Believing Is Seeing

WHAT THE CAT TOLD ME

I am a cat. I am a cat like anything. Keep stroking me. I came in here because I knew you were good at stroking. But put your knees together so I can sit properly, front paws under. That’s better. Now keep stroking, don’t forget to rub my ears, and I will purr and tell.

I am going to tell you how I came to be so very old. When I was a kitten, humans dressed differently, and they had great stamping horses to pull their cars and buses. The Old Man in the house where I lived used to light a hissing gas on the wall when it got dark. He wore a long black coat. The Boy who was nice to me wore shabby breeches that only came to his knees, and he mostly went without shoes, just like me. We slept in a cupboard under the stairs, Boy and I. We kept one another warm. We kept one another fed, too, later on. The Old Man did not like cats or boys. He only kept us because we were useful.

I was more useful than Boy. I had to sit in a five-pointed star. The Boy would help Old Man mix things that smoked and made me sneeze. I had to sneeze three times. After that things happened. Sometimes big purple cloud things came and sat beside me in the star. Fur stood up on me, and I spat, but the things only went away when Old Man hit the star with his stick and told them, “Begone!” in a loud voice. At other times the things that came were small, real things you could hit with your paw: boxes, or strings of shiny stones no one could eat, or bright rings that fell tink beside me out of nowhere. I did not mind those things. The things I really hated were the third kind. Those came inside me and used my mouth to speak. They were nasty things with hateful thoughts, and they made me hateful. And my mouth does not like to speak. It ached afterward, and my tongue and throat were so sore that I could not wash the hatefulness off me for hours.

I so hated those inside-speaking things that I used to run away and hide when I saw Old Man drawing the star on the cellar floor. I am good at hiding. Sometimes it took Boy half the day to find me. Then Old Man would shout and curse and hit Boy and call him a fool. Boy cried at night in the cupboard afterward. I did not like that, so after a while I scratched Old Man instead. I knew none of it was Boy’s fault. Boy made Old Man give me nice things to eat after I had sat in the star. He said it was the only way to get me to sit there.

Boy was clever, you see. Old Man thought he was a fool, but Boy told me—at night in the cupboard—that he only pretended to be stupid. Boy was an orphan like me. Old Man had bought him for a shilling from a baby farmer ages before I was even a kitten, because his hair was orange, like the ginger patches on me, and that is supposed to be a good color for magic. Old Man paid a whole farthing for me, for much the same reason, because I am brindled. And Boy had been with Old Man ever since, learning things. It was not only magic that Boy learned. Old Man was away quite a lot when Boy was small. Boy used to read Old Man’s books in the room upstairs, and the newspapers, and anything else he could find. He told me he wanted to learn magic in order to escape from Old Man, and he learned the other things so that he could manage in the wide world when he did escape; but he had been a prisoner in the house for years now, and although he knew a great deal, he still could not break the spell Old Man had put on him to keep him inside the house. “And I really hate him,” Boy said to me, “because of the cat before you. I want to stop him doing any more magic before I leave.”

And I said—

What was that? How could Boy and I talk together? Do you think I am a stupid cat, or something? I am nearly as clever as Boy. How do you think I am telling you all this? Let me roll over. My stomach needs rubbing. Oh, you rub well! I really like you. Well— No, let me sit up again now. I think the talking must be something to do with those inside-speaking things. When I was a kitten, I could understand what people said, of course, but I couldn’t do it back, not at first, until I had been lived in and been spoken through by quite a lot of Things. Boy thought they stretched my mind. And I was clever to start with, not like the cat before me.

Old Man killed the cat before me somehow. Boy would not tell me how. It was a stupid cat, he said, but he loved it. After he told me that, I would not go near Boy for a whole day. It was not just that I was nervous about being killed, too. How could he love any cat that wasn’t me? Boy caught me a pigeon off the roof, but I still wouldn’t speak to him. So he stole me a saucer of milk and swore he would make sure Old Man didn’t kill me, too. He liked me a lot better than the other cat, he said, because I was clever. Anyway, Old Man killed the other cat doing magic he would not be able to work again without a certain special powder. Besides, the other cat was black and did not look as interesting as me.

After Boy had told me a lot of things like this, I put my nose to his nose, and we were friends again. We made a conspiracy—that was what Boy called it—and swore to defeat Old Man and escape somehow. But we could not find out how to do it. We thought and thought. In the end I stopped growing because of the strain and worry. Boy said no, it was because I was full grown.

