The 12 Cats of Christmas (The Kitten Files) Read online

  The 12 Cats of Christmas

  A Kitten Files Short Story

  * * *

  Perry Elisabeth Kirkpatrick

  The 12 Cats of Christmas

  Other Works by Perry Elisabeth Kirkpatrick

  The 12 Cats of Christmas

  ©2017 Perry Elisabeth Kirkpatrick

  All rights reserved.

  Cover made with images by freepik.com.

  perrykirkpatrick.com

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  The 12 Cats of Christmas

  Indistinct Christmas tunes played over the store’s sound system, trying to make me feel happy. Keyword being trying.

  I held back a sniffle as I counted out the woman’s change. I could tell my weepiness was making her uncomfortable, but she didn’t comment. Her little girl—who happened to be wearing a sweater with an embroidered dog on it—didn’t have any qualms.

  “Why are you crying? It’s Christmas time! Nobody should cry at Christmas time!” she lisped.

  Children and their candor!

  “Well,” I said, indulging in just a tiny sniff, “your sweater is reminding me of my bulldog, Bob. He died couple days ago.”

  The little girl’s face fell, and she said that was probably a good reason to be sad at Christmas time. Her mother whisked her away to regain some holiday cheer by visiting our in-store Santa who was set up just behind my register.

  “Gloooooo-o-o-o-o-o-RIA!” sang Amber, my excessively cheerful manager who also happened to be my best friend. This singing of my name had been happening every Christmas since I could remember. Normally it was fun. This year, nothing was fun.

  “What?” I said, frowning at her.

  “Would Bob want you this sad at Christmas time? Bob LOVED Christmas!”

  “Don’t remind me,” I sniffled. Bob had indeed loved Christmas. The rich food, the bows and ribbons and wrapping paper to shred, the mailman’s more frequent and highly-barkable visits to our front door to deliver packages.

  With no more customers to ring up at the moment, I turned and leaned my elbows on the low wall dividing my register from the “North Pole.” Amber was straightening a huge cardboard candy cane that was threatening to fall over. Nearby, a small line of local children waited in line to see Santa and his two attending elves.

  “I understand you miss your dog, but you’re gonna make all the kids and probably the adults cry if you keep it up,” Amber said. She tipped her head and giving me a searching look. “You know what you need?”

  “Time? Grief counseling?”

  She rolled her eyes. “What you need is a cat.”

  I didn’t answer. A cat was decidedly not what I needed, but I had another customer to ring up, so I turned around and plastered a smile on my face.

  * * *

  Santa's shift ended before mine did, so the activity behind me ceased by the time I was closing down my register.

  "Whatcha doing this evening?" Amber asked, whisking by me with a stack of shopping baskets.

  "Umm..." I murmured, realizing I hadn't made any plans. The house was going to be awfully empty and quiet without my big dog around. "Guess I'll go try that new gym?" I said uncertainly.

  "Sounds like a good way to keep busy and work through grief," Amber said, nodding. "You'll have to let me know how the gym is. See you tomorrow!"

  As it turned out, the gym was definitely better than going home to a dogless house, but I realized I'd have to face that at some point. I decided I’d exercised enough to drive through Burger Bomb and eat a cheeseburger on my way home.

  It was dark and icy cold when I pulled into my driveway. The porch light glowed warm and yellow, inviting me in. I hopped out of my car, in a hurry to get inside my warm house. I stopped short when I reached the porch.

  A medium-sized cardboard box sat squarely in front of the door. I didn't remember ordering anything that was due to arrive. I stepped closer and inspected it. There was no address label and the box had holes punched in the sides.

  I unlocked my front door and set my purse on the entry table before hoisting the box over the threshold. Oddly, it felt a little warmer than the icy air playing tag in the alcove of my front porch. I closed the door and flipped on a couple more lights before kneeling beside the box.

