The ted talks to it like it can understand. ‘Hey, Champ. You a good boy? Yes, yes you are, yes you are, oh yes, you big dumb lunk.’ Only, often he doesn’t say lunk. I hear the slopping of the brouhaha’s tongue, smell the love coming out of its skin. This just proves the ted’s point. Brouhahas really are big dumb ahem-ahems. Champ wants nothing more than to kill me. The old knowledge told me, the kind that is in our bodies. Teds don’t have a lot of that knowledge left but cats have tons.
I waited until I had the timings off by heart. Ted goes to get candy and beer at a certain time each day. As he’s coming up the steps, the brouhaha and the ted are sometimes passing in front of the house. Sometimes the ted says hi, and Ted kind of grunts back.
Today was the day and my heart was whirring like a hummingbird, but I knew it was going to work, I just knew it.
At this point, I was not yet very tall. I could still walk right under the couch, and the tips of my ears would not even graze the underside. So I hid myself in the umbrella stand in the hall. What a useless thing! How many umbrellas does Ted think he has? Anyway it is a good place to hide.
I heard Ted’s footfall, the tinkle and crack of tiny pieces of the world breaking beneath his boot. He had started early, I could tell. This was also good. Ted would be slow. (There is a shuffling rhythm to his walk when he drinks. It is almost like a very simple dance – a square dance, maybe.) I crouched, my tail lashed. The cord stretched out in the air behind me. It was a burnt shade of orange that day, and it crackled like fire in a hearth as I moved.
I coiled myself to spring. Ted sang something under his breath and the keys clicked in the various locks. I could smell the outside, its earthy glow. I could smell the brouhaha, its breath like old broken eggs. A line of light broke the dark of the hall as the door began to open. I ran for it as hard as my small paws would carry me. My plan was to run for the oak tree in the front yard, and after that, well. I would be free.
I came skidding to a halt in the doorway, drowned in blinding white. I couldn’t see anything at all. The world was a narrow crack of agonising light. I had lived most of my life in the dim of the house, I realised. My eyes couldn’t handle the sun. I rowed and closed them tight. I felt strange freezing air touch my nose. Maybe I could do this with my eyes shut?
The door was opening wider. The air must have carried my scent out into the world; the big brouhaha exploded into a roar. I smelled the excitement coming from him, the anticipation of death. I heard the manic jingle of tags. I guessed the brouhaha was rearing and springing up the steps. Everything slowed, almost to a stop. In the blinding white fire I felt my death approach.
This was a terrible plan, I realised. I could never make it to the tree. I couldn’t even open my eyes to see the tree. The brouhaha was close, I smelled his mouth, open like a long dirty cave, his rotten teeth. I felt a burning circle of fire spread around my neck. It was the cord, sizzling with heat. The cord burned and pulled me deep into the safe shadows of the house, as quick as a whiplash. I heard Ted slam the door closed.
I opened my eyes. I was inside again – safe. Outside, Ted was yelling. The brouhaha keened and whuffed, pressing his face to the bottom of the door. His stink drifted under, it was everywhere. I was horrified at myself. How could I have thought this was a good idea? I felt how tiny I was, each slender bone in my body, the delicacy of all my veins and fur and the beauty of my eyes. How could I have thought to risk all that in a world where a brouhaha could eat me in one bite?
‘Hey,’ Ted shouted. ‘Get your dog under control.’ He was angry. You don’t want to mess with Ted when he’s angry.
The barking and stink receded somewhat. The ted must have pulled his brouhaha away.
‘My daughter’s inside,’ Ted said. ‘That really scared her. You ought to be more careful.’
‘Sorry,’ the ted said. ‘He just likes to play.’
‘Keep him on a leash,’ Ted said.
The scent of the brouhaha receded, blending with the distant scent of the forest. Then it was gone. Ted came in quickly. The locks went thunk, thunk, thunk. I was so glad to hear them.
‘Poor kitten,’ he said. ‘Scary for you.’
I climbed into Ted’s hands. I felt the fiery cord expand and enclose us in a blazing womb of light.
‘That’s why you have to stay indoors,’ he said. ‘It’s dangerous out there.’
I’m sorry, I said to Ted. I didn’t know.
He couldn’t understand me, of course. I thought it was important to say it anyway. Warmth glowed around us. We were in a ball of warm yellow fire.
It was then that I saw Him. There was a third there with us, at the heart of the flame. He didn’t look like anything I knew. He looked like everything. His face changed each moment. He looked like a yellow-beaked hawk, and then a red maple leaf, then
