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Overview
Boris is a big gray cat who loves sleeping and playing and exploring and hunting. And his owner loves him for all of his simple cat ways.
But Boris, typical as he may be, is part of a much larger story in this moving exploration of love, longing, compassion, and most of all, the continuous give-and-take of companionship.
Newbery Medal recipient Cynthia Rylant’s powerful collection of poems is sure to find its place in the hearts of readers of all ages, especially those who have been lucky enough to experience the many joys and hardships that come with true friendship.
“Makes a great introduction for readers not comfortable with poetry. The poems tell an accessible, compelling story . . . Warm and tender.” —The Horn Book
“With characteristic sensitivity, Rylant addresses one of her cats in a set of conversational free-verse poems—recalling the day she brought him and his sister home from the humane shelter, warning him about predatory eagles, congratulating him on bonding rather than battling with a new neighbor’s cat and on surviving a solitary jaunt into the surrounding woods.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This can be appreciated for the sway of the writing or for its celebration of cats.” —Booklist
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780547537696 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| Publication date: | 02/17/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 80 |
| Sales rank: | 614,288 |
| Lexile: | NP (what's this?) |
| File size: | 246 KB |
| Age Range: | 14 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Cynthia Rylant is a Newbery medalist and the author of many acclaimed books for young people. She's well known for her popular characters for early readers, including Mr. Putter & Tabby and Henry & Mudge. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. www.cynthiarylant.com.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
1
They were smart to put a storefront humane shelter on the street I walked.
I was new in town.
Everybody else was used to those cats in cages in the windows.
They kept on walking,
trained not to glance over,
lest they lie awake at night thinking about that long-haired tabby waiting waiting waiting.
But I hadn't been trained.
I tried not to look.
I have never been able to go to a humane shelter.
But now they had brought one to me.
I'd buried my last cat two years before.
I had only dogs now.
Dogs that didn't get into howling, spitting fights in the middle of the night.
Dogs that didn't spray or leave chunks of frothy hair ball on the carpet exactly where I place my feet in the morning.
I had buried my last cat.
I was a dog person now.
But they'd put a storefront humane shelter on the street I walked every day.
And I was new in town.
I lasted two months.
Then I went inside,
swearing I'd get only one,
and only a girl,
and no more.
Working hard to keep my heart together.
Cages, cages, eyes.
They can't be too sad.
Cats sleep 80 percent of the time.
They are all right,
could be worse.
Don't look at that dog over there.
The one storefront dog in the cage.
You will break apart.
Not made for shelters.
Ashamed of it.
But not made for shelters.
At first I thought,
I'll choose this one,
this nervous one.
I'll choose this one,
this old battered one.
I'll choose this one,
this bright one.
Cages, cages, eyes.
And then last cage,
last cage,
there you were, Boris.
With your gray sister.
And you stood up and stretched and purred and promised, promised you would be good if I took her, too,
because she had kept you alive all those days and days and days.
Three months in a cage,
Boris, with your sister,
living in the moment with only your memories of leaves and rooftops and warm brown mice.
I promise, you said,
and I believed you,
and I took home two cats — one more than I wanted, and a boy at that —
but you promised,
and I knew.
2
You spent the first week hiding under a down comforter in the farthest room at the back of my house upstairs.
We'd step in softly to visit you, Boris,
you and your sister.
And, slowly, out you'd come with a stretch and a yawn.
Not ready for freedom just yet.
One gets used to a cage,
whether he likes it or not.
We held you both on our laps and spoke your names as we stroked your heads.
Near week's end we had a talk with the dogs.
We told them there were two cats upstairs they didn't know about who'd been listening to all the barking.
We told them to be nice.
Then one of us went in to sit with you while the other let the dogs in, quietly.
You were so fine, Boris.
Not a flinch.
They wagged and sniffed and pressed closer and just one little flick of the ear was all you gave away of your alarm.
So fine.
A week later you and your sister were downstairs,
fighting for lap space with the dachshund.
And when you swatted that stubborn dog's nose one day,
we knew you were home.
