THE COLD CHRISTMAS CAT

Archie Goodwin was a large (athletic, not fat) orange tabby cat. He thought of himself as a "tiger" cat. He lived in a farm house with some people who read the name Archie Goodwin in a book, and decided to lend it to him. It wasn't his real name, of course. They had never asked him his real name. Still, as long as the family fed him, he'd put up with their impoliteness. Over the years he had almost forgotten his name; in this story, "Archie" will do.

All in all, Archie had a pretty good life. The family, a smallish boy, a teenage girl, a man and a woman, lived on a farm. They were nice to him and he let them pet him now and then. Sometimes he sat in their laps or tried to climb into their beds, when they were warm. There was plenty of cat food and a litter box in the house, and mice and birds and other animals to chase outside. The cows in the barn didn't bother him. He managed to stay on speaking terms with the stray cats living in the barn, although they teased him about his soft life in the house. Sometimes it was necessary to fight, but not too often.

He shared the family with the dog they called Stebbins. "Stebbins" came from the same book as "Archie." The dog never mentioned his other, true, dog name, and never seemed offended by the one the people used. He may have been too dumb to notice. Typical dog. Stebbins was born and bred to herd sheep. Since there were no sheep here, he was usually bored and needing something to do. Sometimes the best he could think of was to chase Archie or one of the strays, but not with any malice. Archie would hide out in a tree or in the rafters of the garage until Stebbins forgot about him. Usually they got along.

Archie spent the summers sleeping in the sun, and the winters sleeping near one of the radiators in the house. Our story begins one winter afternoon. Two old people had come to visit. They came two or three times every year. Soon afterwards the old man and the kids had driven off in the old man's pickup truck. The rest of the family was busy in the kitchen. As you can imagine, with three people in one kitchen, bustling about, talking and laughing, there was a lot of commotion. Most cats disapprove of such hilarity and riot, and Archie was no exception. He curled up by the radiator in the next room and pretended to ignore the whole thing and sleep. In truth, he had one eye open for any sign that the boisterousness, or maybe some treat from the stove, might be heading his way.

The people paid him no mind, and by and by his curiosity, and the smell of good food cooking, led him to strut into the kitchen to see what was going on, and maybe mooch a handout. The old woman saw him and tossed a piece of ham, but just as Archie crouched down to eat it, the man stepped on his tail. He tried to apologize, but Archie hissed and ran back to the next room, sulking. "Humbug," he thought. "Maybe later, when everyone's asleep."

Just then the kids and the old man blew in with a gust of cold wind, shouting and tugging at the family. "Oh, no!" thought Archie. "More noise!" Still worse, they all went outside and came back dragging a big tree. Why would anyone want a tree in the living room? A tree that size was no good for climbing, only for claw-sharpening. Claw-sharpening wasn't allowed in the house, as Archie had learned the hard way. Whatever was going on, Archie wanted no part of it. It would be altogether safer and more pleasant outdoors, even in the cold. He crept over near the door, saw his chance, and ran out without being seen or, more important, stepped on. No one paid any attention.

Archie had run about three or four steps before he noticed that it was snowing. There was a little snow on the ground, but not much. "Ugh!" he thought. Each time he raised a paw to take a step, he shook the snow off until he decided it was too much trouble. He'd just head for the barn. He found a snug spot in the hay near the cows, where it was warmest, and fell asleep.

It was dark when he woke up. His body was tense and alert, but he wasn't sure why. Then he heard it again -- the mother of the strays, a scarred oold tortoise-shell, was screaming and taunting him. "What's the matter?" she hissed. "Rich folks put you out in the cold? Big feast in the big house, and here you are, out with the animals." Archie could hear her kittens, some of them full grown and all of them mean, laughing in the darkness. He figured there were a hundred or so cats out there. Of course, cats can't count very high.

