(Are we not tired of this chapter? Promise to post a new one soon. Might be a different book, though. Heh, heh. Meanwhile, back in the madness...)
Moonshadow Madness
By
Diana Greenwood
Chapter One
Moonshadow is the cat’s name, of course, what did you expect? It’s the title of the book. Anyone can see that. It’s the madness part I’ll have to explain. But first, let me tell you who I am so you’ll actually sit down and listen to the story. Or, maybe that won’t matter to you at all, who I am, and you’ll say get on with it, the story, skip all this preliminary mumbo-jumbo. I’ll never know.
So I’ll tell you, whether you like it or not. I’m the one Moonshadow, the cat, (remember?) picked to bother. I didn’t say haunt, although it was more like that; I said bother. I’m trying to be polite.
It could have been anyone. Main Street is a long street in our pretty big, pretty boring town. There were plenty of irritating people wandering the sidewalks, crowding them more than was usual on a sticky August morning when the back-to-school rush to buy a bunch of junk that would get lost or broken or stolen right out from under your nose hadn’t even started yet. You’d expect people to stay inside when the sky is the color of a driveway with rain clouds like oil stains all clumped up but no, there they were milling about and running useless errands and conducting useless conversations in the least convenient locations. Like right outside the bookstore, blocking the door.
I don’t like to talk in the morning.
So I kept my head down but I had to mumble pardon me to the two women with umbrellas, open, no less, even though it wasn’t raining yet, who were preventing me from going inside. Unfortunately, one of them recognized me.
“Good morning Jeremy,” said the old hag on the left.
I looked up and she did look vaguely familiar but who could tell with all that fat hair? Notice I didn’t mention she was fat? Just the hair? That’s because, well, I too, am rather large and I just don’t like to talk about it. And, when you’re twelve with size fourteen shoes and even in those your ankles puff over the top and when you take your shoes off there’s a line on each foot where the shoes have been cutting in all day, takes forever to disappear, well, I just don’t like to talk about it.
I’m getting to the cat part. Have a little patience.
“How’s your mother?”
Same hag. The other hag stood there stupidly, under her umbrella. Maybe stupid is a little harsh but she did have one of those blank looks you read about in books when the author wants you to know someone is a bit dull.
“About the same. Thanks for asking,” I answered.
Like I said before, I try to be polite. It’s safer. Keeps people off your back. Of course, as you’ve probably realized already, unless you, too, have one of those blank looks, the answer I gave her was one of those non-answers. I was pretty practiced in that department having had the 6th grade English teacher from Horrorville the year before. Non-answers were my specialty. Besides, I haven’t mentioned this yet but unless the hag knew how sick my mother’d been, for a very long time, the answer would shut her up. I was banking on her not knowing. A little risk never hurts.
“That’s nice,” she said. “Tell her I said hello.”
Bingo. Right again. She didn’t know.
“I’ll do that,” I said.
Like I could. Did you hear me mention the hag’s name?
So right then this black, all black, I know, I checked later, cat (shut up, I told you I’d get to the cat) came out of nowhere and skidded to a screeching halt at my aforementioned, thick, ankles. I know cats don’t screech because, well, they would need brakes for that, but that’s what it reminded me of at the time, a cartoon-style screeching halt. Stupid cat. Both hags jumped and almost poked me in the eye with their umbrellas.
I think we can call the cat Moonshadow from now on. I think you got that by now.
So Moonshadow looks up at me with slanted yellow eyes and the second a man opens the door to come out of the bookstore, Moonshadow slides in. Right between the hags’ legs. Which made them move over. And move off. Thankfully. Had they not, however, originally blocked my entry, I wouldn’t have been stuck with that cat. Moonshadow. I would have been in and out of that bookstore before the cat ever arrived. Or maybe it was always me it was after. Who knows? Just my rotten luck.
So I went in. I figured Mr. Percy, the owner of Percy’s Book Store, (what’d you expect, some stupid name like Literary Depot?) would be riled a cat was in the store what with how hard it is to get the smell of cat pee out of carpet. It was a nice book store, pretty big with high shelves and hand-lettered signs identifying the categories, old, comfy chairs, one of them with a rip that kept getting bigger from everybody picking out the stuffing. The counter was in the middle and there was always a bowl of mints sitting there for customers. I usually took two, one for now, one for my pocket. He’d just put new carpet down. Mr. Percy. Keep up.
I know I said I’d tell you about me and then the cat, I mean Moonshadow, but if I don’t tell you a bit about Mr. Percy you’ll be stuck in the dark later on and unless you’re stupid and stuck in the dark all the time, Mr. Percy becomes important to the big picture and you’ll want to catch some of the details now. You probably figured that out. Let’s hope so. You also probably want to know if I have this sick mother, where, then, is my father?
