Short Story: The Cat

The Cat

By Beth J. Whiting
QuailBellMagazine.com

Talluah looked at the school administrator seriously. “I want my child to be enrolled.”

The principal had to hide his smile.

“I’m sorry, but it’s a cat.”

“It’s the only thing I have. I would like to give it an education.”

“Throw a ball. That should be good enough.”

Talluah frowned. 

Talluah was an old woman. It appeared that she was starting to lose it. Her leggings were bunched up. Her pure white hair was thrown together in a bun. Her glasses reached forward to the tip of her nose. She had on a knitted white sweater. She was a plump woman, and she wasn’t going down without a fight.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with putting it in with the kindergartners.”

“Do I have to tell you that animals and humans thank differently? Kids are far more advanced. The cat will only take up space. It will also shed its hair all over the place.”

“I’ve been telling Kitty for the past year about this. You’ll break her heart if she doesn’t get enrolled.”

It didn’t help that the tiny cat gave him a sad, mopey face.

“It will try the best it can.”

“Why don’t you take it to an animal school?”

“Animal schools are for dogs. Those are for discipline. I’m looking to educate my cat.”

It was such a tiny thing. It was frosty gray and had huge blue eyes. Even the principal wanted to pet it, and he wasn’t an animal person. 

“I’m afraid it will be a distraction for the kids in the room. They’ll probably want to play with it more than learn.”

“I doubt it. If they see it around all the time they’ll eventually get bored of it.”

The principal just stood there contemplating the situation. It was so ridiculous, but then he realized that the cat would never learn verbal skills. That was for sure. Once it failed, the old woman would stop showing up.

“I’ll give it a week. If it shows any progress then it can stay.”

A huge smile grew on the old woman’s face.



The kids looked confused with a cat in the middle of the classroom. Some played with the cat. Then when class began, business started.

The room was filled with circular tables. The room was colorful. There was a huge calendar at one side of the room. There was also an enormous teddy bear and a color chart hanging on the wall. You could tell it was the first day because there were many tearful kids. Some students excitedly played with their new boxes filled with pencils and crayons.

The cat had its own seat and by now it was licking itself. The teacher looked hesitatingly at the cat. It glanced up at the teacher, Mrs. Crawford, with doleful eyes.

The old woman had instructed Mrs. Crawford that at snack time the cat was to be given a bowl of milk.

The activities were simple for the day. The kids would be introduced to each other, play with each other, and color.

The cat, along with playing with its ball of yarn, scratched at the crayons on the table. Like many of the children, its picture just had colors scattered about, not really forming anything. The teacher could see crayon getting on the table. At this point the best she could do is lie and say that the pictures looked pretty.


Some of the children came along and petted the cat. Mostly it was left to itself. The teacher had to keep a watchful eye on it. This was hard considering that it kept roaming the room.

At the end of the day the old woman showed up to pick up her cat.

The cat meowed as the woman picked it up.

“Did Kitty do well for the day?”

“She did pretty well. She didn’t cause any trouble. She colored like the rest of the children.”

“Really, my Kitty colored? Can I see?”

As the teacher picked up the picture she saw the clawed crayons next to it.Then she showed the old woman the scribbles.

The old woman kissed her cat, “Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

It had been odd to see the cat coloring earlier that day. It did well copying the children around it. When it got bored, it went back to wandering around the room.

The teacher didn’t know how to evaluate the cat. She certainly couldn’t judge on how it acted with the other kids. It wasn’t even with its own species. She had to grade it somehow, though.

The next day the students did basically the same thing. They talked among themselves and colored. The cat liked to roam around, especially during recess.
The teacher knew she wasn’t dealing with rocket scientists. Still she felt that she should introduce the ABCs within the first week. The teacher gave the children miniature chalk boards. She asked them to write out what was on the green banner hanging across the white board. The green banner, of course, had the ABCs on it.

The kids tried to emulate what they saw. Some of them did okay. Most drew lines that resembled very little of anything. After some practice, Mrs. Crawson began teaching the sounds to go with each letter. When children mastered their letters, it made Mrs. Crawford feel special. She felt like she touched the children's lives. It was good teaching kindergarten. The children were so obedient and she was able to make such an impact. 

Mrs. Crawson looked up at the cat. The poor thing had a hard time writing with the chalk because of its claws. The chalkboard screeched and the cat looked at the class confused.

The cat wrote 'A' through 'H,' although the letters were pretty scratchy. That was all it could fit on the chalkboard. The other pupils had similar problems. After about twenty minutes, the teacher collected their chalkboards and the children returned to play time. The cat went back to its yarn.

The teacher did alphabet practice once a day for the rest of the week. On Friday she quizzed the children on what they knew. 

“I want you all to write you alphabets from memory,” the teacher said.
The kids looked dumbfounded. The teacher gave them ten minutes. She could see the kids struggling. She gave a quick glance. She noticed that some boards were empty.

Most of the boards only had 'A' though 'C' written. On the cat’s board was written 'ABCD.' This was more than the teacher could take. She knew she had only been teaching the class for a couple of days, but come on. The cat did better than the children?

Mrs. Crawford got up and called the principal. A student needed to leave right now.

The principal arrived and found the teacher in a huff. He saw the cat’s chalkboard and chuckled, but he agreed. It looked bad for a cat to be outperforming the school's kindergartners. That was just too embarrassing.
The principal called Talluah and informed her that this was the cat's first and final week in school.

“Why?” She sounded heartbroken.

“The cat has been displaying destructive behavior. It clawed some crayons, for example.”

“I’ll come get little Kitty.”

The sad old woman came to pick her cat up that afternoon. The cat looked clueless as to what was going on.

She looked into her cat’s eyes and said, “Well, who needs them anyway?”

Talluah scratched the cat’s head.

“Besides, I missed you. I need someone to pet while I watch my soaps.”

Beth J. Whiting was born in 1983 to a large family of brainy eccentrics. At eight years old she developed a love of books through the works of Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis. Her short stories revolve around underdogs in suburban settings, such as the one in which she was raised. She currently lives with her artistic twin sister in a tiny apartment in Mesa, Arizona.