Content As A Cat: A Story Of Belonging.
For our cat Bodhi who is totally inspiring and wild.
There once was a crime in Barrington. It wasn’t a petty crime like someone stole one of their neighbours pencils. No, it was much bigger than that. And it needed two people to work it out. Those two people were my human owner, a girl called Talullah Knox and myself.
I am a cat. Don’t mock, cats are extremely clever. Well, they have to be to catch prey as sneaky as mice and rats. Also, I am no ordinary cat, I mean I did solve a crime! With help from my girl of course.
First let me tell you a bit about myself.
My name is Basir which means wise in Muslim; Talullah told me. I live quite comfortably in Talullah’s house with her father Theodore and mother Lotus. They also have a great garden for exploring and catching mice or shrews. I was happy with my life and all was well. It was earlier this summer that things started to happen.
One day I was looking at myself in the mirror when a human voice said
“Look at me!”
“Who’s there?” I asked, startled when I realised that the voice was me! I could speak human! Well, as you can imagine I was utterly shocked and didn’t know what to do with myself. I ran straight into Talullah’s room.
“Hey what’s spooked you?” she asked. I opened my mouth to meow but I was worried that I might accidentally speak human so I shut it again. I simply twitched my ears instead.
“Come here,” Talullah told me. “You can stay here with me for a while if you like,” she said and patted the space next to her on the bed. I gladly took it up and snuggled into her. I slept well but my dreams were taunted by the thought that I wasn’t a real cat; I was a freak cat.
For weeks I tried to forget but my thoughts tortured me into submission. One day I could bear it no longer and so went round to see Jeeves who is next door’s Scottish Fold.
Jeeves got his name from the tales of P.G.Wodehouse. You see, his owner Mr. Doyle Stevenson was a big fan of the stories and when he got this strong old Scottish Fold he knew that he could depend upon it, just like Wooster depends on Jeeves, though Wooster would never admit it!
Anyway, Jeeves is very thoughtful and a good friend of mine so I went round to see him. I climbed over the blue knackered fence between the gardens and jumped down. Slinking across the garden path I reached Jeeves’ cat-flap.
“Meow!” I said and urgently scratched at the wall.
“Ugh! It’s that cat from next door,” I heard Mr. Stevenson say. “Go see what he wants,” he told Jeeves. Jeeves stared back at his owner coolly. He then plodded along to the cat-flap.
I told Jeeves that I needed to speak with him on a matter of urgency. Jeeves nodded and slipped through the cat-flap. We stalked through the grass until we were sure that Mr. Stevenson wouldn’t hear us.
“What is it, O, Great Wise One?” Jeeves asked me. ‘Great Wise One’ is his nickname for me.
“I am rather in shock,” I told him. “You see, I’ve learnt that I can speak human,” I said and demonstrated.
“My dear friend,” said Jeeves. “Do not worry! This is a naturally-occurring phenomenon. I can speak human too,” he said and showed me.
“But how does it come about? Can all cats do this?” I asked.
“No,” said Jeeves and his shoulders seemed to slump. “You know how my ears are folded?”
I nodded.
“Well it’s because of a deformity. Something went wrong in my DNA and so my ears are as they are. It’s the same idea with speaking human.”
“So you’re telling me that something went wobbly in my genes and gave me vocal chords that can say human words?” This seemed impossible; it was too far-fetched.
Jeeves nodded gravely.
“Mouse Tails!” I squeaked and then quickly apologised for my language.
“It’s ok, I was the same when I found out,” Jeeves told me. I thanked for helping me out and I promised to visit him again soon.
“It’s alright, I’d do anything for you my friend.”
“Oh, and one last thing,” called Jeeves as I began to climb the fence. “Let’s keep this between ourselves, as your owners would probably freak if they found out their cat could talk.”
“Roger that!” I said and went back home. I felt so happy that I wasn’t a freak cat. And yet, I was still unsure how to prevent myself from speaking human.
What would Talullah and her parents do to me if that happened? This thought kept on chewing worry inside me. I could feel it niggle a hole at the pit of my stomach. Every time one of the Knoxes asked me a question like “Shall we get you some food then, eh?” I would open my mouth to say “Yes please!” in cat, only to remember that I might accidentally speak human.
