Susan's Friend

Susan’s friend.

My latest piece for the writers group inspired by some children who had just buried their pet cat Pedro.

It was Susan who saw the kitten. It was sitting under the ‘fairy hedge’ watching her. Her younger sisters Lorraine and Mona had christened that part of the garden the ‘fairy hedge’ because they claimed they could see fairies dancing through it. They’d even managed to convince their sceptical parents not to cut back those particular straggling branches for fear that the hedge trimmer might damage the fairies glittering wings.
“ And without their wings,” Lorraine had patiently explained to their father, “ Fairies can neither dance nor fly!”
Lorraine and Mona were inseparable five year old twins, and both were very protective of their friends in the hedge. Their older brother Thomas, who was seven and liked dogs, thought that fairies were a ‘girly’ thing, but claimed that he could hear a puppy barking under the hedge.
Susan, who was nine and therefore a lot older and wiser than either of her sisters or her brother had never actually seen any fairies dancing in the hedge, or ever heard any puppies barking, but she was still young enough to realise that didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t there. She had noticed that the older people became, the more difficulty they had believing in anything they couldn’t actually see …. and now she definitely could see the kitten.
It was tabby coloured with short almost stumpy ears, and it was sitting watching her as if it had always been there, and had just been waiting for her to recognise its existence. She noticed that unlike her other cats, this one did not watch her with an unblinking stare. In fact its eyes kept closing and opening in a quite regular but inviting way as if it were already conversing with her.
“ Oh, what’s your name?” she exclaimed bending forwards and reaching out her fingers towards its flat little head.
“ I have no name,” the kitten replied dismissively; rather surprising Susan because she heard no sound, not even a purr. The voice seemed to be inside her own head. “ It’s humans like you who insist on calling me something when in fact I’m just…. well …. me!”
“ Who is …. you?” Susan persisted.
“ Well that’s rather up to you isn’t it? I’m whatever you want to make me.”
“ I need you to have a name so that I know what to call you.”
The kitten, who Susan already realised was obviously an animal with a mind very much of its own, raised one of its rear paws, leaned sideways, and began to scratch feverishly behind its ear; scratched so furiously in fact, that it fell over onto its side.
Susan, who knew how offended cats can become when humans laugh at them rather than with them, managed to maintain a serious expression until the kitten had reassumed a dignified sitting posture. Then she remembered that kittens are much more playful than grown up cats so she risked a short laugh,
“Oooh you are quite funny,” she observed.
“ Well that’s probably because you’re quite funny too. Now, what are you going to call me? You’d better tell me and then I’ll know when it’s me you’re talking too.”
It was obviously intended as a serious question by the kitten, and Susan thought it only right that she would think about it for a long time. In fact she thought about it for so long that the kitten almost lost interest in the answer, and gave an enormous yawn instead.
“ I thought I might call you Coco after the clown because you made me laugh, but instead I’m going to call you what you are, “ Susan finally announced. “For now I’ll call you ‘Kittycat’, and then… when you’re a lot older, and much bigger, I’ll just call you ‘Cat.’”
The kitten too thought about this for a while and then stood up, arched it’s back upwards and then stretched forwards each of its front paws in turn.
“ Well I certainly think ‘ Kitty’s’ preferable to ‘Coco,’” it murmured.
“How long have you been here?” Susan wondered aloud.
“I’ve been here as long as you have,” Kittycat stated.
It seemed to be trying to decide if all humans were this stupid? But went on to explain in a noticeably patient tone, “ You sisters have their fairies, Tommy has his puppy dog,…. and you have me! It isn’t my fault you’ve taken so long to notice me. You just haven’t been looking properly. Far too busy being the older and cleverer sister I suppose.”
“ And will you stay?” Susan asked. Now she too had a friend under the fairy hedge she didn’t want to lose it.
Kittycat sighed. Some humans obviously were this stupid!
“ I have to stay as long as you want me to.”
“Until I’m grown up?”
“ I have to grow up with you.”
“ And when I’m really, really old?”
“ Then I’ll be really, really old too wont I?”
Kittycat who was getting a little tired of all these silly questions turned and made as if to disappear back into the tangled undergrowth, but Susan asked it one more question.
“ Will you ever grow wings like the fairies, or bark like a puppy dog?”
Her new friend stared at her, but this time with unblinking eyes…. and this time Susan did hear a purr.
“ Certainly not. That would make me ridiculous!”

THE END.