Coffey told his mother the whole story over lunch. The discussion of what the cat deserved as a reward went on all afternoon. Mistress Klotsch agreed that any cat who let them have a magic frying pan deserved something appropriate.
“Why don’t you take it a jar of applesauce?” she suggested. “We have plenty, and it’s very good this year.”
“That’s a good idea,” Coffey said. “Everybody likes applesauce. Even a cat must like applesauce.”
Early next morning, when Coffey was rested up from his ordeal and had washed all the dirt from his hair, they rolled back the coverlet which had protected the little beansprouts. Mistress Klotsch handed Coffey a large jar of applesauce, and watched in amazement as her son took hold of one of the beansprouts and disappeared into the ground.
“Fritters!” she exclaimed. “It may be quick but you’ll never get ME o travel on one of those things.”
Coffey dropped right into the tunnel, his arms wrapped around the jar so it wouldn’t break. Before he could catch his breath, he heard sounds from a dark end of the passage. A shelf was attached high on the wall, so he climbed up to hide on it.” The trells are so short,” he thought, “Maybe they won’t look up here.”
He did not find out where the trells would have looked, for it was the cat. “Do you know,” the animal sad, “That you look completely ridiculous?”
“I brought a gift,” Coffey said, jumping down. “It’s a jar of applesauce.”
“Applesauce?” said the cat. “Nnever heard of it, How do you know I’ll like it?”
“Oh, everybody likes applesauce,” said Coffey, pulling up the lid.
The cat sniffed. “Well, I’ll taste it. But this in no way obligates me.”
Coffey set the jar on the floor. The cat stepped daintily up and put its tongue down for a taste. It took a second taste, and then a third. After about sixty of these tastes, the jar was empty.
“A little too sweet,” said the cat, licking a stray blob of applesauce from one whisker. “No, that won’t quite do.”
”Oh.” Coffey picked up the jar. “I’ll, um, just take this back, then.”
“But you are a very honest young man,” the cat went on. “So come this way. I’ll showyou something.”
The cat set off down the hall, not even looking back to see if Coffey was following. Coffey did, as he had no plans for the rest of the day. The cat led him to a small door in the wall of the tunnel. Behind it was a little room stacked with bags, Little cupboards sat above these bags.
“This is where the trells keep their chicken feed,” the cat told him.
“How interesting,” said Coffey. “Our neighbor has a shed for that, just like this, only dustier. She keeps books there, to hold up some of the shelves, and the books get so dusty that….”
“The trells,” said the cat, its voice a little louder, “Have a chicken that won’t lay eggs any more. They cannot have a chicken eating their corn and not laying eggs.”
“Ah,” said Coffey, nodding. “Are they going to make soup, then?”
“Trells do not eat chicken soup,” said the cat.
“What do they ear?”
“You, if you don’t keep quiet Now, get into this bag.”
Coffey obediently climbed into the empty bag, and the cat drew the drawstring tight above him. Then, reaching out, it used a claw to tear a little hole in the side so Coffey could see.
Two trells walked into the room just a second later. One led a little red hen at the end of a string. The other walked to one of the cupboards, opened it, and took out a silver kettle filled with corn. She took two kernels of corn from the kettle and tossed them onto the floor in front of the chicken.
The chicken snapped up the corn at once. There was a sound rather like “pting” as the chicken shivered and became solid gold.
Coffey fund this sequence of events interesting, but it was not until the first trell picked up the gold chicken and took it to another cupboard to set it in with perhaps a dozen other solid gold chickens, that he said “ooh!”
The first trell slammed the cupboard door and leaned down to start sniffing the bags of corn. The other hurried over to open and check inside cupboards filled with gold chickens.
“Problems, ladies?” inquired the cat, who had jumped up to lie on the bag containing Coffey. “I don’t see any rats.”
The trells looked at each other. Then the first one, after checking a piece of paper in her pocket, said, “Fiddle Faddle Feedle Folk, I smell the blood of a human bloke. I don’t like humans—not at all: I’ll use his head for a volleyball.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear no,” said the cat. “You ladies KNOW how I feel about ‘bloke’.”
