Young Writers Society

A/N: More open than ever to title suggestions.

~~~

The next morning I awoke to light flooding across Paddy's pillows.

I groaned. “Do you always wake up with the sun in your face?”

He chuckled. “Only when the sun decides to show its face. And trust me, on the rare occasions that that happens, you want to be woken up as early as possible before it hides away again.”

I purred in agreement and launched myself off the maroon bedding, cringing at how many hairs I'd shed during the night. I landed on the laminate floor and skidded a little, then regained my balance and gazed up at Paddy. He was wearing a loose white t-shirt and pale blue boxer shorts, both of which were littered with food stains of one Asian origin or another.

“Daddy!”

The call came from the hall, just outside. I almost ducked behind the bed so it'd be between myself and the door, but I stopped myself. Maybe Julie had relaxed a little. Maybe she would stroke me behind the ears and I would curl up on Paddy's shoulder and I wouldn't have to leave.

The door creaked open and her blonde head peeked round it. She spotted me and her eyes widened, but she didn't make a sound. She didn't make a move towards me, but she didn't flinch when I started to walk towards her. I stopped in front of her and she crouched down to meet me. I rested my head on her lap and she played with my ears for a few moments, then she grabbed me and held me tight. She pressed her nose to my head and wrapped her arms around the base of my neck.

“It's still me,” I whispered.

God, I'm an idiot sometimes.

She stiffened and let go of me. She looked me in the eye, her bottom lip quivering, then wordlessly turned and left the room. Paddy ran after her, but there was nothing he could say. There was nothing I could say either; that was the whole point. If I was going to stay here, I was going to have to say nothing about anything, and live as if nothing had happened. Could I do that?

Paddy glanced down at me. “Don't worry about it, buddy. I'll talk to her.”

I followed him out into the hall, then plodded down the stairs to see if Shadow was awake yet. As it turned out, he was not only awake, but had hopped out of his cage and into my empty basket.

“Miles, how do you not sleep for days on end?” His eyes widened as he saw me and he sat up on the edge of the basket.

I shrugged. “I don't quite fit in it any more.”

Shadow's black eyes gleamed against the darkness of his jagged skin and the black pillows. “Can you sleep in Julie's room every night? I love this thing!”

My jaw dropped and I snapped it closed, hopefully before he registered my surprise. First of all, how could he think Julie had let me anywhere near her for longer than three seconds? Secondly, was he planning on staying? Did he realise he would be forced to sleep in his tank for the rest of his life and never say a word? My brain was still heavy from the realisation that my own future here was limited; I didn't know if I had the strength to explain it to him too.

Before I could force myself to bring it up, the living room door swung open and Paddy peeked his mop of ginger curls through the gap. This was followed by strained blue eyes and the flushed face of someone who'd recently forced themselves to stop crying.

“Miles, could I talk to you?” he said, then grinned. “Don't know if I'm ever going to get used to saying that!”

I nodded. He wouldn't need to. I couldn't be a house-pet any more, not when the names of Mozart, Ghandi and Gretzky were bouncing around inside my head. I had to get into the world, find out who they were, find out what on Earth had happened to me.

I followed him into the kitchen, where he helped me onto one of the wooden swivel-chairs at the breakfast bar. I'd always wondered what it would be like to be up this high. Dizzying, as it turned out.

He kept opening his mouth but closing it before the wrong words slipped out. His puffy eyes pleaded with me to understand.

“I have to leave,” I stated. I laid it on the breakfast table and let it sit there for a few seconds, then added, “It's okay, Paddy.”

He clutched the edge of the table and glanced out the window. I wondered if he was looking at the hedges, remembering the moment he'd found me babbling nonsense about pain and the colour of the sky. Maybe he was remembering the fear on Julie's face when she thought I might have been gone forever, the fear that seemed to creep back whenever I went near her.

“I'm so sorry, Miles,” he whispered eventually, looking back towards me. “I really really don't want you to go … but – but I can see that you have to. You're not our pet. You're your own man – cat. And Shadow is his own gecko. And Julie … I think she's just too young. I … please don't think I'm evicting you.”

I smiled with half of my mouth. “Please don't take this as me abandoning you, but I want to leave.”

He winced – a glimpse of how much he really did not want me to leave. It made sense, I supposed. You get a cat to replace your deceased wife, you probably don't want to have to part with that cat.

“Like you say,” I continued, “I'm my own cat. Besides, I need to find out what's happening. Maybe we can reverse this and things can go back to normal.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, his eyes widening.

