Tanno – Part II

 I had a hard time falling asleep that night. Whether it was from all the tea I drank in the evening, or the sheer wonder of what I had experienced that day, I don’t know. Maybe it was some combination of the two. At any rate, I had barely gotten to sleep when a noise woke me up.

I thought I was dreaming at first, and rolled over to go back to sleep, but then I heard it again – a scratching, bumping noise at my bedroom window. Bearing in mind that my bedroom is in the attic and there are no tree limbs near it, this was strange. I lay completely still and listened again. It sounded like something was trying to get through the screen.

It was summer, and I like to keep my bedroom window open at night. For safety’s sake it doesn’t open more than about eight inches, even though it is second-floor height, and there is a screen over it to keep out the insects .But so help me, hard to get to or not, it sounded like someone or something was trying to get through the screen. I grabbed my cell phone and my flashlight and quietly got out of bed. Creeping to the window with the flashlight held like a club, I yanked the curtain out of the way and then jumped back and shrieked as something came through the window at me. The flashlight went flying and something soft bumped into me as I fell over a chair and landed on the bedroom floor, narrowly missing hitting my head on the sloping ceiling.

I started batting wildly at whatever had bumped into me and then got a look at it. It was Tanno. He mewed piteously and tried to bump his head under my arm.

“Tanno! What the hell are you doing here? And how did you get in?” I struggled to my feet as Tanno wound in and out around them, nearly tripping me as I went back over to the window. The screen was slit rather raggedly – as if someone’s claws had been having a workout. As soon as he had made a hole large enough for his head, it looked like he had just pushed the rest of the way through, ripping the screen the rest of the way in the process.

“Okay, that answers how – now why? And how did you get out? Never mind – probably the same way you got in here.”  I righted the chair I had fallen over and sat down in it. Tanno immediately jumped up in my lap and stood there, gazing at me with his glowing yellow eyes. I sat back, sighed, and turned on the lamp beside me.

“Something must be wrong for you to appear here like this. How did you even know where to find me? What am I going to do?”

While I was speculating and rambling out loud, Tanno jumped down and trotted briskly, tail high, to the bedroom door. He looked back at me and mewed. Since he clearly wanted to go that way, I grabbed my robe, opened the door for him and followed.

He ended up at the front door, brushing up against it, gazing longingly at the doorknob and meowing.

“Uh, uh, buddy. No can do. You are not going out there where anyone could see you. I mean, the front door? No way! Even this time of night, there are enough people coming and going that I don’t want to risk it.”  I picked him up and went over to the sofa and sat down with him in my lap, stroking him. His wings were just as silky soft as the rest of him. My hand bumped into the cell phone that I had stuck in the pocket of my robe. An idea woke inside my stunned and sleepy mind.

Talking to the cat, I said, “I guess I could call Miss Dixon. I mean, I don’t have Sarabeth’s number, and if something is wrong over there, it might not do any good anyway. I hate to call her this time of night if it’s not an emergency, but it must be, if you found your way over here. Even if it isn’t, they’ll think it is as soon as Sarabeth realizes you’re missing.”

I found Miss Dixon’s phone number on the list on my phone and hit send. A few rings later, her sleepy and confused voice answered.

“Miss Dixon, it’s Em. I’m really sorry to wake you up like this, but I think something’s wrong – Tanno just came through my bedroom window.”

“What? Tanno? Over there? I’ll be right over.” The phone clicked in my ear and in a much shorter time than I’d have thought possible, Miss Dixon was knocking on my back door.

“I came through the back way in case anyone is watching the front,” she said. “It sounds paranoid, I know, but under the circumstances I didn’t want to take any chances.” She bustled briskly into the kitchen clad in fuzzy green slippers and fuchsia sweats. She had one of those satin sleeping caps on her head to keep her hair from getting too messy – it was yellow and shaped like a daisy. I wasn’t awake enough for this; she hurt my eyes.

Tanno ran up to her and jumped up on the table to get as close to her as possible. She picked him up and started petting him as she talked. “Something must be wrong – Tanno has never done this before, not in my memory. You say he came through your window?”

“Yeah – he slit it with his claws, it looks like. Then he just came through. The sound of the screen ripping is what woke me up.”

“Well, he looks okay – at least he doesn’t seem to be injured anywhere. I tried to call Sarabeth, but I didn’t get any answer. She might be asleep, but I doubt it. She’s a pretty light sleeper.”

“I think we should call the police.” I said.

“And tell them what, that your friend’s flying cat came in your window and you’re worried about her?”

That did get a smile from me, even though I was worried. “What if we tell them that you were supposed to hear from her?”

“No, I think we’re going to have to go over there. Get dressed and grab your car keys. I’ll go get a few things and I’ll meet you by the garage in five minutes.” She stopped and turned on her way out the door. “Oh – wait. I have a carrier we can use for Tanno. I’ll meet you here in the kitchen.” She walked briskly out the door into the night.