I said, “Why, in that case, are you still growing? You’re already more than ten times my size. You’re nearly as big as Old Man!”

“I know,” said Boy. “You’re an elegant little cat. I don’t think I shall be elegant until I’m six feet tall, and maybe not even then. I’m so clumsy. And so hungry!”

Poor Boy. He did grow so, around then. He did not seem to know his own size from one day to the next. When he rolled over in the cupboard, he either squashed me or burst out into the hallway. I had to scratch him quite hard, several nights, or he would have smothered me. And he kept knocking things over when he was awake. He spilled the milk jug—which I didn’t mind at all—and he kicked Old Man’s magic tripod by accident and smashed six jars of smelly stuff. Old Man cursed and called Boy a fool, worse than ever. And I think Boy really was stupid then, because he was so hungry. Old Man was too mean to give him more to eat. Boy ate my food, so I was hungry, too. He said he couldn’t help it.

I went on the roof and caught pigeons. Boy roasted them over the gaslight at night when Old Man was asleep. Delicious. But the bones made me sick in the corner. We hid the feathers in the cupboard, and after I had caught a great many pigeons, night after night, the cupboard began to get warm. Boy began to get his mind back. But he still grew, and he was still hungry. By the time I had stopped growing for a year, Boy was so big his breeches went right up his legs and his legs went all hairy. Old Man couldn’t hit him anymore then, because Boy just put out a long, long arm and held Old Man off.

“I need more clothes,” he told Old Man.

Old Man grumbled and protested, but at last he said, “Oh, all right, you damn scarecrow. I’ll see what I can do.” He went unwillingly down into the cellar and heaved up one of the flagstones there. He wouldn’t let me look in the hole, but I know that what was under that flagstone was Old Man’s collection of all the rings and shiny stones that came from nowhere when I sat in the five-pointed star. I saw Old Man take some chinking things out. Then he slammed down the stone and went away upstairs, not noticing that one shiny thing had spilled out and gone rolling across the floor. It was a little golden ball. It was fun. I chased it for hours. I patted it and it rolled, and I pounced, and it ran away all around the cellar. Then it spoiled the fun by rolling down a crack between two flagstones and getting lost. Then I found I was shut in the cellar and had to make a great noise to be let out.

That reminds me: does your house have balls in it? Then buy me one tomorrow. Until then a piece of paper on some string will do.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Someone smelling of mildew came and let me out. I nearly didn’t know Boy at first. He had a red coat and white breeches and long black boots on, all rather too big for him. He said it was an old soldier’s uniform Old Man had picked up cheap, and how did I get shut in the cellar?

I sat around his neck and told him about the flagstone where Old Man kept his shinies. Boy was very interested. “That would buy an awful lot of food,” he said. He was still hungry. “We’ll take it with us when we escape. Let’s try escaping next time he works magic.”

So that night we made a proper plan at last. We decided to summon a Good Spirit, instead of the hateful things Old Man always fetched. “There must be some good ones,” Boy said. But since we didn’t know enough to summon a good one on our own, we had to make Old Man do it for us somehow.

We did it the very next day. I played up wonderfully. As soon as Old Man started to draw on the cellar floor, I ran away, so that Old Man would not suspect us. I dug my claws hard into Boy’s coat when he caught me, so that Old Man could hardly pull me loose. And I scratched Old Man, very badly, so that there was blood when he put me inside the five-pointed star. Then I sat there, humped and sulky, and it was Boy’s turn.

Boy did rather well, too. At first he was just the usual kind of clumsy and kicked some black powder into some red powder while they were putting it out in heaps, and the cellar filled with white soot. It was hard not to sneeze too soon, but I managed not to. I managed to hold the sneeze off until Old Man had done swearing at Boy and begun on the next bit, the mumbling. Then I sneezed—once. Boy promptly fell against the tripod, which dripped hot stuff on the spilled powder. The cellar filled with big purple bubbles. They drifted and shone and bobbed most enticingly. I would have loved to chase them, but I knew I mustn’t, or we would spoil what we were doing. Old Man couldn’t leave off his mumbling, because that would spoil the spell, but he glared at Boy through the bubbles. I sneezed again—two—to distract him. Old Man raised his stick and began on the chanting bit. And Boy pretended to trip and, as he did, he threw a fistful of powder he had ready into the gaslight.

