I Don’t Like Cats
Admiral Biscuit
She didn’t like cats.
They were cute enough, but they were selfish and demanding.
Some ponies said that you couldn’t own a cat, that the cat owned you, and she believed it.
Cats would act all innocent and friendly and they’d roll over on their backs like a dog wanting its belly nuzzled, but when she’d tried that with a cat it had clawed at her muzzle and then ran away.
Good thing it had, too, because if it had been dumb enough to stay put after swiping at her, she’d have kicked it.
They were always demanding and meowing and wrapping themselves around forehooves trying to get attention and once they got their attention, they pretended that they’d never wanted it at all.
She didn’t have a cat.
Nevertheless, there was a cat. One morning it was there, right on the edge of her front stoop, as if it had just come out of the flowerbed. Maybe it had—cats didn’t eat flowers, at least.
She looked down at it and it looked at her hopefully.
“Go away,” she told it. “I don’t like cats.”
It remained for a moment longer, and then disappeared back into the flowers. She could see an occasional blossom wavering as it made its passage, and then it went around the corner and was gone.
•••
She didn’t have a dog. Dogs were all right, except that the small ones were yappy and the big ones were barky and they had to be walked all the time. If you left them alone for too long, they’d tear up your couch, and they always smelled kind of doggy.
If she’d lived out in the country, she’d’ve had a dog.
•••
When she got back home from work, it was there again. Just sitting in front of her door like it owned the place. A scrawny cat, maybe still just a kitten.
It watched her as she came up the street, and when she put her hoof on the step, it turned tail and vanished back into the flowers.
“Good riddance,” she said.
As she prepared dinner, she half-expected to hear it meowing outside, begging for dinner, but it did not.
•••
She could have had a bird, but it wasn’t right keeping it cooped up in a tiny little cage in her apartment far away from the sky—and if she showed it the sky, it would fly away. It couldn’t help it; that was in its nature.
She liked watching the birds in the park. Wild birds came in every color of the rainbow and sang the most beautiful songs all day long. Even the pigeons, strutting around like generals, picking at breadcrumbs that ponies threw down for them.
Even the pigeons were colorful in their own way. Some of them had glossy, iridescent heads like the mallards in the pond.
The cat was striped grey and white, with black socks on all four paws—an unusual coloration. She was sure that he was just a kitten and sure that he was hungry, even if he never begged for food.
•••
He’ll never leave if I feed him, she thought, looking through her cupboard for the worst bowl she owned.
He’ll starve if I don’t. She had a pint of milk in the icebox and he was such a little guy, he wouldn’t drink much of it.
He hasn’t starved yet. It would be smarter to put the bowl on the porch and then fill it, that way she didn’t risk dribbling milk throughout her kitchen and living room.
She watched through the window and he didn’t come. The bowl just sat out there, untouched. He’s shy.
He might have moved on. Maybe he already starved to death. She sat on the couch and read through some of a romance novel and peeked through the window every now and then to see if he was there. There was no cat, and as she got ready for bed, she realized that she couldn’t remember what she’d just read at all.
•••
She could have kept fish. Fish were easy. They lived in their bowls and swam around and they didn’t bark or smell funny or try to fly away to freedom or claw at her if she tried to pet them. Many fish were even more brightly colored than birds and they were fun to watch.
You couldn’t pet a fish, though. And they probably didn’t love you, they were dumb. The fish in the park would try and eat anything that got tossed into the water, even if it was just a stick or a pebble or a leaf.
The milk was gone in the morning and she put the last of her milk in the saucer so he could have breakfast, then washed the bottle and put it back in her milk door for the milkmare to take.
•••
There were shops that sold fish for keeping, and there were other shops that sold fish for eating. She’d never visited the latter and it was a slightly terrifying experience. She was the only unicorn in the shop and felt uncomfortably out of place looking at the fish corpses—there was no nicer way of thinking of it—displayed on ice.
The shop smelled of sea and death and so did the fishmonger and she made her selection quickly and then trotted out the door with her stinking prize tucked into her saddlebags.
She knew nothing about eating a fish or preparing a fish to be eaten but she reasoned that the cat would know, so she set it on a plate for him and went inside to see if she could wash the smell off herself.
•••
When she came back out, he was on the porch and the fish was gone, all but the bones. She could see the bulge in his belly.
She didn’t approach him; instead, she sat down on the porch across from him, wondering if he might turn tail and disappear into her flowers again, but he did not.
He studied her and he licked his paw and wiped it across his face, and then he moved across the porch and gently rubbed his cheek against her foreleg—a cat-nuzzle.
She leaned down and brushed her nose across the top of his head. He stank of fish and outside and his fur was slightly greasy but it was nothing that a quick brushing couldn’t fix.
“Wait right here,” she told him. She didn’t have a proper cat-brush of course, because she didn’t like cats. But she had her own curry brush and that would do nicely.
He was still there when she returned and he looked up at her with interest.
He’s probably never been brushed before so he’ll be nervous. Her little sister had always been a squirmer when she got brushed.
She moved down slowly and warily. He might turn on her at any moment and hiss or claw or bite because he was a cat and cats were all jerks but he didn’t. He stretched out on his belly and let her brush him down, slicking out his coat. Even if he was dull-colored, he was a very pretty cat.
•••
She left a window open when it rained—just a little bit, enough room for a cat to squeeze through if he wanted to get out of the rain.
Not long after that, she started leaving the window open all the time and feeding him indoors. The smell of fish wasn’t so bad once she’d gotten used to it, and it turned out that the pegasi at the fishmongers were quite knowledgeable about which fish cats liked and how long fish could be kept and any other number of fish facts that she’d never needed to know before.
One morning her alarm clock broke and he woke her, gently biting at her ear until she woke up. She yelled at him at first, then realized how high the sun was in the sky and apologized profusely as she hurried through her morning routine.
Every couple of days, she got a pint of cream from the milkmare for him until he’d filled out all the way and his fur was glossy and shiny and silky.
•••
He liked batting at her braid, eventually mastering the art of removing her hair tie when she got home from work.
He curled up next to her on the couch when she read, purring happily all the while, and she took him to market with her, either in a saddlebag or simply riding on her back.
•••
“I thought you hated cats.”
She nodded. “I do. He’s not my cat.”
“He’s in your house, there’s a saucer of milk in the kitchen, fish in your icebox, and a scratching post right over there.”
“Yes.”
“And either you’re having a foal and haven’t told me or Mom, or else that’s a brush for cats, too, right there on your end table.”
“He likes having his coat brushed.”
“Mm-hm. He’s very pretty.” Her little sister nuzzled the cat’s head. “What’s his name?”
“Socks, ‘cause of his black socks.”
“You have a cat,” her sister declared.
