The Arrogant Emu

Wednesday, June 19.

Perhaps you recall the white cat I told you about - the poor sickly creature who came around mewling every morning, fur dirty and matted and smelling quite ill? She seemed to have recovered something of her spirit, but was still clearly not a well animal, and was still what all the crew now knew how to say: schifo.

Opinions on the cat were divided. Some cooed and fussed and pitied her, some shooed her away as a diseased and bad-humored creature. So there we were, sitting around one evening, conversing after dinner, with chairs pulled up on the flagstone porch outside. Gravus, with his usual cigar in hand (making him look like a slightly more Italian Fidel Castro) was laughing and holding forth).

The white cat came yowling and twining around the legs of the chairs. Cantachaya scratched its head, and Hachaya cooed over it. "Move on, move on," said Fero, waving it away as it left them.

"Filthy beast," growled Gravus. "It should be thrown into the cistern."

"Mrrrow?" said the cat, looking up at Gravus expectantly.

"Oh no! No you don’t!" cried Gravus, but he was too late, as the little white cat lauched itself into his lap, purring blissfully.

There were shouts of laughter and hilarity at this from the assembled company, as Gravus, his diginity offended, glared first at us and then at the cat.

"That’s it! That’s what her name is!"

(This had been a question every time the white can had shown up.)

Signette giggled. "Grava! Grava the cat!"

Gravus, who has been petting the white cat with a great air of pretending not to do so, made a very rude gesture in her direction, which caused a further explosion of mirth. But Grava stuck to the cat, and the cat stuck to Gravus, despite his repeated assertions that if only she weren’t so diseased, she would make good eating, and that she should expect to find an early end under the wheels of his van.