A stray calico cat my family adopted about two years ago fancies herself rather like a dog. Every morning, if she manages to be outside while we’re heading off to walk to school, she cheerfully tags along all the way to the corner of Dickinson and Oakland Streets, at her own peril.
Recently, because of a streak of illnesses that went through the family all month long, we hadn’t been walking as much. Now that we’re back in usual form, the cat is as determined as ever to serve as escort. I’m convinced that she could see the kids safely to the door of the school on her own, and she’d turn around there and come right back home afterward, too. She is bafflingly, daringly streetwise even while she is very ladylike and quick to hop into someone’s lap and purr. She adores my kids and has been nothing short of a delightful pet, even though she arrived at our door hungry, cold, wet, and (we didn’t realize) pregnant with a litter of six on a rainy early April night.
We have since had her spayed and vaccinated, after letting her birth her healthy kittens in our bedroom closet and finding all of them good homes. She is an energetic young cat, and has adapted somewhat to life indoors but in general needs to be outside a lot of the time. When we go away for a couple of days, she has trouble being cooped in with our two male cats, and we’ll find evidence of her acting out when we return.
Her role as morning-walk-to-school escort continues to take me by surprise. This week, in particular, the cat was emboldened enough to attempt to cross at Dickinson and Oakland while our crossing guard stood there holding up traffic for a spell. We speculated on whether the cat can read, or understands traffic signals. She traipsed to the sunny corner, those of us at the intersection watching with some mixture of being appalled and amazed at this bold little cat. Then she decided to turn away and wait for me a little up the street, where she hunkered down and watched for my shoes to come back her way.
Oakland and Dickinson Streets this time last year. Traffic is an issue.
Ordinarily she waits in a sunny nook in the doorway of the old Salvation Army storefront (currently being remodeled, and with an interesting new stone facade). She sees me coming back and happily skips back along to walk with me. The cat is so irrepressibly joyful about walking with me—she literally bounces in her step—that people actually stop and stare at us walking by. I know this is because of the cat because usually people do not take notice of each other on the street in the slightest way; sometimes even upon greeting passersby I am ignored. Having the cat with me is an entirely different thing.
Take this morning, for instance. I was walking along with the sun at my back and the cat trolloping by my side, so happy to be out and walking with me that she was nearly underfoot. At each cross street, inevitably the morning rush traffic would zoom up to the corner and I would have to face the driver’s decision as to whether to let me cross, or impatiently roll up ahead (blocking my path) in order to make their turn onto Dickinson Street. Most drivers let me cross, and I put my hand up, fingers splayed, to thank them. Then I look over my shoulder to see if the cat is going to come with me. Knowing her own size, she’s hesitant, but she looks to make eye contact with the driver, too, and mouth agape, they let her cross just behind me.
A crossing guard at the corner of Oakland and Orange Streets, another sunny corner.
Across the street, a little girl was emerging from a house, backpack on and all bundled up, accompanied by perhaps her older brother. She called out to someone in the building, a goodbye maybe, and then her eye caught sight of me walking along with my cat. She stood frozen on her front stairs, totally rapt. Her expression caught my own eye, and I was equally distracted. I stood, too, and stared back at her. Was something wrong? I wondered. Oh, she’s looking at me with my cat, I realized.
This arrangement isn’t really my first choice for how to do things when I walk my kids to school. It adds stress to an already frantic stretch of pavement, currently riddled with treacherous icy spots, mounds of frozen slush at every curb that must be mounted and jumped off to cross streets, and traffic patterns that call for the utmost vigilance on the part of pedestrians. When I remember to do so, I put the cat inside before making the trek, so it’s one less thing I have to worry about as we head off.
But I have to say there’s something wonderfully idiosyncratic about the cat’s habit, and if it can bring a smile to someone’s face, or call them out of their usual routines in some form of wonder and amazement, it’s probably worth the small trouble to see the cat safely home again every time.