“Told you,” the second trell told the first one.
“And that feedle faddle business won’t do at all,” the cat went on. “I DO like that bit about the volleyball, though. You might work on that angle and see if you can’t come up with a really frightening poem. I feel you’re right on the verge of something truly terrifying.”
Nodding, the trells scurried away to work on their rhymes. The cat let Coffey out of the bag.
“Do you think….” He began.
“Yes,” said the cat. “All cats do. You’d better take that silver kettle home with you. Any corn you put into it will become magic feed corn, and will turn any chicken into gold. Keep it in a safe place, mind, or you’ll have golden rats and golden chipmunks into the bargain. And don’t forget my reward.”
“Oh, I won’t.” After a quick look up and down the tunnel,Coffey hurried to where he had landed, and reached up for another beansprout.
“What a fussy creature!” said Mistress Klotsch, after he had popped out of the ground and told her what happened this trip. “Imagine not liking applesauce! Too sweet? Still, it is a most generous cat, is it not?”
“We have to think of a good reward before we run out of beansprouts,” Coffey told her. “I counted, and there are only twelve.”
But the coverlet stayed over these for three days. His mother kept him busy, sending him out to buy cracked corn and chickens, quietly, just a chicken or two here and there, just as a neighbor doing business among neighbors.
“And don’t stand around talking about why we want chickens,” she told him. “Just say we’re going to make something out of them. If they go on asking questions, just talk about soup.”
After a dozen chickens had been turned to gold, Coffey reminded his mother that they had yet to reward the cat.
“Of course,” she said. “What was it the animal said about the applesauce? Too sweet? Take it a bag of the dried apple chips. Those are nice and tart.”
“Oh yes,” said Coffey. “I like apple chips myself.”
“Don’t you eat any of these,” his mother told him. “They’re for the cat.”
Once he had the bag, Coffey went out to the beansprouts. He took hold of one, and before he knew it, he was in the tunnel of the trells again. In fact, he nearly landed on top of the cat.
“Hello there,” the cat said.
“There aren’t any trells around here, are there?” Coffey whispered.
“No. I told them there were likely rats in this art of the tunnel,” the cat replied. “I thought you’d likely be back.”
“My mother really likes the golden chickens,” Coffey told the cat. “And she thought you might like these. They’re apple chips.”
“Apple chips? Sounds interesting. I’ll give them a try and tell you what I think.” Coffey set the bag on the floor, and the cat out its head inside.
“Crunchy. Not bad.” The cat ate every one of the apple chips, but when its head came out of the bag, it said, “No, not quite good enough. Very nice, but not really up to all those magic items But you’re a good fellow to try. Come along and take a look at a chicken coop.”
Coffey had already seen plenty of chicken coops this week, but the cat was already walking away. So he followed, just to be polite.
The cat led him to a big cave with chicken wire stretched across the opening. The cat showed Coffey where to slip inside, so as to be in where the chickens were walking around, or sitting around. There were roosts, nests, eggs, and one big old rooster who came rushing at them, making grumpy sounds. Instead of getting out of the way, Coffey stood and stared. Every time the rooster opened its beak, gold coins dropped out.
“Do you think your mother would like him?” the cat asked.
“Wow!” Coffey replied. Seeing an old bag against a nest, he grabbed it up and put the rooster inside, as gold coins dropped to the ground around him. The chickens, seeing what was happening to their rooster, dashed about, clucking and cackling and scolding.
“Quick!” said the cat. “Over here!”
Coffey heard the footsteps and hurried to climb inside the box the cat showed him. Through a crack between boards, he watched the trells make their way into the big coop. They did look hungrier every time he saw them.
And there were three of them this time. The largest one looked around the cave and, seeing the cat, demanded, “What’s upset these fowl? Have you been chasing their chicks again?”
“Certainly not!” said the cat. “I’ve been hunting rats: this is just the place to find them. No doubt they’ve been bothering the silly birds.”
