The Cat Who Talked Turkey Read online

  At the barn the Siamese were waiting expectantly, as if they knew he was bringing some tasty fragments of Reuben sandwich. Then he locked himself in his writing studio on the first balcony with a thermal coffee decanter, there to write a “Qwill Pen” column for the following week. It would be about June.

  He made notes:

  June is bustin’ out all over. (Show)

  What is so rare as a day in June? (Poem)

  A four-letter word, but a polite one.

  The month of weddings, graduations, and the second income-tax estimate.

  His note-taking was interrupted by a phone call from Polly, in high spirits.

  “Qwill, dear! You’ll never guess what happened today.”

  “How many guesses—” he began but was interrupted. He had never known Polly to be so voluble.

  “Moira MacDiarmid phoned to offer the bookstore a marmalade cat for a mascot! One with a real Scottish heritage! A genuine people cat! Just what we’ll need to welcome customers and make them feel at home!”

  “Male or female?” he questioned with the fact-finding instincts of a newsman.

  “A little boy. Breeders call their kittens little boys and little girls, you know. He’s several months old and will be a yearling when the store is ready to open.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “His coat is soft and dense and huggable, Moira says. His color is a rich cream with tabby markings in soft apricot! And he has large green eyes! Can’t you imagine him, Qwill, against a background of lively green carpet—lively green, not the somber forest green used in public places, although Fran Brodie may not approve. She has her own ideas, you know.”

  “The K Fund is hiring her to design the interior,” he said. “Just tell them what you want, and they’ll tell her! And that’s the way it will be!” He detected a sigh of satisfaction. There had never been a friendly rapport between the designer and Polly—or between the designer and Yum Yum, for that matter.

  “Then you approve, Qwill?”

  “Provided he doesn’t turn out to be one of those thirty-pound marmalades that get all the publicity.”

  “No! No!” Polly assured him. “Dundee has good genes.”

  “Dundee? Is that his name?”

  “Isn’t that adorable?” Polly said. “Especially since his ancestors came from the city associated with orange marmalade! Well, I had to call you. The news was too good to keep.”

  “I’m glad you did, Polly.”

  “À bientôt,” she said in the voice that was always full of warmth and meaning.

  “À bientôt.” He leaned back in his chair and let his mind wander.

  A few moments passed, and then he was aware of a slight commotion beyond his door. Whenever the Siamese wanted to attract his attention, they staged a cat squabble. He opened his door and they tumbled into the room.

  “You fakers!” he scolded.

  They scampered down the ramp to the broom closet on the main floor. Their message was clear. They had been shut up indoors for too long.

  A canvas tote bag advertising the Pickax Public Library was brought from the closet, and they jumped inside, contracting their bodies and snuggling together to fit in the bottom of the bag. They had no objection to being buried under some magazines, a bottle of Squunk water, a cordless phone, some writing materials, and a worn-out necktie. It was all part of a trip to the gazebo, a journey that lasted the better part of a minute. Then they hopped out of the conveyance and prepared for a game of Nip the Necktie.

  Qwilleran moved some furniture to provide a suitable arena, then swished the tie through the air—back and forth, up and down, around in circles—while the cats leaped, grabbed, missed, fell on their backs, shook themselves off, and leaped again.

  When they had had enough, they crept away to their favorite corners of the gazebo to watch anything that moved on the other side of the screen panels.

  Qwilleran did some more hard thinking about the month of June. He could invite his readers to compose original jingles about the sixth month. As prizes he would offer the usual yellow lead pencils with “Qwill Pen” stamped in gold.

  As he brainstormed, he became aware of a familiar chattering sound: “ik-ik-ik.” Koko reserved it for snakes, large dogs, and trespassers with hunting rifles. Both cats were staring at the shrubbery in the bird garden. Qwilleran stared, too. He had only his eyes; the cats had their sixth sense.

  As he concentrated there was movement in the dense foliage, and three long-legged birds emerged. They were the strangest he had ever seen—long snakelike necks, small ugly heads, scrawny bodies, and those long, scaly legs!

