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For Bailey Dane Bataille and Cullen Bauer-Trottier.
The wide, wide world is waiting.
—M. D. B.
Acknowledgments
My thanks, as always, to Rubin Pfeffer of RPContent, agent extraordinaire!
And to my editor, Kristin Ostby, who saw this little cat home.
Little cat,
searching.
Little calico cat
searching for a place,
a special place
to be her very own.
What she would do with a special place
once she found it,
she wasn’t sure.
Perhaps she would just curl up for a good nap.
But if she didn’t know
what her special place was for,
she knew exactly
what it would be like.
Hidden away,
snug,
dark,
quiet . . .
very, very quiet.
The little cat,
whose name was Patches,
by the way,
had checked
every possible spot
in her
entire
house,
looking for her special place.
Corners,
closets,
cupboards.
Even the dusty space
behind the refrigerator
and the floor beneath the kitchen table
next to the chipped blue bowl
that held her kibble . . .
and occasionally a touch of tuna.
Nothing
was quite right.
Not the pillow
where she slept
next to her girl’s sweet breathing.
Too open.
Not the basement
where her man pounded nails
and whirled saws.
Too noisy.
Not the studio
where her woman
slathered paint.
Too smelly!
And so,
on the day our story begins,
Patches sat just inside the window
at the front of her house,
gazing out
at the wide wide world
and longing.
She licked a paw
and ran it over her ginger ear.
She washed her black ear next.
But just as she was starting on
her pretty white face,
something caught her eye.
Something golden.
Something
f
a
l
l
i
n
g.
The golden leaf
wafted
this way
and that
as though it meant
to go anywhere
but
down.
“Come catch me!
I dare you!”
it seemed to say.
The white tip of Patches’s patchy tail
twitched
and her eyes—
as golden as the leaf—
blazed.
“I want . . .
I want . . .
I want . . . ,”
she chirred.
And her wanting grew more fierce
with each saying of it.
So fierce that,
without thinking what she was doing,
she sprang
at the window screen
that stood between her
and
the
falling
leaf
and all the rest of the wide world.
To her astonishment
the screen gave way.
And Patches found herself standing
among the red berry bushes
that grew
around the base
of the house.
All this happened so fast
that the leaf
still floated in the air.
It twirled,
dipped,
drifted toward the grass,
and then . . .
just as Patches crouched,
ready to leap again,
another breeze tossed the leaf high.
She pounced and
missed.
The chase was on!
Across the lawn,
along the sidewalk,
down
the
middle
of
the
street,
Patches followed.
(Lucky there were no cars coming.)
She tiptoed
ew-w-w! prickly!—
then crossed a second street.
Still,
the
leaf
called.
(Or perhaps
by this time
she followed a different leaf,
still gold,
still calling.)
Just when Patches
got close enough
to pounce,
another gust came along,
and the golden leaf
up
and
sailed up
and disappeared
of
peak a
the red
over roof.
The little cat slowed,
stopped,
sat.
She licked her nose.
(In case you didn’t know,
that’s what cats do
when they’re upset.)
She wrapped her tail
around her haunches
and peered
over one shoulder.
Then the other.
But she could no longer
see the leaf
anywhere.
For that matter,
she could no longer
see her house
anywhere
either.
She was alone
under the blue bowl of the sky.
Now,
you might think a small cat,
a small house cat,
who has been petted and cuddled
and fed from a chipped blue bowl
her entire life,
would be frightened
to find herself alone
out in the BIG world.
But Patches hadn’t forgotten
the important search she was on.
She looked around and thought,
Look at all this space!
There must be hundreds
of special places out here.
Thousands.
Each one more hidden away,
snug,
dark,
quiet,
than the one before.
What luck
that the golden leaf had called her!
What luck
that the screen had released her!
What luck
that the whole blue-and-gold world
lay stretched out before her!
What excellent luck!
Some cats
are born to adventure.
They prowl their towns
night and
day,
exploring shrubs,
alleys,
the Dumpster
behind the butcher’s shop.
They catch a mouse or two
and scatter
flock
a of
sparrows.
Then they have
a howling fight
and,
pleased with themselves—
and perhaps a bit bloody—
they pad on home
to ask
politely
for a bit of cream.
As you already know,
Patches was not
one of those cats.
The closest
she had ever come to adventure
was the time,
this past summer,
when Thomas,
the orange tabby
who lived next door,
slipped through a gap
in the screen door
for a visit.
They had played
chase over the sofa,
roll across the rug,
hug under the table
the whole afternoon.
But the instant
Patches’s family arrived home
and found Thomas visiting—
too soon,
too soon—
he had slipped away
through the same gap
that had let him in.
(Sadly,
the next day,
when Patches
checked out the screen door
herself,
she found it
sealed up
tight.
So Thomas never returned.)
But Patches’s time with Thomas,
though certainly an adventure,
had taught her
little about the world.
The truth was,
she knew as much
about living outside
on her own
as you and I would know
about living
on the moon.
