Winters are long on the Manitoba prairies. Not that young boys mind.
There's never a shortage of things to do. Ice skating, fortress
building, following the trail of the Great Albino Rabbit. But the
sun sighs and turns in early each night leaving precious little
daylight for conspiring young minds.
In Manitoba,
too, spring arrives very suddenly each year, like no one saw it
coming. Pasty-skinned people duck through their door fronts, putting
noses to the breeze and pulling deeply on the smells of mold and
thawing dog dung. Snow forts collapse against their own weight -
nature's implosion. Snow people shrink like the old people in Great
Grandma's nursing home and ditches fill to brimming, magically
re-introducing last years frog smashing sticks.
Spring is also
the time of year for love. Not that little boys notice but mothers
are aware, and they smile to themselves as the Robin makes his first
appearance, strutting and cocky, bouncing from limb to limb. They
notice, too, the neighborhood cats, mewling from afar, squawling like
newborn babies. That sound they make? Oh, they're just playing,
she would tell the children.
“Aw,
Yuck! Guys, come look at this!”
“Gross!”
Cody retreated, looking earnestly for something, anything, then broke
a branch from last year's lilac bush.
He returned to
Jon and Scott, their noses curled in disgust, their faces plied into
grimaces. Cody advanced on the grotesque display, branch wielded
like a sword, his right foot pointed north, his left south, ready for
flight.
“Don't!”
Jon's hands flapped, his eyes wild. “It might not be dead.”
Now, over the
years they'd happened upon many an adventure, stumbled upon many a
curious oddity. But dead things had not really been among them.
This was new.
They'd happened
upon it while investigating the alien landing site, just inside the
park. A yellowing circle of grass with a conspicuous flattened
anthill at its center.
“Aliens.”
Jon asserted.
“Aliens?”
The other two responded.
“Yup. I saw
a show on TV. They make circles just like this.” He kicked
knowingly at the anemic grass. “They land at night when no one is
watching and look for something to take test samples from.” He
waited, for impact. “Like cows, or people or...ants.” They
hadn't asked but he knew they wanted to know.
They'd stepped
into the circle cautiously.
“It could be
radioactive,” Jon warned, being the first to roll down his pant
legs and tuck them into his socks.
Thus when they
found the mutilated critter, just yards away, they were certain -
absolutely certain that they'd been visited by beings from another
planet.
“It might not
be dead. They probably took its brain and left it here like a
zombie. A cat zombie.”
Cody gathered
up courage and took another step toward it, poking gingerly at the
creatures tail.
“It's still
fresh.” Cody deduced. “It's not stiff yet, look.”
He gently
lifted one paw with the stick and let it fall with a soft thud.
“I have to
pee.” Scott took an uncertain step toward home.
“No.” Cody
stopped him with a hand. “You're going to tell Mom. You can't
tell Mom. She'll be mad.”
“She won't be
mad,” Scott argued, unsure.
“She will,”
Jon agreed. “We can't tell our moms...or anyone until we know who
did this...and why.”
Cody and Jon
moved in for a closer look, certain now that the cat was very dead.
Crouched down on their haunches they assessed, in silence.
Scientists in a mutation lab. Morticians to a monster.
It was oddly
familiar. Perhaps the Peters' cat from up the street. It was
distinctly hideous.
“Look at its
eyes.” Jon spoke low, not to arouse undue attention from the
neighborhood.
The creature
lay in a heap, a mound of orange-white fur, mangy and wet. One of
its ears was inside out, as if it had come out of the wash wrong and
its legs were twisted and awkward. The real monster lay in its face.
A cat overcome by a strange vampire mania. The lips pulled back
into a chronic grin revealing fangs, pointed and menacing. But its
eyes.
“What's wrong
with its eyes?” Scott was hunched now too, hanging over Cody's
left shoulder.
“They're like
ping pong balls.” Jon offered. “With pupils.”
“Maybe the
aliens tried to pull them out. For test samples.”
“Ugh.”
Scott was running home.
Rob
and Rhonda were in the kitchen, a sleep deprived hang-over weighing
heavy on their eye lids.
“Are we out
of coffee?” Rob shuffled items around in the cupboard, sleepily
moving things from one place to another.
“Oh god, I
hope not.” A butter missile took flight as she dropped another
dollop of pancake batter into the pan, sizzling on the stove top.
She pushed the cake lazily in the grease, freeing it from the
cast-iron's grip. She was moved, momentarily, to thoughts of last
night and her shoulders lifted and fell rapidly, loosening from her
throat an undignified snort.
“What?”
Rob stopped mid-count, losing track of the measured grounds going
into the coffee machine basket.
“I'm
imagining Jerry out on his deck last night, having a nightcap because
he couldn't sleep.” She broke into full on laughter, her words
breaking now between gasps. “You could have at least put some
clothes on.”
“I had
underwear on. Besides, it was dark. Jerry would have to have cat
eyes to see me out there.”
Rhonda had
visions of Rob, white skin radiating in the street light glow. The
caterwauling had begun around midnight from somewhere beneath
their bedroom window and continued until two a.m. when Rob finally
flew from bed, taking matters into his own hands.
“Pfft.
Speaking of cats, how did you get rid of it?”
Rob was silent
for a moment, meditating.
“Let's just
say its something I learned growing up on the farm.”
Rhonda flipped
the last pancake onto a platter and turned to him, discerning the
level of deviance in his response.
He saddled up
to her at the stove, pressing in close. “I haf my vays, dahling. I
haf my vays.”
