Pinky Pye (16 page)

"Fine," said Mama. "And if Uncle Bennie gets tired, he can ride too."

"Tired!" yelled Uncle Bennie. "I never get tired."

'"Be prepared' is my motto," said Mama, smiling at Mr. Bish, who was looking with astonishment at the equipment for the safari. It probably was as much as he would take with him on a major trip. "Perhaps we should take your sleeping bag," said Mama. "In case anyone needs to sleep. Oh, matches, too," she added. "Haven't you read of people going into forests, they may not have been sunken ones but they were forests all the same, and the people would have been all right if only they had remembered to bring along a match? In case of cold, you know, and you have to make a fire," she explained, tucking some in her bag. "Now. Is everything ready?" she asked. "You two won't be lonesome, will you?" she asked, stroking her husband's forehead and peering anxiously at Rachel's foot.

"Oh, no," said Papa. "I have Rachel and I have Pinky, not to mention the great New York cat on her pedestal." Gracie, hearing her name, cast a suspicious glance downward and then resumed her scrutiny of the eaves.

And Rachel said, "And I have Papa and Pinky and the great and famous New York cat."

Even so Papa did look a little lonesome sitting under the green umbrella, his foot projected before him and his portable typewriter on his lap; and so did Rachel, who, taking along the
Green Fairy Book
for between birds, had swung herself expertly to her little spot on the roof that really belonged to Gracie. Good-byes were waved both by those on safari and by those at home. "I've left your nice lunch in the icebox in wax paper," said Mama, and turning away from the lonesome sights of Papa under the umbrella and Rachel on the roof, she put a brave smile on her face, and off the sunken-forest party went.

Held captive in Papa's lap so she would not follow, as she often did, and with Papa murmuring enticing promises such as "string bean game" and "typing" in her ear to keep her satisfied (Papa didn't know that Pinky had a plan or he need not have bothered), Pinky yawned and stretched. Then she gave her little white paw a thorough cleansing, for she was very proud of this paw and kept it in a sparkling condition. Sometimes she stuck just her white paw out from under the sofa, and people would say, "Oh, I didn't know you had a white cat." After polishing this paw tidily, Pinky settled down for a little nap on Papa's lap. She had not forgotten her resolve to get up into the eaves today, but she had studied the situation, and noting that right now Gracie was dozing and that her tail was not twitching, she knew that the moment for her bold venture was not quite here. She put her little head down on her two paws, closed her eyes tightly, and appeared to doze.

Then suddenly, as though someone had squeezed her, Pinky opened her eyes and her mouth and said, "Woe."

Curiously enough, at this very same moment Gracie waked up, wide awake, and lashed her tail back and forth frantically. Pinky noted that Gracie was sprawling on her stomach, her tail and hind legs in what might have been a springing position if she could have sprung at what she was looking at. But, as usual, she was headed toward the dusty little window under the eaves, and all she could do was have her tail give highly electric signals of almost unbearable desire.

Papa was doing a little typewriting, and Pinky, in an absentminded fashion, joined the game. This was to throw him off the track of what was really in her mind. Papa looked at the words on his typewriter. "Memo to myself: Must get up into the eaves
some
day," said the writing on the page.

Continuing with her game of throwing Papa off the track, Pinky again pretended to doze. And she purred to put him to sleep. Some games she loved playing with Papa. Others she preferred to play by herself, and the bold ascent to the eaves was to be her lone undertaking. When finally Papa seemed to be asleep, she leaped silently to the sand. Distracted momentarily by a little sand slug, she sat and observed its maneuvers, and you might think she had forgotten what she had set out to do. But Pinky never forgot what she set out to do, and if she stopped, it was mainly so her mind could contrive and connive. She suddenly pounced on the slug, ate it up, and resumed her slinky course across the sand.