  Using my car key, I sliced through the tape and then pulled back the flaps. A fluffy grey cat blinked up at me sleepily. Just barely peeking out from the long fur was a pink bow.

  A girl cat, apparently.

  She'd been napping, curled around a hot water bottle. Giving me a quizzical look, she stretched and then jumped out of the box.

  "Hold it right there, missy! You can't just go wandering around my house. I don't even know why you're here,” I exclaimed, scooping her up. I nearly put her back in the box, but didn't quite have the heart to package her up like unwanted linens.

  "Okay, fine. You don't have to go back in the box, but you're going to stay in the bathroom until I figure out what you're doing here. I really don't need a cat—" I sucked in a breath.

  Amber!

  With the cat safely enclosed in the bathroom, I dove for my purse. Fumbling my cell phone out of it, I punched Amber's number.

  "Hey, what's up?" she answered.

  "Seriously? You don't think you're being just a TAD pushy?" I asked.

  "Umm... Gloria?"

  "The cat. You can't just tell me the solution to all my problems is a cat, and then conjure one out of thin air and leave it on my doorstep."

  "There's a cat on your doorstep?"

  "Was. She's in my bathroom currently."

  "That wasn't me. If you don't give her food, she'll probably move on, although I do have to say it's sweet of you to bring her in out of the cold. Cats show up on people's doorsteps all the time."

  “Not boxed up real nicely with a hot water bottle and wearing a pink bow, they don’t!”

  "Okay, that is weird. I'll be right over."

  About 15 minutes later, my doorbell rang and I let in a bundled-up Amber.

  "Sorry about the grumpy phone call earlier," I said sheepishly as she ditched the huge coat, scarf, hat, and gloves.

  "No worries. Now, where's this cat?"

  "Still in the bathroom."

  "Lead the way."

  Miss fluffy-grey-thing was curled up on the bathmat, taking yet another nap when we came in. She opened one eye and then closed it again, twitching her ears as if to say, Oh, goody. Now there are two crazy ladies staring at me.

  Amber exclaimed about how pretty she was and how "chill" and well-mannered. "Such a nice touch with the pink bow! Someone obviously thought hard about this gift and also wanted to let you know the cat's gender easily. The questions is: who? Show me the box?"

  I closed the bathroom door and led her to where I'd stashed the box with the hot water bottle inside. "What's this?" Amber asked, unfolding a piece of paper that was taped to the side of the box.

  "Oh, I hadn’t noticed that," I said, peering over her shoulder.

  At the top was the county animal shelter's logo. The paper detailed the cat's weight, gender, that she'd been "fixed" and vaccinated. It said she had a "calm disposition bordering on aloofness." Sounded a typical cat to me.

  "Ohh!" cried Amber, pointing to the date the cat had arrived at the shelter. "She’d been there for 20 days... that means she was on the euthanasia list for tomorrow!" My friend looked at me with wide, horrified eyes.

  I sighed. Apparently I had a cat. One that had been saved from the jaws of death and gifted to me.

  "What are you gonna name her?"

  I glanced back at the paper. "The s
helter apparently called her Missy and that's what I automatically called her the first time we spoke—I spoke—whatever. I'll stick with that."

  "So you're really gonna keep her?!" Amber smiled hopefully.

  "Yeah, I guess so."

  "Great! I brought over a litter pan and litter and some extra kitty food I had sitting around. I figured you wouldn't have any of that, being a D-O-G person." She hurried back into her coat.

  "You're sure you didn't at least master-mind this?"

  "Cross my heart," she sang on her way out the front door. “I’m just very prepared.”

  A few minutes later, she'd walked me through the intricacies of litter pans and cat food portions. We put the litter pan in Missy's bathroom and deposited her in it. She scraped around in the clean sand for a minute, and then stalked back to the bathmat to continue her nap.

  * * *

  I staggered into work the next day and gave Amber a half-hearted smile.

  "What happened to you?" she asked.