The back door
flew open hitting the wall with a thud. Scott bolted into the
kitchen, a muddy trail behind him.
“Ah ah!”
Rhonda pointed him back to the entrance. “Shoes. But first go and
get your brother for breakfast.”
Cody pushed
through the doorway, the call of breakfast already in his nostrils.
“Wash your
hands!” Rhonda called after them as they wrestled for position all
the way to the washroom.
“Dad,
do you believe in aliens from outer space?” Cody worked another
strip of bacon into his grinding teeth.
“Don't know.
Never seen one. Thought I did when you were born but then the nurse
told us that's how newborns are supposed to look.”
Cody grinned
and kept chewing.
“The Peters'
cat was attacked by aliens last night.” Scott leaped blindly into
the conversation. “Its eyes were coming out of its head. The
aliens tried to get a tester simple.” Scott chewed hard on his
pancake, awaiting his parents shock.
“A test
sample,” Cody corrected, miffed at his little brother's immaturity
in esoteric matters.
“A cat? What
color?” Rob and Rhonda shared a sustained glance.
“Orange...and
white. With a black spot right there.” Scott poked a sticky
finger at his forehead leaving a trace of syrup gleaming above one
eyebrow.
“There are
aliens. Yes, I'm sure there are.” Rhonda hunted for distraction.
“But I don't think they take test samples anymore. That's kind of
old science. Now they just take the whole creature in their space
ships at night and bring them back in the morning. Usually, they
don't even know they've been gone. Like a weird dream or something.
I suppose its possible that the kitty sleep-walked right out of the
ship and bumped her head.”
Rob was
watching Rhonda closely.
“Is that
true, Dad?” Cody sought Rob's final endorsement.
Rob took a jab
at another pancake. “What she said.”
“Mom
and Dad know something.” Cody sat on his knees at the coffee
table, his pencil scratching along the surface of a sheet of drawing
paper from the scrapbook Grandma gave them. A two dimensional saucer
hovered near the top. From a window a rope descended toward the
ground, snaring a cat by the tail.
“Mom
and Dad know lots of things.” Scott sat cross-legged on the floor,
deconstructing a Lego ship.
“I
mean, they know something about the monster-cat. Didn't you see how
they looked at each other when we told them. They know something.”
Scott
shrugged, sorting Lego blocks into yellows, blues and reds. “Maybe
Mom and Dad have been ducted by aliens before.”
“Inducted,”
Cody corrected. “Maybe they saw the space ship. Maybe they talked
to the aliens.”
Scott's
attention moved now from Lego to his big brother. “I don't think
they know how to speak alien,” he stated, matter of fact.
“Mmm,”
Cody pondered.
“A black spot on its forehead, right here?” Rhonda jabbed a finger at
her own forehead, leaving a pink spot in its place. She moved closer
to Rob in the bedroom, cornering him. “That's the cat, isn't it?”
“Hey.
I'm a farm boy. It won't have felt a thing. Perhaps you could
congratulate me for being a good marksman.” Rob placed a finger
under her chin, tipping her face toward his. “One thing's for
sure. It won't be keeping you awake tonight.”
Rhonda
smiled, a half smile. “I guess you have a job to do then. A
little burial is probably in order. Before the rest of the
neighborhood finds the alien-cat-monster.”
She
turned to leave.
“Hey.”
Rob's words stopped her in the doorway. “Aliens who steal
creatures in the night? Really?”
“You
could tell them Daddy's a cat murderer.” Rhonda grinned at him,
challenging.
“Aliens
it is then. And sleep-walking kittens.”
The
three stood, shoulders hunched against a light rain, peering down at
the hole which gaped, wide and yawning behind the garden shed, ready
to consume a furry carcass. The musty smell of early spring hung in
the mist like an old wet blanket, rivaled only by fetid cat remains.
“Dad,
should you say something?”
“Say
something? Like what?” Rob pitched the spade into the mound of
gumbo.
“Like...I
dunno...here lies Sparky the cat. He was a good cat...”
“Maybe
he wasn't a good cat.” Scott interrupted Cody's homily. “We
didn't even know him. Maybe the aliens took him cause he was a
naughty cat. How do you know his name was Sparky, anyway?”
“Well,
he's gotta have a name or he can't get buried.”
“Maybe
we should ask the Peters'. He was their cat.”
“He
wasn't their cat!” Rob was becoming anxious. Rain and wet trousers
always made him that way. “He has no collar. He was a stray. A
whiny, nuisance of a stray.”
His
voice was rising and edgy - a cat-murderers guilt. The boys stood
with him, one at each side, silent and meditative.
“Here
lies Sparky the cat,” Rob finally complied, solemn and focused,
“too curious for his own good, sometimes didn't come in when he was
told, probably didn't clean up his Lego, and usually late for dinner.
If he'd have listened to his mother he would have stayed away from
the alien ship and done his homework instead. So...goodbye curious
Sparky.”
The
boys gazed up at him. He nudged Cody's shoulder and rubbed knuckles
into Scott's hair.
“Let's
do this.” Rob tossed in the first load of dirt then passed the
spade to Cody who took earnestly to the somber task.
“Dad?”
Scott's voice penetrated the mist softly. “Don't tell Mom but I
think the cat wasn't 'ducted by aliens.” He swatted a fly from his
nose.
Rob
braced himself. “What do you think happened to him?”
“I
dunno but I think it was something else got it. If Mom found out she
might be worried.”
Rob
dropped a hand to Scott's shoulder and squeezed.
“It'll
be our little secret.”
