Scout Stories: Bruised Beginnings

The Cat of Many Colours

The Hero wept, for he had lost. Movement to the side of him made him react. He held the thing by the throat. 

A cat?

"Please," said the cat, "Don't hurt me. Let me go and I'll give you what you want the most."

Everybody wants a wish. Not far from where Miach was crying in the dark lay another village. The surroundings were similar but the village itself was very different. This one was larger and had a big wall that was intact and strong. The only thing in the village that was not whole was a crumbling tower. It stood in the center, separate and alone in a large cobble-stone square. In this village there were no shortage of families. One of these belonged to a boy named Keefe. At fourteen, he was two years older than Miach.

Luckily for him, in his village there was a way of catching wishes. All you had to do was catch one of the many cats that slipped in and out of the dark places. It should have been easy for some of the more clever kids. They had designed traps, they had left out drugged meat to try and sedate the cats. When this failed, and it always did, they gave up and joined the others in trying to creep up on them.

However, this was an old story and the cats had gotten used to children chasing them. They were too smart to trust anything tempting left out and the village provided many safe places for them to hide. The tower in particular was a haven for them. Enough villagers got sick or disappeared after entering it for the others to declare it cursed or haunted. Keefe had never even heard of anyone catching one of the cats, not even one of the larger birds of prey that nested atop the tower.

This all annoyed Keefe, who refused to believe his entire village could be outsmarted by cats. The wall meant that the cats were trapped inside with them. Pure luck should have gotten someone one. He didn't believe in omens, despite the rumoured illnesses and disappearances. He knew too many people who would be stupid enough to get lost and loads of people who caught every illness that they could.

"I'm telling you," said Keir. "We won't find any near the wall."

 Keefe's eight year old brother did what was he was told when threatened in the right way. Unfortunately,  he had gotten to an age where he figured out he could complain as much as he wanted without giving Keefe reason to hit him. 

"Do you want a wish or what?" asked Keefe. 

Keir pouted. Keefe had noticed that morning that his brother was getting dangerous close to being the same height as he was-which was completely unacceptable. He had been a bit short with his little brother all day over it.

Keir shrugged. "It doesn't matter because we won't find any."

Keefe wanted to tie his brother to a pole and leave him there. However, his mother had warned him that the next time he tried that, she would hang him out the window by his toenails. Keefe had known his mother long enough (his whole life, in fact) to take this threat seriously.

"Shut up," said Peigi. "You two are so slow, you won't be able to catch any a cat if we do find one."

  She was wearing a bracelet with a cat on it, for luck in the hunt. She twisted her wrist so it caught the light and reflected it into Keefe's eyes.   

"That race was rigged," Keefe told his cousin for the fourth time. Peigi liked to pretend that they were in equal standing even though Keefe was older. "Oisín tripped me!"

"My Grand-da would never do anything like that," said Peigi, not quite managing to hold eye-contact with her older cousin during the massive lie. "Besides, you should be nice to him. He told us about the wishes."

Keefe scoffed and said nothing.

Keir took this opportunity to slip in to walk between Keefe and Peigi.