The trells didn’t answer. They walked among the excited chickens, sniffing.
“Got a cold?” the cat inquired.
The largest trell cleared her throat and folded her hands in front of her. The other two looked from her to the cat, and waited.
“Villey valley volley voe,” she recited, “If human people come below, we’ll call them simply dreadful names and use their body parts in games.” She rolled her eyes down to the cat.
“Well, now, that’s showing real improvement,” said the cat. “Scary. Gruesome, even. But a little long in parts, isn’t it? I mean, you can probably remember all those words, buthat about your sisters? Something shorter and sweeter won’t tax their memories so much.”
The other two trells nodded and murmured to each other. “But it’s not bad?” said the first one.
“Oh, you’re definitely on the right track,” the cat told her. “If you keep working on it, I think you’ll have something really great.”
Clapping their hands, the trells hurried away. Coffey climbed out of the box with his bagful of rooster, and returned to the part of the tunnel with beansprouts in the ceiling. “Have a nice trip,” the cat told him. “And remember, that’s three magic things you had from me now.”
As soon as he was out in the beanpatch, the rooster clawed out of the bag and marched around complaining about being hauled all over creation. Gold coins spilled at Mistress Klotsch’s feet.
“What a lordly creature a cat must be!” she exclaimed. “I’ll bake it an apple pie1”
She and Coffey went into the house, pulling the rooster along, its complaints and the clink of gold coins making so much noise they did not hear someone say “Aha!”
Just down the road from Mistress Klotsch’s apple orchard lived Mistress Olsen, with a dusty chicken coop and a plot of per trees. She sold pear butter and pears and perry to people who passed that way. She had quick eyes, and had noticed Coffey moving about here, there, and all over buying chickens. It was obvious that Mistress Kotsch had quite a lot of money, but Mistress Olsen had not seen so very many people passing the pear orchard to go buy apples.
So she had taken to slipping out of her shop to hide in apple trees to watch and find out where Mistress Klotsch’s money was coming from. Now she thought she knew.
“They keep chickens down there to guard their gold,” she said to herself when she got home. “There’s a door in the yard, and Coffey opens it by pulling on beansprouts. The chickens make noise if they see a stranger. They have so much gold stored down there they must be pirates. Pirates don’t deserve all that gold.”
She went to her own chicken coop to get chicken feed for the guards she thought she’d find. “Mistress Klotsch must be the pirate, not Coffey,” she said to herself. “He’s a good fellow. He wouldn’t mind sharing gold with a neighbor. I wouldn’t really be stealing any, just taking my fair share. I don’t mind pirates if they share with their neighbors.”
As soon as the sky turned dark, she slipped out among her pear trees until she made her way to Mistress Klotsch’s apple trees. Then, walking even more quietly, she walked up to the house itself. Setting down her bag of chicken feed, she took hold of all the beansprouts under the coverlet, the better to open the treasure house door.
What happened next rather surprised her. She had just enough time to holler “Help!”
Coffey and Mistress Klotsch ran outside, but all they saw was a bag of cracked corn. “Someone must have been here!” Coffey cried, “To plant corn in our beansprout patch!”
“More likely trying to steal the beansprouts,” said his mother. “I bet it was that nosy Mistress Olsen. I’ve seen her sneaking around in the apple trees for days.”
“Oh, surely not,” said Coffey, who liked pears. “She’s too nice a person to sneak. But I’d better go down and help whoever it is. They won’t know about the trells, or the cat.”
But because Mistress Olsen had grabbed as many beansprouts as possible, there were none left to be seen. Mistress Klotsch fetched a candle while Coffey ran for a rake.
Moving the dirt around very carefully, Coffey found just one tiny shriveled beansprout. “I can go down,” he said, “But I won’t be able to come back up that way.”
“Don’t go then,” said his mother. “Let her find her own way out.”
Coffey shook his head. “Maybe looking up from below I’ll find another beansprout,” he said, :Or maybe the cat can help.” He took hold of the beansprout and went flowing down before his mother could stop him.