Whup! it went.

Old Man jumped and glared and went on grimly chanting—he had to, you see, because you can’t stop magic once you have started—and all the bubbles drifted to the floor and burst, smicker, smicker, very softly. As each one burst, there was a little tiny pink animal on the floor, running about and calling, “Oink, oink, oink!” in a small squeaky voice. That nearly distracted me, as well as Old Man. I stared out at them with longing. I would have given worlds to jump out of the star and chase those beasties. They looked so beautifully eatable. But I knew I mustn’t try to come out of the star yet, so I shut my eyes and yawned to hold in the third sneeze and thought hard, hard, hard of a Good Thing. Let a Good Thing come! I thought. I thought as hard as you do when you see a saucer of milk held in the air above you, and you want them to put it on the floor—quick. Then I gave my third sneeze.

That reminds me. Milk? Yes, please, or I won’t be able to tell you any more.

Thank you. Keep your knee steady. You may stroke me if you wish. Where was I?

Right. When I opened my eyes, all the delicious beasties had vanished and the light burned sort of dingily. Old Man was beating Boy over the head with a stick. He could do that for once, because Boy was crouched by the wall laughing until his face ran tears. “Pigs!” he said. “Tiny little pigs! Oh, oh, oh!”

“I’ll pig you!” Old Man screamed. “You spoiled my spell! Look at the pentangle—there’s nothing there at all!”

But there was. I could feel the new Thing inside me. It wasn’t hateful at all, but it felt lost and a bit feeble. It was too scared to say or do anything or even let me move, until Old Man crossly broke the pentangle and stumped away upstairs.

Boy stood rubbing his head. “Pity it didn’t work, Brindle,” he said. “But wasn’t it worth it just for those pigs?”

“Master,” the Good Thing said with my mouth, “Master, how can I serve you, bound as I am?”

Boy stared, and his face went odd colors. I always wonder how you humans manage that. “Good Lord!” he said. “Did we do it after all? Or is it a demon?”

“I don’t think I’m a demon,” Good Thing said doubtfully. “I may be some kind of spirit. I’m not sure.”

“Can’t you get out of me?” I said to it in my head.

“No. Our Master would not be able to hear me if I did,” it told me.

“Bother you then!” I said, and started to wash.

“You can serve me, anyway, whatever you are,” Boy said to Good Thing. “Get me some food.”

“Yes, Master,” it made me say, and obeyed at once. I had just reached that stage of washing where you have one foot high in the air. I fell over. It was most annoying. Next minute I was rolling about in a huge warm room full of people cooking things. A kitchen, Boy said it was later. It smelled marvelous.... I hardly minded at all when Good Thing made me leap up and snatch a roast leg of mutton from the nearest table. But I did mind—a lot—when two men in white hats rushed at me shouting, “Damn cat!”

Good Thing didn’t know what to do about that at all, and it nearly got us caught. “Let me handle this!” I spat at it, and it did. I told you, it was a bit feeble. I dived under a big dresser where people couldn’t reach me and crouched there right at the back by the wall. It was a pity I had to leave the meat behind. It smelled wonderful. But I had to leave it, or they’d have gone on chasing me. “Now,” I said, when my coat had settled flat again, “you tell me what you want me to take and I’ll take it properly this time.”

Good Thing agreed that might work better. We waited until they’d all gone back to cooking and then slunk softly out into the room again. And Good Thing had been thinking all this time. It made me a sort of invisible sack. It was most peculiar. No one could see the sack, not even me, and it didn’t get in my way at all. I just knew it was behind me, filling up with the food I stole. Good Thing made me take stuff I’d never have dreamed of eating myself, like cinnamon jelly and—yuk!—cucumber, as well as good honest meat and venison pie and other reasonable things.

Then we were suddenly back in the cellar, where Boy was glumly clearing up. When he saw the food spilling out onto the floor, his face lit up. Good Thing had been right. He loved the jelly and even ate cucumber. For once in his life he really had enough to eat. I helped him eat the venison pie, and we both had strawberries and cream to finish with. I love those.

Which reminds me— Oh. Strawberries are out of season? Never mind. I’ll stay with you until they come back in. Rub my stomach again.

I was heavy and kind of round after that meal. Good Thing complained rather. “Well, get out of me then, and it won’t bother you,” I said. I wanted to sleep.