  "For all her ‘calm aloofness’ and supposed affinity for naps, Missy is apparently a night owl ninja.” I stifled a yawn. “She also opens doors. She let herself out of the bathroom, and I spent most of the night randomly waking up wondering if I had an intruder. Then I’d remember I do: a cat I don’t actually want. Also, she found a ping-pong ball under the stove. How? I don’t even play ping-pong!”

  Amber had no words of advice, just a slightly cheesy sympathetic smile. I yawned my way through my shift and rolled down the window to keep myself awake on the drive home. The biting cold air did the trick; I felt much more awake when I arrived. And ready to dash into the house to thaw my face.

  There was another box waiting on the porch. I stared at it dumbfounded for a moment.

  “Really?” I said, unlocking my front door and hoisting the box across the threshold. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, staring at the box.

  It was meowing.

  I knelt and opened the flaps. A thin orange cat rocketed out, startling me, and I landed hard on my backside. By the time I’d picked myself up, the cat was nowhere to be seen.

  Peering inside the box, I saw a hot water bottle identical to the first one and the adoption papers. Rubbing my tailbone, I read the adoption papers. This orange blur had been named Dorothy by the animal shelter. She was “highly energetic, skittish, but playful and loves toys” according to the report.

  She, too, had apparently been on death row.

  “I am probably the most unwilling 11th hour cat rescuer ever,” I muttered. “Where’d you go, Dorothy?”

  From somewhere in the back of the house came the most unearthly howl I’d ever heard. It was answered by a low, menacing growl.

  “NO, NO, NO, NO...!” I yelled all the way down the hall. I arrived in the guest room just in time to see Dorothy disappear under the bed and to catch Missy by the scruff of her neck before she followed.

  “We are NOT doing cat fights,” I scolded loudly, shutting the door firmly and depositing Missy in the hall.

  * * *

  Amber had the day off, so I called her on my way home from work. “So, Dorothy is interesting,” I said.

  “Who’s Dorothy?”

  “A cat.”

  “Oh, you changed Missy’s name?”

  “Nope.”

  “Wait... you have another cat?”

  “Involuntarily, yes.”

  “Wow.”

  “She’s a crazy ball of fur. Very wild. She and Missy don’t like each other. Why can’t cats just get along like dogs? I mean, dogs kind of default to making friends unless provoked. Cats seem to default to making enemies unless convinced otherwise.”

  She couldn’t really answer that one. She asked me if I needed her to bring by any more food or litter.

  “Naw, I’m dropping by the store on my way home. It looks like I’m going to have to keep them separated so I’m getting a second set of everything.”

  I ranted for a minute longer about how weird it was to be gifted two cats and how I wasn’t sure what I’d do about it if they didn’t find a way to get along.

  When I got home, though, I had a new problem.

  In the form of a new box.

  Wordlessly, I texted a picture to Amber before bringing the box inside.

  Two cats were staring at me when I set the box in the entryway. Missy and Dorothy sat side by side on the back of the couch.

  “How?!!”

  They blinked in unison.

  Oh, that’s right. Missy opens doors.

  “Well, I’m just glad you two got it worked out.” I eyed them warily as I sliced through the tape on the new box. I folded back the flaps to reveal a gawky tabby kitten wearing a pink bow nearly as big as her head.

  Missy eyed the kitten with apathy, but Dorothy stiffened and looked far too interested. Missy smacked Dorothy with her paw. The orange cat sat back down obediently, tucking her front paws underneath as if to keep herself out of trouble.

  The kitten craned her neck and bobbed her head up and down, peering over the edge of the box.

  “Well, I supposed you’re rather cute,” I said, melting just a little. At the sound of my voice, she wiggled her rear end and hopped out of the box. She jumped onto my lap and sat down, tucking her short tail around herself just like an older cat.

  She blinked hard and settled in further.

  That’s when I melted the rest of the way. “Oh, you’re just a precious little baby,” I told her, stroking the fuzzy, striped head with one finger.

