The Cat Who Had 14 Tales

We drove away from the supermarket and were busily blaming each other for negligence when a sudden draft alerted us. This time the opposite window was open, and Sin-Sin was craning her neck at the landscape and blinking at the breezes.

I shrieked, and Howard jammed on the brakes. Then the explanation dawned upon us. Power windows! Sin-Sin had accidentally stepped on the push-button! . . . Needless to say, she spent the rest of the trip locked in the carrier, protesting at full volume.

Upon arriving at our house the newcomer sniffed disparagingly at everything, declined her supper served on one of my best plates, vetoed the soft bed prepared for her, and ignored the silly toys we had bought. Every movement she made caused us concern, and Howard watched her with such fascination that he forgot to work on his stereo project.

“We’re pestering her too much,” he said after a while. “Let’s go to a movie and leave her alone. She’ll get acquainted with the place in her own way.”

We went to the show, but my mind was not on the film. Would Sin-Sin hurt herself? Were there any hidden hazards? Some of the windows were open; could she push through those old screens? Suppose she ate one of the plants and poisoned herself!

It was midnight when we arrived home, and as we drove into our quiet street my anxiety turned to terror. The porches, sidewalks, and lawns were teeming with neighbors. They were tramping about and waving their arms in indignation. They were protesting something. They were protesting a screeching, blasting, thumping performance of hard rock, and it seemed to be coming from our house.

A police car with lights flashing pulled up at our door. “What’s the idea?” one officer demanded. “Do you think that’s a responsible thing to do?—go out and leave the radio blarin’ like that? You look like people who should know better.”

The noise coming from Howard’s stereo was ear shattering, and he made a dash for the controls while I tried to explain to the police and apologize to the neighbors. “We knew something was wrong with the stereo,” I told them. “Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, but we never anticipated anything like this.”

Poor Sin-Sin! She seemed to be suffering most of all. She was huddled under a bed, obviously displeased with the noisy household into which she had been thrust, but she allowed Howard to draw her out from her hiding place and stroke her fur. Clearly he was proud of his success in comforting the sensitive little animal.

We all felt better the next morning. When we sat down for a leisurely Sunday breakfast, Sin-Sin entertained us by cavorting with some little plaything she had found. (It later proved to be a piece of my typewriter.) She had eaten her breakfast hungrily and was finally accepting her new environment. We beamed with pleasure.

“By the way,” Howard said, “if you want that toaster to work, you’d better plug it in.”

“That’s strange,” I said as I pushed the plug into an outlet. “I was sure I connected it.”

At that moment we both jumped from our chairs as a solemn voice in the family room loudly announced: “We will all join in singing Hymn Seventy-three,” and a church organ thundered the opening chords.

We sprinted for the stereo, and what we saw was difficult to believe. Sin-Sin was pawing the controls.

“Amazing!” I gasped.

“Incredible!” said Howard with awe and delight and a little pride. “She’s pretty clever, isn’t she?”

That was only the beginning.

Back at the breakfast table we were discussing the smart little kitten when we saw her crouch momentarily, rise effortlessly to the kitchen counter, and disconnect the coffee maker. Clamping her teeth on the plug, she gave it a businesslike yank—then jumped down and walked away, her tail waving with satisfaction.

Geraldine’s letter had been quite accurate; Sin-Sin had a remarkable mechanical aptitude. We sincerely hoped this sophisticated young thing would know enough to avoid electrocuting herself.

What she could not do with her claws, she did with her teeth. Her powerful little jaws were like pliers, and she was attracted to anything that was operable: knobs, push buttons, levers, latches, switches. Confronted by any mechanical device, she cocked her head and looked at the challenging contrivance sideways until she figured it out.

The kitchen was her favorite playground—a garden of tempting delights. When she started studying the touchtone telephone on the kitchen counter, we tried hiding it in a drawer, but Sin-Sin discovered that the drawer opened easily on nylon rollers. So we put the phone in a wall cabinet, and there it was safe—as long as we wired the door handles together. This arrangement hardly made for convenience, but I shudder to contemplate our long-distance bill if we had not taken precautions.

“It’s only for a few weeks,” Howard reminded me.