for the brownie
Soon White Paws started to think about a name for the brownie. It seemed to White Paws that it was wrong to call the brownie Brownie.
So one day he said to the brownie, “I wonder, what name do you want to have?”
“I have one already,” said the brownie.
“But Brownie isn’t a name,” objected White Paws.
“Why do you think so?” asked the brownie very much surprised.
“Because Brownie is just a brownie,” replied White Paws. “But there should be another name too.”
“What do you mean?” asked the brownie again.
White Paws began to explain. “You see, everyone has a name in our family, even Rexy. I am a cat and my name is White Paws. Ervin is a small boy and his name is Ervin. Alex is a big boy and his name is Alex. Mum is a woman and so her name is Mum. Dad is a man and his name is Dad. And you are the only one without a name,” he finished and looked at the brownie.
The brownie kept silence. He kept silence for the whole day. And in the evening when they went to the kitchen, the brownie asked suddenly, “And why do they call you White Paws? How is it possible to call someone absolutely black, White Paws? They’d better call you just Cat. Why don’t they?”
“Because cats just like everybody else, must have names. My name is White Paws due to one accident which happened the first day Alex brought me home.” He kept silence for a while trying to recollect the details of the day. And then began, “When I was very little Alex found me somewhere and brought me here. I remember a jar with something white inside. I thought it was soured cream and when nobody was looking I put my front paws inside the jar to eat some soured cream. I was very much surprised when I discovered that I didn’t like its taste. And at the very moment when I was trying to understand if it was eatable at all, Alex came back into the room and saw me with my two front paws inside the jar. I was so confused that I overturned the jar and spilt the stuff I was trying. I stood in the middle of the stuff and the family looked at me. And, when they took me out of the stuff, all my four paws were as white as soured cream. Only it wasn’t soured cream. Later I learnt that the stuff in the jar was called paint. So you see, even the stuff has a name.” He kept silence for a while, then, went on, “Everybody laughed. Only I didn’t. Since then they call me White Paws.”
“Oh, I see,” said the brownie. “But why do they call Ervin that way?” he asked in a minute.
“I don’t know,” confessed the cat. “And I think nobody knows, because they never say why they named him Ervin. May be, his name is connected with some mystery,” he suggested after thinking a little.
“And what about Alex?” asked the brownie, for he really became interested in names.
“Alex is a very special name,” explained the cat. “It means someone is a very good boy. So, if your name is Alex you know you are a very good boy.”
The brownie was a little bit upset. He expected to hear some stunning story. And the cat’s explanation was so simple.
“But why do you call dad Dad? And why do you call mum Mum?” inquired the brownie.
“So it should be,” answered the cat.
“Then my name is Brownie. So it should be,” pronounced the brownie with a smile, for he loved that name very much. And he didn’t want anyone to call him otherwise.
Chapter 4. A place for living
When the cat brought the brownie to the house, he didn’t know where to hide the child.
At first he decided to place him under Ervin’s bed. But the brownie constantly ran out from under the bed. Besides, Ervin always looked under the bed before going to sleep to make sure there was nobody. Then the cat thought about Rexy’s dog-house. But the brownie refused to live there. He said that brownies had to live in a house. Then the cat offered him to move into a washing machine. The brownie answered that he didn’t want to be washed together with laundry by accident. The cat promised his little friend that on Saturdays, when mum washed laundry he would take him out of the washing machine quietly and walk in the attic. But the brownie said that it was more interesting to do it in the house than in the attic. So if the cat wanted to walk him, let him walk him in the house. The cat couldn’t walk the brownie in the house. So he suggested to use for walking the old wardrobe where mum kept her favorite old things. She looked there very seldom perhaps once a month to wipe off dust as not to let moth to live there. The cat thought that even when she looked there she wouldn’t notice the brownie, because he might hide in a pocket of the old raincoat. Mum didn’t put it on for a long time. Dad didn’t let her wear old things. But mum didn’t throw them away, anyway. She liked them and that is why she put them into the wardrobe accurately. They all were so clean and soft. And the wardrobe was so spacious and comfortable. Even the cat liked to be there. It wasn’t only clean, softly and roomy there. It was dark there in the day time. And when White Paws wanted to sleep in the day time, he went and hid himself in the wardrobe.
White Paws told the brownie what a nice place for living he had found for him. And the brownie immediately agreed. He liked everything there: the wardrobe itself, the old things and even the pocket in the raincoat, where he could easily hide from mum.
But the wardrobe was very old. And its door was very creaking. The cat didn’t think about it at first. He placed the brownie there, but the latter one couldn’t sit there inside the wardrobe. So, he began to creak the door getting into the wardrobe and then getting out of it. And the whole family began to suspect something. That is why, the cat started urgently to look for another place for the brownie.
He remembered that there was a big pig in the hall. To be more exact, it wasn’t a pig. It was a money-box in the shape of a pig. Ervin placed it near the entrance for father not to forget to throw a coin there when he came back from his work. Sometimes father even put some bonds there.
And the pig was rather large. And for dad to be able to throw there big coins, Ervin made there a big hole. So, the brownie easily got through that hole. It was very good there too. First of all, the pig didn’t creak. Second, nobody watched TV in the hall, like they did
in the living room and nobody prepared dinner there, like in the kitchen. In fact, there was nothing there at all, except for shoes where one could hide, if someone came unexpectedly.
The brownie liked to live in the pig. He covered himself with bonds, which also were there and for more softness he put several bonds under his head and back. And when it was dull for him to sit there doing nothing, the brownie began to count coins. He put them in piles and they fell down from the tops of the piles and jingled. The brownie liked to count money so much, that he almost didn’t get out of the money-box. And the more he counted the more he liked it. He completely forgot about secrecy and started to count money when the whole family was at home. The coins jingled. The cat shuddered. Ervin ran to the money-box. But he couldn’t see anything there, because the brownie covered himself with bonds. Ervin shook the pig and the brownie was shaken together with coins. When Ervin became certain that all the coins were still there, he went back to the kitchen. And the cat stayed in the hall and reminded the brownie about necessity of secrecy. And when he had to do it for the fifth or even for the sixth time, the cat didn’t stand it and moved the brownie to another place. He dragged the brownie out of the money-box and put him into the first suitable place he saw. And that place was a pot on a bookshelf. The pot was red with spots. And though it was meant for preparing food, it was so beautiful that mum kept it on the shelf as an ornament. It had been there for a long time already.
At first it was