  They surveyed the scene calmly, as if they considered buying the property . . . until an unearthly roar and shriek from Koko’s throat sent them back into the shrubbery.

  The three in the gazebo were speechless: the cats with bushed tails, and Qwilleran with exactly the same sensation in his moustache. His first thought, upon returning to rationality, was to call Thornton Haggis, who had lived in Moose County all his life and knew all the answers—or where to get them. Recently named Volunteer of the Year, Thorn could always be found pushing wheelchairs at the Senior Care Facility or manning the reception desk at the hospital. Qwilleran found him answering phones at the Art Center.

  “Just holding the fort while the manager gets her hair done,” he said. “I bet I know why you’re calling, Qwill. About the research on the Great Storm! I’ve done all the legwork, and now I’m organizing the material for you. I can drop it off at the barn tomorrow. Will you be there?”

  “If I’m not, you can leave it in the old sea chest.” Outside the kitchen door there was a weathered wood chest for receiving package deliveries, catered food, and—once—two abandoned kittens.

  “By the way, Thorn, I had a strange experience a few minutes ago. I was in the gazebo when three ugly-looking birds walked out of the woods.” He described them. “And they were between two and three feet tall. And weird-looking. They had red pouches hanging from heads that can only be described as rapacious.”

  After a moment’s silence, Thorn said facetiously, “What did you have to drink for lunch, Qwill? They sound like wild turkeys, but we don’t have wild turkeys in Moose County—not for the last thirty years. My sons are experienced game-bird hunters, and they have to go to Minnesota or Upper Michigan for wild turkeys.”

  “Interesting,” Qwilleran said. “The cats saw them, too. Koko snarled like a dragon and frightened them away.”

  Qwilleran had long wanted to find an explanation for Koko’s remarkable intuition. Now he expressed his thoughts in a letter to himself, in his personal journal.

  Thursday, June 12—I’ve been reading The Tiger in the House again. Beautiful work! I’ve always wanted to write a scholarly tome requiring years of research, but I lack the temperament.

  The book inspired me, however, to pursue the mystery of Koko’s heritage. Is he descended from the supernormal lines of old Siam? How many generations have passed between him and his royal ancestors? What do I know about him? Very little. Only that he lived Down Below with a man named Mountclemens, who apparently acquired him from a sister in Milwaukee.

  I was writing for the Daily Fluxion and renting an apartment from the art critic, who owned an old Victorian mansion. He called himself George Bonifield Mountclemens the Third. He was a pompous donkey!, and no one really believed his name. But he lived upstairs among his art treasures with a Siamese cat named Kao K’o Kung. When Mountclemens was killed, the cat moved in with me and became known as Koko.

  But I always thought, If I ever meet anyone from Milwaukee, I’ll ask some questions: Is there a Mountclemens family there? Is there a cat breeder specializing in Siamese in Milwaukee?

  This “Lish” person may be the one to ask.

  FOUR

  On Friday morning Qwilleran finished writing his discourse on the month of June, making it a little shorter than the traditional thousand words. In the last few weeks he had appended his column with a
few words of catly wisdom from Cool Koko’s Almanac.

  “Cool Koko says: Half a dish of cream is better than none. . . . Opportunity only knocks once; grab that pork chop while no one’s looking. . . . Why sing for your supper? It’s easier just to stare at your empty plate.”

  The “Cool Koko” stunt had started when Qwilleran was researching Benjamin Franklin for his column and decided to parody Poor Richard’s Almanack. It had been intended as a onetime spoof, but readers loved Cool Koko and clamored for more. He had obliged with: “Man works from sun to sun, but cats get by without lifting a paw. . . . A dog by any other name would smell like a dog. . . . Dumb animals know more about humans than dumb humans know about animals.”

  Qwilleran, who admitted to having a short attention span, was tired of writing about Cool Koko. The mail room at the news office was swamped with postcards suggesting bits of catly wisdom. The editor, Arch Riker, accused Qwilleran of trying to start a new cult.

