Downton Tabby by Kelly Chris

Author:Kelly, Chris [Kelly, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2013-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

1914

IN ENGLAND, THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT fought for women’s rights, while in America, Arthur Wynne’s “word-cross,” the first crossword puzzle, appeared in the New York World and opened up a whole new class of things for humans to try to see in the newspaper while their cats tried to prevent them.

At Downton, electricity was finally installed in the upstairs rooms, a blessing and a curse, because the cords were delicious. Before that, illumination had been provided by coal gas—filthy, dangerous, and unreliable, like the New York Post, but still a hundred times better than energy-saving fluorescents.

Now I feel I should say something about the other daughter, Lady Etcetera.

Lady Etcetera’s life had been one long variation on being the first person at a party, and then someone else comes in and sees you and says, “Oh good, no one’s here yet.” She was the strawberry stripe in the Neapolitan ice cream. When she put her paws over her mother’s eyes and said “Guess who,” she had to give hints. She had lived in her sisters’ shadows for so long, she had mushrooms. What I’m saying, dear reader, is she didn’t get a lot of attention. Now she was in heat, too, and I would have mentioned it back in chapter 1, if it had happened to Minxy or Serval.

This happy time of catting around came to an epoch-shattering end on August 4, 1914. The whole family was sitting on the dining room table when Lord Grimalkin announced: “Cats, I have bad news and good news and good news that’s bad news. The bad news is about technology—”

“Not another vacuum cleaner!”

“Let me finish, Minxy. The bad news is that advances in smokeless powder, rifling, and the machine gun mean the next war, if it ever comes, will be fought in trenches.”

“What’s the good news?”

“The good news is, trenches equal rats, and rats are delicious.”

“What’s the good news that’s bad news?”

“The world is at war.”

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