realized her mistake.
Making conversation with your dinner
is never
a good idea.
It makes the first bite
so very
hard
to take.
“Please!”
the mouseling said again,
and his pink nose
with its tickly-looking whiskers
went
sniffle-sniffle-sniff.
Without another word,
Patches lifted her paw.
And the mouseling
snatched up his bright red berry
and
s
k
i
t
t
e
r
e
d
away.
Patches laid her white chin
on her white paws
and sighed.
What kind of a cat was she,
anyway,
who couldn’t even eat a mouse?
Her tummy rumbled
more loudly than ever.
Then it wriggled again,
just for good measure.
When Patches woke again
night still lay heavily
upon the world.
Nothing stirred,
not even a mouseling.
She crawled out
from beneath the mailbox.
The rain had stopped,
but the sidewalk was still
unpleasantly wet.
Her tummy rumbled
and wriggled
even harder than before.
Patches stepped onto the grass.
It was wetter still.
If she were home,
she would be
curled on her girl’s pillow.
Just thinking about
her girl
and that soft pillow
and the sweet smell
of her girl’s breath
when she slept
almost set Patches to purring.
Almost.
She wasn’t home,
though,
and her girl wasn’t there,
so the purr got stuck in her throat
and stayed silent.
Patches looked up
at the fat-faced moon
peeking out
from behind
his cloud.
“Can you help?”
she asked.
“You must see everything
from up there.
I’ll bet you know
all the special places.
I’ll bet you even know
where my house is.”
The moon said nothing.
“Please!”
said Patches,
remembering how
she seemed to have no choice
but to do what the mouseling asked
when he’d said, “Please.”
“Please!”
she said again.
“Will you help me?”
A silvery voice
floated
down
from
overhead.
“What-what-what
are you do-doing down there
in the night?”
it said.
“Don’t you know
everybody’s
s-s-sleeping?”
The moon!
The moon had spoken . . .
and to her!
Patches was so excited
that
a
ridge
of
hair
stood
up
all
along
her
spine.
Still
she answered politely.
This was the moon
she was talking to,
after all.
“Dear sir,”
she said,
“I’m down here
in the night,
looking for a special place.
One of my very own.
And I’m lonesome
and damp
and much too hungry
to sleep.”
“Oh my,”
said the moon.
“My-my-my!
I’m good at special p-p-places.
It’s one of-of-of my specialties,
didn’t you know?
And I’m g-g-good at hungry,
too.
Just-just-just you wait!”
So Patches did.
She sat down
in the wet
grass
and waited
for the moon to feed her.
In a moment
she heard a skittering
in a nearby tree.
The skittering
was followed
by a swish in the grass.
Was the moon going to come so close?
Patches had thought
such an important gentleman
would merely drop
something
from the sky.
A shower of kibble
or perhaps
a bit
of tuna.
She closed her eyes
against the shine
that was sure to come
and waited
some more.
When nothing happened,
she opened one eye.
Then the other.
The night was as dark
as before,
and the moon still floated
in the sky
far away.
But a small red squirrel
sat in front
of her,
holding a fat acorn
in her precise
little
paws.
“H-h-here it is!”
she said.
“Enjoy-joy-joy!”
“Oh!”
said Patches,
in a rather small voice.
When you’re expecting the moon,
it can be hard
to know what to say
to a small red squirrel.
But still,
the little cat gathered herself
quickly.
She was,
as I’ve already mentioned,
a polite cat.
And so she reached
with a gentle paw
to touch the acorn.
It was smooth
and round
and extremely hard.
“How kind,”
she said.
“Very, very kind.
But my teeth,
you see . . .
my teeth
are sharp and strong,
of course.”
And she opened her mouth
to show
just how sharp
and how strong.
“But I’m afraid
they aren’t nearly
as sharp and strong
as yours.
I don’t believe
I could eat
an acorn,
no matter how hard
I tried.”
It was the squirrel’s turn
to say,
“Oh!”
She leaned forward
to peer at Patches’s teeth.
“I see-see-see,”
she said.
And then she sat for a moment,
thinking
and nibbling on the acorn
herself.
(It would,
after all,
be a shame
to let a perfectly good acorn
go to waste.)
“Have you not found anything
that suits your teeth?”
she asked
after several nibbles.
Patches ducked her head,
embarrassed.
“I did catch a mouse,”
she said,
and she gave the fine white fur
on her chest
a good comb
with her spiky tongue.
“It was a young mouseling.”
“Oh!”
exclaimed the squirrel.
“Well,”
she said,
“that’s good, I’m sure.”
She sat up
and her tail
sat up, too, curled, just at the end.
“I’d almost for-for-forgotten about cats
eating mice.”
But then she leaned forward
and studied Patches
closely.
“And you’re st-st-still hungry?”
Patches ducked her head
even lower.
“I let him go,”
she said
to
the
grass.
“Why?”
cried the squirrel.
“Why did you let him g-g-go
when you
were hungry?”
“Because . . . ,”
Patches whispered.
This conversation
was growing more embarrassing
by the minute!
“Because,”
she said again,
more softly
still,
“the mouseling said,
‘Please!’ ”
For a long moment
the squirrel sat silent.
“I s-s-see,”
she said
finally.
Then she lowered her tail
until it rested
on the grass,
and said,
“It would indeed b-b-be hard
to eat
someone who says,
‘P-p-please!’ ”
“Yes,”
agreed Patches.
