Secrets

            "Here's your breakfast, Puss!"

            Johanna placed a fresh bowl of food on her cat's place mat in a sunny corner of the kitchen and poured herself a glass of cordial. She sat quietly at the dining table and watched as her kitten trotted over and polished off the meal. Emptying the bowl, he drank most of his milk and began to give himself a thorough morning wash.

            "I wonder what your real name is" Johanna thought. She'd recently been to see the Cats musical: a line from one of the songs occurred to her as Puss continued his ablutions.

            "You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
            When I tell you a cat must have three separate names ..... "

            Suddenly Puss froze in mid-lick, as if distracted by something. He stared directly at Johanna with a curious look in his eyes, halfways between a smile and a challenge.

            "I might let you know that secret."

            Johanna blinked. As any imaginative eleven-year-old might do, she'd often wondered what it might be like to be able to communicate with her pet, but she was also sensible enough to realise that this was pure fantasy. She looked around, confused, though she knew that there was nobody else present in the room.

            "Well: did you mean it, or not?"
            There was an amused, rumbly throb to the question. Somehow Johanna just knew that this was exactly how she had always imagined Puss' voice would sound.

            "So, is it true then? What the song says about secret names .... ?"

            Puss sat up a little straighter, as if to make sure Johanna was listening carefully.

            "I suppose it's fairly close to the truth: but not quite that simple" was what Johanna ‘heard'. She was also suddenly aware that so far neither of them had moved their lips.

            "That's right: you don't need to shout out loud, the way you do with your Mum and your friends."

            "Does that mean nobody else can hear us?"

            "Would anyone you know believe you if you told them we were having this chat?"

            Probably not, Johanna thought, not even my Mum: she always says I've got a vivid imagination ....

            She was about to ask another question when she heard footsteps on the stair. Her mother was coming down from the bathroom for breakfast.

            "Catch you later." Puss resumed his morning wash, and became a boring, perfectly unremarkable tabby once more.

****

            "Mum, do you ever wonder what cats dream about?"

            Mum glanced over in the corner where Puss lay curled comfortably.

            "Mice, probably: or maybe butterflies! Pity you can't ask Puss yourself .... "

            "Ask me later, when we're alone. I'll tell you then, if you really want to know."

            "I think I'll go out in the garden with Puss: it's a nice day .... "

            Alone once more, Johanna relaxed under a shady tree at the back of the garden with Puss in her arms.

            "That was a smart move, Johanna."

            "I'd much rather talk to you than any grown-up: even Mum can be a bit of a bore, sometimes! And yes, I'd love to know what cats dream about!"

             "But first, you said you'd tell me about cat names. You said the poem wasn't quite right, that it ‘wasn't that simple' Can you explain a bit better, please?"

            Puss fussed about a bit, turning around until he found a comfortable way of curling up in a position where he could look directly in Johanna's eyes.

            "You've got a great memory for songs" he purred, "and you've sung almost nothing else since your Mum and Dad took you out for the evening - as well as playing the music on your.... what do you call it? The music player??"

            "It's called a CD player" said Johanna, with a smile. 

            Puss nodded, and continued:

            "You decided to call me Puss, and I liked the sound of it, so I don't mind your

            Johanna shook her head.

            "It's a common name: I chose it because it's a friendly, comfy sort of a word - is that a good reason for choosing a name? For me at least it just means ‘I love you': I hope you don't mind!"

            "It's the best reason I could ever think of!" he said, with an even louder purr.

"The fact is, a cat has as many - or as few - names as he or she chooses to have, but it's true that there will always be one name which is never spoken aloud, even to other cats. This is because deep in the heart of every cat, there will always be a Secret which is the centre of the cat's being, purpose and reason for living. Can you understand that?"

            It was Johanna's turn to nod.

            "Yes, that's sensible enough: we all need a ... a secret place where we can be alone with our own thoughts" she agreed, and continued:

            "Do you have a - what shall I call it, a ‘not-so-secret name' which I can call you instead of "Puss", or are you happy if I carry on using the name I picked?"

            Puss sat up and licked thoughtfully at his right front paw.

            "My mother often called me Tigertail: if you'd like to call me that, it would remind me of her."
      "Oh, that's a lovely name!" she exclaimed "and I can see why she called you that!" she added, as Tigertail smoothed the perfect black and yellow rings of her tail into place.
            "Are you ready now to learn what cats dream about?"

            "I'd love that!"

            Tigertail cuddled closer, wrapping his tail around Johanna's arm.

            "The difference between waking and dreaming isn't always easy to sense, even for cats," he purred.
            "There was a time when people remembered who's really in charge, and they worshipped cats as was - and still is! - our due."
            "They've forgotten some of the simple things they learnt from us: for example, how to find a cave, to shelter from the weather."

            Johanna was really impressed.