3
There are eagles where we live, Boris,
and maybe you don't know this,
but they have been known to carry off cats.
I even heard about one eagle who carried off a dog.
Usually the eagle overestimates his abilities,
and he drops the dog or the cat before he ever gets it back to the wife and kids in the nest.
Still, that drop has got to hurt.
I read about one cat in a cast for months.
So listen, Boris,
though I love those eagles,
love them,
you must assume they are all out to get you,
and you must never,
as I often do,
stand on a beach beneath them and say,
"Oh, how beautiful!"
Because one of them is at that very moment measuring you from head to tail,
pulling out his calculator and converting inches into pounds and assessing just what velocity he'd have to be traveling to sweep you off your feet and have you over for dinner.
As dinner.
I am hoping, Boris,
that the fish those eagles pluck from the water every morning for breakfast will never run out,
because if they do,
we are going to have to feed you nothing but milk shakes and butter until we are rolling you down the beach every day and telling those birds you are just not worth the trouble.
4
The rains are starting, Boris,
and we are seeing much more of you.
There at the door with your sad, wet cry.
Missing the warm stove in the garden room where your sister lies curled, blissfully unaware of your absence.
We all need to come home sometime.
May as well time it with the winter rain.
For in summer who cares.
We care nothing for the soft, velvety chair alongside the reading lamp.
Nothing for the warm down pillows on our beds.
The hot showers.
The thick robes.
The cocoa.
In summer we love less our faithful houses and pledge our allegiance to willow trees and hammocks and full night moons.
Poor houses.
Waiting patiently till we finally appreciate the roofs that don't leak,
the doors that don't squeak,
and the furnace that works.
We are like you, Boris.
We are outside cats and proud of it until the first big drop of rain hits our noses and we run for the door,
leaving our free spirits behind us,
crawling into someone's lap.
5
They were guessing at the shelter when they said you might be four, Boris.
You could have been seven or eight.
Somebody who has, as they say,
been around the block.
Were you hoping they'd subtract a few years,
filling out that cat form?
Because you know how the world is.
You're just cruising along,
minding your own business,
not paying much attention to the number of Christmases rolling by.
Then one day no one thinks you're cute anymore.
Is cuteness a must in the cat world, Boris?
It is in mine.
And beyond a certain age,
cuteness is an impossibility.
Nothing left but character,
and that won't get you a good table at a restaurant or a warning instead of a speeding ticket.
I know the shelter was the pits, Boris.
I don't mean to minimize it.
But I can think of a lot of years I wish I'd been given a fresh start.
Past wiped out.
New identity.
A few years shaved off.
But they don't allow it here in my world.
Here in my world the forms go on forever and they hold you like a fly in amber.
Forever in that petri dish,
forever exactly who your parents and your schools and your government numbers say you are.
It is impossible to go back and start over.
Nearly impossible to disappear.
Were you really four, Boris,
when I found you?
No matter.
Be who you are.
6
I heard them last night,
Boris,
that pack of dogs that occasionally runs through the neighborhood.
With my window open,
I heard them barking and grunting and sniffing and panting just outside,
on the trail of who knows what,
but glad it wasn't you,
Boris,
glad it wasn't you.
How did you know to stay in?
Whenever they've been through here,
every three months or so,
you've been tucked in the house somewhere,
downstairs curled with your sister,
ears sharp and twitching as you listen to those clumsy, dangerous dogs outside.
How did you know to stay in?
Was there rumor of a rumble buzzing the street yesterday?
Did someone —
say, that calico four doors down —
tell you, Stay in, man.
Something is going down.
And though you are willing to die in an eagle's talons or a coyote's jaw or even by car,
you are not going to let a pack of house dogs with their decorated collars and jingling tags,
bellies full of Kibbles 'n Bits,
take you down.
Cowards.
Following the pack.
You are more than that,
Boris, and you know it.
Discreetly you slip inside and listen, silent,
to their hysteria.
7
They told me at the shelter, Boris,
that your name before was Hunter.
And I thought, Yes,
a nice upper-middle-class,
designer-label sort of name.