“Very hard!”
And then cat and squirrel
sat side by side
beneath the solemn moon,
trying to think.
What was there in all the world
for a cat,
alone in the night,
to eat
besides acorns
that were too hard
and baby mice
who were too polite?
The wind,
playing among the dry leaves,
said, “Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh!”
The moon stared and stared
as though
he had no one to look at
except
one calico cat
and a small
red
squirrel.
The night
wrapped itself
softly
around cat and squirrel.
But then Patches remembered.
“That noisy dog
across the street,”
she said.
“He has a bowl of kibble.
He has water, too.
I saw.”
“Are you talking about G-G-Gus?”
the squirrel cried.
“The meanest dog in t-t-town?
If you eat his food,
he’ll eat you
in a s-s-single g-g-gulp!”
Patches considered
being eaten in a single gulp.
It sounded
like an experience
she would rather avoid.
But still,
her tummy
kept complaining.
Gazing across the street,
she could see
that
lump was
pointy Gus’s
a doghouse.
She could make out Gus’s bowls
beside the doghouse
too,
because,
as you know,
cats see very well
in the dark.
“Does Gus sleep
in the doghouse?”
she asked.
“No-no-no!”
The squirrel flicked her tail
with each “no!”
“Gus always spends the night
on the b-b-back stoop,
as close
to his b-b-boy
as he can g-g-get.”
Patches’s tummy rumbled
again.
Something must be done!
She gave her paw
a lick,
drew it across her ginger ear
for luck,
then stepped out
into the street,
holding
head
and
tail
high.
Surely
the meanest dog in town
barked so hard during the day
that he must sleep
soundly
at night.
The wind sighed,
and the moon hid his face
behind another cloud.
The squirrel
sat perfectly still,
her paws neatly folded
across her stomach,
watching
the
white
tip
of
Patches’s
tail
disappear
in
the
dark.
“Oh my-my-my!”
she whispered.
“I hope that little c-c-cat
is quick!”
The first obstacle
Patches encountered
was,
of course,
the fence.
It was tall
and strong
and made of a sturdy metal mesh.
But a fence
perfectly designed
to confine an enormous dog
may present little challenge
for a small cat.
Patches quickly found
a way in.
Gus had been digging
in one corner,
and if she didn’t mind
scooching her neat white belly
through some crumbly dirt,
she yard.
could Gus’s
crawl into
under right
the and
fence
When she emerged,
she looked over at the stoop.
The squirrel had been right.
A Gus-size lump
lay stretched
along it.
Even with her night-seeing eyes,
she couldn’t make out
the
long,
limp
ears,
or the yellow teeth,
but she knew
that shape had to be Gus.
Patches
tiptoed
through the grass,
trying
to avoid
the crisp
leaves
scattered
about.
But despite being a cat
with very small paws,
that was a bit
like trying
to walk on air.
So the fallen leaves said,
rustle,
rustle,
snapple,
crick
with each
and every
step.
Patches tiptoed on.
Gus remained a lump on the stoop.
Patches’s tummy rumbled even louder
as she approached Gus’s bowl.
Ten more inches.
Six.
Two.
She leaned
over the edge of the bowl.
She opened her mouth.
She picked up
a crumb of Gus’s kibble.
The kibble didn’t have
the nice fishy tas
te
of the kibble served
in the chipped blue bowl.
Still,
it was food,
the first food
Patches had tasted
since breakfast.
And breakfast
had been long, long ago.
But just as the little cat bit down,
just as the taste of kibble
burst
on her small, pink tongue,
just as her tummy
rumbled again,
this time in appreciation
for what was about to come,
just as all that happened,
Patches noticed something.
It was something
so astonishing
that she almost forgot to swallow.
Right in front of her,
under her own pink-and-black nose,
a place.
A special place.
The one she’d been searching for
all along!
This was it
exactly.
Hidden away,
snug,
dark,
quiet,
very, very special.
It was supposed to be a doghouse.
Patches knew that.
It was supposed to be Gus’s doghouse.
She knew that,
too.
But it couldn’t have been more perfect
or more exactly
what she needed
if it had been built
just
for her.
She sniffed.
The space smelled of Gus.
In fact,
it smelled a whole lot of Gus.
(And you’ll remember
that Gus smelled a whole lot!)
But the truth is,
though cats have very good noses—
far better than yours or mine—
their opinions about smells
are different
than ours.
And Patches found
the strong smell of Gus
rather pleasant,
despite the “go away” personality
that went with it.
Indeed,
the fragrance—
for that’s what it was to Patches,
a fragrance,
not a bad smell—
reminded her
of the nest of blankets
into which she’d been born.
It reminded her
of sleeping
with her mother
and her sisters
and her brothers,
curled around her.
Of being small
and cared for
and utterly,
completely
safe.
The smell
and the nicely enclosed space
made Patches feel so good,
in fact,
that she quite forgot
about being hungry.
She tiptoed into Gus’s house
and lay down
in the deepest,
darkest
corner.
She gave the tip
of
her
tail
a loving lick,
closed her eyes,
and set the motor
of her most contented purr
thrumming.
In the still of the night,
Patches woke
suddenly.
Her tummy woke her.
Not the growly rumble of hunger,
though you would expect
by this time
she must have been very hungry
indeed.
It was that other feeling,
the wriggle