            "Our teacher told us once of the people in Egypt who worshipped cats: but we never heard anything like that!" she said

            "Egypt, you say? Is that a hot place, with lots of sand? And with lots of buildings shaped like my ears?"

            Johanna blinked, then realised what Tigertail was trying to describe.

            "Yes, that's right: we call the buildings ‘pyramids' - they were used to bury their rich men and leaders."

            "Hah! Is that what they told you?"

             If it's possible for a cat to sneer disdainfully, Tigertail managed to do it.

            "They were built to honour cats: there wasn't a pyramid built which didn't contain the body of a cat, though their personal servant humans were almost always buried in the same place when the time came ..."

            "You said you'd tell me of your dreams."

            Tigertail stopped purring for a moment, and seemed to be thinking carefully.

            "The only way I can describe it is to say that I imagine a time - perhaps not so far off as you might think! - when we reclaim our rightful ruling position, and begin to put right some of the horrible mess you humans have made of a once-beautiful place to live." he growled, sounding intense: almost feral. Suddenly, Johanna realised that despite his size, her pet kitten was not the tame tabby he seemed at first glance. A tiny flame of fear was kindled deep inside her, and refused to be quenched.

            "How did you .... I mean, how did cats ... ?"

            "Speak to their humans? How do we talk?"

            "You mean you .. sort of, put ideas in people's heads?"

            "You can think of it like that."

            Tigertail concentrated on washing again, apparently unconcerned.

            "So: all the really important ideas: shelter, using fire   .........  "

            " ... wearing fur, heating food, the wheel .......... "

            "         .....      and scientists, artists, famous leaders .....? "

            "They all had cats for companions, every single one."

            Johanna turned and flopped comfortably onto her tummy, bringing her face down to Tigertail's level and snuggling closer. Suddenly she saw the vertical stripes of the cat's pupils dilate and felt herself drawn physically closer by Tigertail's unblinking gaze.

            Scenes flickered before her gaze. She sensed that they were memories: it was like sitting in the comfort of her living room, watching a series of trailers or clips from well-known films.

            A bearded figure held a staff above his head, while hundreds of others fled across an almost-dry riverbed: at his side, a sleek Mau cat appeared to be exhaling gently, holding back a mighty river with the power of its breath.

            A battlefield: two serried ranks of footsoldiers squared off against each other near a cliff. From beyond the shoulder of the invading army's leader, an arrow rose high into the air. At the leader's feet sat a Cornish Rex, whose gaze seemed to track this arrow's trajectory, guiding it unerringly to land in the unprotected eye of the opposing leader.

            A young man with a domed forehead sat on a high stool, surrounded by rolls of vellum and quill pens. He wrote furiously: at his feet slumbered a large, long-haired Forest cat. Peering over his shoulder, Johanna read a few words, the latest he had written in a long tale of two Italian families fighting a personal vendetta ...........   

            A young lady carrying a lamp floated across a battlefield. At her side (or scurrying before her) was a pure-white Persian who indicated with a lick on the cheek which soldier he considered in greatest need of the nurse's attention. Muted, confused sounds of battle and the cries of the wounded were all around, and intensified.

            The Lady of the Lamp faded from the scene, and a silent battlefield remained. Night fell, and a pair of eyes glowing with fanatical hatred appeared from behind a treeline on the horizon. Martial music played as a Russian Blue cat goosestepped from the trees and immediately kaleidoscoped into six, thirty, hundreds of identical cats marching, marching, trampling all before them into the muddy fields they crossed. The eyes rose like some obscene parody of an evil, poisonous sun casting its lethal, contaminating light on the horrors unfolding beneath it, became part of a recognisable face with a trademark bristle moustache over a mean, small mouth. Flecks of saliva flew from the lips as he screamed soundless orders: a tiny cowlick of hair flapped wildly and uncontrollably across his forehead. The cats continued to grow in number and filled the scene from horizon to horizon, all marching in perfect step.

            Johanna shivered, terrified of what she was witnessing.

            "Why are you showing me so much pain and suffering?"

            Somehow she knew that the visions passing before her eyes were being fed to her horrified and unwilling sight by Tigertail. The cat's smile was no longer friendly and welcoming: in fact, it had become quite the reverse.

            Briefly, the scene darkened once more, and coalesced again to show what appeared to be the remnants of a dilapidated, ruined cityscape. A distant, heatless sun cast a sickly, lifeless pallor over the desolation. A wind which (although she could not feel it on her skin) Johanna simply knew would be bitterly cold howled amongst the rubble. Furtive shapes slithered from one hiding place to another. They were low on the ground, moving on all fours: Johanna realised, with growing horror, that the survivors in this post-apocalyptic nightmare were not human in nature.

            She looked around, but Tigertail was no longer to be seen.

            "Tigertail! What happened? And why are you showing me this?"

            An evil, sneering parody of her once-cuddly tabby's voice echoed in her ears:

            "Pitiful human! WE are the Masters, now ..... "