Stay low. Target dead ahead. Careful, it's gonna jump, stay low... Now up on haunches, wiggle the butt, steady... and... POUNCE!!
And the world famous White Panther flies through the air, straight as beam of light and in perfect form, to land clean on top of his... prey?
Where'd you go?? Hey! No fair! You can't jump around like that! I leapt straight up to try for the toy again, which dangled from a string. The string was tied to a rod in Nick's hand. He laughed hysterically as I jumped around trying to capture the little bundle. I sprang again and went too far backward; I ended up doing a backflip in the air. Oh, hold it too high for me, eh? This calls for a different measure...
I eased up on my bouncing efforts and then sat down to lick my paws. I didn't even look up at the cloth bird. After a moment it flew down to the floor and scratched up behind me. Nick wouldn't have thought it was loud, but I could hear it like the can-opener in the evening.
Then, a soft, plush body against my back. It nosed around to my side, and then in a blink my paw flicked up and caught it neatly by the neck, my scythe claws holding it firmly. A little gasp from Nick, and immediately I started nawing on it. Plop! I fell over onto my side, still chewing furiously. Nick started giggling.
"Man, Mercury, I always fall for that one, don't I?" He walks to me and bends over.
Hey, what are you doing? More! I released the bird and jumped to my feet. Here, see? I let go, now make it jump some more!! Come on! I crouched low in ready position.
His mouth opens wide so his teeth show. In the wild, that look would provoke attack, but when you look at Nick's eyes, you know it's only a grin. "All right, then. A few more minutes. Then I have to do my homework."
What's homework? I wondered. That stuff your mommy and daddy makes you do around the house? Oooh!! Higher, wider!! Watch me nail it!
Bowling over the bird on the floor, I rammed head first into a large furry gray wall. "Oops. Silver, ole girl! How are you?" I meowed silkily.
"Heeeehh!" She bared her teeth in a hiss. "If you weren't so busy being a dog, maybe you'd see how a real cat acts." Holding her nose in the air, she stepped away. I scoffed and trotted after her.
"Aw, come on. I'm as real as you and Nick and his mom and dad. And even real as Old Parrot-mouth up there!" I jerked my head toward Tanya's room, where Kit the cockatiel stayed. Tanya was his human. I turned back to Silver. "Now you want not real, there's your candidate."
Silver glanced where I was looking: the large glass box up on a short wooden bookcase, where Pedro, the python lived. "On the contrary, thou small-and-hyper one, Pedro is quite real. He does his job like a good snake."
She just didn't get it. "Are you kidding?" I sprang up onto the bookcase. Pedro was curled up as always, his snout poking out from under his cucumber coils. "He just lies there all day! He only moves when people take him out and when he eats!"
With a smug sparkle in her eyes, Silver smiled up at me. A human wouldn't know it unless they've been around cats for a long time, but we can smile. "Exactly. You can take lessons from him."
Then we heard it: the sweet sound of metal cutting metal, and my nostrils feasted on the scent of tuna and whitefish. Time for dinner. But I was struck with a sudden fancy. I looked back at Pedro, sniffing the glass of his cage. "Hey you, wanna do me a favor?" I mewed confidentially.
A spotted coil curled up lazily, and then a head appeared. Pedro looked at me with an unreadable gaze -- I still haven't learned how to read snake expressions -- and yawned, showing his forked tongue. "Sure, kid. Want me to lunge on Silver next time she's comin' this way?"
"Heh heh, naw, I have a more diverse idea." This would be fun. See, Silver had totally the wrong idea about Pedro. He was actually more my type than he let on to her. "Listen... "
"Mercury? You coming?" came Nick's question when he noticed I hadn't come running.
"Gotta run! Best not to confuse my human any longer!" I leapt down from the bookcase and zoomed to the kitchen. Silver was munching daintily a bite at a time, and Nick was still opening a cup of 9 Lives to put in my bowl. "Eeeow! Eeeaow!" I made my need known clearly as I circled around his legs, getting in his way so he couldn't walk straight.
"Mercury, don't do that! You'll make me step on you."
No way, you're not quick enough! Gotta keep light on your toes, ya know. Hurry up with the chow! "EEEAOWWW!" I got up on the counter and snatched a peanut from the large bowl, still in their shells. On the floor again I dropped it onto Nick's hand as he set my bowl down.
"Hey, he got up on the table again! Don't do that, Mercury!"