“In a minute,” it said. “Master, the cat tells me you want to escape, but I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”

Boy woke up in dismay. He was dropping off to sleep on the floor, being so full. “Why not?”

“Two reasons,” Good Thing said apologetically. “First, there is a very strong spell on you, which confines you to this house, and it is beyond my power to break it. Second, there is an equally strong spell on me. You and the cat broke part of it, the part which confined me to a small golden ball, but I am still forced to stay in the house where the golden ball is. The only other place I can go is the house I … came from.”

“Damn!” said Boy. “I did hope—”

“The spell that confines the cat is nothing like so strong,” Good Thing said. “I could raise that for you.”

“That’s something at least! Do that,” said Boy. He was a generous Boy. “And if you two could keep on fetching food, so that I can put my mind to something besides how hungry I am, then I might think of a way to break the spell on you and me.”

I was a little annoyed. It seemed that we had got Good Thing just because the golden ball had escaped from Old Man, and not because of Boy’s cleverness or my powers of thought. But though I knew the ball was down a crack just inside the place where Old Man usually drew his pentangle, I didn’t mention it to Boy in case his feelings were hurt, too.

We had great good times for quite a long while after that, Boy, Good Thing, and I, and Old Man never suspected at all. He was away a lot around then, anyway. While he was away, there were always a jug of milk and a loaf that appeared magically every four days, but Boy and I would have half starved on that without Good Thing. Good Thing took me to the kitchen place every day at suppertime, and we came back with every kind of food in the invisible sack. When Good Thing was not around—it quite often went away in the night and left me in peace—I went out across the roofs. I led a lovely extra life on top of the town. I met other cats by moonlight, but they were never as clever as me. I found out all sorts of things and came and told them to Boy. He was always very wistful about not being able to go out himself, but he listened to everything. He was like that. He was my friend. And he was a great comfort to me when I had my first kittens. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Boy guessed and he told me. Then he told me that we must hide the kittens or Old Man would know I had been able to go out. We were very secret and hid them in our cupboard in a nest of pigeon feathers.

I am good at having kittens. I’ll show you presently. I always have three, one tabby, one ginger, and one mixed like me. I had three kittens then, and Old Man never knew, even though they were quite noisy sometimes, especially after I taught them how to play with Good Thing.

When Good Thing came out of me, I could see it quite well, though Boy never could. It was quite big outside me, up to Boy’s shoulder, and frail and wafty, and it could float about at great speed. It enjoyed playing. I used to hunt it all round the house and leap on it, pretending to tear it to bits, and of course it would waft away between my paws. Boy used to guess where Good Thing was from my behavior and laugh at me hunting it. He laughed even more when my kittens were old enough to play hunting Good Thing, too.

By this time Boy was a fine, strong Boy, full of thoughts, and his soldier clothes were getting too short and tight. He asked Good Thing to get him some more clothes next time Old Man was away. So Good Thing and I went to another part of the mansion where the kitchen was. Boy said “house” was the wrong word for that place. He was right. It was big and grand. This time when we got there, we went sneaking at a run up a great stair covered with red carpet—or I went sneaking with Good Thing inside me—and along more carpet to a large room with curtains all around the walls. The curtains had pictures that Good Thing said were lords and ladies hunting animals with birds and horses. I never knew that birds were any help to people.

There was a space between the curtains and the walls, and Good Thing sent me sneaking through that space, around the room. There were people in the room. I peeped at them through a crack in the curtains.

There was a very fine Man there, almost as tall and fine as my Boy, but much older. With him were two of the ones in white hats from the kitchen. They held their hats in their hands, sorrowfully. With them was a Woman in long clothes, looking cross as Old Man.

“Yes indeed, sir, I saw this cat for myself, sir,” the Woman said. “It stole a cake under my very eyes, sir.”

“I swear to you, sir,” one of the white hats said, “it appears every evening and vanishes like magic with every kind of food.”

“It is magic, that’s why,” said the other white hat.

“Then we had better take steps to see where it comes from,” the fine Man said. “If I give you this—”

Good Thing wouldn’t let me stay to hear more. We ran on. “Oh, dear!” Good Thing said in my head as we ran. “We’ll have to be very careful after this!” We came to a room that was white and gold, with mirrors. Good Thing wouldn’t let me watch myself in the mirrors. The white-and-gold walls were all cupboards filled with clothes hanging or lying inside. We stuffed the invisible sack as full as it would hold with clothes from the cupboards, so that we would not need to go back. For once it felt heavy. I was glad to get back to Boy waiting in Old Man’s book room.