  The papers said her name was Cupcake.

  ----

  Work was actually tolerable. I didn’t mind the ho-ho-ho-ing of the store Santa behind my register. I even tapped my toe a bit when my favorite Christmas song started to play overhead.

  Amber came to switch out my cash drawer. “Well, you seem sunny today! Making peace with the cats?” She asked in an undertone.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t believe who showed up last night. Her name is Cupcake and she’s just a tiny fuzz ball!”

  “Awww!” Amber cried. “I want to come meet her!”

  “You should!” I said. “I need to stop and get more cat food and litter on the way home from work, but after that I have no plans. Feel free to drop by tonight if you want.”

  As it turned out, Amber needed to get cat food as well, so we perused the pet store together while she gave me the run-down on caring for a kitten. When we both arrived at my house, I gathered my purchases and headed to the front door.

  “Oh, no!” I moaned. “I didn’t even think of there being another one!”

  Amber gave me a worried grin. “Open the door and I’ll carry the box in for ya.”

  Once inside, we both stared at the box for a moment. “I really should get to the bottom of this,” I said.

  Amber nodded. “I’d say there’s a pattern emerging.”

  “Yeah, a cat a night.”

  “That, and, did you notice it started 12 days before Christmas?”

  I stared at my friend for a moment. “You think someone is doing the 12 days of — cat Christmas?”

  “It makes me wonder. Although, they’re doing it badly because the 12 days of Christmas are actually supposed to start on Christmas Day.”

  “Amber, I can’t handle 12 cats.”

  “I couldn’t either. Hey, I know of a guy who might be able to help. He’s a private investigator and a cat person.”

  “I can’t afford a PI,” I said, hanging my head.

  “I know, but we can at least ask him for advice. I bet he’d be sympathetic enough to point us in the right direction.”

  I shrugged. It was probably worth a shot.

  We cut through the tape and tried to introduce ourselves to a very nervous teenaged cat named Boop. She didn’t want to get out of her box, so I carried her—box and all—into the bathroom and closed the door. At least, when she did decide to get out and explore, she’d be somewhat contained and have litter nearby.

  * * *

  After wo
rk the next day, Amber and I walked the block to the coffee shop where we’d arranged to meet the detective. She introduced me to him. “Gloria, this is Keith. Keith—Gloria.”

  “Um, yes! Hi, nice to meet you,” he said, pushing his large glasses up his nose and blinking. “You’re the lady with the cat problem?”

  I nodded, feeling a little dubious about his sleuthing skills. He seemed awfully scatterbrained, but Amber had said he was responsible for solving some pretty bizarre mysteries. And that he understood cats, being a cat-owner himself.

  “She’s turning into a cat lady,” Amber smirked.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Keith was already speaking. “That sounds like a problem for the newspaper advice column rather than a detective…”

  “A completely unwilling cat lady,” I corrected, glaring at Amber. Well, mostly unwilling, I silently amended, thinking of Cupcake.

  Keith blinked. “Okay, well that’s certainly a different story. How exactly did that happen?”

  “Well, first my dog died. And then Amber suggested I should get a cat. Every evening since then, there’s been a new cardboard box with a freshly adopted cat on my porch.”

  “And I’m not the one doing it. We suspect, given the timing and consistency there might be a Twelve Days of Christmas angle to it. It’s as if someone took my suggestion and ran with it.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” Keith said, furrowing his brow and appearing to think hard. He took out his phone and sent a text. After a moment, his phone chimed. He read the reply and then looked up. “You say all the cats have been adopted? From the animal shelter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then my recommendation would be to check with them on whether anyone has adopted multiple cats recently.”

  Amber and I exchanged glances. That was a really good idea. Apparently Keith was a little more detective-y than he gave off.

  “Of course,” he added, “they may not be willing to share that kind of information, but it’s worth a shot. If it doesn’t work, let me know. I might be able to help another way…” he trailed off and fell silent.