once!”
“Rubbish,” said the cat. The ideas apparently amused it. It watched Lika closely as the girl tried to find a rational explanation to its date of birth. “I can explain if you allow me, of course.”
“So,” the cat started again, “I was born in the year of three thousand eight hundred and five. I used thought-transference with my master as all the cats and dogs of my time did or… is it better to say ‘will do’?”
Lika was attentively listening but could not decide whether to believe the cat. She waited for any detail that could possibly prove the veracity of Coco’s story or refute it.
“So do you mean that in three thousand eight hundred and five all the cats and dogs will be able to communicate with people using telepathy? How can you explain this fact? How can you explain the emergence of this ability?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Evolution! Every living being evolves in this world, even a human.”
“Even a human?” Lika asked.
“Yes! People will acquire telepathy in the third millennium, but first they’ll be able to read only human thoughts. As for understanding animals and plants, they will come to it later.
“And cats? When will cats learn to read human minds?”
“There’s no need! Cats have always been able to do that!” Coco said with pride.
“They can’t do it now, can they?” Lika was not going to believe it so easily.
“Surely, they can! All the cats are telepathists. We can read your minds; we are sensitive to your mood and intents. We are sensitive to ghosts as well”.
“Why are some cats so stupid then? They won’t do what they’re told.”
“Don’t you ever call cats stupid! Cats aren’t stupid. We’re independent and freedom-loving! If we don’t wanna do something, nothing can make us.” Coco was full of determination to defend her “brothers and sisters’.
“Okay-okay, I won’t say a word,” Lika assured her. “All right, let it be so. You were born in three thousand five hundred and five….”
“Not five hundred but eight hundred!” The cat corrected the girl.
“Okay, let it be eight hundred… How come you’re here? Did you come by a time machine?” asked the girl. Mockery shadowed her voice.
“In my opinion, that’s the most appropriate version. I’m glad it’s been you who’s suggested it.” Lika’s tone did not offend her in the least. “Yes, believe I’ve come here in a time machine.”
“Oh, cats of future will evolve great enough to operate time-machines!” Lika taunted, “No, hang on! It must be a cat who will invent a time-machine! Am I right?”
“It seems to be my turn to hit you with a pillow,” Coco said calmly, “It’s much easier, deary. It wasn’t I but a human who operated the machine, of course. Precisely saying, it was a teenager, the son of my master, who used it without his father’s permission. I have no idea why he chose the end of the twentieth century for his first travelling, probably, it was just fortuity. As a result, I’m here and he’s gone away without me.
Coco sighed with a bit of sadness. Lika was at a loss. She did not know whether to believe the story or not. She suggested that she had to believe Coco if she wanted to remain friends with the cat.
“Does that mean that I have an ability of thought-transfer?” Lika suddenly asked. “If I can talk to you, I can talk to other cats as well… Can I?”
Coco was silent. She might have not expected the question.
“Oh, I knew you were telling lies,” the girl got upset.
“I’m telling the truth,” Coco began to justify herself, “It’s easy for you to talk to me because I first started speaking aloud, and you could make sure it was me who’d said the words you’d heard in an empty room. Other cats can’t do it. They can’t talk.”
“And what about people?”
“Oh, it isn’t that easy with people.”
“Why not? People can talk.”
“Yes, they can. They can also tell lies, they can hide their true intentions and feelings even from themselves. During the centuries they’ve made a go of it. What’s the use of reading minds if there’s no certainty? You’ll never prove a thought, especially an indecent one, to be someone else’s and not yours.
“Not all of them are indecent,” Lika objected.
“Anyway, I’m sure you’ve come across such coincidences when they say “great minds think alike’, “the same thought has just crossed my mind’.
“Year, it happens quite often…” the girl said thoughtfully. “So it means telepathy is real,” she came to the conclusion. “Why haven’ t you spoken to me before?”
“May be, it’s not me who hadn’t spoken, but you who hadn’t heard me…” the cat muttered.
It seemed that the answer was good enough for Lika because she asked the next question, and it was about what life would be like in three thousand eight hundred and five, but at the moment Coco was about to say something, the doorbell rang. It was Aunt Ann who returned from the summer cottage. She came earlier because the weather had got worse and she did not want to get into the storm.
Chapter 10
The virus of immorality
In the following three days Lika did not manage neither to see Rita nor to speak to her. Rita kept sending her a message a day saying that she was all right. As for Lika, she could not make herself stop thinking about the friend, Vlad, and Coco.
That day after lunch she decided to digress a little from those tedious thoughts and got back to the book she had started a while ago and had left it out because of the latest events. She made herself comfortable at the table trying to recollect the last passage she had read, but the sound of the income message in Skype distracted her. Imagine her surprise when she saw a message from Vlad. Immediately, the whole world was forced out of her mind. With an unevenly beating heart and fingers trembling with excitement, she answered to his “Hello, Lika!” Then Vlad called and told her about how he had settled in a new place. He also described the city, the river flowing nearby, the sunny weather and some guys he had made friends with. Apparently, he was very encouraged by the new life and the new place. Finally, he asked what was happening in her life. Lika shuddered. What could she tell him? About Rita’s pregnancy? No. Rita had asked her not to tell him about this, and, of course, she would not do it. About Coco? No way. “Undoubtedly, a talking cat could interest him but only if he could hear it himself,” she thought. Vlad would have thought that Lika had gone mad if she had told him about it. As a result, her account of the days spent in his absence turned out to be the most usual and even a bit boring. Anyway, Vlad seemed to be listening attentively to her. Then he inquired about Aunt Ann’s health and asked how Rita was. He wondered why she did not appear on Skype. Lika felt her face blushing, and her ears began to burn – she could not tell him the truth, and she did not know how to lie. Without knowing what to invent, she just dropped the call. She jumped up from her chair, and walked about the room, but to her distress, there was no time to think because the melody of the incoming call sounded almost immediately. The girl took a deep breath and clicked on “answer”. Vlad apologized for the quality of the connection; probably, he could not imagine that Lika herself interrupted the call, and then he apologized again, but this time for not being able to continue the conversation because he had to go. They said goodbye to each other promising to keep in touch. When his face had disappeared form the screen, Lika sighed with relief – this time it came to nothing.
Why does it all happen so in her life? Why can’t there be