The Cat's Job
By Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
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About this ebook
What is the Cat's Job?
Some say a cat's job is to be decorative. Some say it is to slay vermin. Some say a cat ought to earn his or her keep, and some think cats are mere pets. Some folks are dog people, but we don't need to talk too much about them here.
In this chapbook we look at a cat mayor at work, talk about cats as people, and share several fictional pieces dealing with the place of cats and their people in the universe at large.
The Cat's Job was one of SRM Publisher's most popular titles since 2002; in 2010 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller added a rarely seen 1979 collaborative effort as well as a timeline of the household they call The Cat Farm and Confusion Factory, with special reference to Blueblaze Sphinxian Hexapuma, the cover cat. This Pinbeam Book edition contains the complete 2010 text.
Enjoy!
Sharon Lee
Sharon Lee has worked with children of various ages and backgrounds, including a preschool, a local city youth bureau, and both junior and senior high youth groups. She has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and also in psychology. Sharon cares about people and wildlife. She has been an advocate in the fight against human trafficking and a help to stray and feral animals in need.
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The Cat's Job - Sharon Lee
THE CAT'S JOB
––––––––
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
––––––––
Pinbeam Books
http://www.pinbeambooks.com
––––––––
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are fiction or are used fictitiously.
THE CAT'S JOB
Copyright © 2002, 2010, 2011 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author. Please remember that distributing an author's work without permission or payment is theft; and that the authors whose works sell best are those most likely to let us publish more of their works. First published in 2002 by SRM, Publisher.
The Big Ice by Sharon Lee first appeared in CatFantastic V
The Cat's Job by Steve Miller first appeared in Chariot the Stars
Ginger and the Bully of Lowergate Court © 1996, 2002 by Sharon Lee
King of the Cats ©2002 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Hexapuma and this edition © 2010 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
10th Life © 1979 by Steve Miller ISBN:
Kindle: 978-1-935224-33-4
Epub: 978-1-935224-34-1
PDF: 978-1-935224-35-8
Published April 2011 by
Pinbeam Books
PO Box 1586
Waterville ME 04903
email info@pinbeambooks.com
Cover photograph of Hexapuma Copyright © 2010 by Steve Miller
Dedication
––––––––
For all the cats who have made our lives more livable,
for the vets and aides who have helped keep our cats healthy and wise, if not wealthy,
and for our many friends who have acted as guardians and supporters of our cats
while we lived the often roaming and penny-pinched lives of writers.
Ginger and the Bully
of Lowergate Court
Feline Fact
by Sharon Lee
––––––––
For nine years Steve and I (with Archie, Arwen, Brandee and Buzz-z) lived in an impossible little townhouse on Lowergate Court in Owings Mills, Maryland. Lowergate was one of five courts that comprised the stunningly misnamed Bright Meadows, the entire campus of which was roughly three-quarters of a mile around.
The best thing about Bright Meadows (besides that the rent was cheap and the roof kept the rain off. Mostly.) was that there were many dozens of cats in the neighborhood. Steve and I would go for walks up and down and around the various courts and say hi to Jazz and Mom, Sasquatch, Pirate, Taffy, Sandy, The Gentleman, Blue and Ginger.
Ginger was the mayor.
I didn't say he was the mayor—anyone could see that he was, just by looking at him. An orange striped cat of middle years with a habitual demeanor of grave attentiveness, he made his rounds every day, up, down and around the courts, across to World's End and down the back woods. He would stop by our place mid-morning and trade orange cat stories with Archie through the bottom screen in the kitchen door. At least once I saw him at World's End with Brandee, hunting moles. He cuffed Buzz-z once when they first met and that took care of that—deference to the mayor was Buzz-z's rule, ever after.
Ginger was a non-partisan mayor. He was a cat, true enough, but he held every resident of the courts to be citizens, equally subject to his authority—and his protection. Steve saw him run off a stray dog that had frightened one of the toddlers in the playground. I saw him streaking to the rescue, the day Pirate was treed by a couple of boys with too much time on their hands.
The Gentleman, who was Brandee's special friend, was a Cat of the World—a wire-tough black-and-white with gnawed-up ears and a limp off the back right leg—and even he accorded Ginger the respect of his rank, whenever he found himself on Hizzoner's turf.
Not so, the Siamese.
I do not at this distance remember the Siamese's name. Perhaps I never knew it. Steve claims some vague recollection of having heard him called Khan.
I'm not so sure. What I am sure of is that he arrived outside my kitchen door one April morning, just before Ginger's daily visit, swearing and cussing and hissing at Archie, who was standing up on his hind legs and giving back as good as he got.
I threw a glass of water on him through the screen and told him to get a life, which, as it happens, was a mistake.
From that moment on, the Siamese targeted our house. He would show up at all hours, bitching and screaming. He would crouch under the bush by the door and leap on Brandee, or Steve or me as we left.
But we weren't the only ones.
He made Taffy's life a misery. He jumped The Gentleman so many times that The Gentlemen went to visit friends in the country. He clawed Jazz so badly the vet was afraid he wouldn't be able to save the eye. S'quatch would scream when he saw the Siamese coming his way and scramble up the drain pipe to sit wailing in the rain gutter until his lady fetched him down. Brandee would flatten herself to the ground and her ears to her head and dare him