Pinky Pye (17 page)

There wasn't any way of getting up to this loft except by stepladder, as Papa had, or by setting a chair on a table, as Rachel did when putting crickets' and grasshoppers' houses up there. That is, these were the only ways for humans. As for Pinky, she had studied this whole matter and she knew as well as if she had made this ascent a thousand times exactly what she was going to do.

A narrow beam wound around the walls of the cottage rather high up. On this ledge Mrs. Pulie had a display of plates and shells and driftwood, seaweed, framed pictures of winter sunsets from old calendars, and many other handsome objects. Pinky had no difficulty in leaping daintily to the mantel over the fireplace and from this to a fairly clear place on the ledging. She moved along this ledge with great care, and as she approached her journey's end, that is the closed swinging door, she paused to take stock. She sat on a crinkly piece of dried kelp that crackled when she moved and made her sneeze. She pretended not to notice Papa, whose nose was plastered to the screen door.

How different things looked from up here! It was a place for only a small kitten, however, for the narrow ledge became even narrower in front of the door to the eaves. A large cat such as Gracie could not balance up here, and that probably was the reason she had never tried; or else she was too old; or perhaps having had to wear a bell for so many years, she had lost interest in hard excursions, knowing that someone would be bound to hear her and put a stop to the venture, no matter what. As for Ginger, a dog, poor thing, he couldn't climb. Imagine his surprise someday when he should look up and should see her tail disappearing within!

Now. On with the journey. She edged her way to the middle of the ledge where the opening in the swinging doors was and ... well, have you ever noticed how sometimes you have a very lucky day, everything seems mapped out in your favor? Well, so far, today was that sort of day for Pinky. The last time that Rachel had been up here she had apparently dropped a lollipop stick between the doors, and the little crack caused by this stick made a wedge for Pinky's paws. She stuck her paws in first, and then, squirming, wedging, nudging, bit by bit she squeezed between the two flimsy doors. And she got in!

Her heart pounded with pride and with delightful fear. The first thing that she took in was the sight of Rachel's face plastered against the dusty window, her eyes huge with astonishment. And then she saw the green, startled, jealous eyes of Gracie, who was moving her lips as though cracking something between her teeth.

Pinky stayed there with her back against the doors. Her tail wasn't even all the way in, for she knew the rule of making certain that a way of escape is assured, though she often disregarded this rule. Too much safety foils adventuresome discovery. She now followed Grade's glance, for after Gracie's first startled look of recognition of Pinky, without moving her head, Gracie had turned her big pale green eyes to the darkest corner of the eaves. Pinky stretched her neck, lowered her head, and peered in the same direction, and then at last she saw what it was that Gracie, the watcher, watched and what the watcher, Rachel, only a moment before had likewise discovered and was watching!

A bird!

All fluffed out, it looked huge to Pinky. And at the sight of Pinky, it made frantic efforts to fly, not away, but
at
Pinky. Its eyes were huge and round and fierce, and dragging a broken wing behind it, frowning, glowering, hissing, drooling for a taste of small and tender kitten, grown plump now on good Pye food, it rustled toward Pinky.

Pinky did not turn around. She backed out in a terrible hurry and, missing her footing, tumbled to the floor below.

Stunned, but pleased with herself, she swiftly re-covered her poise. However, she decided to lose no time in getting back outside in the safe sunshine. She hopped to the kitchen table, squeezed herself back into the mailbox (the mailbox was right above the table, as you remember, so Mrs. Pulie doubtless could, while buttering herself a piece of toast, remove the mail, or whatever), and squeezed herself out again.

Jumping to the ground and crying, "Woe, o-woe," plaintively, she hopped onto Papa's lap, for he had hobbled back to his chair and was typing a wrong conclusion, which was that somehow or another, without any of them ever seeing her, Pinky had been accomplishing this amazing feat of going through the mailbox, ascending to the eaves, going inside, and eating up Uncle Bennie's crickets and grasshoppers.

This wrong conclusion was speedily righted by Rachel, who slid off the little roof and screamed, "Papa, Papa, guess what! Guess what!" She was so excited she could hardly talk. Finally she composed herself, stood before her father, rocked back and forth on her toes, and told him what she had discovered and that this discovery made her, at last, a bird man like him.

"Up there," she said. "In the eaves," she said, "is an owl, a tiny little real live owl! And I saw Pinky come in the door and look at him! He tried to get her and eat her up. He's the smallest owl I ever saw, a miniature!"

"My sainted aunt!" said Papa and, broken ankle or not, he hobbled indoors, put the stepladder in place, and up he went, to the eaves, to take a look for himself!

There, glaring fiercely at Papa from a dusky corner of the eaves, half hidden by a clump of dried kelp and with bits of it clinging to him, was a little owl. Now being a bird man of astuteness, it did not take Papa very long to realize that this little owl was the same little owl that Mr. Bish had lost in the gale off the coast of Fire Island. But it probably took him more seconds than it took you and me. It seemed incredible to Papa that that little owl could have been blown right into Papa's own house. But he studied the little owl thoughtfully, and in a flash this conclusion did hit him, that this little owl and the owl of H. Hiram Bish were one and the same. This was not the part of the world for pygmy owls, so this must be Mr. Bish's owl. The whole story tied together neatly.

"This," said Papa solemnly to Rachel, "is the owl of Hiram Bish!"

Rachel was astonished! She would have been happy to have discovered any owl in the eaves of the cottage called The Eyrie. But to have this owl, which she had discovered, turn out to be the lost-at-sea owl made her discovery even more important, and she danced up and down. "Just think how surprised Mr. Bish will be! And the zoo!" she exclaimed, helping Papa down. "Oh, why doesn't Mr. Bish come home. Why don't they all come home?"

