The Cat Who Liked Rain

During the afternoon Lukas crept under the skateboard track and sat down. He needed to work out how he was going to tell the story of Night to his classmates. It wasn’t all that easy. In fact, it was quite difficult to turn it into a story that hung together. Especially as it was about a cat as remarkable as Night.

But in the end, while he was still sitting under the skateboard track and it was starting to get cold, he hit upon the best way of telling it. Now he knew!

When his dad came home in his lorry, Lukas ran out to greet him.

‘Now I’m going to tell you what it’s like, starting school!’ he shouted.

Axel smiled.

‘I like it when you come running to meet me, looking happy,’ said Axel.

Lukas sniffed at his overall. It smelled of farmyard.

‘You’ve driven to the slaughterhouse today,’ said Lukas.

Axel nodded.

Lukas had guessed right!

Two days later, Lukas told the story of Night. He had taken with him all the photographs he had of Night, and shown them to his classmates. He told them all about Night, everything Night had said in that strange dream. He had realised that Night had come back to him in the dream for that very reason: he wanted to give Lukas the most remarkable story of all. He’d wanted to give Lukas something really special and exciting to tell.

Mind you, he wasn’t sure afterwards that his classmates had grasped just how remarkable Night actually was. He thought it best to continue talking about Night, even during the breaks. Some of his classmates told him they were sick of hearing about that missing cat. When that happened, Lukas could be angry and sad. But he continued telling everybody about Night even so.

And so, one day, Lukas got a nickname.

Just how it happened, nobody knew.

But suddenly, there it was.

Somebody had said it, and somebody had overheard it and passed it on. You never really know with nicknames. They have their secrets, just as cats can have secrets, and humans as well, come to that.

You can never be completely sure about where a nickname comes from. Perhaps it was Night himself who’d used it for the first time. Whispered it into the wind that had blown it into the schoolyard, where somebody had heard it, and passed it on.

It was impossible to know.

But one day, somebody in the school yard shouted:

‘Lucky Night!’

And Lukas turned round immediately, because he knew he was the one somebody was shouting to.

Lucky Night. Lucky Night.

It sounded odd at first, almost like a foreign language. But soon, everybody had grown used to it, and nobody apart from the teacher called him Lukas any more.

Lucky Night. Lucky Night.

It was a big day in Lukas’s life when he got a nickname. Whirlwind was no longer the only one in the family with a nickname. There were two of them now.

‘It’s a strange nickname,’ said Whirlwind. ‘But it’s a good one. There’s nothing else like it.’

‘There’s nothing else like my cat, either,’ said Lukas.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Whirlwind in irritation. ‘It’s run away! Stop talking about that cat! Learn how to skateboard instead. Nobody wants to hear about that stupid cat!’

Lukas didn’t bother to respond. Earlier, he would no doubt have been both angry and sad. But what does anybody called Lucky Night care about what an elder brother thinks? An elder brother who doesn’t even know that the most remarkable cat in the world is now in a land where umbrellas grow wild.

They don’t care at all, Lukas thought. I’m not going to stop talking about Night. And if nobody wants to listen, I can always talk to myself. Nobody’s going to take my cat away from me.

And soon it was winter, and the skateboard track and the currant bush were both covered in snow. Occasionally cat paw-marks were visible in the white snow. But Lukas knew they were tracks left by another cat. Night was in a land where it rained all the time, a warm rain that sang tunes. Night was sitting there on his rock, licking his fur clean and thinking.

His cat was a king in Rainy-Weather Land.

His rock was his throne. From there he could keep an eye on his enormous realm. Only when it suited him did he receive visits from other cats. On very special occasions, Night would go off with his dream in order to talk to Lukas.

And then the whole world held its breath.

Nobody was allowed to disturb them when Night and Lucky Night were together.

Never, ever...

Fourteen

And then?

What happened next?

Night never came back. He had vanished forever in the wonderful Rainy-Weather Land that Lukas dreamed about all the time.