He was feeling that way now that he was sick, only this was different because he seemed to want to cry out this time but found that he could not utter a sound. He did not know why this should be except it was a part of the queer way things had been since whatever it was had happened to him when he had darted away from Nanny who was talking to the postman, and run across the road after the striped kitten.
Actually, it was a coal lorry that had come speeding around the corner of the square that had struck Peter and knocked him down just as he had stepped off the kerb without looking and had run in front of it, but what happened after that, the hue and cry, the people that gathered after the accident, Nanny's crying and wailing, the policeman who picked him up and carried him into the house, the sending for the doctor and the trying to find his mother, and later, the trip to the hospital, Peter was not to know for a long, long time. So many strange things were to happen to him first.
For, unquestionably, events seemed to be taking an odd turn what with night appearing to follow day at such rapid intervals that it was almost like being at the cinema with the screen going all dark and light and Nanny's face seeming to be on top of him first and then sliding away into the distance only to return once more with the lenses of her spectacles shining like the headlamps of an approaching motor-car.
But that something really queer was about to take place Peter knew when after Nanny had faded into the distance and his bed had seemed to rock like a little boat in the waves and when she had begun to return again, it was no longer the face of Nanny but that of the tabby striped kitten that had been washing itself by the park railings and that he had wanted to catch and hug.
Indeed, it was this dear little cat now grown to enormous size, sitting at his bedside smiling at him in a friendly manner, its eyes as large as soup tureens, large, luminous and shiny, and resembling Nanny's spectacles in that he could see himself mirrored in them.
But what was puzzling to him was that although he knew it to be himself reflected therein, still it did not seem to look like him at all as he was accustomed to seeing himself when he passed the tall cheval mirror in the hallway, or even in Nanny's glasses in which he could frequently catch a reflection of his curly head of close-cropped auburn hair, round eyes, upturned button nose, stubborn chin, and cheeks as red-and-white and rounded as two crab-apples.
At first Peter did not try to make out exactly who or what he looked like because it was pleasant and soothing just to lose himself in the cool green pools of the kitten's eyes, so calm and deep and clear that it seemed like swimming about in an emerald lake. It felt delightful to be there bathed in the beautiful colour and surrounded by the warmth of the smile of the kitten.
But then soon he began to notice the effect it was beginning to have upon him.
Sometimes the picture would be hazy and then for a moment it would grow quite clear so that he could see how y the shape of his head had altered and not only the shape but the colour. For whereas he was familiar with the reddish-brown curly hair and apple cheeks, his fur now seemed to be quite short, straight and snow white.
‘Why,’ said Peter to himself, ‘I said "fur" instead of hair. What a strange thing to do. It must be looking into the cat’s eyes that is changing me into a cat, if that is what is happening.’
But he continued to look there because he found that for the moment he could not take his gaze elsewhere, and when it grew hazy, his image seemed to quiver as though things were happening to it from inside, and each time it grew clear he noted new details, the queerly slanted eyes that were now no longer grey but a light blue, the nose that had changed from an uptilted little sixpenny-bit into a rose– pink triangle leading to a mouth that was no more like his than anything he could think of. It now curved downwards over long, sharp white teeth, and from either side sprouted sets of enormous, bristly, white whiskers.
The head was square, the slant-set eyes large and staring, and the sharp-pointed ears stood up like dormers. ‘Oh,' thought Peter, `that is how I would look if I were a cat. How I wish I were one.' And then he closed his eyes, because this queer, unusual image of himself was now so clear and unmistakable that it was a little frightening. To wish to be a cat was one thing. To seem very much to be one was quite another.
When he opened them it seemed for a moment as if he had broken the spell of the cat's-eye mirror, for he was able to avoid staring into it and instead managed to look down at his paws. They were pure white, large and furred, with quaint, soft pinkish pads on the under side and claws curved like Turkish swords and needle-sharp at the end.
To his astonishment, Peter saw that he was no longer lying in the bed but on top of it. His whole body, now long and slender, was just as soft and white as the ermine muff his mother used to carry when she dressed up and went out in the winter, and what seemed to be a blank and eyeless snake curving, moving, twitching and lashing at the end of it was his own tail. From ear-tip to tail-tip he was clad in spotless white fur.
The tiger-striped kitten who with his smile and staring eyes had apparently worked this mischief on him had vanished and was nowhere to be seen. Instead there was only Nanny, ten times larger than she had ever appeared before, standing over the bed shouting in a voice so loud that it hurt his ears; 'Drat the child! He's dragged in anither stray off the street! Shoo! Scat! Get out!'
Peter cried out ‘But, Nanny! I'm Peter. I'm not a cat. Nanny, don't, please!’
'Rail at me, will ye? Nanny bellowed. "Tis the broom I'll take to ye then.' She ran down the hall, and returned carrying the broom. ‘Now then. Out ye go!'
Peter was cold with fright. He could only cower down at the end of the bed while Nanny beat at him with the broom, and cry: ‘Nanny, Nanny, no, no! Oh, Nanny!'
‘I'll miaow you!' Nanny stormed, dropped the broom, and picked Peter up by the scruff of the neck so that he hung there from her hand, front and hind legs kicking, while he cried miserably.
Holding him as far away from her as she could, Nanny ran down the hallway muttering, ‘And it's to bed without any supper for Peter when I find him. How often have I told him he's no' to bring in any more cats!' until she reached the ground floor entrance to the flat from the Mews.
Then she pitched Peter out into the street and slammed the door shut.
CHAPTER TWO: Flight from Cavendish Square
IT was miserably cold and wet out in the Mews, for when the sun had gone down a chill had come into the air, clouds had formed, and it had begun to rain in a heavy, soaking, steady downpour.
Locked outside, Peter let out such a howl of anguish and fright that the woman who lived opposite said to her husband, ‘Goodness, did you hear that? It sounded just like a child!'
He parted the curtains to look, and Peter cried.or thought he cried to him.'Oh, let me in! Please let me in! Nanny's put me out, me-out, me-out!'
Peter then heard the husband say as he dropped the curtains: ‘It's only another stray, a big white tom. Where do they all come from? You never get a minute's rest with their yowling and caterwauling. Ah there! Boo! Scat! Shoo! Go 'way!'
The boy who delivered the evening newspapers came by on his bicycle, and hearing the shouting to scare away the cat outside the door decided to assist him in the hope of earning a tip.
He rode his bicycle straight at Peter, crying, 'Oi! Garn! Scat! Get along there!' and then, leaning from the saddle, struck Peter across the back with a folded-up newspaper. Peter ran blindly from this assault, and a moment later, with a roar and a rumble, something enormous and seemingly as big as a house went by on wheels, throwing up a curling wave of muddy water that struck him in the flank as he scampered down the Mews into Cavendish Square, soaking right through his fur to the skin underneath.