"Take it easy, Pappy, or you’ll have me believing in it."
"Eh? You don’t have to believe in Kitten—you can see her."
"Yeah, sure—but you act as if she—I mean ‘it’—could understand what you say."
"You still don’t think so?" His voice was gently tolerant.
"Now, Pappy!"
"Hmm ... lend me your hat." Pappy reached up and took it. "Here, Kitten," he called. "Come back, Kitten!" The whirlwind was playing around over their heads, several stories high. It dipped down.
"Hey! Where you going with that chapeau?" demanded Perkins.
"Just a moment— Here, Kitten!" The whirlwind sat down suddenly, spilling its load. The old man handed it the hat. The whirlwind snatched it and started it up a fast, long spiral.
"Hey!" yelped Perkins. "What do you think you’re doing? That’s not funny—that hat cost me six bucks only three years ago."
"Don’t worry," the old man soothed. "Kitten will bring it back."
"She will, huh? More likely she’ll dump it in the river."
"Oh, no! Kitten never drops anything she doesn’t want to drop. Watch." The old man looked up to where the hat was dancing near the penthouse of the hotel across the street. "Kitten! Oh, Kitten! Bring it back."
The whirlwind hesitated, the hat fell a couple of stories. It swooped, caught it, and juggled it reluctantly. "Bring it here, Kitten."
The hat commenced a downward spiral, finishing in a long curving swoop. It hit Perkins full in the face. "She was trying to put it on your head," the attendant explained. "Usually she’s more accurate."
"She is, eh?" Perkins picked up his hat and stood looking at the whirlwind, mouth open.
"Convinced?" asked the old man.
" ‘Convinced?’ Oh, sho’ sho’." He looked back at his hat, then again at the whirlwind. "Pappy, this calls for a drink."
They went inside the lot’s little shelter shack; Pappy found glasses; Perkins produced a pint, early full, and poured two generous slugs. He tossed his down, poured another, and sat down. "The first was in honor of Kitten," he announced. "This one is to fortify me for the Mayor’s banquet."
Pappy cluck-clucked sympathetically. "You have to cover that?"
"Have to write a column about something, Pappy. ‘Last night Hizzoner the Mayor, surrounded by a glittering galaxy of highbinders, grifters, sycophants, and ballot thieves, was the recipient of a testimonial dinner celebrating—’ Got to write something, Pappy, the cash customers expect it. Why don’t I brace up like a man and go on relief?"
"Today’s column was good, Pete," the old man comforted him. He picked up a copy of the Daily Forum; Perkins took it from him and ran his eye down his own column.
"OUR FAIR CITY by Peter Perkins," he read, and below that "What, No Horsecars? It is the tradition of our civic paradise that what was good enough for the founding fathers is good enough for us. We stumble over the very chuckhole in which Great-uncle Tozier broke his leg in ’09. It is good to know that the bath water, running out, is not gone forever, but will return through the kitchen faucet, thicker and disguised with chlorine, but the same. (Memo—Hizzoner uses bottled spring water. Must look into this.)
"But I must report a dismaying change. Someone has done away with the horsecars!
"You may not believe this. Our public conveyances run so seldom and slowly that you may not have noticed it; nevertheless I swear that I saw one wobbling down Grand Avenue with no horses of any sort. It seemed to be propelled by some new-fangled electrical device.
"Even in the atomic age some changes are too much. I urge all citizens—" Perkins gave a snort of disgust. "It’s tackling a pillbox with a beanshooter, Pappy. This town is corrupt; it’ll stay corrupt. Why should I beat out my brains on such piffle? Hand me the bottle."
"Don’t be discouraged, Peter. The tyrant fears the laugh more than the assassin’s bullet."
"Where’d you pick that up? Okay, so I’m not funny. I’ve tried laughing them out of office and it hasn’t worked. My efforts are as pointless as the activities of your friend the whirling dervish."
The windows rattled under a gusty impact. "Don’t talk that way about Kitten," the old man cautioned. "She’s sensitive."
"I apologize." He stood up and bowed toward the door. "Kitten, I apologize. Your activities are more useful than mine." He turned to his host. "Let’s go out and talk to her, Pappy. I’d rather do that than go to the Mayor’s banquet, if I had my druthers."
They went outside, Perkins bearing with him the remains of the colored comic sheet. He began tearing off streamers. "Here, Kitty! Here, Kitty! Soup’s on!"
The whirlwind bent down and accepted the strips as fast as he tore them. "She’s still got the ones you gave her."
"Certainly," agreed Pappy. "Kitten is a pack rat. When she likes something she’ll keep it indefinitely."
"Doesn’t she ever get tired? There must be some calm days."
"It’s never really calm here. It’s the arrangement of the buildings and the way Third Street leads up from the river. But I think she hides her pet playthings on tops of buildings."
The newspaperman peered into the swirling trash. "I’ll bet she’s got newspapers from months back. Say, Pappy, I see a column in this, one about our trash collection service and how we don’t clean our streets. I’ll dig up some papers a couple of years old and claim that they have been blowing around town since publication."
"Why fake it?" answered Pappy, "let’s see what Kitten has." He whistled softly. "Come, baby— et Pappy see your playthings." The whirlwind bulged out; its contents moved less rapidly. The
attendant plucked a piece of old newspaper from it in passing. "Here’s one three months old."
"We’ll have to do better than that."
"I’ll try again." He reached out and snatched another. "Last June."
"That’s better."
A car honked for service and the old man hurried away. When he returned Perkins was still watching the hovering column. "Any luck?" asked Pappy.
"She won’t let me have them. Snatches them away."
"Naughty Kitten," the old man said. "Pete is a friend of ours. You be nice to him." The whirlwind fidgeted uncertainly.
"It’s all right," said Perkins. "She didn’t know. But look, Pappy—see that piece up there? A front page."
"You want it?"
"Yes. Look closely—the headline reads ‘DEWEY’ something. You don’t suppose she’s been hoarding it since the ’48 campaign?"
"Could be. Kitten has been around here as long as I can remember. And she does hoard things. Wait a second." He called out softly. Shortly the paper was m his hands. "Now we’ll see."
Perkins peered at it. "I’ll be a short-term Senator! Can you top that, Pappy?"
The headline read: DEWEY CAPTURES MANILA the date was "1898."
Twenty minutes later they were still considering it over the last of Perkins’ bottle. The newspaperman stared at the yellowed, filthy sheet. "Don’t tell me this has been blowing around town for the last half century."
"Why not?"
" ‘Why not?’ Well, I’ll concede that the streets haven’t been cleaned in that time, but this paper wouldn’t last. Sun and rain and so forth."
"Kitten is very careful of her toys. She probably put it under cover during bad weather."
"For the love of Mike, Pappy, you don’t really believe— But you do. Frankly, I don’t care where she got it; the official theory is going to be that this particular piece of paper has been kicking around our dirty streets, unnoticed and uncollected, for the past fifty years. Boy, am I going to have fun!" He rolled the fragment carefully and started to put it in his pocket.
"Say, don’t do that!" his host protested.
"Why not? I’m going to take it down and get a pic of it."
"You mustn’t! It belongs to Kitten—I just borrowed it."