“Great Scott!” said Boy as the fine coats, good boots, silk shirts, cravats, and smooth trousers tumbled out onto the floor. “I can’t wear these! These are fit for a king! The Old Man would be bound to notice.” But he could not resist trying some of them on, all the same. Good Thing told me he looked good. I thought Boy looked far finer than the Man they belonged to.

After this, Boy became very curious about the mansion where the clothes and the food came from. He made me describe everything. Then he asked Good Thing, “Are there books in this mansion, too?”

“And pictures and jewels,” Good Thing said through me. “What does Master wish me to fetch? There is a golden harp, a musical box like a bird, a—”

“Just books,” said Boy. “I need to learn. I’m still so ignorant.”

Good Thing always obeyed Boy. The next night, instead of going to the kitchen, Good Thing took me to a vast room with a round ceiling held up by freckled pillars, where the walls were lined with books in shelves. Good Thing had one of its helpless turns there. “Which do you think our Master wants?” it asked me feebly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m only a cat. Let’s just take all we can carry. I want to get back to my kittens.”

So we took everything out of one shelf, and it was not right. Boy said he did not need twenty-four copies of the Bible: one was enough. The same went for Shakespeare. And he could not read Greek, he said. I spat. But we gathered up all the books except two and went back.

We had just spilled all the books onto the floor of the room with the freckled pillars when the big door burst open. The Man came striding in, with a crowd of others. “There’s the cat now!” they all cried out.

Good Thing had me snatch another book at random, and we went.

“And I daren’t go back for a while, Master,” Good Thing said to Boy.

I saw to my kittens; then I went out hunting. I fed Boy for the next few days—when he remembered to eat, that was. I stole a leg of lamb from an inn, a string of sausages from the butcher down the road, and a loaf and some buns from the baker. The kittens ate most of it. Boy was reading. He sat in his fine clothes, and he read, the Bible first, then Shakespeare, and then the book of history Good Thing had me snatch. He said he was educating himself. It was as if he were asleep. When Old Man suddenly came back, I had to dig all my claws into Boy to make him notice.

Old Man looked grumpily around everywhere to make sure everything was in order. He was always suspicious. I was scared. I made Good Thing stay with the kittens in the cupboard and hid the remains of the sausages in there with them. Boy was all dreamy, but he sat on the book of history to hide it. Old Man looked at him, hard. I was scared again. Surely Old Man would notice that Boy’s red coat was of fine warm cloth and that there was a silk shirt underneath? But Old Man said, “Stupid as ever, I see,” and grumped out of the house again.

Talking of sausages, when do you eat? Soon? Good. Now, go on stroking.

The next day Old Man was still away. Boy said, “Those were wonderful books. I must have more. I wish I didn’t have to trust a cat and a spirit to steal them. Isn’t there any way I can go and choose books for myself?”

Good Thing drifted about the house, thinking. At last it got into me and said, “There is no way I can take you to the mansion bodily, Master. But if you can go into a trance, I can take you there in spirit. Would that do?”

“Perfectly!” said Boy.

“Oh, no,” I said. “If you do, I’m coming, too. I don’t trust you on your own with my Boy, Good Thing. You might go feeble and lose him.”

“I will not!” said Good Thing. “But you may come if you wish. And we will wait till the middle of the night, please. We don’t want you to be seen again.”

Around midnight Boy cheerfully went into a trance. Usually he hated it when Old Man made him do it. And we went to the mansion again, all three of us. It was very odd. I could see Boy there the way I could see Good Thing, like a big, flimsy cloud. As soon as we were there, Boy was so astonished by the grandeur of it that he insisted on drifting all around it, upstairs and down, to see as much as he could. I was scared. Not everyone was asleep. There were gaslights or candles burning in most of the corridors, and someone could easily have seen me. But I stuck close to Boy because I was afraid Good Thing would lose him.

It was not easy to stay close. They could go through doors without opening them. When they went through one door upstairs, I had to jump up and work the handle in order to follow Boy inside. It was a pretty room. The quilt on the bed was a cat’s dream of comfort. I jumped up and paddled on it, while Boy and Good Thing hovered to look at the person asleep there. She was lit up by the nightlight beside the bed.

“What a lovely girl!” I felt Boy think. “She must be a princess.”