Not a bad name at all,
though not one I'd choose.
So I named you Boris instead,
and you knew who you were within a day.
You knew that you were Boris.
Smart kitty.
But even though you answered quite nicely,
you let me understand,
over time,
that you had, in fact, been Hunter and that,
like one of those mysterious men on the soaps with the hidden past that won't go away,
you were still
that guy.
Because it didn't take long for the half-dead mice to start swooning all over the patio,
the beautiful, delicate birds to seemingly drop dead on my steps,
the goldfish to disappear from my neighbor's pond,
and the one big rabbit to show up.
The dead one.
Hunter.
I'd thought it was old New England Hunter,
prep-school Hunter,
that particular shade of green Hunter.
But it was hunter Hunter.
Didn't ring a bell until maybe the fifteenth mouse.
Well, someone tried to warn me, Boris.
Whoever named you first.
Remove all bird feeders was the message.
But I am slow and naive, Boris.
You knew that,
didn't you,
coming right away when I first called your name.
So, Boris it is, you must have thought,
tossing your old name tag off the side of a bridge.
But, like those nervous, troubled characters in nineteenth-century literature,
every now and then you are that other guy.
That one who lives in the cellar.
Hunter.
8
We heard a new cat was moving in next door and we thought,
Oh no.
That cat is doomed.
Boris has been sitting on the next-door deck for two years, we said.
He's tagged it again and again with his instantly portable cat spray.
Everybody listen loud and clear:
That is Boris's turf.
The cat is doomed.
Desperate, we took you to the vet for some plastic claws.
Nice little fake plastic claws that stick on over your lethal ones.
We could not take the chance that some night the new neighbors who were foolish enough to move next door with a cat
(what were they thinking?)
would show up on our steps with a bag full of shredded fur and teeth and eyes that used to be somebody named Fluffy.
What else could we do?
But you managed, didn't you,
Boris,
to still climb trees with your sharp back claws while we waited for the new cat to move in.
Then finally, one day,
he arrived.
Harvey.
A six-month-old piece of gray dust ball named Harvey.
On your deck, Boris.
Stupid kid.
We waited to see if you would tear him to bits with your teeth.
Annihilate him with a million plastic jabs.
Drop him like a mouse at our door and look for praise.
Harvey, we feared,
was not long for this world.
We were wrong.
Boris, you sly cat,
you poser,
you swaggering bowl of jelly.
You adopted him.
You adopted Harvey,
and mornings we'd look out and there you'd be,
teaching Harvey to jump,
teaching Harvey to pounce,
playing chase through the tall reedy grass.
That deck, that infamous deck,
became where you two sunned yourselves after the fun and games,
and we could not believe it.
You liked him, that kid.
Reminded you of yourself when you were just a young upstart looking for a role model.
And maybe you'd heard Harvey's sad story.
About being out on the streets of Nashville,
begging.
He got to you, didn't he, Boris?
So when the plastic claws dropped off after three months,
we didn't replace them.
By that time you were going into Harvey's house for supper and sleeping with Harvey at the foot of their bed and generally just being a big pussy.
As Harvey grew,
he looked just like you, Boris,
sleek and gray and green-eyed.
No one could have told you apart if not for Harvey's bell.
And when he moved away, Boris,
you left a big bag of treats on Harvey's doorstep and a note that read
"You're a good kid,"
and you wished him luck,
one guy to another,
sure he'd be okay:
You taught him everything he knows.
9
You disappeared for ten days, Boris.
And for nine of them I imagined what it must have been like for you,
being cornered by a coyote.
The wild fear.
The first broken bone.
The small yellow cat collar with "BORIS 962–7899"
in Sharpie,
left behind in the leaves.
I hated for you to have to go that way, Boris.
Though I'd seen what you'd done to mice and I knew it was justice.
Still, maybe there was a small part of me relieved that I didn't have to have a hand in your death.
Because I know what it is to take a dying pet on its final journey,
how each passing moment counts so terribly,
and how that crescendo toward death builds and builds until one can hardly bear another second of impending doom and utter end.
