by Jess Howe

Created on: March 10, 2009

The thirteenth cat lived in a museum of glass and twine, where everything was for sale. Mistress was an artist, and the museum was a house, a miraculous house with false walls because they were constantly being sold off. They were made of the doors of cars, bits of plywood and aluminum siding. . . The front door, in fact, was two Volkswagen doors on their sides. The roof was aluminum.

"You're the unlucky number, you know," Mistress had said long ago.

Because she was an unlucky number, it was her duty - so felt the thirteenth cat - to look out for all her sisters.

And so it was the thirteenth cat who'd noticed that Mistress had been excited, and it had nothing to do with hanging Christmas decorations, this year.

A new person had come to visit the junkyard where they lived. The cats had seen many of her kind though. These women and their men were all the same, with their long noses and their minks and fur coats, their pearls and their double-breasted suits, their monocles with which they stared down their long noses at Mistress and her works.

This one was a vampire. You could always tell by the faint dried flower scent.

The other twelve sisters contented themselves with their usual games, and ignored the newcomer.

They washed themselves, they climbed drifts of snow that was falling outside - Fat Petunia rolled on her belly till she was sick and the thirteenth cat went over to comfort her. Harlequin caught a mouse up on the roof, and dangled it by its tail for an hour. The twins chased each others' tails.
The day went on, and still the strange woman had not gone away like the others had. She stayed for tea and even afterward, talking and talking.

Mistress called all of them to her as soon as the strange woman had left. "I love you all so much," she said, tearfully, "and because I love you, I think you'll be better off with this than in some asylum, where they'd surely separate you. . . who but a crazy old artist would want thirteen cats anyway?" She petted the thirteenth cat tenderly. "You're the unlucky number, but I see what you do for the others. Look after them now, as always. You will all always be in my heart!"

With that, she flung them out into the cold snow, and barred the doors against them.
Most of the cats sat at the door for a long while mewing in sadness and confusion, and Harlequin even pounded on the roof, trying to get back in. But the thirteenth cat just thought.
There would be no dancing tonight.

After a while, the other cats came and gathered themselves

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