Archie howled back with some choice language of his own as he maneuvered around the stray. What he said doesn't matter. He wasn't afraid they'd all attack him. Cats, unlike dogs, almost never fight in packs and he knew that if he had to fight, it would be only one of them at a time. But she was right. There was a big feast in the house, and he was missing it. From the barn door where the discussion had wandered he could see bright lights. The snow had stopped, covering the ground about knee-deep for a cat. "Yuck!" "Even so," he thought, "it's better to walk in the snow and get in the house than get in a big fight here."

His pride forced him to finish the conversation. He lunged toward the old stray, claws out, and caught her on the ear, or maybe the head. He didn't get a good look because just then she slashed him good between his ear and his left eye, drawing blood. He turned and bounded through the snow toward the house, hearing her and her brood singing, "'fraidy cat, 'fraidy cat." Huh. He didn't see them fighting anybody twenty against one.

On the porch he simply stood and waited for someone to let him in. That usually didn't take long. Somehow kids know there's a cat waiting. This time, however, it didn't work. After waiting for a long, cold while Archie decided to jump up and balance on the railing, so they could see and hear him better through the window. He leapt up with feline grace and slid off, falling off the porch into a small snowdrift on the other side. Immediately he looked around to see if anyone had noticed his clumsy fall. There was no one. "Ugh!" he thought again. He'd forgotten about the snow, which was piled high and slick on the rail. He corrected his leap on the second try, and it worked.

He opened his mouth to howl, but stopped in mid-breath. Looking in the window he saw that the tree they had carried in earlier was set up straight and covered with lights and shiny stuff. Everyone was standing around it hanging pieces of glass and plastic from the branches, and laughing and talking. Naturally, the whole sight made Archie nervous until he remembered that this happened every year. And every year, after they had finished, Archie would earn a treat by pawing at a few pieces of the shiny stuff until the family seemed to be satisfied. Then they'd give him his treat, give something to the other animals, and everyone would go off to bed. Late that night, somehow somebody would put a bunch of packages under the tree. How the packages got there was a mystery. Archie never heard anyone. In the morning the kids would tear open all the packages and leave bits of shiny paper and ribbon and a lot of empty boxes all over the room. For Archie, who loved to sit in empty boxes, that was the best part, not counting the treats. For days afterward there would be boxes to sit in, until the last of them was taken away.

But in the past years, he had always been in the house. He had never been left outside, bleeding and neglected, while all the fun went on. So he howled, as only a cold, hungry, injured cat can, especially one that hasn't had something to eat for at least an hour.

No one paid any attention. He thought of climbing on the screens, which was asking for trouble, but the screens had been taken down for the winter. He ran around to the other windows, but everyone was standing near the tree and no one noticed him. So he returned to his perch on the railing and howled again. Nothing. The situation couldn't get much worse.

He decided to check with Stebbins. He went around to Stebbins's dog house, but he wasn't there. Could Stebbins be inside the house? Getting fed? Archie ran around to his railing and howled once more. Still nothing. He ran around to Stebbins's house again, just as Stebbins returned. "Me? Yeah, I was just in the house." said Stebbins. Stebbins almost never went in the house. "They gave me a bunch of turkey and a lot of other scrap stuff, and a whole can of name-brand dog food. Some party, huh? What'd you get?"

"I can't get in, you oaf," grumbled Archie. "I came out this afternoon and I guess they didn't notice. Or else they don't care about me."

"Don't care? Of course they care," said Stebbins, who liked Archie, even though sometimes he, a dog, chased Archie, a cat, because everyone expected him to. "You live in the house, don't you? They just figure that you're hiding in some closet, you know, your usual sociable self." Oddly enough, Stebbins was exactly right. That is what the woman thought, anyway. "Once they figure out that you're outside, they'll open the door and call, and that will be that."

"Well, maybe." said Archie. "But I sure could go for a treat. I'd even play with the stupid shiny stuff on the tree."

"That's the price you pay for living in the house," chuckled Stebbins. "Out here, nobody makes you do stupid stuff. I'm a shepherd. I'd be happy to herd some sheep, but I've never seen one." Archie laughed, in spite of his misery and in spite of the fact that he'd heard that joke a hundred times. But he wasn't sure what to do.

