Disclaimer: Since my last disclaimer of this sort, the cats I own have increased to a dozen exactly. The play, however, is still Andrew Lloyd Webber's.


"Oh, the summertime is coming…"


The shuddering halt of the flatcar roused the Rum Tum Tugger from a dream of gay lechery, and he ruefully bade farewell to his sweet Neaera and reopened his senses to the outside world. The sounds that came to him were mainly those of ordinary train-station bustle, the odours principally those of the tarred planks under which he sat; in the background, though, were hints of birdsong and floral freshness that made his town-bred nose twitch for very novelty, and, when he squeezed his head through a crack between the planks, he saw about him a tiny village at the foot of a craggy old blue-black mountain, with a heather-strewn valley spreading out westward beyond it as far as eye could see.

There was a scrabbling of claws from the planks next to him, and the jet-black head of his mystic young protégé emerged from a nearby gap in the wood, green eyes glowing with youthful excitement. "Is this the place?" said Mr. Mistoffelees. "It looks like the place. Cassandra, doesn't this look like the place?"

"Now, Presto, how would I know a thing like that?" the elegant brown queen replied lazily as she wriggled her slender body free of the wood-pile. "You could call it any Scottish village you liked, or Machu Picchu for that matter, and these Cockney eyes of mine wouldn't know the difference. But we're on a train that has old Skimble on it, and he wouldn't let it not be where it ought at 9.35, so if that clock's right –" and she nodded toward the station clock overhead "– then I reckon this should be the place, yes."

"Aye, this is Strathlane," said a growly old voice rich with the tones of Aberdeen, and Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat hopped down from the baggage-car roof onto an outhanging board near the Tugger's left ear. "Established 1673; current population 131, though it's liable to triple or more on market day. Oh, there are grander towns in the Southern Uplands, but for giving a young wizard and his bonnie assistant the taste of God's country their last week's triumph merits, ye canna do much better. Am I right, lad?" he said, with a sly grin at Mistoffelees.

The young Conjuring Cat grinned back, every hair of his coat a-quiver with anticipation. "It's brilliant, Skimble," he said. "I'm sure all three of us will have a wonderful time here."

The "three" reminded Skimbleshanks about the (in his view) detestably antinomian mentor that Mistoffelees had insisted on bringing along, and he shot a sour glance at the Tugger before resuming his brisk Railway-Cat manner. "Right, then," he said. "I'll be staying with the E. & L.W. up to Canonmills; then I'll change to the 12.06 to Peebles, and from there ride the Rugby Special to Melrose, Jedburgh, Nunrice, Galashiels, and back here at 5.23. That'll give ye nigh on eight hours in the valley – plenty of time, I doubt, for all the rustic cavorting ye may be caring to do."

Mistoffelees frowned. "Why should you doubt that?" he said. "I'm sure eight hours will be more than enough time."

"That's what he means, Hocus," said Cassandra. "When a Scots cat says he doubts something, he means he believes it."

"Oh." Mistoffelees blinked. "Why?"

Cassandra shrugged. "No idea. It's just one of their little quirks."

The Tugger snorted. "And people call me perverse," he said.

"I call ye a great many things, laddie," said Skimbleshanks amiably. "But that's no matter. Go on, now, off with the lot of ye, before I've a mind to be whistling for the engineer's terrier to help ye along."

Cassandra laughed. "The sort of friends you have, Skimble," she said. "It must be true what they say, about travel broadening the mind."

Without waiting for Skimbleshanks to devise a retort to that, she leapt lithely down from the flatcar and scampered from the platform toward the flowery brae. The two Chester toms followed her lead (Mistoffelees nearly as lithe, the Tugger not even close), leaving Skimbleshanks alone atop the boards, chuckling to himself. "Not a month widowed, and already so sprightly," he remarked aloud. "Heartless, these Sasannaich."


For my own part, I have never been to Strathlane in May, or indeed at any other time. Even if I had, I daresay I wouldn't have seen what the three Jellicles saw that day; for good or ill, the century and more between them and me has left little of our world unaltered. But those who know assure me that it was just the sort of place, and just the sort of late-spring day, to open the eyes of three English city cats to a whole section of existence that had hitherto been little more to them than rumour. There were soft spring breezes that filled their noses with dozens of novel aromas; there were butterflies to chase, and birds to enviously watch swoop through the great blueness overhead; there was more lush grass than any of them had even seen, besides the heather and the sorrel and a certain mountain herb that the Tugger pronounced "not catnip, but not half bad". Best of all, thanks to the mixed composition of the surrounding mountains, there was a multitude of clear, trickling springs and rivulets watering the valley's rim, at which one might come to lap and refresh oneself after an hour or two's romp beneath the almost-summer sun.