She sat up at that. I think it was because of me treading on her stomach. I went tumbling way backward, which annoyed me a good deal. She stared. I glowered and wondered whether to spit. “Oh!” she said. “You’re that magic cat my father wants to catch. Come here, puss. I promise I won’t let him hurt you.” She held out her hand. She was nice. She knew how to stroke a cat, just like you. I let her stroke me and talk to me, and I was just curling up to enjoy a rest on her beautiful quilt when a huge Woman sprang up from a bed on the other side of the room.

“Were you calling, my lady?” she asked. Then she saw me. She screamed. She ran to a rope hanging in one corner and heaved at it, screaming, “That cat’s back!”

“Run!” Good Thing said to me. “I’ll look after Boy.”

So I ran. I have never run like that in my life, before or since. It felt as if everyone in the mansion was after me. Luckily for me, I knew my way around quite well by then. I ran upstairs and I ran down, and people clattered after me, shouting. I dived under someone’s hand and dodged through a crooked cupboard place, and at last I found myself behind the curtains in the Man’s room. He ran in and out. Other people ran in and out, but the Princess really had done something to help me somehow and not one of them thought of looking behind those curtains.

After a bit I heard the Princess in that room, too. “But it’s a nice cat, Father—really sweet. I can’t think why you’re making all this fuss about it!” Then there was a sort of grating sound. I smelled the smallest whiff of fresh air. Bless her, she had opened the Man’s window for me.

I got out of it as soon as the room was empty. I climbed down onto grass. I ran again. I knew just the way I should go. Cats do, you know, particularly when they have kittens waiting for them. I was dead tired when I got to Old Man’s house. It was right on the other side of town. As I scrambled through the skylight in the roof, I was almost too tired to move. But I was dead worried about my kittens and about Boy, too. It was morning by then.

My kittens were fine, but Boy was still lying on the floor of the book room in a trance, cold as ice. And as if that were not enough, keys grated in the locks and Old Man came back. All I could think to do was to lie around Boy’s neck to warm him.

Old Man came and kicked Boy. “Lazy lump!” he said. “Anyone would think you were in a trance!” I couldn’t think what to do. I got up and hurried about, mewing for milk, to distract Old Man. He wasn’t distracted. Looking gleefully at Boy, he carefully put a jar of black powder away in his cupboard and locked it. Then he sat down and looked at one of his books, not bothering with me at all. He kept looking across at Boy.

My kittens distracted Old Man by having a fight in the cupboard about the last of the sausages. Old Man heard it and leaped up. “Scrambling and squeaking!” he said. “Mice! Could even be rats by the noise. Damn cat! Don’t you ever do your job?” He hit at me with his stick.

I tried to run. Oh, I was tired! I made for the stairs, to take us both away from Boy and my kittens, and Old Man caught me by my tail halfway up. I was that tired.... I was forced to bite him quite hard and scratch his face. He dropped me with a thump, so he probably did not hear the even louder thump from the book room. I did. I ran back there.

Boy was sitting up, shivering. There was a pile of books beside him.

“Good Thing!” I said. “That was stupid!”

“Sorry,” said Good Thing. “He would insist on bringing them.” The books vanished into the invisible sack just as Old Man stormed in.

He ranted and grumbled at Boy for laziness and for feeding me so that I didn’t catch mice, and he made Boy set mousetraps. Then he stormed off to the cellar.

“Why didn’t you come back sooner?” I said to Boy.

“It was too marvelous being somewhere that wasn’t this house,” Boy said. He was all dreamy with it. He didn’t even read his new books. He paced about. So did I. I realized that my kittens were not safe from Old Man. And if he found them, he would realize that I could get out of the house. Maybe he would kill me like the cat before. I was scared. I wished Boy would be scared, too. I wished Good Thing would show some sense. But Good Thing was only thinking of pleasing Boy.

“Don’t let him go into a trance again,” I said. “Old Man will know.”

“But I have to!” Boy shouted. “I’m sick of this house!” Then he calmed down and thought. “I know,” he said to Good Thing. “Fetch the Princess here.”

Good Thing got into me and bleated that this wasn’t wise now that Old Man was back. I said so, too. But Boy wouldn’t listen. He had to have Princess. Or else he would go into a trance and see her that way. I understood then. Boy wanted kittens. Very little will stop boys or cats when they do.