I dropped my gaze. “I don't know.”

Paddy cleared his throat and offered me a sheet of paper. I flexed my non-opposable thumbs and he nodded, setting it down on the table in front of me.

“Huh,” I said, scanning the words, “I can read too, apparently.”

GLYDALE PET ACCOMODATION CENTRE

GLYDALE COMMUNITY LEISURE CENTRE

Housing dogs, cats, birds, reptiles and other pets in spacious, recently renovated changing cubicles. Marine animals are welcome to find new homes in the Glydale community leisure centre pool.

Owners are asked to provide allowances for their former pets which will pay for meals and accommodation costs.

There will be the opportunity for pets with bodies that allow it to partake in upkeep jobs such as cleaning the floors, cleaning the pool's filters, running errands in the town centre and cooking.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ANY ATTEMPT TO HARM, KILL OR EAT A FELLOW RESIDENT WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE EVICTION FROM THE LEISURE CENTRE.

We hope you consider us as a way to connect with others in your situation and adjust to life in the human world – it's not so bad, really.

Yours faithfully,

Jan Evans

Director of Pet Accommodation

I looked up to see Paddy staring intently at me. The intensity of his gaze made me nervous and I struggled to think what to say. Luckily, he broke the silence for me.

“So what do you think?” he said.

I scanned the words again. Something was still confusing me.

“Why are they housing us like refugees?” I asked. Images of starving children, crammed onto boats, roaming the ocean, flashed through my mind. I still had no idea where all this knowledge was coming from. Maybe I'd seen a clip of such scenes on the television.

“What do you mean?” Paddy asked, tilting his head to the side as if this 'Accommodation Centre' was the most natural thing in the world.

I glanced around the kitchen as I tried to find the words to explain. From my usual vantage point a foot off the ground, I had never realised before how modern the design was. The hob was smooth and shiny, the oven had at least twelve dials littering its control panel, and even the knife block was curved and stylish. In the same way that I was aware of the strife of refugees, I knew that Paddy had been a janitor at a school for the past six years. How on Earth had he afforded all this?

Finally, I turned back to face his expectant eyes. “Shouldn't scientists be trying to figure out what's happening?”

Paddy glanced briefly at the table then looked back up. He waved a hand dismissively and said, “Oh, don't worry about that.”

“But –”

“Honestly, don't let it concern you.” He smiled and his arm twitched. I think it wanted to stroke me behind the ear, but he stopped it. My stomach dropped and I struggled not to let the sorrow show in my eyes.

He started to move and I guessed it was time for me to go say goodbye to Julie. Well, not say goodbye. That probably wouldn't be helpful. I hopped down off the chair and padded through to the living room, where I could hear the TV murmuring quietly.

The door was lying half open and I peeked my head through. I was hidden behind the arm of one of the leather couches, which she was sitting on the other side of, so I was good for the moment. The other couch was perpendicular to Julie's and identical except for a ragged scratch along one of the cushions that had apparently been my reaction to my new home when I was a kitten.

How was I going to leave my home behind?

I waited until the TV programme had given way to adverts and padded into the middle of the living room. When I turned to face Julie, she glared at me with stony eyes that made my gut clench. What had I done wrong? It wasn't my fault that I wasn't her little kitten any more. It wasn't as if I'd asked for this!

I took a deep breath and took the couple of steps between myself and her with my head hanging forward, like I used to do when we both knew I was about to be in trouble. I looked up from her feet to her but she didn't take her eyes off the TV. With a sigh, I clambered up onto the cushion beside her and nuzzled her shoulder. The soft fluffiness of her dressing gown was cosy, and almost made me want to stay, but her eerie stillness continued, and I dismissed the idea.

I meowed. I hadn't meowed since before … before I went to the hospital. She looked round and ran her eyes along me, from head to tail. She placed one thumb behind my ear and gave me a quick scratch. She did spin immediately back round to stare straight at the TV, but that was more than Paddy had managed. I took one last glance at her and slunk back out of the room.

As soon as I re-entered the hallway, I gasped and jumped back as I spotted Shadow glaring up at me from his vantage point two inches off the ground. I hastily redirected my right forepaw – which had been heading straight for him – and thumped it down just a little too close to my left, almost toppling me off balance. Once I'd recovered, I lowered myself as far down as I could get, but was still several inches above his eye level.

“So you're going, then?” he said, his tongue darting out of his mouth to punctuate his point.

I raised an eyebrow, hoping I could fool him into thinking I hadn't considered any alternative. “Of course. Aren't you?”

