My older brother had written a poem about a cat. I found it rummaging through a box in the basement. The title, "The Darn Cat Came Back" was interesting. Under my brother's name at the top, in pencil, were the words "Fourth Grade." I showed it to my mother. She laughed and told me it was about our black cat.
I hated that cat. How can you like a cat that would scratch you every time you tried to pick it up? I felt a sense of poetic justice each time the dog chased it under the shed. My dad would yell at the dog, but I'd smiled as I pet his head, whispering, "Good boy." Was that wrong of me?
The cat liked my brother. It would play with him in the backyard, and each night would climb the tree and walk the limb toward his window. When the light would go off, the cat would meow as if saying goodnight to my brother. I cringed when it meowed. It never climbs the limb toward my window. I wondered why it did not like me.
One night, lightning struck the tree. The limb over my window fell on our roof and broke into the house leaking water. My parents tried to keep the rain from coming in. We had to crawl into the attic to fix the roof. I'd never been up in the attic before and not many times since. The scar from that limb still mars the ceiling.
My brother was very sad. Not because of the tree limb falling on the house. That same night a car raced through the rain and hit the black cat. He buried it under the tree in the back yard.
I guess the darn cat won't come back now.
A few weeks later, the tree died and then turned black as if fed by the cat's fur. The rain came again. I pressed my nose against my bedroom window as the lightning struck making the tree look its blackest against the sky. The light from my brother's bedroom lit the limb that still reached toward his room. I paused as my eyes scanned the limb from branch to twig. Is that a cat? I was too tired to think more about it, so I climbed back into bed and rolled over.
As I was fading off to sleep, that's when I heard it. Lightning flashed, my brother said goodnight to mom and then his light clicked off. A soft meow came from the tree.
My brother swears that whenever it rains, he still hears a meow from the tree.
I guess the darn cat did come back.
YOU ARE READING
That Night at Grandpa's (And Other Scary Stories)
Short StoryEach of the stories you are about to read are more than fifty percent true. Some parts you won't believe. Some stories are completely true. Feel free to ask my kids which of these stories are true. They might tell you. They might not. They have firs...