She started to talk to herself as was her wont. "Now to find out what the old cat sees up there behind the window. No sand slugs, I bet, nor crickets, nor grasshoppers. They can be watched on the ground. Whatever it is, she is pretty excited about it. If that window were open, she'd be in there, bell or no bell, that's a cinch." We must remember that Pinky was granddaughter of a rather disreputable New York cat, thought to be Ash-can Sam, and sometimes her language was not as refined as it probably would become on longer life with the Pyes, all of whom were rather well brought up and had no disreputable grandfathers at all.

"And isn't it fortunate," Pinky continued to ruminate as she stopped to polish her paw for a moment, "that in the unusual excitement of having that new man in the house no one has thought to put on my collar and my bell?" This pink collar and bell were always removed at night so Pinky could not wake people up with her bell tinkling. Over the discussion of the eggs it had been forgotten.

She proceeded toward the little back porch, avoiding the front one, over which the two watchers, Gracie and Rachel, were perched. Gracie was still thumping her tail madly, and this made Rachel drop her
Green Fairy Book
to the ground and also made her turn around and lie beside Gracie, looking
in
for the first time.

Until now you may have thought that Pinky had some smart plan of getting up to the alcove under the eaves by way of the little roof over the small front porch, where Gracie always sits. You could not be blamed for thinking this, for you don't know about the mailbox. However, Pinky does.

Naturally on Fire Island there was no need for anyone to have a mailbox because no mail was ever delivered. Still, Mrs. A. A. Pulie, the lady who had built this cottage, had said, "Let there be mailboxes in front and in back in case anybody should call when I am out, so that they may leave a message for me or even half a cake or cookies if someone bakes them for me, a calling card, or anything."

So, beside the front door and underneath the little roof where Gracie and Rachel were staring wide-eyed through the porthole window, there was a perfectly ordinary mailbox painted green. And beside the back door there was another mailbox likewise painted green. But there the similarity ended, for this mailbox at the back of the house had a little door to it that swung either in or out, depending on which way it was being pushed, a little swinging door. And what do you expect was at the other, the inner end, of the little mailbox? Right. Another little swinging door that was cut right in the kitchen wall.

In this way the lady in the house, or whoever wanted to, could reach her hand inside the mailbox and get whatever was in it, the mail (if someday there should be delivery service), cookies, or anything, without having to go outside, not having to grab a shawl, say, to cover her head if it were raining or blustering.

And, in this interesting way, Pinky Pye had a secret passageway into the house and could come and go as she pleased. Pinky had planned this mailbox entrance for a long time, but she had been so busy with sparring, typing, and other games she had not had a minute until now to try it.

Getting into the house by way of the mailbox was not as simple as it sounds. But Pinky was a kitten of remarkable intelligence and skill, as clever for a cat as Ginger was for a dog. The reason it was no simple matter to get into the mailbox from outside and then out the other end and into the kitchen was that the lady who built this whole contraption had not really planned it for cats at all and there were no steps or runways leading up to it. The mailbox just jutted out from the weather-beaten shingle wall of the house.

But that was why going into the house by way of the mailbox was going to be so fascinating to a cat like Pinky, who was not the least bit interested in easy things. The harder the challenge, the happier she was. The whole Pye family had noticed this and frequently remarked admiringly upon her extraordinary imagination, persistence, and powers of observation.

In Pinky's mind she had it all plotted out, how she was going to do this great feat. She squatted on the ground a few feet from the mailbox. She wiggled her back end and she prepared herself for the leap. As surefooted as a miniature mountain gazelle, she leaped from the ground to the top of the mailbox. Now the really hard part, the amazing part comes, for how, from the top of the box, was she going to push open the little door and get in? It's too bad the lady, Mrs. A. A. Pulie, who had planned this fine mailbox, had not had a little piazza built on it as some birdhouses have. Then Pinky could have balanced herself on this piazza before pushing on in. But Mrs. Pulie hadn't, and after her nicely calculated leap, Pinky sat a moment on the top of the mailbox. She gave her head a little shake and cleaned her white paw, looking in its pale pink cushion as in a mirror, vainly, and giving the impression she often sought to give, of boredom. Actually she was taking in the whole surroundings, making certain Papa was still dozing and that there were no enemies around.

