Catopolis

“Oh, but I do,” the tom replied. “You see, kit, I am not the most patient cat in this city. Even nine lives end some day. I want the power I deserve while I can still enjoy it for a long, long time. You are this city’s respected Seer. Your prediction will make all accept the inevitable immediately! You shall perform the Reading I desire at the next full moon, when-”

“No,” said Lulu. She pressed her forepaws closer together to steady herself. “If I don’t interpret the omens truthfully, I dishonor the goddess Bast, who gave me my powers. I’d-I’d sooner die.”

A low, warning ululation welled up from the big tom’s throat. It was echoed by his attending minions, a cadre of seven muscular felines, scarred victors of many battles. The most vicious looking of them all, a street cat born and bred, took a step toward Lulu, fangs bared, eyes flashing. She cringed, awaiting the slash of pitiless claws.

“Stop!” the big black and white tom commanded. “Don’t lay one paw on her, Hss’shah! She is still of use to me.”

Lulu opened her eyes in time to see the black and white tom looming over her. He was smiling, and it was not a comforting smile. “Did Hss’shah frighten you, my dear? It was his idea of a joke. A crude one. What do you expect from a feral?” (Lulu’s stomach churned at the subtle insult. Her mother was a feral cat, too.) “But if you were so afraid, why didn’t you call upon Bast to protect you?”

“I-” Lulu bowed her head. “Lady Bast is a great goddess. She has more important things to do than look after me.”

“If she looks after any of us,” the big tom purred. “If, in fact, she even exists as more than just a story to make kittens behave.” Lulu stared at him, horrified at such blasphemy. This only made him laugh. “Why don’t you stop worrying about our so-called goddess and look after yourself? Reconsider my request. I’ll make it worth your while.” She answered him with silence. He lifted one wispy eyebrow. “No? Then go. We shall meet again soon enough. Oh, and don’t bother ru

For an instant, his urbane smile turned into a grimace of such deadly menace that even the street cats in his service were taken aback. Then, as swiftly as that demonic expression had flashed over his face, it was gone. He brought his muzzle close to Lulu’s ear and murmured, “In the eating, kit. The proof of many things is in the eating.”

As soon as he stepped back, she bolted, but as she raced away, she heard him calling after her, “Whether or not you wish to serve me, you will. So speaks Señor Pantalones!”

In the days and nights that followed, Lulu’s mind was haunted by apprehensive thoughts of Señor Pantalones’ sinister intentions. If he can’t have my cooperation, he’ll twist things so I have to help him, whether I want to or not. But how will he do it? O great Bast, help me! Such anxieties wreaked havoc with her disposition and her digestion. Thus it was nothing extraordinary when the two-days-from-full moon looked down on a city alley and saw Catopolis’ Seer in an all-too-familiar position.

“Argh!” said Lulu as she crouched, bug-eyed, in the lee of a garbage can. The sentiment was soon followed by deeper, more throaty sounds. Had the humans with whom she deigned to reside been within earshot, they easily would have read the omens in those guttural eruptions.

This did not mean that Lulu’s humans shared her wondrous powers. It merely meant that after two years of living with her in an apartment of pure white wall-to-wall carpeting, they could instantly foretell an incipient regurgitation and shot-put her into the tile-floored bathroom or kitchen before you could say “Jack Robinson” or, more likely, “Not on the rug, goddammit! Not on the rug!”

There were no rugs in the alley, nor any fussy humans. Lulu let nature takes its course uninterrupted, unmolested, and-so she believed-unobserved. When she was done, she set to tidying herself. She had a fair distance to cover between this night’s lonesome rendezvous point and the high-rent East Side apartment building her humans maintained solely for her pleasure and comfort. She would not-could not-be seen on the streets in an uncleansed condition. She had her pride.

She was almost done with her ablutions when a small, sarcastic voice from the darkness caught her with her right forepaw up and her tongue in midlick extension. “Well, that was disgusting,” it said. “And by ‘disgusting,’ I mean ‘disgusting even for a barfing cat.’ That, my friend, sets the bar damn high!”

Lulu tensed. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

The small voice chortled. “Who died and made you the boss of me? No, let me rephrase that: I know who died. I saw her die, and then I followed the cats who killed her. I watched them bring her to you and I saw you rip her open, guts and gizzard. Say, do mice even have gizzards? Ah, what the hell, you get the picture. And then you ate the picture. I mean the mouse. I mean Shirley. Poor critter never knew what hit her, thank Seeds.”

“Shirl-the Reading I just gave was a friend of yours? I’m sorry.” Lulu felt odd, apologizing to the unseen critic, but the words escaped her mouth unbidden.

“The Reading? Is that how you think of her? As a thing? Look, furbag, there’s more to our lives than being your toys or your four-legged pu-pu platters!” Abruptly, the voice changed its tone from harsh to conciliatory. “Y’know, I want to set the record straight: I’m not cheesed with you for eating Shirley.”

Lulu was puzzled. “You’re not?”

“Nuh-uh.” The hidden speaker was firm. “Cat eats mouse, that’s the way it goes, the big, bad food chain, the balance of nature, the circle of Disney copyrighted songs, the end of an old life, the begi

“If you’re not mad that I ate her, then why-?”

“You couldn’t have done her the courtesy of keeping her down?” the small voice shrilled. “It’s no shame to die if you’re going to become nutrition, but what’s Shirley now? Wasted. And not in the good party-hearty way! It’s one thing to kill my friends when you’re hungry, but it was pretty obvious that you were already stuffed when you gobbled her down in two big gulps, mostly because you horked her up again just as soon as the other cats got their ugly mugs outta here. She was nothing more than a snack to you, but she was my friend, and she deserved better treatment than you gave her. She deserved to be appreciated. She deserved to be savored. She deserved to be digested. She deserved to be-”

“I get the idea.” Lulu was under enough strain without the added agita of dealing with this strident phantom. She switched her bushy tail angrily as her pale green eyes plumbed the shadows. As excellent as her night vision was, she could not locate the source of the snide diatribe, and it made her bristle. “How about you get the idea of shutting up?”

“If you can’t take the truth, move your overfed butt out of my alley.”

“Your alley? You don’t sound big enough to lay claim to a sock drawer. I don’t take orders from mice.”

“Shows what you know.” There was a soft, rustling sound followed by the faint tap-tap-tap of miniscule paws trotting across pavement. Only a few ragtag splotches of light touched the alley-the glow of moon and stars, the faint radiance of not-so-distant streetlamps, the borrowed wattage from apartments with less than desirable views. Now, as Lulu watched, a ball of golden fluff sauntered right into the middle of one such splotch with as much devil-may-care attitude as a rock star claiming his place on stage.

“I am not a mouse.”

Lulu narrowed her eyes. “So what are you, then?” she growled. “A tailless dwarf rat? A stunted groundhog?” (She had seen the beast in question when her human servants watched a February 2nd newscast, and she hoped she’d never have to behold such a monstrous rodent again.)