Gallico - The Abandoned

THE ABANDONED

by
PAUL GALLICO

THE NEW YORK REVIEW

CHILDRENS COLLECTION

New York

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Copyright 1950 by Paul Gallico; copyright renewed 1978 by Virginia Gallico, Robert Gallico, and William Gallico

All rights reserved.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier printing as follows:

Gallico, Paul, 18971976.

The abandoned/by Paul Gallico.

p. cm.(New York Review childrens collection)

Summary: When Peter, an eight-year-old London boy with neglectful parents and a distant nanny, is transformed into a cat after rescuing a stray, Jennie, from being hit by a car, Jennie takes care of him despite her contempt for humans.

ISBN 978-1-59017-626-9 (alk. paper)

[1. CatsFiction. 2. Human-animal relationshipsFiction. 3. London (England)Fiction. 4. EnglandFiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.G137Ad 2013

[Fic]dc23

2012035496

eISBN 978-1-59017-644-3
v1.0

Cover design by Louise Fili Ltd.

Cover art by Charles Curry-Hyde

For a complete list of books in The New York Review Children's series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:
Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

Poussie, poussie, baudrons,

Whaur hae ye been?

Ive been tae London,

Tae see the queen.

Poussie, poussie, baudrons,

Whit gat ye there?

I gat a guid fat mousikie,

Rinnin up a stair!

Poussie, poussie, baudrons,

Whit did ye dae wi it?

I pit it in ma meal-poke,

Tae eat tae ma breid.

OLD SCOTTISH NURSERY RHYME

THE
ABANDONED

P ETER GUESSED that he must have been hurt in the accident though he could not remember very much from the time he had left the safety of Scotch Nannys side and run out across the street to get to the garden in the square, where the tabby striped kitten was warming herself by the railing and washing in the early spring sunshine.

He had wanted to hold and stroke the kitten. Nanny had screamed and there had been a kind of an awful bump, after which it seemed to have turned from day into night as though the sun were gone and it had become quite dark. He ached, and somewhere it hurt him as it had when he had fallen running after a football near a gravel pile and scraped nearly all the skin from the side of one leg.

He seemed to be in bed now, and Nanny was there peering at him in an odd way; that is, first she would be quite close to himso close that he could see how white her face was instead of its usual wrinkled pink colorand then it would seem to fade and become very small, as though seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

His father and mother were not there, but this did not surprise Peter. His father was a colonel in the Army, and his mother was always busy and having to dress up to go out, leaving him with Nanny.

Peter might have resented Nanny if he had not been so fond of her, for he knew that at eight he was much too old to be having a nurse who babied him and wanted always to lead him around by the hand as though he were not capable of looking after himself. But he was used by now to his mothers being busy and having no time to look after him or stay in and sit with him at night until he went to sleep. She had come to rely more and more upon Nanny to take her place, and when his father, Colonel Brown, once suggested that it might perhaps be time for Nanny to be leaving, his mother could not bear to think of sending her away, and so of course she had stayed.

If he was in bed, then perhaps he was sick, and if he was sick, perhaps his mother would be with him more when she came home and found out. Maybe now they would even give him the wish he had had for so long and let him have a cat all of his own to keep in his room and sleep curled up at the foot of his bed and perhaps even crawl under the covers with him and snuggle in his arms on nights that were cold.

He had wanted a cat ever since he could remember, which was many years ago at the age of fourwhen he had gone to visit on a farm near Gerrards Cross and had been taken into the kitchen and shown a basketful of kittens, orange and white balls of fluff, and the ginger-colored mother, who beamed with pride until her face was quite as broad as it was long and licked them over with her tongue one after the other. He was allowed to put his hand on her. She was soft and warm, and a queer kind of throbbing was going on inside of her, which later he learned was called purring and meant that she was comfortable and happy.

From then on he dearly wished for a cat of his own.

However, he was not allowed to have one.

They lived in a small flat in a Mews off Cavendish Square. Peters father, Colonel Brown, who came home occasionally on leave, did not mind if Peter had a cat, but his mother said that there was enough dust and dirt from the street in a small place and not enough room to move around without having a cat in, and besides Scotch Nanny didnt like cats and was afraid of them. It was important to Peters mother that Nanny be humored in the matter of cats so that she would stay and look after Peter.

All of these things Peter knew and understood and put up with because that was how it was in his world. But this did not stop his heart from being heavy because his mother, who was young and beautiful, never seemed to have much time for him, or prevent his yearning hungrily for a cat of his own.

He was friends with all or most of the cats on the squarethe big black one with the white patch on his chest and green eyes as large around as shilling pieces who belonged to the caretaker of the little garden in Cavendish Square close to the Mews, the two grays who sat unblinking in the window of No. 5 throughout most of the day, the ginger cat with the green eyes who belonged to Mrs. Bobbit, the caretaker who lived down in the basement of No. 11, the tortoise-shell cat with the drooping ear next door, and the Boie de Rose Persian who slept on a cushion in the window of No. 27 most of the time, but who was brought into the square for an airing on clear warm days.

And then of course there were the countless strays who inhabited the alley and the bombed-out house behind the Mews, or squeezed through the railings into the park, tigers and tabbies, black-and-whites and lemon-yellows, tawnies and brindles, slipping in and out behind the dustbins, packets of waste paper, and garbage containers, fighters, yowlers, slinkers, scavengers, homeless waifs, old uns and kittens, going nervously about the difficult business of gaining a living from the harsh and heedless city. These were the ones that Peter was always dragging home, sometimes kicking and clawing in terror under his arm, or limp and more than willing to go where it was warm and there might be a meal and the friendly touch of a human hand.