The cat was waiting when he landed in the tunnel. “Did I tell you to send down your whole neighborhood?”
“Who was it?” asked Coffey, standing up. “Was it Mistress Olsen?”
“I don’t know any Mistress Olsen,” the cat told him. “Some rude young woman came down, pushed me out of the way, and went off grumbling about the dirt in her hair and where was all the gold.” The cat licked one paw. “The trells are going to eat her with garlic gravy.”
“We have to save her,” said Coffey, looking up and down the tunnel.
“I thought you’d say that,” sighed the cat. “You look like the type. Come along and keep quiet.”
The cat took Coffey down a side tunnel he hadn’t seen before. At the end was a big room where dozens of trells sat around big tables. Way back in this room was an immense fireplace. In this, tied to a long pole, was Mistress Olsen.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Turn me over! I think I’m done on this side!”
“When the trells are all listening to me,” the cat told Coffey, “Slip along the wall and untie the creature if you have to. Then run and hide in the chicken coop. You know where.”
Coffey nodded, but the cat had already sauntered into the dining room, where it jumped onto a table. “This isn’t much of a party,” it said. “Why doesn’t somebody give us a song, or a poem?”
“Oh, you never like any of our poems,” said one trell.
The cat looked surprised. “Why, your poems are very good. They could just be better: that’s all. It would be a great loss to literature if fine poets like you were to fail because of some little detail. Come on, let’s hear the latest.”
The trells looked at each other. Then, shrugging, one of them stood up and recited “Middle Muddle Maddle Moan: I wish they’d leave us all alone. If human people come down here, we’ll eat them with our evening beer.”
“There!” said the cat. “What did I tell you? That was lovely. Do you have that written down? Oh, that’s not a very professional manuscript: the margins aren’t wide enough. But it’s a good poem. Who else has one?”
The trells were all eager to recite to the cat. Coffey, with his back against the wall, slid into the room. No one shouted at him.
One trell WAS shouting “Feedle Fidle Fodle Fumble, human people make me grumble; if they come down here I’ll take their ears to use for breakfast flakes.”
“Well, now,” said the cat, after a second trell had recited her poem, “Would that be better, do you think, if you started with Meow Meow Meow Meow, why do they come here anyhow?”
“What does ‘meow’ mean?” the trell poet asked.
“I don’t know,” the cat replied, “It just seemed natural. What’s all that Feedle Fidle Fodle Fumble stuff mean, come to that?”
Even Mistress Olsen seemed to be paying attention to the cat criticism. As Coffey got close, she turned her head and opened her eyes wide.
“And if we saw ‘Why do they come here anyhow” we’ll have the words ‘come’ and ‘here’ two lines in a row,” a trell complained. “That won’t sound right.”
“You are perfectly correct,” said the cat. “How clever of you to notice that. Does ‘Why don’t they stay home anyhow?’ sound better?”
Coffey kept burning his fingers trying to untie the ropes around Mistress Olsen. Once she was free, she couldn’t walk. “I came down to steal the gold,” she whispered, “But all I found was this.” She opened an apron pocket to show him a solid gold rat with wings. He didn’t touch it; he knew it would be burning hot from being so close to the fire.
“How about ‘Dickle Dackle Dockle Dickens, they come down cackling like chickens?” asked a trell.
“That’s all very well, if you want to write poems about chickens,” said the cat. “I’d think you’d write about more impressive things, like trells.”
Coffey slid out of the room carrying Mistress Olsen. “Now where do we go?” she asked him.
“The cat said to go to their chicken coop,” Coffey told her. “Which I think is over this way.”
He moved down a tunnel and walked so long that Mistress Olsen finally cooled off enough to walk by herself. Suddenly, they heard shrieks and screams way behind them.
The cat came trotting up next to them. “I knew you’d go the wrong way.”
The screams grew louder. “What’s happening back there?” Coffey asked.
The cat sniffed. “They think I’m the one who stole their supper. As if I were some sort of DOG. They really are not the sort of people to appreciate cats, so I think I will come with you to the surface. You’d better hurry.”
