Cat Shining Bright

Courtney meowed happily, pawed Kit’s nose playful and sly, and switched her calico tail. Kit turned away irritably, settling on the boy kittens. “Speak to me, Buffin. Read to me, Striker.” No one said a word. Kit knew they could read, she could tell by their expressions. None of the three were normal kittens. And if they could read, surely they could speak. Stubborn, she thought. Her yellow eyes staring into baby-blue eyes, all she could say was, “You are toying with us. You are stubborn kittens, stubborn and willful.”

But a week later, it happened: Buffin was the first.

The sand-colored kitten with the gray patch on his shoulder had sneaked out the cat door when it was accidentally left unlocked. Padding into the garden, where he was not allowed alone—because of hawks and stray dogs—he discovered a fledgling bird perched low among a tangle of bushes. The nestling, having tried to fly, had ended in a crash landing.

Buffin, with a surge of inborn killer instinct, was about to pounce on the youngster with raking claws and sharp teeth when a strange new emotion stopped him. He backed away, puzzled.

He had no notion that Dulcie had slipped out the cat door behind him, that she crouched among the flowers feeling excited that he would make his first kill, but feeling sad for the bird as she often did. Mice and rats didn’t stir her sympathy but this little bright creature was as lovely as a jewel. But what was Buffin doing?

Carefully and gently he crept forward again. He reared up and, with soft paws, he lifted the little bird down and laid it on the grass. It was only a tiny thing, yellow and brown. Dulcie could have told him it was a warbler. She watched him stroke the bird softly. She watched him put his ear to the bird, gently listening—and suddenly Buffin spoke.

“There, there,” the kitten said softly. “There, you can breathe all right. And I can feel your heart beating. Bird,” he said, “little yellow bird.” His words were in full sentences, not baby talk at all. He crouched over the bird, hardly touching it but keeping it warm; for a long time it didn’t move, and Buffin was still and silent. Only when he felt the bird stir beneath him, felt it shiver and move its wings, did he back away from it, waiting.

The bird shook itself, and gave a little “peep.” Poised between Buffin and the bushes, it fluffed its wings and flapped awkwardly, trying to rise. It flapped twice more, clumsily—then suddenly it flew straight up, stumbling on the wind; beating its fledgling wings hard, it climbed straight up the wind and crashed into its nest among the reaching oak branches.

“Oh my,” said Buffin.

“Oh my, indeed,” said Dulcie behind him. When he spun around, she cuddled him and licked his face and her tears fell on his nose. Buffin had spoken, the first of her children to say a word; and what a strange thing he had done. What kind of kitten had she borne, what kind of little cat was he, so caring and tender that he would save the life of a bird? How could he be her and Joe’s son, the son of fierce hunters, when he didn’t want to kill a baby bird? (Though Dulcie, too, had had her moments.) But what kind of cat would he grow up to be? Indeed this kitten, Dulcie thought, had inherited something strange and remarkable in his nature.

Buffin looked at his mother, happily purring. He looked up at the bird in the tree, and purred louder. “Little yellow bird,” he said again, softly.

Everyone had thought Striker would be the first to speak because he was so bold. He was always first to start a battle, the first to show his rowdy ways and swift claws. He was first to dive into the food bowl, the swiftest up the cat trees, the first to do anything wild and foolish. But not until a week after Buffin’s debut, as Wilma called it, did Striker shout out his own first words, and he sounded just like his daddy.

The cats’ human housemate stood tying back her bright gray hair into a ponytail, watching Striker’s usual crazy race around the house. Even Wilma, a retired parole officer who had seen plenty of mayhem, shivered at the chances the kitten took. She watched him sail to the top of the china cabinet, leap six feet up to the cat tree, foolishly misjudge his balance, lose his footing, and plummet to the buffet, knocking a glass bowl of flowers to the floor, spilling blossoms and water and shattering the vase. Striker’s shout filled the house.

“Damn!Damn, damn it to hell,” he yowled.