I know what it is,
that awful sudden instant when the breathing stops and someone is gone forever.
And one wants to die, too, then,
so as not to feel anymore.
I don't want to live that again.
I want everyone I love to die in sleep,
and preferably after I've left the planet myself.
So, Boris, as I looked for your remains beneath shrubs and in ditches when the dogs and I were out for our walks,
I knew that if I found you dead,
at least you spared me being part of the thing.
You were good enough to do that for me.
But on the tenth day, Boris,
you came home.
There you were, sitting at the patio door,
waiting for me to get out of bed.
After ten days missing,
you came home.
Skinny.
Hungry.
A bloody front paw.
And as I carried you inside,
I knew this had been no mere adventure.
Boris, you had won a battle.
You had won a battle in the thick forest where we live,
and there was no witness to your bravery.
But I know.
I know, Boris,
that somewhere a coyote wanders,
one eye dangling from its socket,
and tufts of gray fur in his jaw.
You are keeping closer to home now, Boris,
and that's good.
Don't feel sheepish.
Don't think we care that the forest no longer calls to you.
Because you are a fine boy, Boris.
A cat of cats.
You survived.
10
I thought that maybe,
after the last dog passes away,
I'll get a condominium.
(Which I'll prefer to call an apartment,
though technically it would be a condo,
even if I cringe at the word.)
I didn't want to be that girl,
the one who lives in a condo.
I'm the person who baked bread in college,
wore long skirts and boots and didn't own an iron (still don't)
or nylons (ditto).
I wanted to be a cool hippie but I'm not really.
I am too misanthropic to live in a commune,
and the phrase
"Peace and love"
grates on my nerves.
Still, I have always known for sure I am not a condo girl.
Aren't condos for people who drive Buicks and collect glass figurines?
Those people who think Vegas is a destination and Friends is funny?
But I am tired.
Tired of weatherproofing and leaf blowing and WD-40.
Tired of owning a house.
Wasn't I supposed to live in one of those beautiful brownstones I saw in 101 Dalmatians when I was six?
That's who I wanted to be.
That pretty woman,
that urban chick with the brownstone and the cool dog.
Well, where I live brownstone means condo,
and that brings me to you, Boris.
Already I can hear you saying, No way.
No way are you going to live with me on the fifth floor with just a pathetic little balcony to sit on day after day and not a clue about how to operate that elevator out in the hall.
I want to be a cool, urban chick,
Boris,
and you want a lawn.
You win.
11
It's clear by now, Boris,
that we shouldn't have bought that kitty video.
Look at what it's made you:
an ottoman potato.
We pulled the ottoman up as close to the screen as we could,
and now that it's cold outside and you've never been much of a reader,
all you do is sit in front of that video and bat at the birds on TV.
What's worse —
besides our slight dismay that we know you're being tricked and you don't —
what's worse is that we're missing all our favorite shows.
It's the usual family crisis:
one TV and everyone wants to watch it.
We tried to get you interested in our shows, Boris,
but you just don't get the jokes.
And nobody even moves on that one game show.
You like TV that moves.
That's why you love your kitty video.
Birds fly in,
birds fly out.
Just like outside.
Except now we all sit and watch you watch the birds.
What would the pioneers think if they could see us?
They knew what to do with their evenings.
Dip candles,
make socks,
sharpen their thingamajigs.
This is why people are so pessimistic about the world today.
Because we've given up making socks to watch cats sit in front of TVs.
Of course,
how many yuks did those pioneers get,
sewing and dipping?
Not many,
I'd say.
Probably none.
But when we watch you rise up on your hind legs, Boris,
and take a swing at that television,
well,
all we do is laugh.
We laugh every time.
You still don't get the joke, Boris,
but it doesn't matter because you're having fun and we're having fun.
And years and years from now we are going to say,
"Remember when Boris watched TV?"
and we're going to have a really good laugh which, I repeat,
is more than the pioneers ever had sewing their warm and serious socks.
Excerpted from "Boris"
by .
Copyright © 2005 Cynthia Rylant.
Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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