So we gave in. When Old Man was asleep and snoring, Boy dressed himself in the middle of the night in the Man’s finest clothes and looked fine as fine. He even washed in horrible cold water, in spite of all I said. Then Good Thing went to the mansion.

Instants later the Princess was lying asleep on the floor of the book room. “Oh,” Boy said sorrowfully, “what a shame to wake her!” But he woke her up all the same.

She rubbed her eyes and stared at him. “Who are you, sir?”

Boy said, “Oh, Princess—”

She said, “I think you’ve made a mistake, sir. I’m not a princess. Are you a prince?”

Boy explained who he was and all about himself, and she explained that her father was a rich magician. She was a disappointment to him, she said, because she could hardly do any magic and was not very clever. But Boy still called her Princess. She said she would call him Orange because of his hair. She may not have been clever, but she was nice. I sat on her knee and purred. She stroked me and talked to Boy for the whole night, until it began to get light. They did nothing but talk. I said to Good Thing that it was a funny way to have kittens. Good Thing was not happy. Princess did not understand about Good Thing. Boy gave up trying to explain. Good Thing drifted about, sulking.

When it was really light, Princess said she must go back. Boy agreed, but they put it off and kept talking. That was when I had my good idea. I went to the cupboard and fetched out my kittens, one by one, and I put them into Princess’s lap.

“Oh!” she said. “What beauties!”

“Tell her she’s to keep them and look after them,” I said to Boy.

He told her, and she said, “Brindle can’t mean it! It seems such a sacrifice. Tell her it’s sweet of her, but I can’t.”

“Make her take them,” I said. “Tell her they’re a present from you, if it makes her happier. Tell her they’re a sign that she’ll see you again. Tell her anything, but make her take them!”

So Boy told her, and Princess agreed. She gathered the tabby and the ginger and the mixed kitten into her hands, and Good Thing took her and the kittens away. We stood staring at the place where she had been, Boy and I. Things felt empty, but I was pleased. My kittens were safe from Old Man, and Princess had kittens now, which ought to have pleased Boy, even if they were mine and not his. I did not understand why he looked so sad.

Old Man was standing in the doorway behind us. We had not heard him getting up. He glared at the fine way Boy was dressed. “How did you come by those clothes?”

“I did a spell,” Boy said airily. Well, it was true in a way. Boy’s mood changed when he realized how clever we had been. He said, “And Brindle got rid of the mice,” and laughed.

Old Man was always annoyed when Boy laughed. “Funny, is it?” he snarled. “For that, you can go down to the cellar, you and your finery, and stay there till I tell you to come out.” And he put one of his spells on Boy, so that Boy had to go. Old Man locked the cellar door on him. Then he turned back, rubbing his hands and laughing, too. “Last laugh’s mine!” he said. “I thought he knew more than he let on, but there’s no harm done. I’ve still got him!” He went and looked in almanacs and horoscopes and chuckled more. Boy was eighteen that day. Old Man began looking up spells, lots of them, from the bad black books that even he rarely touched.

“Brindle,” said Good Thing, “I am afraid. Do one thing for me.”

“Leave a cat in peace!” I said. “I need to sleep.”

Good Thing said, “Boy will soon be dead and I will be shut out forever unless you help.”

“But my kittens are safe,” I said, and I curled up in the cupboard.

“They will not be safe,” said Good Thing, “unless you do this for me.”

“Do what for you?” I said. I was scared again, but I stretched as if I didn’t care. I do not like to be bullied. You should remember that.

“Go to the cellar in my invisible sack and tell Boy where the golden ball is,” Good Thing said. “Tell him to fetch it out of the floor and give it to you.”

I stretched again and strolled past Old Man. His face was scratched all over, I was glad to see, but he was collecting things to work spells with now. I strolled quite fast to the cellar door. There Good Thing scooped me up and went inside, in near dark. Boy was sitting against the wall.

“Nice of you to come,” he said. “Will Good Thing fetch Princess again tonight?” He did not think there was any danger. He was used to Old Man behaving like this. But I thought of my kittens. I showed him the place where the golden ball had got lost down the crack. I could see it shining down there. It took me ages to persuade Boy to dig it out, and even then he only worked at it idly, thinking of Princess. He could only get at it with one little finger, which made it almost too difficult for him to bother.

I heard Old Man coming downstairs. I am ashamed to say that I bit Boy, quite hard, on the thumb of the hand he was digging with. He went “Ow!” and jerked, and the ball flew rolling into a corner. I raced after it.