Then, carefully and slowly, Pinky accomplished a most miraculous feat, which would have stunned the family had they been around. Papa was still dozing, apparently, his hand over his eyes, and, except for Rachel, who, being on the other side of the house, couldn't see her, we know where the rest of the family was—off on safari.

But Papa wasn't dozing. He was watching Pinky through his fingers as she performed her miraculous feat. She leaned over the edge of the mailbox and pushed it open with her strong white paw. As it swung in, she crooked her paw inside the opening, getting a grip, leaned over, thrust her tiny head in, and, clinging fiercely to the rough inner surface of the mailbox, she crawled in upside down.

Not for naught was all her practice crawling upside down on the bottoms of couches and beds. In she went as neatly as if this were the right and usual way of going in houses. Furthermore, her tail did not get caught and embarrass her. Once inside she could have turned herself right side up, but she preferred not to; she preferred to crawl upside down to the back door of the mailbox, enjoying the sudden blackness after the glaring sunshine and scaring a small spider that was likewise upside down beside her. When her head reached the back door, she did turn herself right side up, and she pushed this little swinging door open. She paused there, peeked into the kitchen, and appraised smells. In addition, she plotted the next leap.

Now the minute Pinky disappeared into the little mailbox, Papa, out of curiosity, hobbled over to the screened kitchen door to see if she were going to come out the other end or what, for she had never done this clever thing before and he was, quite understandably, impressed. So Papa was a witness to all that happened. He saw her bright little face poke out and survey the scene. And he saw her jump down from the mailbox to the kitchen table, and this leap sent the tablecloth like a flying carpet with herself on it to the very door of the living room. Pinky then sat in the middle of the tablecloth, looked around, shook her little head, said, "Woe," demurely, and cleaned her ear.

Pinky was a first-rate deceiver, and in case anyone were watching her (someone was—Papa—but her back was to him and she either was, or pretended to be, unaware of his presence), she wanted to imply that, well, now she was in the house and that was all she had in mind to do. However, to make the adventure as dangerous and interesting to herself as possible, she stopped cleaning her ear from time to time and peered about the room as though to intercept enemies. And she peered intently at the swinging door, entrance to the eaves, at the far end of which was the little window that so fascinated the great watcher, Gracie.

Pinky's tail gave an uncontrollable twitch as she contemplated that she, too, would soon know the secret of the eaves, which, so far, Gracie alone knew. Knowledge of whether the secret pertained to crickets, grasshoppers—or what—would soon be hers.

Through now with throwing people, whoever they might be, or onlookers of whatever sort, off guard, Pinky sauntered into the living room, skirting the wall, and she hopped onto the living-room table. She sniffed Uncle Bennie's torn and empty cricket apartment house thoughtfully and she sniffed the new man's big cage and she pondered. She sniffed it again, butting her little nose against it several times, drawing back swiftly. Then stretching her neck and sniffing it again, she studied it; and then she pointed her nose into the air and she sniffed the air; then she pointed her nose to the eaves and sniffed again. The end of her tail gave a slight twitch.

Yawning, she surveyed the section of the house known as "in the eaves." This little enclosed section was built high up under a corner of the sharply pointed roof. It was supported by two sloping beams, and it had a swinging door that naturally was much larger than that of the mailbox, and this swinging door was built in two halves that met in the middle. In this little enclosed place behind the swinging doors Mrs. A. A. Pulie, the lady who owned and built this house, had formerly stored things—boxes, suitcases, old kelp, satiny driftwood, shells, and odd articles. Some of her things were still there, and the rest of the space the Pyes used for the same purpose, Papa having shoved some valises and boxes up there when they had arrived.