Free The Familiar by Jill Nojack Page B

killed both her and the baby if she'd delivered him a mixed-race child. She lost her ring but got to keep her marriage. I hid it in a fit of pique after watching the glee it gave Eunice. But I can't tell Cassie that. I can't tell her anything.
    The longer things go on this way, the fuzzier I feel: I constantly lose focus and get distracted by all the things a cat can find under counters and couches and crawling up the walls. I want to focus on Cassie, but she's becoming less and less interesting unless she's giving me a meal or a scratch.
     Cat even gets in on my gift selections because I'm now too instinct driven to stop him. He dropped a dead spider in front of her on the counter this morning. That one earned a "Yuck!" and a quick cleanup.
    I crawl back into her lap, discouraged. The words are never going to happen. Never.
    “Well, come on Tom, might as well put this ring in Granny's jewelry box for safekeeping.” Cassie holds me close as she gets up and turns the TV off.
    Eunice's jewelry box is on the vanity. It's finally happening. I feel like I'm floating as we travel along the short upstairs hall together.
    And the words are still there, perfectly shaped. I know they are.
    Cassie stops dead about three feet from the vanity. “What the?”
    I hold my breath. She reads the words.
    “6000 ton? This wasn't here before! Who would have snuck in here to write something stupid like that? Are they trying to scare me, make me think Granny's trying to communicate? What does it even mean?”
    That's it. I'm done with her. She's a moron.
    I get a nice chunk of her arm between my teeth, and she drops me, looking surprised. I show her my backside as I run down the stairs, heading for something satisfying to break or, even better, something to kill.

Movement under the bed. I leap to it. It's nothing. Wait...behind me. A crawly. A meal. I bat at it, hold it down, let it up, let it run, bat at it, hold it down, let it up, let it run.
    The fun is gone. Crunch it up.
    Shine from the window. Warm. Wait...what is it? I turn, I pounce, I turn, I pounce, I turn, I pounce.
    "Come on, Tom, stop chasing your own tail. Breakfast time."
    I look at her. I know my name. My name is Tom. Good Tom. Say it! Say Good Tom.
    I jump along behind her down and down.
    Each step down means say it.
    Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it. Say it.

***
    I stalk shiny head. He talks. I stalk.
    Shoelaces. Pounce. I arch. I spit.
    "Tom! What's gotten into you?"
    Grabbed. In my cage now.
    I'm alert. I keep my eye out. Shiny head talks. Talks and talks.
    Cassie helps girl. Shiny head looks. I know you, shiny head. Do you know me?
    Cassie comes back. Shiny head talks.
    He goes. I'm free again.
    I purr, I rub.
    Say it. Say it. Good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom.
    She has the broom. Swickswickswick. She opens the door. One hand on the door. One hand on the broom.
    I chase to the door. The smells, oh the smells. I dart to it. Hand grabs. Broom falls. Door closes. Still inside.
    "What's wrong with you today? Be good, Tom!"
    Oh, it hurts, but it is good tom, good tom, good tom...

I've gone nuts, right? Granny's kitten starts to stretch and grow and morph. Its little legs start to look like arms at the front and thighs in the back and oh, wow…that's not right to see
that
on a cat. And in just seconds, my kitten Tom is a naked man with shoulder-length, messy brown hair, green eyes, a smooth chest, thin hips, a smooth, nicely rounded bottom...and well...a naked man! What the hell? I scramble away, backing up fast, afraid to take my eyes off of him.
    He twists himself over to sit, his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking, looking up at me and mumbling rhythmically like that homeless, crazy guy in Boston who slept in the alley across from my apartment.  It's crazy talk. It sounds like, “say it” and after that it's “goo tah”, “goombah”, or maybe “gouda”?
    How did a bum—a young, buff, naked bum—get into the shop, and