“Put it in your mouth. Hide it!” said Good Thing.

I did. It was hard not to swallow it. Then, when I didn’t swallow, it was hard not to spit it out. Cats are made to do one or the other. I had to pretend it was a piece of meat I was taking to my kittens. I sat in the corner, in the dark, while Old Man came in and locked the door and lit the tripod lamp.

“If you need Brindle,” Boy said, sulkily sucking his hand, “you can look for her. She bit me.”

“This doesn’t need a cat,” Old Man said. Boy and I were both astonished. “It just needs you,” he told Boy. “This is the life transfer spell I was trying on the black cat. This time I know how to get it right.”

“But you said you couldn’t do it without a special powder!” Boy said.

Old Man giggled. “What do you think I’ve been away looking for all this year?” he asked. “I’ve got a whole jar of it! With it, I shall put myself into your body and you into my body, and then I shall kill this old body off. I won’t need it or you after that. I shall be young and handsome, and I shall live for years. Stand up. Get into the pentangle.”

“Blowed if I shall!” said Boy.

But Old Man did spells and made him. It took a long time because Boy resisted even harder than I usually did and shouted spells back. In the end Old Man cast a spell that made Boy stand still and drew the five-pointed star around him, not in the usual place.

“I shall kill my old body with you inside it rather slowly for that,” he said to Boy. Then he drew another star, a short way off. “This is for my bride,” he said, giggling again. “I took her into my power ten years ago, and by now she’ll be a lovely young woman.” Then he drew a third star, overlapping Boy’s, for himself, and stood in it chuckling. “Let it start!” he cried out, and threw the strong, smelly black powder on the tripod. Everything went green-dark. When the green went, Princess was standing in the empty star.

“Oh, it’s you!” she and Boy both said.

“Aha!” said Old Man. “Hee-hee! So you and she know one another, do you? How you did it, boy, I won’t inquire, but it makes things much easier for me.” He began on his chanting.

“Give the golden ball to Princess,” Good Thing said to me. “Hurry. Make Boy tell her to swallow it.”

I ran across to Princess and spit the golden ball into her star. She pulled her skirt back from it.

“Brindle wants you to swallow it,” Boy said. “I think it’s important.”

People are peculiar. Princess must have known it was very important, but she said faintly, “I can’t! Not something that’s been in a cat’s mouth!”

Old Man saw the golden ball. He glared, still chanting, and raised his stick. The ball floated up and came toward him. Princess gave a last despairing snatch and caught it, just in time. She put it in her mouth.

“Ah! Back again!” said Good Thing.

Princess swallowed. She changed. She had been nice before but sort of stupid. Now she was nice and as clever as Boy. “You toad!” she said to Old Man. “That was part of my soul! You took it, didn’t you?”

Old Man raised his stick again. Princess held up both hands. Magic raged, strong enough to make my fur stand up, and Old Man did not seem to be able to do much at first. It was interesting. Princess had magic, too, only I think it had all gone into Good Thing. But not quite enough. She started to lose. “Help me!” she said to Boy.

Boy started to say a spell, but at that moment the door of the cellar burst open, and half the wall fell in with it. The Man rushed in with a crowd of others.

“Father!” said Princess. “Thank goodness!”

“Are you all right?” said the Man. “We traced you through those kittens. What are you trying to do here, Old Man? The life transfer, is it? Well, that’s enough of that!” The Man made signs that stood my coat up on end again.

Old Man screamed. I could tell he was dying. The spell had somehow turned back on him. He was withering and shrinking and getting older and older. Boy jumped out of his star and ran to Princess. They both looked very happy. Old Man snarled at them, but he could do nothing but round on me. Everyone does that. They all kick the cat when they can’t kick a person. “So you had kittens!” he screamed. “This is all your fault, cat! For that, you shall have kittens to drown for the next thousand years!”

“I soften that curse!” the Man shouted.

Then everything went away, and I was not in the town I knew anymore. I have been wandering about, all these years, ever since. Old Man’s curse means that I am good at having kittens. It is not a bad curse because the Man has softened it. Old Man meant my kittens to be drowned every time. But instead, if I can find an understanding person—like you—who will listen to my story, then my kittens will have good homes, and so will I for a time. You won’t mind. They’ll be beautiful kittens. They always are. You’ll see very soon now. After supper.