know—I don't think I'm the only person who maybe knows what really happened to Hobart Gurney, down in the long, dead, flattened grass below the "little girls" . . . for this is what is carved on his barn-gray tombstone:
No Heaven will not ever Heaven be,
Unless my Cats are there to Welcome me.
All I can say is, I hope it was warm, and soft, and loving, there in the long, dead grass, with the little girls . . .
In memory of:
Beanie, Ming, Fella, Ollie, Stan, Puddin', Blackie, Cupcake, Smokie, Prissy, Mish-Mish, Dewie, Rusty, Precious, Puff, Lucky, Eric, Sweetheart, Jack, Early Grey, Charlie, Dolly, Maynard, Willie, Gwen, Laya, Spunky, Belle, Stripes, Boo, Moo-Moo, Bruiser, Monkey, Goldie, Poco, Butterball, Spooky, Silky, Ladybug, Orangey, Ko-Ko, Frosty, Simba, Rosie, Mrs. T., Mister, Muffin (Bubba), Speedy, Whiskers, Bitsy, Purr-Bear, Kay-Tu, Chloe, Bippy, Brutis, Teddy, Amelia, Elmo, Alphie, Gloria, Woody, Jezebel, Tigger, Pansy, Oscar, April, Peokoe, Meg, Adrian, Sylvester, Baby, Marco Polo, Lovey, Candy, Lola, Lacy, Poopie (Violet), Queenie, Otto, Babykins, Momma Cat, Cutie Pie, Sandy, Beauty, Sean, Chewie, Scooter, Mittens, Taffy, Boo Boo, Clyde, Bailey, Gummitch, Dundee, Chatty, Princess, Pinky, Apollo, Amber, Denise, Callie, Bijou, Squeeky, Cee-Cee, Felix, Boogie, Little Boy, Sugarplum, Tweetie Pie, Ruby, Penny, Fluffy (II), Pumpkin, Casper, Boots, Jet, Honey, Beau, Angel, Mack, Bugsy, Miss Kitty, Katie, June Bug, Cinnamon, Tippi, Gracie, Quinn, Grady, Trudy, Baby Biscuit, May, and Mongo.
The Price
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is the Newbery-winning author of The Graveyard Book and a New York Times bestseller, whose books have been made into major motion pictures including the recent Coraline. He is also famous for the "Sandman" graphic novel series, and for numerous other books and comics for adult, young adult, and younger readers. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, World Fantasy, and other awards. He is also the author of powerful short stories and poems.
"The Price" is a lovely mystical, powerful, and moving tale that Gaiman admits is also more or less true. At least, the narrator in this story "is pretty much me, the house is my house, the cats my cats, and the family is my family. The black cat was just as I have described him."
Tramps and vagabonds have marks they make on gateposts and trees and doors, letting others of their kind know a little about the people who live at the houses and farms they pass on their travels. I think cats must leave similar signs; how else to explain the cats who turn up at our door through the year, hungry and flea-ridden and abandoned?
We take them in. We get rid of the fleas and the ticks, feed them and take them to the vet. We pay for them to get their shots, and, indignity upon indignity, we have them neutered or spayed.
And they stay with us, for a few months, or for a year, or for ever.
Most of them arrive in summer. We live in the country, just the right distance out of town for the city-dwellers to abandon their cats near us.
We never seem to have more than eight cats, rarely have less than three. The cat population of my house is currently as follows: Hermione and Pod, tabby and black respectively, the mad sisters who live in my attic office, and do not mingle; Princess, the blue-eyed long-haired white cat, who lived wild in the woods for years before she gave up her wild ways for soft sofas and beds; and, last but largest, Furball, Princess's cushion-like calico long-haired daughter, orange and black and white, whom I discovered as a tiny kitten in our garage one day, strangled and almost dead, her head poked through an old badminton net, and who surprised us all by not dying but instead growing up to be the best-natured cat I have ever encountered.
And then there is the black cat. Who has no other name than the Black Cat, and who turned up almost a month ago. We did not realize he was going to be living here at first: he looked too well-fed to be a stray, too old and jaunty to have been abandoned. He looked like a small panther, and he moved like a patch of night.
One day, in the summer, he was lurking about our ramshackle porch: eight or nine years old, at a guess, male, greenish-yellow of eye, very friendly, quite unperturbable. I assumed he belonged to a neighboring farmer or household.
I went away for a few weeks, to finish writing a book, and when I came home he was