It was by one such spring, beneath the shade of a blossom-laden wild cherry tree, that the three cats lay at about three that afternoon, each munching on a field mouse that he had caught for his luncheon. (Mistoffelees had offered to magically catch the mice for all of them, but Cassandra had declined out of pride in her own mousing powers, and the Tugger hadn't cared to seem less virile than Cassandra. So lunch had been a little later than it might have, but there was no harm in that.)

The Tugger licked up the last stray bits of meat on his own small morsel; then he leaned back, yawned cavernously, and stretched out all his legs with the contentment of a god. "Well," he said, "I'd say that you two need to foil Macavity more often. Much as I hate to agree with Skimble about anything, I do begin to see why he likes this country."

"I know," said Mistoffelees dreamily. "I think that, when I'm about five years old and my powers are at their height, I'll have to bring Pien Mao up here – this very spot, just where we are now. And then I'll conjure up a grand dwelling for her and me – a tower of white jade, maybe, with its fa?ade carved with as many sorrel-blossoms as there are growing on the mountain behind it, and an inscription on the lintel saying 'Ex Merlino pro Nymue'."

The Tugger rolled his eyes. "I'll never understand why you're so attached to that heathen Siamese, Misto," he said. "She's not even a Jellicle."

"She's a mother of Jellicles," Mistoffelees said blithely.

"Only two," the Tugger retorted – feebly enough, for the Heaviside inheritance was a notoriously chancy thing, and two Jellicles in a litter of seven was really about as well as any queen, Jellicle or otherwise, could be expected to do. The Tugger, who was well versed in queens and kittens, knew that as well as anyone, and he didn't really begrudge Mistoffelees's dainty little mate her maternal distinction, or even her place in the Conjuring Cat's affections. It just galled him that his own protégé, of all cats, should have abandoned the tomcatting ideal to practise such shamelessly doting monogamy.

"Two's enough," said Mistoffelees, who understood his mentor well. "It isn't about numbers, you know, Tugger; it's about having trusted another creature with a bit of your own life. Once you've done that, you owe her something: love, loyalty, devotion – call it what you like, but it's there."

"Can't see it," said the Tugger cheerily. "Neaera's a sweet bit of fluff and I've gotten plenty of kittens on her, but if I heard this moment that her family had moved to Australia, I wouldn't go mooning about how I'd lost half myself; I'd saunter down to the village, find some likely-looking queen, and start over. That's the way to live; all you have to do is not care too much about anything."

Mistoffelees just smiled. "How much you miss, Tug," he said.

This didn't allow for much of a reply, and so there was a moment's silence beneath the cherry tree. Then Cassandra, who had been noticeably quiet for the last few hours, let out a deep sigh, and the Tugger cocked an eye at her. "You feeling all right, Cass?"

Cassandra roused herself from her reverie, and nodded vaguely. "Yes, I suppose so," she said. "Just thinking, that's all."

"About Rumpus?" said Mistoffelees gently.

"Him," said Cassandra. "Other things. It's been a busy month, you know."

This was, if anything had ever been, a magnificent understatement. It had been just over three weeks since the great Rumpuscat had been fatally struck by a swerving motorcar, surviving just long enough to make it to his and Cassandra's den and gasp to her his conviction that Macavity had engineered the mishap. She had spent the next fortnight confirming his suspicions, as well as ensuring that his services to felinity would be properly commemorated at the upcoming Ball; then, when the Ball had come and Macavity had sprung the final part of his plan to usurp Old Deuteronomy as the Jellicle leader, it had been Cassandra whom Mr. Mistoffelees had used for his magical switch, and whose claws had left a few choice reminders in Macavity's flesh of the danger of rousing a good queen's wrath. A busy month, indeed.

"The thing is," Cassandra continued, "in a quiet place like this, you can feel and think things that most of London won't let you. I've had a sense for days now of something not right about my life, but I figured it was just part of the grief over Rumpus and did my best to bear it with the rest."

"And now you think it's something else?" said the Tugger.

