The private life of the cat who...: tales of Koko and Yum Yum from the journal of James Mackintosh Qwilleran

How Koko conveys his information seems too farfetched to believe, and really must be attributed to coincidence. He licks glossy photographs, pushes books off the shelf, and swipes small objects with bold impudence. Whenever this occurs, his bizarre action steers my mind in a certain direction. Since I often have my own suspicions, it’s possible to put two and two together.

My source of personal hunches, strangely, is a tremor on the upper lip, causing me to pound my mustache. I’ve been kidded about my overgrown mustache for years, and it has become part of my persona. Now I wonder if it helps me tune in to Koko’s extrasensory perception. I’m serious! Koko’s sixty whiskers may be the catly equivalent of the optic fibers that carry information in today’s digital world.

Kao K’o Kung has ESP

And a higher IQ than you and me.

He loafs all day

And has a devious way

Of getting his gourmet meals for free!

Everyone admires Koko, but everyone loves Yum Yum! She’s so dainty, so kittenish, so sweet! But don’t be fooled! She has a mind of her own . . . and a talent for larceny! You see, she has this lightning-quick paw that darts out silently and pilfers some small shiny object. Over a period of time her loot has included a silver pen, a gold watch, a guest’s lipstick, a silver cigarette lighter, and another guest’s left earring, pulled off when she used the phone and found under the sofa several weeks later.

The police chief visits us occasionally, and Yum Yum has designs on his badge but contents herself by untying his shoelaces.

She stole my toothbrush twice before I learned to keep it under lock and key. She is fascinated by brushes, including the one on my upper lip. The famous paw reaches out and touches my mustache with wonder—this when I’m in my lounge chair and she’s perched on my chest.

Speaking of toothbrushes, I recall an incident one winter when we were living in Junktown—a street of Victorian town houses occupied by antique shops, with studio apartments upstairs. I was writing a series on Junktown and rented a second-floor-rear for a few months. It had been owned by a famous editor and abolitionist in the nineteenth century. The cats were fascinated by the pigeons in the backyard; I was fascinated by the extensive bookshelves and quantity of old books.

One day a toothbrush (not mine) appeared in the middle of the floor. Yum Yum looked guilty but refused to answer questions. I threw the toothbrush away.

A few days later, I was visiting my neighbor in second-floor-front when I noticed a red feather on the carpet. It was my feather! It had recently disappeared from the brim of my tweed porkpie! You see, in the nineteenth century the house had been a part of the Underground Railroad, harboring runaway slaves. There was a tunnel concealed in the bookcases, and Yum Yum had sneaked through, exchanging my feather for my neighbor’s toothbrush!

Now Yum Yum amuses herself by stealing one of my socks, wrestling with it, beating it up, then losing it. I have a drawer full of socks without mates. If I throw them out, the missing ones will suddenly appear.

But I can think of one act of heroism for which her famous paw must be given credit. We were spending some time at the beach, and a hummingbird flew smack into a porch screen, getting its long slender bill caught in the mesh. Yum Yum, huddled on a porch table, calmly stood on her hind legs and gave the trapped bill a whack with her paw. The bird flew away, and she went back to dreaming about silver thimbles and toothbrushes.

This happened after the Great Jade Robbery, following my feature on the Tait mansion. In the Fluxion photo lab, the pundits who claim to have the inside dirt on everything maintained that there was no robbery. It was a hoax engineered by Tait himself in order to collect on his insurance and embarrass the Daily Fluxion. Tait had family connections with our competitor and a longtime grudge against the Flux.

The photographer who had worked on the assignment with me had an idea. He knew I was going to pick up the Taits’ cat. He would give me a set of prints—close-ups, of the jades and shots of the house interior. It would be a friendly gesture and would give me a chance to snoop a little. I was going solely to pick up the cat and was taking Koko to help ease the transition.

The photos were handsome shots, printed eleven-by-fourteen, with bleeding edges. As I spread out the interior views and studied them, Koko sneaked up and licked one of them.

“No!” I thundered. It was probably the only time in his life that he had been scolded. He glared at me and then left the room in what might be called high dudgeon.