  And so, on that Friday, the “Qwill Pen” ended with an announcement in boldface caps:

  COOL KOKO IS ON VACATION INDEFINITELY

  Then, with a light heart, Qwilleran went to the beach, taking the Siamese. It was only a brief inspection trip; O’Dell’s cleaning crew had been there to air it out, wash windows, check the facilities, dust, and sweep. It was to be hoped they had also tidied the driveway and grounds of fallen branches.

  The Siamese went along, contentedly snuggled in their carrying coop. How did they know they were going to the beach and not to the vet? They could smell the lake a mile before they reached the shore and made small pleasurable noises.

  When they reached the lakeshore, the highway dipped in and out, with occasional glimpses of the vast expanse of blue water. The noise in the back-seat increased. Then the car turned off into the K property on a dirt driveway that wound through a dense growth of wild cherries and scrub oaks, emerging on the crest of a sand dune.

  There stood the venerable log cabin with its mammoth fieldstone chimney and magnificent view of the lake. The occupants of the carrier thumped around, rattled the door, and squealed with joy.

  Qwilleran went indoors first to be sure everything was secure, then brought in the cats. It would take them an hour to sniff the two screened porches, the rugs and furniture of the interior, the hand-hewn mantel over the stone fireplace, the rafters overhead, the accoutrements of their feeding station, the gravel in their commode, and their empty water dish, which was quickly filled.

  The refrigerator was empty, except for ice cubes, but Qwilleran had brought treats in a cooler.

  On the lake porch there was a railroad tie upended and nailed to a base—intended as a pedestal for a copper sculpture of a sailboat. But Koko had claimed it as his own viewing post from which he could monitor the waving beach grasses, the beach at the foot of the dune, seagulls fighting over a dead fish, and beachcombers looking for agates. It was early season for traffic on the beach, but one couple wandered past: a young woman walking with a hiker’s stride and swinging arms, while a tall, lanky man shuffled along behind her, his hands in his hip pockets.

  Qwilleran, who knew all the cottagers in the Top o’ the Dunes Club to the east, sized the strangers up as newcomers, guests of the regulars. When they returned a few minutes later and stopped to stare up at the cabin, he kept very quiet and motionless. The woman pointed to the cabin, as strangers often did, marveling at the age of the building or the size of the stone chimney. Strangers often pointed to the cats; some people, unfortunately, thought of Siamese as being an expensive breed, worth stealing, and Koko and Yum Yum were never allowed on the screened porch without a chaperone.

  At any rate, the woman pointed and spoke to her companion at length, and he nodded without showing much interest.

  It never occurred to Qwilleran that they were Lish and “Lush.”

  Koko had reacted to them with a half-growl, but that was not unusual. Whenever a finger was pointed at him, he resented it. Compliments were graciously accepted, but there was something about a pointing finger that insulted his feline sensibilities. . . . Cats! Who could understand them!

  Sunday noon Qwilleran and Polly drove to the Top o’ the Dunes Club to have brunch with the Rikers, their best friends. Arch was the somewhat paunchy editor-in-chief of the newspaper; Mildred was the plumply pretty editor of the food page. It was a late marriage for them, both having survived domestic disasters.

  The club was simply a row of cottages overlooking a hundred miles of blue water and bearing names like “Sunny Daze” and “Many Pines” and “No Oaks.” The Riker cottage was bright yellow with black shutters and a broad deck cantilevered over the slope of the dune. On the wide top rail of the deck sat Toulouse, a fluffy black-and-white stray who had wandered into Mildred’s life. Qwilleran, upon arrival, always stroked Toulouse and told him he was a handsome brute.

  Polly said, “He’s always the epitome of contentment!”

  “He should be!” Qwilleran said. “He was a dirty, half-starved stray when he moved in with the food writer of the Moose County Something. As Cool Koko would say, if he were not on vacation, ‘There’s a destiny that leads hungry cats to the right doorstep.’”

  Then the Comptons arrived via the beach and climbed the sand-ladder up the slope of the dune. Lyle had been school superintendent for twenty years, and his forays with teachers, parents, and the school board had given him a professional scowl, although it masked a good sense of humor.

  His nickname in the school system was Scrooge. The name of their cottage was “Bah! Humbug!”

