her way back home Lika came across Vlad. They had a talk about this and that, and then he sorrowfully said that it was his last day at home – the next morning he would be going to Bulgaria for studies.
“It’s a pity,” Lika could only mutter. She could hardly prevent herself from tears, and that’s why she looked away and frequently blinked. Still a tear came down her cheek. Vlad did not get a sight of it; he feasted his eyes on her fingers. So amazingly-beautiful, soft with almost transparent skin, they seemed to belong to an angel, not to a corporeal girl. To make sure she was real, he took her hand into his. She gave a start.
“Will you come round by eight tonight?”
“Why?” she asked quietly.
“There’ll be a party… a farewell party. Will you come?”
Lika gave him a smile and a nod. They parted till evening. Her heart went with both happiness and sadness when she came to the porch.
Her aunt was not at home. Lika poured a glass of juice and dropped into the chair at the table. Then she began to tell the cats about the conversation she had just had with Vlad. No, it was not usual for her to speak to cats, but the situation was unusual. Vlad asked her to come to his place, and she urged to tell anyone about it. Coco seemed to become all ears, as for Dashka and Mashka, they did not get interested in the story at all. As those two understood that Lika would not give them anything to eat, they left the kitchen.
And Coco, screwing up her eyes and pricking up her ears, stayed still on the stool opposite Lika. It moved its ears every time Lika went on with the story after pauses. By the moment Lika came to describe the invitation itself, emotions flooded her over, so she choked and started to cough. Coco jumped down from the stool, her back arched; it stretched.
“Hope you won’t go, will you?” Lika heard a strangely muted female voice.
Still coughing Lika sprang to her feet and looked around. There was nobody. She wiped off the tears that had filled her eyes because of the cough.
“Who’s here?” she shouted out. Her own voice distorted with fear made Goosebumps ran up and down her arms; her back got cold at once.
“It’s me, Coco,” there was an unflappable answer.
Lika stared at the cat, which had sat in front of her on the floor and was now unblinkingly looking into Lika’s eyes. It looked downright normal, anyway, as usual: pricked ears and a bit uppity look. By all means, nothing had changed about it. Lika did not know what to think. To tell the truth, she did not manage her thoughts, which like bubbles in a glass of champagne emerged and went phut when dealing with the reality. “Is this a hoax?”, “Talking cats do not exist,” “Just for laughs gags?”, “Did I go mad?”, “Have I fallen asleep and see a dream?” “Yes! This must be it! This must be a dream! I’m sleeping!” the girl cheered at that salvatory idea.
“No, you’re not, deary” the voice seemed to grin. “I’m talking to you in reality. By the way, it’s very difficult for me to provide sound chatter. Would you mind if I switched to a mental level?”
Lika kept on gaping at Coco. She had an itch to grab the cat and make it say something straight into her ear to make sure it was this fluffy creature that was talking. But she saw some kind of bellicose fire in the cat’s eyes, and it stopped her. “It’s a slumber,” she concluded. She had ignored Coco’s question and tried to remember the moment she might have fallen asleep. She attempted to trace back the events from the moment when she came home, got changed, went to the bathroom to wash her hands to the one when she proceeded to the kitchen and poured a glass of juice… No, she could not get the moment she had dropped off. That turned her incredibly upset.
“You don’t remember, do you?” Coco questioned from the far kitchen corner. It was now lying there on the floor with the same uppity smirk if you could say so about a cat and of what Lika had no doubts any more. It was eyeing her.
“Don’t remember what?” Lika was finally distracted from her thoughts.
“The moment you’ve caught off.”
“How come…? Are you reading my mind?”
The awareness of this fact decisively dumbfounded the girl. She sat down on the stool, clutched her head and leaned over the table. “I am sleeping,” she pronounced trying to sound as more convincing as possible.
“No, you are not. I am reality, deary” arouse in her head, and Lika understood at once that they had not been her own mental words. She reproachfully looked at Coco. “I’m sorry,” it went on in her head, “You haven’t allowed me… but it’s really difficult for me to speak audibly… Anyway, you don’t mind, do you, deary?”
Lika was being so tired of sorting out what was going on that she decided to accept the situation as it was. She hardly felt ready for the dialogue when “thank you” came in reply.
“Well-well, still planning to go to the party?” Coco asked Lika sending her thoughts to the girl mentally.
Unsettled by the event with the talking cat, Lika completely forgot about Vlad’s invitation. However, she almost recovered her poise, rooting herself to the thought that nothing was impossible, not excluding talking cats. The most important thing about it was to keep it secret.
“I’m going. It’s settled,” exclaimed Lika.
“Don’t you shout! I can perfectly hear you, even the things you don’t pronounce,” the current of alien thoughts flew into her brain.
“And that’s what I don’t like,” Lika answered in the same mute way. “Anyway, it’s none of your business. It’s up to me to decide! And you’re just a cat of mine,” she added loudly.
“Am I just a cat?” Coco interrupted the girl.
“You are just a cat even if you can talk.”
“So you’d prefer to join the party than to have a chat with the talking cat? After all, it’s not every day that you get a chance to talk to the cat that can answer you. You might be even the only human in the world that’s been given such an opportunity!”
“Do you mean it’ll all finish tomorrow, and you’ll become an ordinary cat again?” Lika asked cheerfully, and a sad sigh was the answer to her.
“Indeed, nothing concerns nowadays humans except their own primitive desires.”
“You, who is constantly sleeping and eating, dare tell me this…” Lika loudly resented.
“That’s being a very superficial judgment, deary. Outward inaction doesn’t always imply inner passiveness. Appearance can…”
“I guess that’s not your case,” Lika unhesitatingly broke the flood of the cat’s thoughts. “Generally speaking, I should be getting ready for the party,” she declared and proceeded to the bathroom having picked a bathrobe on her way. “I have no time to chat with you,” she added as she imagined herself wearing a short pink dress, beautiful high heeled shoes on her slender legs, the dark locks of her hair is blown on by the wind the same way as in a shampoo commercial while she would be walking across the yard to Vlad’s porch. And at the same moment he would come up to the window and would see her so incredibly beautiful that it would make him lose his head.
“Like in a cheap romance,” Coco sighed.
“Do not listen nor watch if you don’t like it!” Lika retorted and defiantly slammed the bathroom door shut.
She opened the tap and got under a cool flow of water. She still hoped she had been dreaming of the talking Coco. She even turned the water cooler; hardly holding back the holler because of the cold pouring down on her.
“Don’t catch a cold,” she heard the cat’s muted voice from behind the door.
Lika shuddered with cold