He started off ahead of them. “If this is the wrong way to go to the chicken coop,” said Mistress Olsen, “Why are we going this way?”
“It’s too late for chicken coops,” said the cat, walking faster. Coffey and Mistress Olsen walked faster too.
A rat ran past them, going the other direction. Two more rats followed it. “Ugh!” said Mistress Olsen, kicking at them. “I hate those things!”
“Then don’t slow them down,” suggested the cat. “Hey, all you rats! You better hurry! They’re having a chicken feast back that way.”
Dozens of rats went by, paying no attention to the cat or the two humans. “That may convince the trells to turn around and go back,” said the cat. “Now, let’s get outside.”
“There’s a way to get outside besides pulling at beansprouts?” asked Coffey.
“No. I just say things like that when I want to be silly,” the cat told him. “Of course there’s another way outside: how do you think the rats get in? Come on.”
The rat tunnels were not all that big, and got smaller. The cat could get through without getting any fur dirty, but Coffey and Mistress Olsen kept bumping their heads on tree roots and low hanging rocks. “Come along, will you?” called the cat. “Don’t tell me you can’t do anything a rat could do!”
They came out at the base of a high, rocky hill down the road from the apple orchard. When he was a small boy, Coffey had always been told not to play there because the rocks were loose and might come down on him. “We’d better go,” he said.
“But what about those…those things?” asked Mistress Olsen. “Won’t they find the rat tunnels, too?”
“The rats may have convinced them to give up,” said the cat. “Listen and find out.”
Coffey leaned an ear toward the tunnel. What he heard sounded not at all like rats. Some voices were saying “Fiddle faddle” and some were saying “Middle muddle” and some he couldn’t understand at all because of the tooth gnashing. “It’s the trells! They’re coming!”
“Where can we hide?” exclaimed Mistress Olsen.
Coffey reached into her apron pocket for the golden rat. “Let me borrow this.”
“You’ve already got all the gold you need!” cried Mistress Olsen, even louder than before.
“Except this,” he told her.
“Oh, take it, then,” she sighed. “We’re all going to be eaten up anyhow.”
“I hope not.”
Coffey hurled the golden rat as high as he could up the slope. The heavy piece of gold started to bounce back down. Little rocks rolled with it. These little rocks hit big rocks and knocked them down, and these big rocks knocked down some bigger rocks.
“Don’t stand there watching!” called the ct, from up in a tree. “Get out of the way!”
Coffey and Mistress Olsen had worked their whole lives in orchards, so they knew about climbing trees. They were up sitting next to the cat when the whole hillside seemed to slide. Dust and rocks were flying all around beneath their toes.
When everything had settled, the gold rat was nowhere to be found. But neither was the opening of the tunnel.
“Not bad,” said the cat. “For somebody with only two legs.”
They climbed down from the tree and then walked all the way to Mistress Klotsch’s shop, where they told their story. By the time they had finished, the cat was curled up in Mistress Klotsch’s lap. Mistress Klotsch shook her head at it all and, stroking the cat, said, “And what now?”
“Well, to keep the secret of the gold in the family,” said the cat, “I believe those two had better get married, don’t you?”
It took a certain amount of talking to convince everybody but, in the end, the cat had its way. There was a wonderful wedding with apple cake and pears under ice cream and cider and perry and so on.
“We owe everything to you,” Coffey told the cat on his wedding day. “And you still haven’t been rewarded yet. Isn’t there something I can give you?”
“Give me some time to think it over,” the cat replied.
And that is why, to this day, people who have cats give them the best things to eat, the best places to sit, and the warmest places to sleep. And still cats never seem to be satisfied. They will sit for hours, just staring and thinking of what else they should have as a reward.
Sometimes a cat will simply disappear for a few hours, or even days, and then come back as if nothing has happened. That cat has found a tunnel, and has gone slipping underground to check on the trells. Cats must still check to make sure the trells have not stocked up enough gold to come out and buy the world, to run it as they please.
For running the world, as everyone knows, is a cat’s job.
Blogsy Babbles 