Catnip

04 | In Which Caleb Christens a Princess

("Hey, Mom, pass the salt. By the way, I'm into dicks.")

"Where's Margo?" Maya asks.

"It's Vera now, hon."                                          

"Jesus Christ." Caleb slams his head against his hand. Lord, have mercy. "This is the twenty-first century. The name Vera's been outdated for about a hundred years."

"Now I'll have you know, I work with a lovely young nurse called Vera, and I'm sure she'd be thrilled to hear we named our cat –"

"Mom, no. Just no."

Something jingles at the opposite end of the room. Caleb's eyes turn in the direction of whatshername's basket, where, surprise, surprise, she's stretching, eyes open wide. Just in time for dinner. She probably smelled the food – food her grubby paws are forbidden to touch – and decided now would be the perfect time to wake up and stink the room out with her customary dinnertime dump. And they say she's not a cunning mastermind.

It would be presumptuous to assume that, after six days (and seven point two-five hours) of living with the thing, Caleb's finally gotten used to her presence. In reality, there's no getting used to having another hungry mouth to feed, especially when said hungry mouth has a habit of biting his fucking ankles whenever he gets too close. Even Daniel's deemed him a lost cause, if his insistence that he couldn't come over after school today is any indication.

(Caleb has a feeling he should be sad about this tragic turn of events, but honestly, there's only so much of the guy's overly sweet behaviour he can stomach before the temptation to overdose on insulin becomes too intense.)

Whatshername strolls into the hallway before he can kick up fuss. Good riddance, kitty.

With the cat out the way, they settle down to dinner, the topic of possible names for the creature returning for, oh, say, the fiftieth time this week. Why do their opinions have to be so different? Why can't Mom and Maya just give him a break and accept that, at the end of the day, she's still his cat (no matter how much it pisses him off) and therefore his responsibility to name?

The people in his life just have to be difficult, don't they?

"Whose turn is it to clean up tonight?" Maya speaks up the moment she's cleared her plate.

"Caleb's," Mom says. "But Maya–"

Too late. Maya's already on her feet, a whirlwind of movement, heading for the door without a backward glance. The wind blows it shut behind her and Mom sighs, eyes locked on the door like she's expecting her daughter to return any moment now. Not like she ever does.

Something scratches against it and, seconds later, a round of meows start up in the hallway. Caleb climbs to his feet and reopens the door, and whatshername comes bounding inside, loping through his legs and then rubbing her head against his shin. Daniel said that's a positive sign, that it's her way of communicating with familiar faces she's marked as family, telling them she missed them. As if. Cats don't give a damn about family bonds – if they did, they wouldn't have garnered a reputation for being cold, lazy bastards.

"I don't know what to do with her," Mom says as Caleb heads over to whatshername's food bowl, the animal trailing behind him like a kid at the Pied Piper's heels.

"Who, the cat? We can't get rid of her now, Mom." Not after Daniel proposed that stupid bet. The prospect of sullying his reputation by turning down a challenge makes Caleb sick. Besides, if letting the mutt stick around for a few months allows him to prove, once and for all, that he's not an animal person, then he'll just have to deal with her presence, won't he?