Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 17 Who Blew The Whistle

Yum Yum, recognizing the word, scampered up the ramp to hide. Koko trotted to the broom closet, where the harnesses were stored, and purred while the leather straps were being buckled. Then, dragging his leash, he walked purposefully to the front door. When it was opened, however, he stood on the threshold in a freeze of indecision. He savored the seventy-eight-degree temperature and the three-mile-an-hour breeze; he looked to right and left; he noted a bird in the sky and a squirrel in a tree.

"Okay, let's go. We don't have two days for this excursion," Qwilleran said, picking up the leash and shaking it like reins. "Forward march!"

Koko, an indoor cat in temperament and lifestyle, stepped cautiously to the small entrance deck and sniffed the boards, which were laid diagonally. He sniffed the spaces between the boards. He discovered an interesting knot in the wood and a row of nailheads. In exasperation Qwilleran grabbed him and swung him to his shoulder. Koko was quite amenable. He liked riding on a shoulder. He liked the elevation.

Everyone had advised Qwilleran to "do something" about the orchard, a tangle of weeds and vines choking neglected apple trees. Many had lost their limbs for firewood; others had fallen victim to storms.

"Why don't you clean out that eyesore?" Riker had said. "Plant vegetables," Polly suggested. "Have a swimming pool," Fran Brodie urged.

At the building site, Qwilleran allowed the excited cat to jump down but held a firm hand on the leash. It was not the skeleton of the house that interested Koko, nor the tire tracks where the builders parked their pickups, nor the spot under a tree where Zak liked to nap in the shade. Koko wanted only to roll on the floor of the future garage. He rolled ecstatically. Both cats had discovered this unexplainable thrill at their Mooseville cabin, where the screened porch was on a concrete slab. They rolled on their backs and squirmed voluptuously. Now Koko was inventing new contortions and enjoying it immensely.

"Let's not be excessive," Qwilleran said to him, jerking the leash. "If that's all you want to do, let's go home."

On the way back to the barn he had an idea: He would add a screened porch on a concrete slab for the Siamese, where they could have a sense of outdoor living and roll to their hearts' content. Eddie could build it after he finished Polly's house. It would not be attached to the barn; that would only destroy the symmetry of the octagonal structure. It would be a separate summer house - a pergola - like the one he had visited on Breakfast Island, and like the one he had built in the Potato Mountains.

Yum Yum met them at the door and sniffed Koko with disapproval; he had been out having fun, and she had been left at home.

"That's what happens," Qwilleran advised her, "when you elect to be asocial." At any rate, he hoped the jaunt had satisfied Koko's curiosity and there would be no more absurd trail gazing. It was a futile dream. Soon the cat was back in the foyer, standing on two legs at the window, watching and waiting.

Ordinarily Qwilleran would have shrugged off Koko's aberration, but he was feeling edgy. There was the itch of suspicion without the opportunity to scratch. There was the uneasy feeling that Koko knew more than he did. And there was frustration caused by too much of Polly's house and not enough of Polly.

He was still feeling cranky the next day when he walked downtown to hand in his thousand words on the aurora borealis. The colorful phenomenon in the midnight sky was a tourist at- traction, although locals took it for granted, and some thought "Northern Lights" was simply the name of a hotel in Mooseville.

Looking more than usually morose, Qwilleran walked through the city room where staffers sat in front of video display terminals and stared blankly at the screens. In the managing editor's office, the slightly built Junior Goodwinter was further dwarfed by the electronic equipment surrounding him.

When Qwilleran threw his copy on Junior's desk, the young editor glanced at the triple-spaced typewritten sheets and said, "When are you getting yourself a word processor, Qwill?"

"I like my electric typewriter" was the belligerent reply, "and it likes me! Are you implying that a word processor would make me a better writer? And if so, how good do you want me to be?"

"Don't hit me!" said the younger man with an exaggerated cringe. "Forget I said it. Have a cup of coffee. Sit down. Take a load off your feet. Will you be at the softball game tonight?"

"I haven't decided" was the curt answer. Polly usually accompanied him to the annual event, but he doubted she could tear herself away from her blueprints.

Junior threw him a copy of Monday's paper. "Read the third bite," he said.