Back to school

Yesterday I saw a few mothers with their kids shopping for school supplies and it reminded me just how much I used to love this time of year, where everything was a new beginning.

I used to love going back to school, even when I didn’t really like the school I went to. It’s not like I changed school a lot. On the contrary we were quite sedentary. From first grade until 6th grade I went to “Ste-Cunégonde” – a little school built as part of a convent – the nuns used to lived in the middle on if all, and at both ends of the building were the classrooms. I could (and did!) walk there. For the first few years my mom would walk me to school. Every morning we would walk together; when I would come out for lunch she’d be waiting for me to walk home with me, and we’d do it all over again after lunch. There weren’t many mothers who were doing that, but she did, everyday. Once, only once, my father was waiting for me when I came out at the end of the day. I immediately knew there was trouble. I didn’t know if it was something I had done or if something had happened, but I knew that something wasn’t right. As we walked home, I could feel his sadness. I remember walking in silence next to him, holding his hand. I was about 7or 8 years old. Before we got home he told me that Miquet, my very first cat, was dead.

I had found that cat as a few days old kitten. The mother had her litter on the windowsill of a neighbour. There were 3 little kittens. Miquet was the smallest of them. All grey, and meowing his little head off. His eyes weren’t even opened. His mom wasn’t even taking care of him, so I asked the neighbour if I could take it home. Everybody thought I shouldn’t since it didn’t look like he would make it. My dad and I took care of it. It was my cat. Since it was so small, I used one of my doll’s plastic bottle to feed him. I would get my mom to fill it up with warm milk and hand fed my kitten. Drop by drop. His eyes were infected, I remember putting Polysporin on its lids. I loved my kitty so much. I would wrap him up like I did my dolls, put him in my trolley and walk around our neighbourhood. Against all odds he survived.

That cat was like a dog. He would follow me everywhere. He would fetch and was trained not to go on our “new” carpet in the living room. We would throw his ball in the living room and he would chase it full speed and hit the brakes right by the carpet. Often he would stop so abruptly that he would flip over! He would then get back on his paws and scurry the other direction.

At the time my parents owned a restaurant, a little snack bar, and we basically lived in the back store. In the restaurant there was a pinball machine (I’m going back to the 70s here). Whenever the cat would hear the sound of the machine “booting” (when people put money in to play), he would run up, jumped on the glass and chased those frisky balls. He could do that for as long as the players had quarters. Some guys thought it was hilarious and would play just to watch him leaping and batting at the glass. I could basically do anything to that cat, from dressing him in my dolls’ clothes, to sit him up like a doll, he would let me do as I pleased with him. He was playful and would go to anyone. He would often pounce; one of his favourite things to do was to hide behind the restaurant front door (left open in the summer) and then pounced on people’s legs as they came in. They would jump in surprise in return, and then he would run away. Everyone thought it was funny except for Madame Berry. She was this old lady who lived down the street. She would only come once a week, on Thursday on her way home from work, to get fries. Miquet was hidden behind the door, awaiting his next prey, when Madame Berry came in. He jumped up her leg and took off. She screeched so loud and got really upset. She told my father there was nothing funny about having a silly cat scaring off patrons and left without ordering her fries. My dad thought differently as well as the few customers sitting at the counter.

I found out after that dreadful day my dad came to pick me up at school, that Madame Berry had filed a complaint with the city. A city inspector came and asked if we owned a cat. They had received a complaint about said cat. My dad tried to play dumb. We only had an outdoor cat. The inspector then took a quarter and started the pinball machine, and as usual, Miquet ran from the back and jumped on. He presented a formal notice, to get rid of the cat. It wasn’t sanitary.

My father “took care” of Miquet not long after. The afternoon he did it was the day he came to pick me up at school. He told me what he had done and why. I still see myself crying when he opened the box in which laid my cat. I picked him up, kissed him and when I looked at my father it was the very first time I saw him cry. I loved that cat so much, we all did. I remember that day so vividly…