"Say, what happened to your eye? You tangle with those strays in the barn again?" Stebbins didn't wait for an answer. "Why do you always have to go fight them fifty-to-one? Next time, you come get me and we'll head over there and clean house." Stebbins was a good-hearted soul, and although Archie had tried, there was just no way to explain to him that the rules of cat-fighting simply did not allow dogs.

"Thanks, Steb, but it's just a cat scratch. I'll be okay. Right now all I want -- " He heard the front door slam and was around the house, snow and all, like a shot. Two sets of human footprints. One toward the barn, one returning. How did he miss the first door slam? Talking to Stebbins. Oh, well. A smell of something spilled. Dry cat food -- Archie's usual brand. The strays' shiny-tree day treat. And he, Archie, who belonged in the house, had missed it.

Just then the last of the house lights went out, except for the lights on the tree. Archie figured that you could see them from clear out to the highway, if you cared. He'd tried a million times to wake somebody up after the family had all gone to bed. No way. No use in sitting out in the cold trying. There was nothing left to do but go hole up somewhere and wait for morning. Maybe the hood of the old man's pickup, now in the garage, would still be warm. He'd jump in through the broken window. He was sure to get in the house in the morning, when they got the newspaper from the box at the end of the driveway. He'd be hungry and cold, but he'd live.

* * * *

Hours later, in the coldest part of the winter night, Archie was huddled up among some rags in the bed of the pickup, half asleep, alert for any signs of life in the house. Suddenly through the broken garage window he heard the clatter of dozens of footsteps, somewhat muffled by the new-fallen snow. Archie sprang from the pickup bed to see what was the matter. He couldn't see anything through the window, but it sounded as if the noise came from the roof of the house. Except for once when some men climbed on the roof hammering and sawing, only squirrels, birds and cats ever went up there. And squirrels, birds and cats were silent, considerate of the people in the house. This bunch was raising a racket, in the middle of the night.

He jumped through the broken window and peered up at the roof line. The snow-clouds were gone, and he could see clearly by the bright moonlight. There were several animals that looked like small deer and a sort of open car behind them. No human anywhere in sight. The driver must have gone in the house. "That's funny," Archie thought. "I've been listening for a door. Surely I would have heard one open or shut."

The car looked sort of familiar. A few times last summer, a boy in an open car like that picked up the girl and the two of them had gone off for awhile. He remembered it well because of all the dozens of boys and cars parked in the yard (only five, really, but cats can't count very high) it was the only one he had been able to inspect thoroughly, front seat and back seat, cat-style. What he learned he kept to himself, also cat-style.

But that car had had wheels. The one on the roof did not. To Archie, who did not understand the importance of wheels or any other mechanical contraption, that was just another peculiar fact.

What he knew for sure was that no matter where you found it, the hood of a freshly-parked car is nice and warm. So in spite of the risk, Archie decided to climb the tree next to the house, cat-walk out the thick limb toward the roof, hop down to the eaves and climb up the shingles to the ridge, behind the car. The tree and roof were slick with snow, but he made the ridge okay and walked up to and past the car toward what looked to him like the front end, because there was a little windshield.

He leaped on the hood, which was quite short, tilted forward too steeply for comfortable napping, and, to his surprise, quite cold. "Drat!" he muttered, as he struggled for a foothold. "Back to the garage." Before climbing down he looked around curiously. The deer were tied to the car with leather straps. He had never seen anything like that before, although an old horse had once told him that pulling things was the main work for horses in bygone days. He remarked to the two closest deer, who seemed to be ignoring him, "Hello, I'm Archie. Who are you? I've never seen live deer tied to a car like this before."

"We are not deer. Some call us reindeer. I prefer to be called a minature Canadian caribou, if you please." growled the one on the left. "In fact, we are specially bred reindeer," added the other. The reindeer clearly thought Archie was some insignificant country clod. Archie had known cats who acted the same way. The best way to get along with them was to let them think you believed it.

