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the
Long-Haired
Miniature
Panther
Sledz, 2004
For Rayne
Kathryn
Seyerle
by Sean Ennis
his belly is 9 pounds of mischief; the rest of his weight is fur.
by Kira April
Cards
An Excerpt
from the
Novel
Unscrewing
Mt St Helens
(Psychopomp)
by Amanda
Sledz
he wants. She opens the door when he sits in front of it and meows…
…she gives him food, and she rubs his belly while saying, “Give me that
belly!” She also does some things Scooter doesn’t like her to do: she
cleans out his ears and gives him a bath, and shuts the door at night so
he’s stuck inside. Sometimes, she even leaves.
Still, Scooter loves Amanda even more
than he loves Mr. Quimpers Tasty Treats
Gourmet cat food in Tuna Delight.
Amanda gives Scooter lots of nicknames
and titles he never knew he had. She calls him Scootie and Scootums
and Scooter Pie and Super Scoot, Mister and Young Man and Nuttin’-
But-Trouble.
Scooter likes all his nicknames, but there’s one he likes best of all:
Scooter, the long-haired miniature panther.
When Scooter climbs a tree and waits in the branches for someone to see
how high he is, Amanda says: “Look at that black cat! He’s huge! And
climbing trees? He could only be a long-haired miniature panther!”
When Amanda says this, Scooter reaches for an even higher branch in
the tree, just to show Amanda how right she is.
Sometimes, Scooter doesn’t feel like a panther. Like today. All he was
doing was looking at the fish in Ms. Ball’s pond like he always does--and,
well, maybe giving a goldfish a little bat with his paw now and again.
Ms. Ball didn’t like this one bit, and she came roaring through her back
door with a broom in her hand: “Get out of here! Scat! I’ve had enough of
you cats!” Scooter ran home and hid in his favorite big green bush with
thorns around the edge.
Amanda always knows just the right thing to say, and so she sits down
next to the big green bush where Scooter is almost hiding. He forgot
about his tail.
“Long-haired miniature panthers are rare,” Amanda begins. “There may
even only be one in the world. I thought I was getting a little black cat,
but I’m thinking Scooter’s a panther, because they’re really good at
hiding and for the life of me I can’t find him!”
Scooter pops out of the bush and says “Boo!” in his head, but it comes out
like this: “Meow!”
“Scooter!” Amanda cries. She pets him and he purrs, before he runs off
to play.
Now Scooter is thinking he wants to do something panthers do. Like
climb. There’s a tree in the front yard, and he can get to the top branch—
but he’s not really sure what to do after that. Every time he gets to the
top, Amanda yells, “Scooter, are you sure you want to be so high?”
Scooter is sure.
He has a feeling that the what-comes-next will come to him somewhere
around the very tip-top branch. So up Scooter scoots, up the trunk like a
squirrel, then across a branch, a jump to the middle branch, another
trunk-scoot, and finally (finally) the very tip-top! Scooter is right: he
knows just where to go next. The roof. With a panther roar he jumps
gracefully from branch to roof. Wow! The roof! Scooter can see the whole
neighborhood! He can even see Ms. Ball being grumpy in her grumpy
yard, the other cats waiting for her to go away so they can look at her
fish. Scooter can’t wait to tell Amanda!
Scooter trots over to the tree and looks down. Way, way down.
Suddenly Scooter doesn’t feel so good. He wants Amanda.
“Meow!” he says to a window he finds after running all over the roof. He
hopes it works like a door. “Meow!”
It doesn’t seem to be working! Is his meow broken? What’s wrong with
Amanda? Is she sick? Who will fill his bowl with Mr. Quimper’s Tasty
Treats?
“Meow! Meow! Meow!” he furiously scratches at the window.
“Scooter!” Amanda cries, as she opens the window. Whew! Scooter
thinks, as he hurries through, purring.
Now he’s a little embarrassed at how very worried he was. That’s not a
panther thing to do. That’s a dog thing to do. He thinks about his day:
yelled at, trapped on the roof, and meowing like a crazy kitten. Doesn’t
sound very pantherish to Scooter. He feels a little sad.
Amanda always knows just the right thing to say. “I was wondering
where my little panther was!” She begins. “I can’t believe you climbed so
high and jumped so far! What a monster you are! But you know, I hear
panthers generally do better in trees and on the ground than they do on
the roof.”
Oh, Scooter thinks. That’s what that was all about. He circles Amanda’s
legs to thank her for reminding him, and Amanda picks him up and
squeezes him. “Meow!” he cries, until Amanda puts him down. He races
outside again.
Miniature panthers don’t like to be hugged.
The End
from the
Salad Bar of
the
Incomparable
Katrina
Alliasan
