The Wildings by Nilanjana Roy

Author:Nilanjana Roy [Roy, Nilanjana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-81263-6
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2016-01-12T05:00:00+00:00

“CAN’T YOU TURN DOWN the volume or something?” begged Southpaw. Mara sniffed. On his last two visits, she had connected much better with him. They had had a lot of fun playing pat-the-ball and chase-your-tail but on this visit, he seemed to have regressed and was acting like a Great Big Bossy Bully.

“Mara, that hurt!” said Southpaw. He had folded his ears flat across his skull and was huffing crossly at her. “And besides, I’m not a bully. I’m only trying to teach you how to hunt.”

“I don’t want to hunt! I hate hunting! Southpaw go away.” “Yowwrr!”

“Sorry!”

By mutual consent, the kittens took a washing break. Southpaw washed his flanks and the tip of his tail, wondering what to do with Mara. His playmate was being stubborn today, and he had no idea why she was sending so fiercely—it was painful being at the receiving end, like being spanked inside his head.

Mara washed her whiskers three times over as she tried to focus on keeping her thoughts private. She didn’t really think Southpaw was a bully, well not lately anyway—he had been very patient when she chased his tail by mistake instead of hers, for instance—but she just didn’t get why he was so excited about this hunting business he’d been on the other night.

And every time her thoughts spilled out of her head into the public cat domain, she got crosser and crosser. It wasn’t as though she was doing it on purpose, it’s just that she had to work very hard to keep her thoughts in the private zone, and when she got upset, that became even harder, like trying to prevent spilled water from spreading. And why would I want to learn to kill a mouse anyway when everyone knows that food comes to you in pretty pink plastic bowls …

“Mara, you’re doing it again! Please stop, it makes my head hurt!”

“Sorry!!!”

The kittens stared at each other. Mara’s whiskers were drooping. “I’m sorry, Southpaw,” she said. “I just don’t get this hunting business, and it seems to be really hard today to switch off my thoughts. But I don’t understand why you’re so excited about it—what’s the big deal?”

Southpaw huffed with impatience, but Mara was looking up at him with so much genuine curiosity that he stopped, thought about it and made an attempt to explain.

“… and then the mouse went to the right, but I’d already blocked its exit, and Miao had the left flank covered, so it was easy,” said Southpaw.

Mara patted her bundle of threads back and forth across the floor. She was trying to pull out just one, but every time she tugged at it, another would come out alongside.

“… ”

Perhaps if she got her claw under the thread while holding the other threads down with her paw?

“… ”

Ah. The other threads were now firmly stuck to her left paw, so she had to use her right paw to pick them off—and curses, the single thread went back into the bunch.

“… MARA!”

She leapt in the air, startled; the air crackled with the annoyance Southpaw’s whiskers were transmitting.

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