"Sorry," said Archie, who really had meant no offense. "Specially bred for what?" He was genuinely sorry for any animal that had to work for a living.

"Don't you know anything?" added the one on the right. "We pull this sleigh -- car, as you call it -- all over the world on this night every year. The deliveries we make are a very important part of the celebration."

"So you work only one night a year? That's not so bad."

They were both so indignant that the explanation tumbled out of them both; first one, then the other, sometimes both at once. "To be selected for this night we have to train, and train hard, all year. Can you fly? Pulling a sleigh? Have you ever seen a caribou, or a reindeer, or a deer, or even a silly little farm cat, fly? It takes practice, practice, practice and long workouts. And learning to take off and land silently! And the complicated routes! It's a wonder there are eight of us ready each year. Preparing is our regular work, if a cat understands the concept of work. I'll have you know we are hand-picked from a very large herd. Then the teamwork drills! Takeoffs and landings all night for weeks! All those practice roofs -- steep roofs, flat roofs, apartment buildings, cedar shingles, gravel, thatch -- hundreds of different types! It's exhausting just to think about them!

"Good breeding is very important. Almost every reindeer for years has at least one ancestor who made the team in the past. I'm Thunder, and this is my sister Lightning. We are direct descendants of the famous Donner and Blitzen of the 1822 team."

"Who were the only team ever to be spotted in mid-mission," came a chuckle from the front of the group.

"Shush," sniffed Lightning. "It was our great-aunt Freya who would have led the team in 1937 until she was bumped by that pushy arriviste with the red nose. Wasn't he a flash in the pan?" she chortled. "Never made the team again. Neither have any of his kids or grandchildren, so far as I know. Some talented family, eh?"

Archie didn't know what they were talking about and changed the subject. "Why is it so important for you to pull this thing anywhere? Delivering stuff? The mailman comes here every day. What's the matter with the mail? Why is your mission a secret?"

"If it's not a secret the magic doesn't work and we can't fly . . ." Lightning started to answer, but she was interrupted by another reindeer, a voice of authority from the front of the pack. "Archie, climb into the back seat and take a look down the passageway between the seats."

Archie didn't need to be told twice to be nosy, so he hopped over the windshield, then over the front seat, into the back. On both back seats, left and right, were sacks full of boxes, wrapped in ribbon, of all sizes. Between the seats was a flight of stairs descending into a room, something Archie had not noticed in the boy's car last summer. As he looked down the stairs he became dizzy and crouched and dug his claws into the carpet on the floor of the sleigh, for fear of losing his balance and falling down there.

The room was enormous. Just the amount that Archie could see would hold several of the cow barns where the stray cats lived. It was deep and wide and long, and Archie could see where passageways led off to still more rooms off in the distance. The whole room was crisscrossed with scaffolding and catwalks. There were shelves along every wall and more shelves arranged on every bit of floor space. Everywhere, covering the shelves and then some, were sacks and sacks of those boxes tied in ribbon, with some toys and candy showing as well. The whole room was well-lighted, but somehow the light did not spill out into the back seat of the sleigh.

There were some men working off in the distance, too far for Archie to see them very well. They were very busy, checking lists, lifting sacks, placing the sacks on moving belts sort of like the ones the farmers in Archie's area would use to load grain into the grain elevators. A couple of the workers spied Archie and waved, but they were obviously too busy to stop and chat.

Suddenly Archie understood that this was how those boxes got into the house every year, on the night after they put the shiny stuff on the tree. Into everyone's houses. At first the sacks seemed to be in a hopeless jumble, but as he looked Archie began to see that they were in some kind of complicated order. After all, if this sleigh was making deliveries, they had to be able to find the stuff for each stop. The workers in the big room saw to it that each sack was ready in time. Living up to his nickname, Archie had solved a mystery. He felt pretty pleased with himself, and forgot how cold and miserable he had been. Here at the opening to the big room, it wasn't so cold anyway.