He swallowed and narrowed his dark eyes. “Paddy showed me the damn leaflet and no, I will not be leaving. You can't make me. Ever heard of lizard rights?”

He darted between my legs and slithered across the living room floor, away from Julie and towards my basket. He wriggled into one of the folds of black cushion and continued to glare at me. I hovered over the metal strip that connected the living room hardwood floor with the hallway carpet, but eventually conceded and crossed the floor to him.

“You might want a new life, but I'm happy here. I don't need intellectual discussion about the merits of Pascal's Wager – of which there aren't many. And,” he added, “For that matter, who is Pascal and what is a wager?”

I shrugged. “Beats me. Who's Jimi Hendrix?”

Shadow opened his mouth to speak but a thud from behind me made him clamp his jaws of fine, jaggy teeth shut. I whirled round. Julie had gotten up from the couch and seemed to have stamped her foot, hard, like she was about to run up to her room and curl up on her bed like she did when she and Paddy had a fight.

“Leave me alone!” she shrieked.

I gulped, grabbed Shadow by his tail with my teeth and darted back out into the hallway. Julie slammed the door behind us, then I heard the TV turn up to almost double its previous volume.

The hallway was dim without the light from the living room window and the patio doors, but it was bright enough to see Shadow nod and hang his head. His shoulders heaved in what I guessed was a sigh and I offered him a paw to climb up. He almost dragged himself up and eventually settled into the space behind my ear where Julie had just scratched me. Well, at least I still had Shadow to stroke me as he wriggled around trying to get comfortable.

“Come on,” I murmured, “Let's go find Paddy.”

I didn't try to say goodbye to Julie again. What would be the point? We hadn't exactly ended on a high, but it was as close to neutral as I was going to get. To be honest, I think Shadow just wanted to get out of there as fast as he could before he changed his mind. Fortunately, we didn't exactly have a lot to pack.

For the first time since Paddy brought me home, I got to sit in the front seat, seatbelt on and everything. Shadow wriggled into a gap between my right shoulder and the seatbelt. He clung on there as the car stopped, started and turned corners. He looked like he was racing a motorbike, leaning this way and that. The tension in his fine limbs made me tremble despite Paddy's relatively moderate driving.

“You okay?” Paddy asked, glancing at Shadow and I.

Shadow didn't reply so I nodded for him. He squealed and clung tighter to my shoulder. I giggled and gazed out the window. The sky wasn't as much grey as pure white. I could have been looking at a bank of snow in the sky for all I knew. It rushed by above me and I wondered if Paddy would let me borrow Julie's booster seat so I could see more than just endless white.

I had just spotted the red light of a junction when Paddy asked, “What do the two of you remember of music from … before?”

I tilted my head, almost squishing Shadow.

“Not much,” I concluded. “I remember being confused by one particular song but I don't know the name of it – or why it confused me.”

Paddy grinned and reached for a CD from the glove compartment. The glove compartment opened smoothly, like it was on an automatic hinge operated by pressure or light or something like that. How had I never noticed how much cool stuff Paddy owned? Before I could ask him about it, he slipped the CD into the player and pressed play.

When I wake up, well, I know I'm gonnae be,

I'm gonnae be the man who wakes up next to you.

I gasped. “When I go out, yeah, I know I'm gonnae be, I'm gonnae be the man who goes along with you!”

Paddy grinned. “Thought you might recognise that. Do you realise why yet?”

I shook my head and Shadow cringed.

“Give it a moment,” said Paddy.

And if I haver, hey, I know I'm gonnae be,

I'm gonnae be the man who's havering to you.

Then I got it. My brain jumped ahead a few beats and I knew why this song had perplexed me for so long.

“But I would walk five hundred miles! And I would walk five hundred more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door!”

I could hear my voice screech the words like – well, like a strangled cat – but I just didn't care.

“Hey!” Paddy exclaimed, “That's the first time you've ever heard that without thinking I was calling on you!”

I nodded. That was definitely what had confused me. The chorus had my name in it – twice – and it was a chorus repeated so often towards the end that I used to just give up and sulk because Paddy and Julie seemed to be tormenting me.

The sky that was the pure white of my pelt blurred past as we started moving again. I felt like I was flying, like the sky was a reflection of me. The words of the song poured out of my head as if they'd been cooped up in there for decades. Even Shadow loosed his grip a little. I sat forward on the leather seat and growled at the sliver of rooftops that were the extent of my view beyond the dashboard. I had never felt more ready, and I didn't even know what I was ready for.