Still . . .
she swiped a paw across her whiskers—
a cat must always make sure
her whiskers
and in good order
before she takes on
any serious endeavor—
then she rose,
and,
holding her tail
straight
as
a
p
o
k
e
r,
she moved on.
If she went back home,
her family would,
no doubt,
fix the loose window screen
just as they had fixed the door.
So if there was ever a time
to find
her special place,
it was now.
A dog
barked in the distance.
Patches had never met a dog.
Not nose to nose,
anyway.
She’d seen lots of them
trotting by her watching window
on leashes.
They seemed
such foolishly obedient
creatures.
Still,
it might be interesting
to meet a dog.
At least it would be someone
to talk to.
Humans were so little use
when it came
to talking.
Or perhaps
it would be best to say
they were of so little use
when it came
to listening.
Mostly they did
all the talking
themselves,
as though
a perfectly intelligent cat
had nothing to say.
And who knew?
Dogs might not be as foolish
as they looked.
This one might even know
about special places.
No harm in asking,
anyway.
Patches set off
in the direction
of the noise.
Gus was the meanest dog in town.
Everyone said so.
He lived
in the green yard
belonging to a small tan house
on the corner
of Birch and Larpenter Streets.
The post office,
the Piggly Wiggly,
and Joe’s Gas and Grill
sat on the other three corners,
which made Birch and Larpenter
a very busy intersection.
And that made Gus
a very busy dog.
All day
he up down
ran and
his chain-link fence,
barking at every car
that passed by.
He barked at every bicycle,
too.
In fact,
he barked at every cat
and dog
and person
who ran
or walked
or tried to sneak past.
Sometimes he even barked
at the birds
in the trees
just to show them
who was boss.
He curled his lips
to show his long yellow teeth
and growled
and snarled
and yelled.
“Go!
“Get out of here!
Go! Go! Go!”
Not that humans heard
“Go! Go! Go!”
They heard only
“Bark! Bark! Bark!”
But you and I know
what Gus was really saying.
Gus was enormous,
but he wasn’t exactly handsome.
He had long legs
and a skinny tail
and ears that hung down
like limp
w
a
s
h
r
a
g
s.
He had a head
about the size
and the shape
of a shoe box.
He was gray,
the color of the ashes
left behind in your fireplace
after the cheerful fire
has grown cold.
And his coat was coarse
and wiry,
not the least bit soft
to the touch.
Gus wasn’t an orphan.
He had a man,
a woman,
a boy
inside the tan house.
Actually,
he had once lived
inside the tan house
himself.
He’d spent his puppyhood
there,
cheerfully knocking over vases,
putting his paws
on the shoulders
of visiting grandmothers,
and gulping
every bit of food
he could get
his mouth
around.
And what Gus could manage
to fit into his enormous mouth
was truly amazing.
Once
he rested his chin
on the dining room table
and ate
a huge steak,
three baked potatoes,
a green salad,
and an ear of corn
without pausing
to take
a breath.
(It was when he stopped
to spit out the cob
that he got caught.)
And it didn’t help
that when one of his humans said,
“Sit!”
Gus got a look in his eye
tha
t said,
Who, me?
or that when they said,
“Stay!”
he galloped away
and
ran
all around
the
house.
Then
there was that other problem.
I don’t like to mention it,
but the truth was . . .
Gus smelled.
And when I say he smelled,
you will understand
he did not smell
like roses
or like baking bread
or like any of the many scents
we all welcome
when we walk
into a house.
He smelled—
no doubt about it!—
like dog,
a large
and rather dirty
dog.
And yes,
I hear your question.
“Hadn’t anyone ever thought
of giving the poor thing
a bath?”
If only the problem
could be solved
so easily.
You see,
the man,
the woman,
and the boy
had tried,
more than once,
to bathe Gus.
But Gus was so big
and the tub so small
and the water so wet that . . .
well,
let me explain it this way.
Imagine the damage
an enormous dog
might do
galloping
merrily
through a small house.
Then consider
what an enormous, wet, muddy, soapy dog
might accomplish
careening
through the same small space.
So perhaps
when you consider all Gus’s faults
you’ll understand
why the man finally declared
that Gus must
never,
ever,
ever
come inside the house
again.
You might think the man hardhearted—
the boy did—
but even the woman agreed.
“Some dogs are not meant
for inside,”
she said.
Which was why Gus
lived in the green yard
and spent his days
running along the chain-link fence
shouting, “Go! Go! Go!”
It was also why
he’d turned
sad
and angry . . .
and,
let’s face it,
rather mean.
Gus didn’t mind
that the town thought he was mean.
In fact,
he had grown rather proud
of his fierce reputation.
Proud of the way
a dash at the fence
with his bark blaring
could make folks decide,
quite suddenly,
to cross the street
(pretending
as they hurried away
that across the street
was where they had meant to go
all along).
And so,
when Gus saw
a small calico cat
marching toward him
with her tail high,
as though she owned the whole town,
he took his job