None of your business.
Mr. Percy was old but not so old that he missed what was going on in his own store. For example, when Batman and Robin came in to steal books he knew they were going to steal books so he’d hover around until he’d sort of usher Batman and Robin to the used book section, particularly the 25 cent Sci-Fi paperbacks and then he’d let them steal those. Turn his back and pretend he wasn’t watching, all busy at the register. Of course it’s not their real names. Batman and Robin. Duh. They never had a clue. They thought Mr. Percy never knew they stole those Sci-Fi books. He knew. He figured it was a small price to pay to get kids to read.
The reason I like him…oh fine, I’ll tell you about Batman and Robin but it doesn’t have hardly anything at all to do with the story. Except for about 20 minutes, a month down the road, when I needed them for a diversion. That means later, as in time lapsing, a month down the road. But you knew that.
Batman was going in 8th at Double Cross Middle School and Robin, who was short and gullible like the real Robin but mean and was likely to push or chase or punch you out even if you just accidentally dropped your backpack in front of him because it was, after all, too heavy to carry, was going in 7th, like me. Of course that’s not the real name of the school. You idiot. No self-respecting unified school district big-wig administrator boss man would allow that. Double Cross Middle School. Can you imagine the t-shirts the gangs could make?
Besides, the real name of the school is not even a 20-minute factor in the story. Make one up. Who cares? Suffice it to say that Batman and Robin were jerks. Always together. They picked on me. And anyone else who didn’t run fast. Since I always hated that movie, thought it was stupid, and Batman and Robin, the kids, not the actors, were also stupid, I gave them those “pet” names. See the connection? Not like I ever said it to their faces.
So Mr. Percy was an allright guy. He said I’d been coming in so long I was a piece of furniture in his store. Hardly even noticed me any more. Said I blended in with the armchair and if I kept sitting there, sucking up books all summer long, one of these days he’d sit down right on top of me. That cracked him up. Me too. Because we all know he never missed a thing. Right?
So you know he noticed Moonshadow sitting on top of the travel section, right over France, flicking his tail, frowning. Of course cats frown. When they’re thinking. All cats do it. It’s a normal facial expression for them. Read a book once in awhile. Plenty of cat behavior books out there.
But most cats don’t sing.
Moonshadow did.
No, no, no, not like that. Moonshadow didn’t burst into some top-ten song with lyrics and tremolo, that’s the voice on high notes when you hold them and it wiggles in your throat, tremolo. He just sang. This isn’t one of those stories where talking cat takes boy on great adventure to land of treasure where wild beasts must be killed before boy triumphs over kingdom and marries princess. Boring. Wake up. Don’t you ever watch TV?
You’ve seen those pet shows where an owner picks up a dog under the armpits and looks it straight in the face and then makes a high-pitched, woo-woo-woo kind of sound and the dog copies it. Sometimes the dog even throws its head back like it really knows what it's doing. They call that singing, everybody claps and the owner gets ten thousand dollars. Done deal.
But I’d never seen, or I guess heard, is closer to what I mean, I’d never heard a cat do it. And there he was, sitting over France, singing away. It was high “C” dipping down a whole scale and traveling back up with a few flats thrown in for good measure. Measure—get it? Okay, I’m exaggerating but it was pretty impressive. Held our attention, Mr. Percy’s and mine.
How do I know Moonshadow was the cat’s name? It was on his collar; what’d you think? Think I named him that? Yeah right. I would’ve picked something more appropriate like Stayawayfromme or Messupyourlife. Repel comes to mind as a better name. That means back off. You knew that. Big red letters, Moonshadow, on a blue background, little brass tag hanging in front.
No, Moonshadow didn’t suit that cat at all. But since I wasn’t psychic and had no idea what was coming up, all I saw was a gold mine. A singing cat. I’d be rich. Don’t make judgments. You would’ve thought the same thing. Besides, I needed money.
It started to rain. Oil stains in the sky spit big fat drops. Rain is usually a bad sign. Sets the tone for doom. And it’s bad for Mr. Percy’s roof. Rain bad for roof, roof leak bad for wall, wall make mold, bad for books. Make books smell. Doom. Nobody buys a smelly book. So Mr. Percy ran to get the leak pot from the back room at the same time Moonshadow jumped down from France.
When cats walk they do a little tuck and roll with their paws. Have you seen this? It’s like the floor is not the place their feet should be. They look like they’re about to stand up on hind legs and do, do-wah, ditty, ditty, dum, ditty, dum, with the hand motions or worse, some rap and drop with back spin. Weird.
Moonshadow walked like that.
Right over to me.
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