How big was the room and how many sacks were there? Since the biggest number Archie knew for sure was three, his guess is probably wrong. But think: the room was so big and deep that it made a cat feel dizzy. Yet on the outside, the whole room fit under the back seat of a sleigh. Archie didn't understand it, and nobody else does, either.

Archie slowly backed away from the opening, climbed into the front seat and turned towards Thunder. "So you hand-picked miniature caribou train and practice all year so you can fly around and give all this stuff away? Pretty nice of you."

"No, my fine cat, the reindeer work for me. I fly around and give the stuff away." Hearing a cat, Archie whirled left towards the voice, crouching and extending his claws. But there was no cat, only a human, not much different from most humans, short and fat with a thick white beard, clearly friendly. But where was the cat who had just spoken?

"Are you looking for the cat?" said the man. The man had spoken to him in CAT!! Not only in the cat language, but in the local dialect. Once in awhile a stray with a strange accent would wander through and all the cats would mock it for days. This man had it perfect. Incredible. Archie stared. "It's just me. I just left a sack of gifts for your family under the tree, including one or two for you, so you might like to be polite and pull your claws in."

"H-H-How did you learn to speak Cat?" Archie stammered, not quite ready to retract his claws.

"Oh, it's just something I picked up somewhere. It comes in handy sometimes, in my line of work."

"Wh-Who are you? Why d-d-do you travel around with sacks -- " Just then a gust of wind reminded Archie how cold and hungry he was. It gave him an idea, and blew away his nervousness. "Did you say you can get into the house?"

"Yep. Down the chimney. Been doing it for years and years. Nothing to it, once you know the trick."

Archie's philosophy was that it never does any harm to ask for what you want. He pulled in his claws and relaxed, to show he was willing to trust the man. "Will you please go back in and open the door for me? I've been trying to get in all night."

"Sorry," said the man. "I'm already 'way behind schedule. I have to be going." The man made a clicking sound with his mouth, and the reindeer team straightened up and looked alert. He stepped toward the front seat of the car -- sleigh -- where Archie still stood. He didn't want to fly around with this man, or make him angry, but he was going to stand his ground. It was his only chance to get in the house.

The man looked closely at Archie, who looked just as closely back. "That's quite a cut on your head," the man said. "You better have your people put some peroxide on it. Now, out of the sleigh. I must be off."

"I hear your magic won't work if the children see you," said Archie. "Have you ever heard a cat-fight scream at full blast? Do you think I can wake someone up? One of the kids?" As we know, Archie couldn't wake anyone up, he had tried several times. He was bluffing.

The man looked annoyed, and Archie wondered if he should expect trouble. He glanced at his escape route, along the ridge and back down the tree. But then the man laughed so hard he shook like -- well, he shook. "Extortion, is it? I admire enterprise in a cat. Okay, it's a deal. I'll take you in if you promise never to tell anyone about me, or the sleigh, or the reindeer."

"I am a miniature caribou!" muttered someone who sounded like Lightning.

The man repeated the clicking sound, and the team of reindeer, or caribou, fell absolutely silent and still. "Agreed?"

"Agreed," replied Archie.

The man quickly lifted Archie off the seat. "I'll carry you down the chimney myself. Mind the hot embers in the fireplace."

Before Archie could react, or tell the man that at the moment he wasn't afraid of anything hot, he was standing on the floor in front of the hearth. "Merry Christmas," the man had said, disappearing. Whatever that meant. Archie didn't know if he had bluffed the man or if the man had simply decided to do him a favor. I guess we'll never know.

By morning Archie had eaten his treat, cleaned the traces of blood and soot off his fur and found a warm place to sleep among the boxes under the tree. He was so worn out by his adventures that even when the family came down in the morning and tore all the paper he just lay there, accepting their scratches under his chin, purring sometimes, happy to be warm. The cut on his head turned out not to be too bad, although the peroxide was as bad as ever. He'd have liked to tell them, or at least Stebbins, about his night, but he'd made a deal with the strange man who flew around in the open sleigh in the cold, giving things away. He'd keep it to himself, cat-style. Besides, he didn't think they'd really want to know.