Whaaaaat? That's where you keep all the good stuff, what am I supposed to do? "Come on, it's only a little peanut. You can get more of those."
A few feet away, Silver looked up from her food. Not a single crumb could be seen on her whiskers. "You silly little cat. You know they are angry at the bare fact that you got up on the counter. That's their world. Ours is from the doorknob down."
"Oh, so I am a real cat now, huh?" I was feeling pretty smart as I gobbled up that nice tuna. But what I heard next from the dining room perked up my ears:
"So when are we going skiing this year?" It was Nick, and he sounded really excited. // Skee-ing? Oh yea! Nick's talked to me about that a few times before. He really wants to do it, whatever it is. //
"Well, we think near the end of December, before Tanya goes back to school," Mr. Gregory said through a mouthful of pork chops. I ran in and became fascinated with a crumpled piece of newspaper. I wanted to know everything they said about this mysterious "skee-ing."
"And remember before that I have my little dental appointment," Tanya said, and she didn't sound pleased at all. She sighed. "Evolution, what can you do?"
Now Nick started humming some song I have learned is associated with funerals, and Mrs. Gregory told him to stop teasing his sister. Under the table with my newspaper wad, I heard him snickering under his breath. Tanya poured some milk for herself. "Oh, just wait till you have to get your wisdom teeth out! I bet you won't be laughing then!"
I hopped up on her chair behind her. "Eeeuww." // Come on, dental shmental! I bet it doesn't hurt any worse than my vet appointments. Talk about skee-ing some more! What is it, Nick's been talking about it but he never explained it to me. //
Nick shrugged, that motion humans do with their shoulder if they don't know something. "So is there a lot of snow yet?"
Tanya giggled and picked me up and set me in her lap. "There's snow there that's whiter than him even!"
I meowed loudly. // No, way! I want to see snow! Can I come, pleeeeease? //
"I bet he'd have the time of his life there, getting lost in it like a shoeshoe," Mrs. Gregory chuckled.
"Except he wouldn't turn brown in the spring, so we could still find him," Tanya finished. She reached down to scratch my ears. // Ahhh! That's it, a little higher, harder too. // I nosed into her fingers. "Too bad we can't bring ya, guy." // What??? I sat up abrupty. But, but... I'm Mercury, I'm me! Come on! //
But by the looks of them, they seemed determined not to take any pets. I batted my little newspaper out of the room to hide my humiliation. But Silver had heard it all from her bed in the living room, where she lounged like a "proper" cat. Personally, I had always found her a little too prissy. "Aw, did little Mercury get booted out of the trip? It's for the best though, with all the trouble you cause--"
I strutted past her, trying to look confident. "Oh, don't worry. I'll... get to go, I'll convince 'em."
"I really doubt that. They never take any of us, not even Pedro, who 'just lies there', as you say. It's a strictly human thing they do every year and believe me, you wouldn't want to go if you knew what it's like there."
"Well, how do you know that, if you've never gone?" I said as I jumped up to Pedro's glass box again. He turned his eye to me and -- if snake's could wink -- I bet he would have just then.
"Ah. I forget, you are still young as well as new here. It snowed here around -- let me see -- ten years ago, and it was quite cold. Any normal cat would be sensible and have stayed indoors. No thank you, I wouldn't go on a skee-ing trip and freeze my toosh in a cabin for all the caviar in a show yaught."
"Hey what's that?" I nosed against the glass at something inside.
"Come now! Do you take me for a fool?" She started to walk off in a huff.
"No, I'm serious. He looks kinda sick. I mean, there's this reddish spot, or something, on the side of his face, and he's breathing kinda ragged." Just then I realized something. How do snakes breathe? I don't see his flank rising like a cat's or human's would. But he must breathe somehow, right?
"He probably just rubbed against one of the rocks in there. Maybe he's molting." But she had stopped priss-stepping away and was coming back.
"You should see it, though!"
She looked hard up at me. She suspected something, but I held her gaze. Finally she hopped up next to me and planted herself in front of the glass...
And Pedro acted. In a flash he raised his head and pretended to spring at the glass, stopping a tail's breadth from it, fangs bared.
"RREEAAWW-HEEEHHHH!" Oh man, she puffed up like a balloon that Nick had just blown into! That and she jumped about half her own length backward. And that was one of the funniest things I had ever seen in my whole life! It was okay that she wasn't too happy, she needs to lighten up.
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