been the lack of living odour but I must admit that feline reasoning is not for
mortal man to comprehend. Or woman.
Donald said, ‘Susie, am I going to have to show you the strawberry mark on my
shoulder? I’m your brother, Mrs Schultz, the handsome one. How’s married life?
Boring?’
‘Married life is just dandy and what are you doing in Kansas City and why didn’t you
come four days ago for my wedding and where’s Mother?’
‘Mama is around here somewhere and you didn’t invite me.’
‘I did so!’
I moved in. ‘Yes, you did invite him, Sweet Sue, and all the rest of his family, all
eight. Nine. But only Brian was able to come, as you know, so don’t needle Donald.
Good to see you, dear. How is Henry?’
‘Oh, Hanky’s all right. He says I can’t cook the way you do but that he has decided
to keep me for other reasons – I rub ‘his back.’
‘That’s a good reason:
‘So he says. Mama, I called for mo reasons… and the first reason no longer
applies. I’ve been screwing up my courage since Sunday to tell you that I lost
Princess Polly. And now she’s not lost. How did she get there?’
‘I don’t know. How did you lose per?’
‘I’m not sure. We were all the way to Olathe before we found a filling-station that
also serviced Shipstones. While Hank was trading his stone for a fully charged one,
I opened Polly’s cage to change per sand box – she had made a mess and the dragon
wagon was stinking.
Tm not clear just what happened then. I thought that I saw per back in. Hank says
that I told him it was all right to let her ride free in the back. Anyhow we left
and picked up the control road at Olathe and Hank turned it over to the bug, and we
eased back the seats and went right to sleep. Oh, we were tired!’
‘I’ll bet you were!’ I agreed, thinking about my own wedding.
‘The alarm woke us when we reached Wichita and we were just getting our baggage out
at the Holiday Inn when I saw that Polly was missing. Mama, I almost had a heart
attack.’
‘What did you do?’
‘What could we do? We turned around and rolled back to Olathe. And the station was
closed. And we played kitty, kitty, here, Polly! for a half-hour and the station
owner’s name was on the building and we asked a policeman and found his house and
woke him and he wasn’t pleased.’
‘I find myself unsurprised.’
‘But, yes, he had seen a little black and white cat, about the time we were there,
but not later, which means she wasn’t there all the time it took us to drive four
hundred miles. So we left your telecode and asked him to call you if she showed up
and we started back to Wichita but the bug quit and we took turns keeping each other
awake while we rode the wire by hand… or we would have had to get on to a slow
road. Just the same it was three in the morning by the time we got to Wichita again
and they hadn’t held our room and we slept in the car till morning. Mama, it was not
the most successful wedding night on record. I think Hanky was ready to toss me
back… and I wouldn’t have blamed him.’
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Heinlein, Robert A – To Sail Beyond the Sunset.txt
`Are things better now?’
`Oh, yes! But – Finding Princess Polly at home raises another point.’
‘Do you want me to ship per to you?’
Susan suddenly stopped smiling. `Mama… pets are not permitted in married students’
dormitories. I didn’t know. So I guess we got to go out into Tempe and find us
somewhere else to live… and I’m not sure we can afford it. You won’t let her stay
there? Yes, she’s my cat, but – Please?’
Susan, I’m selling this house today.’
She looked blank. `Yes, Mama. Uh, if you put, her in a kennel… with per doctor, I
guess … I’ll come and get her. As fast as I can make arrangements. We’ll have to