  Lisa had retired from school administration with the sunny optimism of a Campbell whose ancestors had founded Brrr two hundred years before.

  It was a balmy June day—the sunshine gentle, the breezes soft, the temperature just right, so aperitifs were served on the open deck overlooking the lake.

  Lisa said, “Oh, Qwill! Aren’t we going to have any more of Cool Koko’s wisdom? It was so much fun.”

  He said, “I’m hoping that readers will be inspired to invent their own Kokoisms. I’ve got to go on to other things.”

  “Such as what?” Lyle asked.

  “Such as a script for a one-man show on the Great Storm of 1913—for the Brrr anniversary. Thornton Haggis has done the research. The format will be similar to ‘The Big Burning.’ And Gary Pratt has recommended Mrs. Carroll’s granddaughter, Alicia Carroll, to handle the sound effects.” He waited for a reaction.

  “Is she back in town?” Mildred asked in surprise. “I talked to Mrs. Carroll after church this morning; she’s moving to Ittibittiwassee Estates.”

  Lyle asked, “What will happen to Little Mount Vernon?”

  Lisa said, “Let’s hope she’ll leave it to the town for a historical museum.”

  “I’m sure Alicia wouldn’t want it,” Mildred said. “She has a career Down Below—in Milwaukee, I think—”

  Lyle interrupted, “As Cool Koko would say, ‘How ya gonna keep her down on the farm after she’s seen Milwaukee?’”

  Mildred went on hesitantly, “Don’t mention this, but Alicia travels with a young man—supposed to be her ‘driver’ because Alicia has some kind of heart problem. Anyway, the idea doesn’t set too well with her grandmother.”

  Lisa said, “I was assistant principal when Alicia came to live with her grandmother, after a family tragedy. She was not only an all-A student, but she came up with good ideas. The school was always trying to raise money for band instruments or a trip to the nation’s capital—by selling cookies or Christmas cards. Alicia suggested lotteries, which were very successful, although everyone said she skimmed a little off the top.”

  Polly said, “That reminds me, she used to bring homework assignments to the library and noticed that we were trying to raise money for new carpet by asking patrons to put money in a jar. Alicia came to me and suggested a lottery, and I told her I’d have to consult the board of directors. When the Dear Ladies learned that it meant gambling, they said, ‘Horrors!’ and got out their chec
kbooks to cover the cost of the carpet.”

  Qwilleran said, “A little horror can be a useful thing!”

  “Who said that?” Riker asked. “Ben Franklin or Cool Koko?”

  At one point Qwilleran remarked, “I heard, the other day, that the entire wild turkey population of Moose County disappeared thirty years ago. What was that all about?”

  There was a swift glance between the Comptons, then Lyle said, “Disease. Wiped out the entire flock. It’s the kind of thing that happens in the animal world. It’ll happen to us if we don’t recognize the danger of impure water and polluted atmosphere.”

  There was a moment’s silence until Arch asked, “Who’s ready for another drink?”

  The subject changed to the grand plans for Brrr’s birthday party. Lisa and Mildred were collaborating on a stunt to be called Marmalade Madness.

  “You tell it,” said Lisa.

  “No, it was your idea. You tell it.”

  “Well . . . Brrr was founded by Scots, you know, and we have a sizable Scottish population. Some of the families have housekeeping manuals, handwritten, that go back as much as two centuries. They keep them in lockboxes at the bank and bring them out for anniversaries. All the books contain tips on making orange marmalade, and—believe me!—there are scores of different theories. Marmalade Madness would combine an exhibit of these artifacts—”

  “Under armed guard, I hope,” Arch interrupted.

  “Absolutely! And the guard will look particularly fierce in kilts and plaids—with antique weapons,” Lisa assured him.

  “There will also be marmalade-tasting, with people voting for their favorite—all homemade, of course. And the public can buy small jars, proceeds going to charity.”

  “Where will this be held?” Polly asked.

  “Gary Pratt is giving us one of the rooms on the main floor. The ballroom will be used for a variety of happenings, I understand, including Qwill’s one-man show.”