Gwen Doh Lynn

11: Cat Knows Best

It was Sunday. I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and feeling sorry for myself when Cat hopped up.

"I'm never going to be normal," I said gloomily.

"Duh. Glad you realized it." He kneaded his paws on my blanket.

I had started taking the fact that I had a talking cat for granted.

"I'm serious!" I sat up. "If I'm not normal, what am I?"

"I know it sounds corny," he said, "but how about just be yourself. Be a witch." He rolled onto his back in a sunbeam and swatted at his own tail. Sometimes it was hard to believe he wasn't just a regular cat.

"Well," I grumbled, "apparently I suck at being a witch. I can't control my magic, or my emotions, and I could've gotten somebody seriously injured..."

"You are so full of drama!" Cat exclaimed, rolling to sit up. "Are you sure you're not a cat? Anyway, anything worth doing takes practice. Do you think I became such an excellent familiar overnight?"

I smiled just a little. "How did you become a familiar anyway?" I asked.

He gave me a sly look. "That's a story for another time. Right now, I think it's time I showed you something," he said. "C'mon." He jumped down. I stayed put.

"C'maaaaaaahn," he half-said, half-meowed, looking back at me with his gray tail swishing in the air.

I slowly crawled out of bed. "What?" I said grumpily.

"Look under this dressing table here," he said, talking about the big antique desk thing with the giant mirror attached. "Move the stool out of the way."

Under the table was a cat door. It was a square flap that swung in and out when I pushed on it. "Is this how you got in my room in the first place? How come you didn't tell me about this?"

Cat licked his paw. "You didn't ask."

Wait a second! A place that only mice and cats would know about!

I felt around inside, but there was nothing hidden there. "Well, this doesn't help me," I said. "A cat can barely fit through that door. What am I supposed to do?"

"Move this huge piece of furniture and I'll show you."

I put all my weight against it, but it wouldn't budge. I needed magic. I closed my eyes and rolled up all my miserable feelings about getting in a fight with Hazel, and also all my hope that I could fix things. The dressing table made a lot of noise sliding across the hardwood floor, and I still had to use all my body weight plus my magic to make it move. I was out of breath when Cat finally said, "Okay, stop."

I stood back and looked. There was a door! It was covered in the same fleur-de-lis wallpaper as the rest of the room, so it hadn't even been noticeable behind the dressing table's huge mirror. It had one of those flat iron handles and a very simple keyhole. I tried it, but it was locked.

The skeleton key from the scavenger hunt! I rummaged through the stuff on my desk. Sure enough, it fit. I pushed down the handle and pulled the door open.

And looked into a dark, cobwebby, narrow stairwell. Simple wooden steps led up to the right and down to the left. A secret passage? How cool was that? I had a moment of regret that Hazel wasn't here to discover it with me.

"Down leads to the cat entrance under the porch," Cat said. "Up leads to the smaller tower room."

"But I can get to that tower room from the attic," I said.

"Not this part of the tower room," he said. "Keep that key, and follow me." With that, he started up the stairs. I took a breath, and followed him.