Prose

Extract from ‘My Life in Animals’

My father taught Physics and Math at Putney School in Vermont. His lab had an acrid smell. Dangerous bottles and taps arose from black shelves and table tops. He always called our cats static rags with a sly grin on his face. When I was little I trusted him and thought he was joking. But the static rags I discovered in the far corner of his lab were soft and furry pelts. One was orange, another grey, another black. Cats had disappeared. I took to the woods and wild places, befriended cats, implored them to seek revenge. I let them in at strange times, let them walk all over his papers and desk with muddy paws. I secretly fed them the leftovers he loved. They caterwauled outside his study, gave him terrible headaches. He growled with grumpiness, snarled. They hissed when he passed. They were close to my mother, who was herself half cat, and one dark night, she came to me and said, get ready, we’re going. But what about the cats? They’ll find us, she said.