THIRTY-NINE: I will have him

Arous stared at Octavius.

He stared back.

“Who’s that?”

“Hmm.  I’ve never seen that fellow before.” The boy stared into the cage with his head cocked.  “Here. I’ll let you hold him while I go look for his admission papers. I’m Jason, by the way.” As the young man took the half grown kitten from the cage another youth came around the corner.  He stood a nickel taller but otherwise his garment matched that of the first boy.

“Mike, when did we get this big boy in, do you know?”

“Probably only a couple of days ago.  I’ve never seen him,” said Mike.

“Can you go check, for me?” asked Jason.

“Sure thing.  Back in a second.”

“He may be just a kitten but he’s a 20 pounder,” said Jason.

Jason passed the kitten into Arous’ arms.  The baby cat stopped shaking and looked up at Arous.  As she began to scratch him, he began to purr and nestle closer into her arms. His thick and soft brown tabby fur tickled Arous’ neck. He had a white, longhaired beard and white socks of mis-matched length on each leg.

“He should have papers on him that tell us when we got him.  It’ll only take a minute for Mike to check,” Jason said.

Mike came walking around the corner.

“Jason, I can’t find anything on that new cat.  We couldn’t have had him over a couple of days.”

“Yeah,” Jason said and looked at Arous. “We have to hold them 10 days before we can adopt them out.  In case anyone is missing them.”

“What do I do?” Her eyes began to fill and the boys saw it.

“Well, we could just make up papers on him,” Mike offered.

 “That wouldn’t be right.  What if he belongs to somebody,” Jason argued.

Mike continued to argue. “The fact of the matter is . . . he doesn’t have a collar and doesn’t look like he’s eaten for days . . .”

Arous liked Mike’s logic.

Mike continued. “And a kitten his size, at least six months old, doesn’t have much of a chance . . .  getting picked up by someone, I mean. According to this yellow ribbon, he’s set to be put down this afternoon. ”

“Mike’s right.  I’ll go talk to the shelter manager.   She might know about him. Usually does. We’ll be right back.”

Jason and Mike both turned to leave. She grabbed Jason’s hand.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Okay,” said Jason.

“Really, thanks,” Arous said still holding his hand. He tried gently to pull away.

“I can’t really help you,” he said, “until you let go of my hand.”

“Oh, sorry.”

She was left her in there alone with the kitten. She tapped her foot. Octavius clung to her neck gripping tighter but without using his claws. She peeled him off of her neck and looked at him.

“Octavius, I’m going to put you back but only for a moment. I’ll come right back for you. I promise.”

He looked at her laid one ear down and swished his tail.

“What?” asked Arous.  “I get the feeling you’re asking me to wait.”

Arous paused.

“You should know at the beginning of our relationship, I’m not really good a waiting.”

He swished his tail and laid back both ears.

“I need to create a diversion.  It’s the only way to get you out of here.”

He cocked one ear forward.

“Trust me,” she said. “Look, I need to skin-dance.  I just needed a few seconds of contact and I got that. I should be able to skin-dance long enough to get us both out of here.

She put him into his cage, latched it and walked calmly around the corner to the hall where the dogs were. She walked all the way to the end and up to the ‘dangerous dog’ sign. All along the way she carefully loosened latches to break at the first sign of chaos.  And as she walked along, she skin-danced into the image of Jason.

“Look,” the voice of Jason came out of her mouth, “you’ll stay, sit right here until you hear this note.” She sang a very high pitch as she looked at each of the dog faces. They were all sitting at calm submission and looking at her.

“When you hear this pitch you will raise on your door and push it open and you are free to be who you are. Until then, you are still as stone. I will sing you free but now you are still as stone, still as stone.”

She turned to the next four cages each with a ‘dangerous dog’ sign. She hadn’t noticed the warning when she had unlocked the cages. She began thinking twice about unlatching those and made a move to re-lock them despite each large dog’s begging look.

“Hey, Jason.” Mike had sneaked up on Arous. “I found out about that cat.”

“Yeah?” said Arous-turned-Jason.

“It’s no good. He’s one of those genetically altered cats the Spartan Guard have been using.  Evidently he was more lap cat than lion.  They’ll never let him be adopted. You want to tell her or should I?”

Arous-as-Jason froze. She hadn’t had a chance to re-latch those four cages.

“Matter of fact, they’re taking him right now to put him down.”

Arous-as-Jason had to sing; she now had no choice.