Free The Story of Jennie- or the Abandoned by Paul Gallico

kindness. Clearly he had somewhat put Jennie out, for she stiffened slightly and with the nearest thing to a cold look she had bestowed upon him since they had met, said, `You can't have it both ways, Peter. If you want to live my kind of life, and I can't see where you have very much choice at the moment—'
    `But of course I do!' Peter hastened to explain, `it's just that I'm not yet quite familiar with the different way cats feel than the way people feel. And I will do as you say, and I do want to learn …'
    From her expression, Jennie did not appear to be too pleased with this speech either, but before she could remark upon it there came a loud call from the movers: `That's the lot, then,' and another voice replied, 'Righty-ho!' Jennie peered around the corner and said, `They've finished. We'll wait a few minutes to make sure they don't come back, and then we'll start.'
    When they were certain that the aisle was quite deserted again, they set off, Jennie leading, past the empty bin and down the corridor in the direction the men had taken, but before they had gone very far Jennie branched off to the right on a new tack until she came to a bin close to the outside wall of the warehouse, filled with horrible, new, modern kind of furniture, chrome-bound leather and overstuffed plush. She led Peter to the back where there was a good-sized hole in the baseboard. It looked dark and forbidding inside.
    `Don't be afraid,' Jennie said. `Just follow me. We go to the right and then to the left, but it gets light very quickly.'
    She slipped in with Peter after her, and it soon grew pitch black. Peter now discovered that he was feeling through the ends of his whiskers, rather than seeing where Jennie was, and he had no difficulty in following her, particularly inasmuch as it soon became light enough to see that they were in a tunnel . through which a large iron pipe more than a foot in diameter was running. Then Peter saw where the light was coming from. There was a hole in the pipe where it had rusted through a few feet from where it gave exit to the street.
    Apparently the pipe was used as some kind of air-intake, or had something to do with the ventilation of the warehouse, for it had once had a grating over the end of it, but the fastenings of that had long since rusted and it had fallen away, and there was nothing to bar their way out.
    Peter was so pleased and excited at the prospect of seeing the sun and being out of doors again that he hurried past Jennie and would have rushed out into the street had not the alarm in her warning cry checked him just before he emerged from the opening.
    `Peter! Wait!' she cried. `Not like that! Cats never, never rush out from places. Don't you know about Pausing on the Threshold, or Lingering on the Sill? But then, of course, you wouldn't. Oh dear, I don't mean always to be telling you what to do and what not to do, but this is really Important. It's almost Lesson No. 2. You never hurry out of any place, and particularly not outdoors.'
    Peter saw that Jennie had quite recovered her good nature and apparently had forgotten that she had been upset with him. He was curious to find out the reasons for her warning. He said, `I don't quite understand, Jennie. You mean I'm not to stop before coming in, but I am whenever I go out?'
    'Of course. What else?' replied Jennie, sitting down quite calmly in the mouth of the exit and showing not the slightest disposition to go through it and into the street. `You know what's inside because you come from there. You don't know what's outside because you haven't been there. That's common ordinary sense for anyone, I should think.'
    `Yes, but what is there outside to be afraid of, really?' inquired Peter. 'I mean, after all, if you know where you live and the street and houses and all which don't change—'
    `Oh, my goodness,' said Jennie, 'I couldn't try to tell you them all. To begin with—dogs, people, moving vehicles, the weather and changes in temperature,