"Oh, I'm sure grief's part of it," said Cassandra. "But there's something more, too. Not to take sides in your little debate just now, Tugger, but Rumpus wasn't just an idle plaything for me; he was my whole life. Knightsbridge was home because it was where he was; the other alley cats in the Brompton Road came to me with their troubles, not because I was anything great myself, but because he was the great Rumpuscat and I was his queen.

"And now he's gone." (Did her voice shake, just a bit? The two toms couldn't tell.) "He's gone, and I've done everything that his passing left me to do – and, though I say it as shouldn't, I think he'd be proud of how I did it." She grinned broadly, showing all her teeth. "Oh, you should have seen Macavity's face when I appeared in front of him… But it's all finished now, that's the thing. The last bit of the only adult life I've known is over and done, and yet here I am, still breathing and eating and taking trips to the North. And I guess I don't quite know what to make of that."

The toms considered this. "Maybe it's time to begin a new life," Mistoffelees suggested. "They say we have nine, don't they?"

"Sure," said the Tugger. "With nothing left to tie you to London, you could go anywhere: to sea, if you wanted, or to Man to flaunt your tail and make the locals jealous, or to Liverpool to help Jennyanydots drill cockroaches. Or you could stay right here, maybe: find a few good Strathlane families to cadge meals off of, and spend the rest of your time sniffing heather – till winter comes, at least."

Cassandra nodded vaguely. "Yes, I suppose I could," she said.

The Tugger cocked his head. "Now that's a ringing affirmation if I ever heard one," he said sardonically. "What's the matter, Cass? You starting to turn into one of those reprehensible cats who can't be satisfied wherever they are? Put you in a house and you'd much prefer a flat, put you in a flat and you'd rather have a house?"

Cassandra laughed. "Oh, no," she said. "Rather the opposite, actually. I'm afraid Rumpus rather spoiled me for the vagabond life; after being queen so long to a cat like him, I couldn't be satisfied with just doing what I would do, and no-one else getting any good out of it. It would be a waste of what life I had left, and if there's one thing that being with Rumpus taught me, it's that no hour of a Jellicle life ought to be wasted. No offence, of course," she added tactfully.

"None taken," said the Tugger. (In truth, he rather agreed with her and Rumpuscat, though he didn't care to let it be widely known.) "But mightn't you still need to do some vagabondage to keep from wasting it? Worthy occupations don't just fall out of the sky; a cat who wants one has to go looking for it."

"That's all very well, Tugger," Cassandra replied, "but a cat who's just humiliated the Napoleon of Crime doesn't necessarily have that luxury. That's the other reason I didn't have time to think about all this till I came here: I knew Macavity would want to pay me back for roughing him up in front of his gang, and I've spent most of the past week lying low from anything that might be his reprisal. The only reason Skimble was able to invite me on this little holiday was because I've been haunting Paddington Station while he's there; even Macavity, I reckon, would think twice about engineering a mishap that might take out the Cat of the Railway Train. But if I went seeking my destiny on the highways and byways of England… well, can you, Mr. Rum Tum Tugger, give me any good reason why I should last a fortnight?"

The Tugger nodded thoughtfully. "That's a point," he allowed. "Of course, you could always come with us back to Chester and have Misto's magic to protect you – but that's just what Macavity would expect you to do, so…"

"Exactly." Cassandra sighed. "I'm sure there's a solution somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. I just hope I get an inkling before too much more time goes by."

Mistoffelees glanced up at the sun. "Speaking of time, we should probably start heading east again," he said. "It's still a good hour or two until 5.23, but, with all the distractions this valley offers, we may need that long to get back to the station in time to catch our train."

The Tugger yawned lazily. "Oh, dog-biscuits for the distractions," he said. "They may have caught us off guard in the morning, but we've been here six hours now. We're old hands – practically rustics ourselves, really; the countryside's little tricks can't lead us astray anymore."

Mistoffelees cocked his head, and gave his tail a mystic little twiddle. A pair of lapwings burst out of a nearby patch of long grass, and Cassandra and the Tugger galvanically leapt to their feet with wild yowls and set off in frenetic pursuit. Mistoffelees let them course for a dozen yards or so; then he made a second gesture, and the two birds vanished in twin puffs of azure smoke.

Cassandra stopped dead, and glanced left and right in momentary bewilderment; the Tugger, who was more used to this sort of thing, turned and scowled at his protégé as the latter came sauntering up to them, grinning like the Cheshire cat he was. "All right, fine," he said. "If it's so important to you, I suppose we can start heading back to the station."


