouth, as
if he were trying to dislodge something.
"Oh my God!" Henry watched
helplessly as the drama repeated itself several times. Each time
he hoped that Cooney had swallowed whatever was choking him—but
he hadn't.
Holding Cooney tight, Henry managed
to pry the tiny mouth open, though he could see nothing there. The
kitten twisted out of Henry's grasp and choked yet again.
Henry's heart thumped. "The vet.
He needs the vet. What vet?"
Racing to the kitchen, Henry found
the telephone number that Dorothy had written on the calendar. His
shaking fingers punched the numbers on the phone. A woman answered
right away.
"This is an emergency,"
he said. "My cat is choking! He's dying!" He explained
the symptoms. The woman gave him directions and told him to come
right in. Henry whipped Cooney into the cat carrier and sped off.
When Dorothy came home at half past
five, Henry was sitting on the living room couch. He would have
risen to greet her, but Cooney was sleeping in his lap, and he didn't
want to disturb him. "The poor little guy has had a bad day,
Dorothy."
He explained the emergency, and how
the vet had kept the kitten for observation all afternoon. "I
only picked him up a few minutes ago," he said. "Seems
he had a loose baby tooth. The vet took it out for him, and he's
fine." He stroked the kitten's head. "I must get that
breeder's name from my mother when she returns from Rome."
Dorothy sat beside him and patted
his hand. "I'm sorry, Henry. I didn't think he'd be so much
trouble. I don't blame you for wanting to take him back."
Henry scratched the kitten's chin.
"I don't want to take him back at all, Dorothy. The vet said
he should have a companion cat. We're going to get another kitten."
Dorothy gasped with delight. "Oh,
Henry! Do you mean it?"
"Yes, Dorothy, I do. As a responsible
pet owner, I have it all planned. If Cooney has a friend to keep
him company while we're at work—and I remember to close a few
doors—he won't get into so much mischief. Everything will stay
trim and tidy."
Cooney yawned and stretched across
Henry's lap.