Then one evening, I came out to the Knoxes’ front drive. It was rubbish-collecting day in Barrington and so everyone for miles around were putting out their bins, including Talullah. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Mr. Stevenson dragging a huge and bulky package towards the woods.
My tail twitched and my ears swivelled round. Talullah noticed.
“What’s up, Basir?” she asked me.
I wanted to tell her there was something wrong, really wrong, with that package. But the consequences… no, I would have to tell her as a cat and nothing more. Surely there was someway I could show her without speaking human words, surely. I focused hard, putting all my effort into not speaking human.
“Meow!” I screeched. I scratched furiously at the ground with my paws and vigorously rubbed my head on Talullah’s knee. A minute later Talullah finally got the idea that I wanted her to follow me.
Cautiously we tip-toed after Mr. Stevenson who kept on dragging the odd package with him. Talullah soon realised what we were doing.
“Why are we following him?” she asked me. I opened my mouth and then closed it again when I realised that, of course, she was expecting me to actually reply.
Suddenly a sharp smell came sailing through the air and hit my nose. I knew that smell. It was the smell of a dead creature. As soon as Mr. Stevenson had dropped the package and returned to his house, I ran towards it. I had to find out what or rather who was inside that bag. I nearly yelled “Come on!” to Talullah but I didn’t need to as she was already chasing after me. I scrabbled at the package until Talullah opened it for us to see inside. I was already expecting something gruesome but Talullah wasn’t quite so prepared.
“What the-” she cried and was then violently sick in the bushes. For there, concealed within the bag, was the body of a young woman who had been stabbed to death. How we knew this was because there were great stab wounds in her chest, covered in blood. This woman had been obviously murdered and we needed to solve her crime. Clearly Talullah was on the same page as me because she quickly pulled out her phone and snapped some photos.
“For evidence,” she told me.
We walked back home, slightly shaken up by our encounter. Talullah went through her photos, looking at them thoughtfully.
“I think I know the woman,” she told me eventually. “I’m pretty certain she was Mr. Stevenson’s girlfriend. I saw them kissing in the garden a few weeks ago.” At a normal time I would have disapproved of Talulah disberting someone’s privacy but this was important. If the woman truly had been Mr. Stevenson’s lover then there was a possibility for motive.
I needed to find more evidence. So that afternoon I snuck into Mr. Stevenson’s house. Luckily Mr. Stevenson himself was out; Jeeves told me. When I told Jeeves why I was there he immediately said that I must solve this terrible crime. I was glad he was on board. Searching in Mr. Stevenson’s bedroom we found two crucial pieces of evidence. One was a bloody shirt presumed he’d worn when murdering the victim, and the other was a USB stick. We discovered that when Talullah plugged it into her computer, it contained some photos and videos of his girlfriend with other men. It seemed like Mr. Stevenson had got a little jealousy problem and he thought the best way to fix his girlfriend was if there was no girlfriend.
“We need to show the police what we’ve found!” Talullah told us.
“Meow!” Jeeves and I said in agreement.
***
Over the next few weeks the police spent a lot of time in Barrington. Mr. Stevenson was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend Grace-Lynn Parker and sentenced to spend the next five years in prison.
Plus, Talullah and I got our pic in the newspaper. Talullah read it to me. It said:
Miss Knox & Her Cat Solve Local Murder!
Murder in Barrington!
Written by Daniel Sparksmith.
Miss Talullah Knox and her cat Basir were the two people behind solving the murder of 23 year old Grace-Lynn Parker, who was murder by her partner Mr. Doyle Stevenson who has now been sentenced to spend the next five years’ imprisonment. When asked why Basir was important to solving the crime Miss Knox simply said “He solved the murder; not me. I only told the police.”
And so, from that day forward, I was happy that, although I might be a very unusual cat, I was a very brilliant one indeed. I was simply as content as a cat could be.
The end!
PS I have now written a sequel to this story, so if you enjoyed reading this one then please check out “Seeing The Other Side.” — here is the link:
https://medium.com/@ataleofjourneys/seeing-the-other-side-a-short-story-9b428c8cc305
Thanks for reading,
Hetty Monksea