And so they did – which proved to be a good thing, as the 5.23 was just pulling into the station when they arrived in Strathlane. Skimbleshanks, perched regally atop the baggage car, chuckled down at the three panting, bur-festooned cats as they mounted the platform. "Well, now," he said, "either I'm no guesser, or this wee dram of Scotia was properly to your tastes."

"It'll do," said Mistoffelees with a grin.

"Fine," said Skimbleshanks. "Any last thoughts or queries, now, before ye're heading back to the damp and dreary wastes ye call home?"

"Actually, yes, Skimble," said Cassandra suddenly. "Overseeing this train the way you do, you're privy to about half the local affairs of Britain, aren't you?"

Skimbleshanks turned to her, his face wearing an expression not unlike that of a satisfied schoolmaster. "Aye," he said. "I am that."

"Yes, of course you are," said Cassandra. "Nothing bubbles with news like a railway platform, does it? Relations visiting from far away, holiday-goers returning home, tradesmen bringing their wares to market: the first thing they all want to do is hear the news of where they've come to and share the news of where they've been. And you hear it all."

"Aye," said Skimbleshanks again.

"So if there were a cat," said Cassandra, "who wanted to slip away from the unwanted attentions of another, and start a new life in some unregarded place where a cat could be of service… how would you advise her?"

Skimbleshanks's expression grew, if possible, even more satisfied and schoolmasterly. "Come up here, lassie," he said, and tapped his paw on the metal of the baggage-car roof.

Cassandra hesitated for a moment, dubious of her ability to manage such a leap; the next moment, though, she committed the issue to her Jellicle heritage and launched herself into the air, landing safely if not elegantly on the edge of the car roof. (Though Skimbleshanks hadn't invited anyone else, the Tugger, ever willful, leapt right up after her – and, after a moment's decent reluctance, Mistoffelees followed him.)

Skimbleshanks walked across to the other side of the car, where it looked out upon the handful of cottages that made up the village proper. "D'ye see yon cottage with the spray of tansy over the door?" he said to Cassandra, gesturing with his tail. "'Tis the home of young Mary MacKidden, who's had to be the sole woman of it since the diphtheria took her mother four years ago. That's a hard lot for a human lass, and under it she's grown sad and solemn before her time; they say she was once as merry as any cricket, and now there's hardly a soul in the village who can remember the last time she laughed.

"Now suppose a bonnie she-cat settled herself round about the cottage – not a fierce, man-wary stray, but a warm-hearted, playful creature and a fine enough mouser to pay her keep. If I've the measure of Miss Mary, that'd be just the thing to put the roses back in her cheeks. 'Tis a small beneficence, to be sure – there's no bloody melees in Hyde Park that it'll be forestalling – but 'tis a beneficence all the same, and one that even the greatest schemer of all time might well overlook."

As the eavesdropping Tugger heard these last words, something clicked in his head, and his jaw dropped open. "Everlasting Cat," he swore under his breath. "This was his plan all along, wasn't it?"

"Pardon?" said Mistoffelees.

"This whole heroes'-tour-of-Roxburghshire scheme," said the Tugger. "Skimble'd seen Cass lurking around his railway station, and knew she needed someplace where she could make the world better without Macavity tracking her down – so he concocted the idea of showing off his homeland to the Old One's rescuers just to have a good reason to get her there."

"Oh," said Mistoffelees. "Well, that was clever of him."

"Too clever," the Tugger growled. "If I'm not careful, I'm going to end up liking the old cuss."

It was unclear whether Skimbleshanks heard this exchange. Perhaps so, or perhaps the ghost of a smirk that played about his lips, as he turned back to Cassandra, had some other cause. "Will ye go, lassie?" he said – and, seeing her answer in every line of her face, lashed his tail magisterially. "Go!"

Cassandra needed no second invitation. With a mighty bound, she leapt from the train, landing (on her feet, naturally) in a patch of furze beside the track; then, with a glance back up at her three fellow Jellicles, she smiled and called farewell to them – or so it appeared, though the whistle of the train drowned out her specific words.

So the train began to move, carrying Mistoffelees and the Tugger back to Chester and their old lives, while Cassandra trotted off through the fields to begin her new one. And, all around, the blooming heather waved and sported in the breeze as though saluting their feline countryman, and the new Jellicle he had brought to the North.