Much to her surprise, he confessed to having had a crush on her in high school. He’d never said anything because she’d seemed so indifferent to him. Leaving the reunion, Lucy’s mother cursed her younger self as a fool.
About a week after that two things happened on one fateful day. One, Lucy’s mother had a fight with Lucy’s father, and two, she found a kitten. Mad at her husband, she brought the kitten home for Lucy, announcing that his name was Michael Stein, the one that got away. And that was that. Michael Stein had always felt a little weird about it. When Lucy’s mother called him in at night, he was never sure if she was calling for him, or for her long lost high school love.
“Michael Stein! Where are you, Michael Stein…”
So that was the story. It all seemed like too much personal information to give the secretary. Michael Stein tried, “Humans…What’s a cat to do?”
This seemed to sit well with the secretary. He let both eyebrows drop and motioned in the air with his paw—the cat equivalent of saying Amen, brother! He said, “Humans are mad. That’s true enough. So what do you want to see the Catfather about?”
One awkward question right to another.
“It’s policy,” the secretary said. “I have to screen out the nuts.”
Michael Stein had the sudden fear that maybe that would include him. He didn’t see any choice, though, so he revealed the situation that brought him here.
The secretary didn’t look moved. “Sorry, but there’s nothing—”
Michael Stein didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence. He blurted out, “If the Catfather would just give her the gift, everything would be all right!” It was a lot to ask, he knew, but the Catfather had the power to do it—the power to allow Lucy to see cat ghosts.
“That’s what you’re going to ask him to do?” the secretary said. “Give a girl the gift? In the whole history of the human/cat relationship, only a handful of humans have ever been given the gift. Ghandi had it. That whole nonviolent resistance thing? A cat idea. Eleanor Roosevelt had it, too. Talked her husband through the Great Depression with a cat ghost council. Bet you didn’t know that.” The secretary squinted.
No, Michael Stein hadn’t known that. “So humans having the gift is a good thing, right?”
“It can be, but Napoleon had it too. Conquered most of Europe before a double agent ghost cat convinced him that invading Russia in the winter was a good idea.”
“There are ghost cat spies?”
“Don’t say you heard it from me,” the secretary said. “Anyway, your Lucy’s circumstances don’t merit this sort of intervention. It needs to be for the greater good, not just to get a girl to stop crying. And you don’t want to waste the Catfather’s time. If you annoy him you could get banished from his district.”
“Banished from his district?”
“You know what that would mean, don’t you?”
Michael Stein did. If he got banished from the district he wouldn’t get to stay with Lucy anymore.
“So what are you here for?” the ghost cat ahead of Michael Stein asked. She was a ginger kitten with large, expressive eyes.
Michael Stein looked through the kitten at the queue of cats strung out along the cement path up toward the back porch, where the Catfather held court. He was trying to work out the speech he was going to deliver. It had to be a good one, something that would set him and Lucy apart from whatever the other cats were asking for.
The kitten blinked and waited.
“It’s personal,” Michael Stein said.
The ginger kitten didn’t take offence. She also didn’t take the hint. “I’m here about Fiona. She’s the kitten that lives in the apartment I used to live in. Her humans are going to get her declawed.”
Michael Stein hissed.
“It’s a crime against nature, right?” the kitten asked. “They tried to do it to me. I scratched them up and jumped out the window. That was a mistake. Our apartment is on the seventh floor. It’s why I’m like this now.” She waved a paw, indicating her translucent body. “They got a new kitten and I heard them talking about taking her to the vet for the procedure. That’s what they call it. The procedure. Fiona doesn’t believe me. She’s too innocent. Can’t even conceive of being clawless.”
Michael Stein had a hard time conceiving of it himself. Nothing could be worse for a cat.
“I tried to get her out of there,” the ginger kitten said, “but they keep her locked up in the apartment. No easy way in or out.”
“What do you think the Catfather can do about it?” Michael Stein asked.
“I don’t know. He couldn’t do anything last time, but he said to come back.”
“You’ve spoken to him already?”
“Yep. Fifteen times.”
Michael Stein felt his hopes take a dive. “You’ve been here fifteen times, but he hasn’t helped yet?”
“Not yet.”