I turned to Tanno and said, “Tanno, I have a really bad feeling about this. Why do I think I’m in way over my head here?” He just looked at me and followed as I went to get dressed.

It was ten minutes, not five before Miss Dixon showed back up. She was much easier to look at this time, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt that said Dancing Queen in hot pink letters and a beat up pair of Birkenstocks. I had pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt, too, and found my flashlight where it had rolled under the bed. I also had found a can of pepper spray. Miss Dixon took a look at these items and nodded. “Good. I like to be prepared.”

She put the cat carrier down on the floor beside Tanno, opened the door and tossed in a few kitty treats and a catnip mouse. “Okay, Tanno. In you go!” Tanno took one look, turned and high tailed it the other way as fast as he could. I followed and caught sight of him sailing up the narrow staircase, one wingtip brushing the wall as he flew. Miss Dixon and I chased after him, but like most cats, he could disappear when he wanted to. We couldn’t find any trace of him. I had closed all the windows when I went back up to get dressed, so he was in the house somewhere, but where was anybody’s guess.

“Apparently, he isn’t going with us,” said Miss Dixon.

“I guess not,” I replied. I shrugged and we left, locking the door behind us. I looked back as we walked through the backyard to the garage and I could have sworn I saw a smug feline face peering down at me from the bedroom window.

When we got to Sarabeth’s house, the lights were off and everything looked quiet. I drove around to the alley and we saw that the back gate in the high privacy fence was open. I knew that Sarabeth had closed it that evening when we had gone through it.  Miss Dixon confirmed that, saying grimly, “Sarabeth never leaves the gate open. In fact, she frequently puts a lock on it so people won’t get into the back yard and peer in the windows.”

I circled back around and pulled into a parking space in front of the house. “Now what?” I asked.

Miss Dixon whipped out a cell phone. “Now I try to call her again. If we don’t get any answer, we go to the door.”

Five minutes later, we were at the front door, ringing the bell. There was no answer.

“Okay, now we call the police,” said Miss Dixon.

While we were waiting for them to arrive, we concocted a cover story as to why we were there in the middle of the night. We were after Miss Dixon’s medicine, which she had left there yesterday and suddenly needed in the middle of the night. She didn’t drive and had asked me for help. We couldn’t get hold of Sarabeth and no one was answering her door, so we were worried.

We were ready when the officers arrived.

They were skeptical at first, but we told them about the gate, and Miss Dixon offered them a key to the front door. She told them she didn’t want to use it if there was a burglar inside or something. One of the men went around to the back of the house and discovered that the back door was hanging open and looked broken in – they called for backup and before we knew it, the street was full of flashing lights and people in uniforms. The police cleared the house and found no one there. Telling us not to touch anything, they escorted us inside and asked Miss Dixon if anything obvious, besides Sarabeth, was missing.

We walked around the house, and I saw what I was looking for: a screen that was torn much like mine was, except from the inside. This had to be where Tanno had escaped.

“Miss Dixon, what about Titania?” I turned to the policeman. “Her cat. Sarabeth has a grey cat named Titania.”

“Oh, dear,” said Miss Dixon, sounding flustered. “Titania! Tanny! Here, kitty, kitty!” she called. We heard a mewing outside under the window and Titania jumped up on the window sill, nosing the torn screen before she pushed into the house.

Miss Dixon picked her up and held her as we finished going through the house. There was no sign of Sarabeth, although her bed had been slept in and nothing that we could tell, not even her laptop computer or her jewelry box, was missing. Her car was in the garage and the back door was broken open. Titania had been outside, and of course, although the police didn’t know it, her other cat Tanno had escaped and made his way to my house.

The police took us back out (Miss Dixon insisted on taking the bottle of pills that she really had left there several days ago) and said they would get back to us as soon as they knew anything. Miss Dixon and I, along with a very unhappy Titania, went home to worry.

Tanno greeted us at the door, rubbing our ankles and purring, and then curled up on the sofa with a very confused Titania. I told Miss Dixon to sit down, I was going to get us something to drink. “And I don’t mean tea, either!” I told her.

“No, it’s not time for tea,” she replied, and took the glass of Jameson’s I offered her with a worried sigh. “Em, what are we going to do?”

“Let the police handle it. That’s what they do,” I replied.

“That’s fine for everyday things. But I don’t think this is everyday. Tanno is acting strangely. I don’t think this is something the police are going to be able to do anything about.”

I stared at her. So did Tanno. In fact, he got up, sauntered over to where we were sitting and sat down in front of us. He stared at us, first one and then the other. It was an unnerving, knowing stare.

I looked at him and then at Miss Dixon. “I hate to say it,” I said, “But I think he agrees with you.”

I paused before I continued, “The question is, what are we going to do?”

                         -She Wolf (c)2007