Papa said they'd better leave the little owl up in the eaves, out of the cats' way (though they'd have to keep their eye on Pinky, make sure she didn't repeat her miraculous ascent and, next time, get him), but they'd better give him some food. By now Owlie needed more than crickets and grasshoppers, Papa said. They found some chopped steak in the icebox. They put some of it on a dish, and this feast, along with a saucer of water, Rachel pushed into the eaves.

The owl hobbled toward Rachel so voraciously, she withdrew her hand in a hurry. "To think that all the times I put Uncle Bennie's grasshoppers up here, he's been up here too," she muttered. "And I never saw him! Well, he does look like that seaweed," she said to excuse herself. "But to think he must have eaten up all of Bennie's grasshoppers and crickets! But wasn't it lucky he landed in the house of a grasshopper collector?" she marveled.

"Well, the grasshoppers and crickets are what kept him alive," said Papa. "He's probably hurt and he hid all the time out of fear. No doubt, he came out of the kelp only for his nightly feast of grasshoppers."

"Well, I'm going up to the roof again," said Rachel, "and watch the owl and wait for the others to come back."

So up she climbed; and now there were two watchers on the little roof turned inward, she and Gracie. And back to his seat under the green umbrella hobbled Papa; and onto his lap hopped Pinky, still rather shaken from her perilous adventure.

What a relief,
thought Pinky,
to be sitting here quietly on Pye's lap. Him, stroking my head behind
the ears. Me, thinking and musing, my heart quieting down, my bravery refueling. I'll have to go back up there, kill that bird, and bring it down to Pye.
Pinky made a miniature crunching sound with her pretty mouth.

The afternoon sun was sinking, and soon the hikers to the sunken forest would be returning. Papa removed from his typewriter the sheet of paper on which he had reached his wrong conclusion about Pinky eating Uncle Bennie's eave crickets, and he crumpled it up and threw it away. Papa had a busy look about him as though he were going to do some very hard work. He lighted his pipe, but he speedily put it down in the ashtray and there it lay. Pinky enjoyed smelling the smoke and watching it waft out to sea. She sneezed appreciatively.

Pinky felt rested now, and she was resolved that if typing were going to be done, she was the one who was going to do it. Stretching, she sat up. She looked up at Papa and winked one eye. She frequently winked one eye at Papa or Rachel, giving the impression she was sharing a joke with them. Sometimes she winked both eyes, but this double wink implied boredom. Now she winked the one-eyed wink, and after it was winked she stretched herself and watched, like a superintendent, the inserting of a fresh piece of paper in the typewriter.

When all was ready, the paper in, the beautiful blank paper that would soon be covered with little blank marks made by poking the enchanting disks, Pinky said, "Woe." Tentatively she pressed a key with her clean white paw. The joy, the bliss, of doing this! Soon the happy sound of clicking keys echoed in the clear and sparkling air.

Meditations of Pinky Pye III

Follow the Dots

You, my readers, who have been following my story, well know the ingenuity I exerted in order to get up to the eaves—the going in through the mailbox tunnel, the hopping onto the kitchen table, and the further dangerous and daring steps I took to wedge myself at last through the doors into the eaves. Because of Gracie's enraptured expressions, I expected to find more than crisp grasshoppers, true. A mouse perhaps. None of you, then, can imagine my terror when I found myself face-to-face at last with that which the old cat has been watching with such sharp attention.

And this is really what all of us watchers in this house have been watching, without knowing it, for one of us is always watching another of us. And this watching went like this, from one of us to another of us, and always ended up with Gracie, who was watching—?—in the eaves. Play this game of "Follow the Dots." It is on the next page. See? Now. Each dot represents a watcher. And each watcher is watching another watcher, and the last watcher, Gracie, is watching ... well, follow the dots.

Now what do you have? Yes, an owl! Not a grasshopper or a cricket carefully caught by Uncle Bennie and stored up there, safe, he thought, from harm and danger. Not any of them! They have long since gone down into the stomach of that which was

up there all along, a stowaway, an intruder in an orderly household, an unasked-for visitor without even a sleeping bag, a thing that probably wants to be a pet, to belong—an owl!

A small, immensely ferocious owl! Half starved on his prison diet of crickets and water, he wanted to eat me up! I foiled him, for I had the sense to retreat immediately. My nerves are still shaky, for I really was, for once, taken by surprise. It is quite a surprise to see an owl instead of a cricket. But I am going back. At the first opportunity I am going back. I shall push the door open a tiny crack, peek in, and watch that owl, see what he does up there by himself, study him. Then, when he is unsuspecting, dozing, I'll extend a paw within and swat him dead.

Plotting to trap me in the eaves, he bided his time up there, knowing that someday I would make the ascent. Well, I did make the astounding ascent, but any eating that is going to be done is going to be done by me, friend owl, not you. You will taste rather good, I imagine, after your special diet of grasshoppers. They have a molasses flavor that I have always enjoyed, and the combination of owl and grasshopper should be tasty. Like peanut-fed pigs, the flavor of which people rave about.

First to catch him though. I am working on the plan. Catch him, stun him, lay him at the feet of Rachel or Pye, the way the old harridan, Gracie, does her rats. She lays them at Mama's feet, tears open the stomach to make the eating easy. This is a story they never tire of telling. I tire of hearing it though. Boast, boast, boast. Brag. Substitute owl for rat and Pinky for Gracie, and we have a new and fresh family anecdote.