The hero of Drummond street

by Lilian Jackson Braun

After the unpleasant accident on the Jamisons' front lawn, the cat retired to the shade of a juniper to ponder the situation, and little Vernon Jamison ran indoors and cried for hours. In time his weeping became dry and unconvincing, but still he raised his voice in a penetrating six-year-old's wail. Meanwhile, the neighborhood children stood in front of the house and chattered and shrieked and ogled the spot on the lawn — now covered with a bushel basket — where the accident had occurred.

Mrs. Jamison finally telephoned her husband at the advertising agency where he worked. " Vernon has been crying all afternoon and won't stop, " she told him. " I don't know what to do."

" What started it? "

" He pulled the tail off the Drooler."

" He pulled the what off the what? "

" The tail! Off the Drooler! " said Mrs. Jamison, raising her voice. " It's that gray-and-white cat that hangs around the neighborhood. All the kids tease the poor thing, and Vernon was pulling his tail this afternoon. A piece of the tail came off in his hand, and he's been crying ever since. Now he's running a temperature."

There was a pause on the line. " Hmmm, " said her husband. " How's the cat's temperature? "

" Oh, the Drooler seems to be okay. He's just sitting under the junipers with three-quarters of a tail, but all the kids on the block are trampling on your lawn."

" My lawn! " Mr. Jamison shouted into the phone. " I'll be right there! "

Drummond Street, where the Jamisons lived, was lined with split-level houses, all of them identical except for the quality of their lawns. Some looked like cow pasture, some like country club fairways. Only Mr. Jamison's grass resembled green velvet.

Each family owned two cars, three bicycles, a tricycle, a baby stroller, a power mower, and an electric lawn edger, but no one claimed to own the Drooler. He was a large gray-and-white cat with an unattractive habit of driveling. Festoons of saliva continually draped his whiskers and chin, glistened on his breast, and collected in puddles on every doorstep where he elected to doze in the sun. If any resident of Drummond Street sat down in a patio chair and quickly stood up again, it meant that the Drooler had been there, napping and salivating copiously. He played no favorites but gave every household, one after the other, his damp blessing.

The Drooler had another defect that impaired his prestige. Two years before, a TV repairman had backed his truck over the Drooler's tail, which afterward drooped forlornly and was apparently insensible to pain.

The children rode their trikes over the tip of his tail to prove that it was totally numb, and because of his unappetizing appearance they jeered at him and made faces intended to scare him to death.

None of this ill-treatment bothered the Drooler, who continued to loiter wherever the youngsters gathered, waiting hopefully for their insults and purring at their abuse.

" Get outa here, Drooler, " they would yell. " You're a sloppy old cat, " and the Drooler would rub against their ankles and gaze at them with devotion.

When the Drooler lost the tip of his tail, he took it calmly, but Vernon — who was left holding the grisly souvenir—gave vent to mixed horror and guilt with a marathon of weeping. Only the reassurance that his father was coming home from the office succeeded in quieting him.

When Mr. Jamison arrived, he chased the wide-eyed, thumb-sucking spectators from his prize lawn, then called to his wife: " What's this bushel basket doing on my grass? "

" That's covering the Drooler's tail, " she said. " I didn't want to touch it. Vernon is in his bedroom, drinking cocoa."

At the sight of his father, Vernon opened his mouth in a piercing wail and clung to his parent with renewed anguish.

" Now that's enough, young man! " said Mr. Jamison, removing Vernon's sticky hands from the sleeve of his seersucker coat. " Crying won't fix the cat's tail. It was an accident, and there's nothing you can do about it — except to apologize and promise to be nice to the poor fellow in the future. He's one of God's creatures, and we must treat him with respect."

" He's crummy, " said Vernon, sniffling and rubbing his nose. " He slobbers all the time."

" He probably has an allergy. Now make up your mind to be kind to him, and he'll forgive you. Blow your nose."

" What'll we do with the tail? " Vernon whined, clawing his father's coat sleeve.

" We'll dig a hole in the backyard and bury it with a dignified ceremony. And don't yank my sleeve! How often have I told you to keep your hands off people's clothing? "

The interment of the Drooler's tail was observed by hordes of preschool mourners, and the cat himself made his moist presence felt as he rubbed against any ankle that would permit it. The accident that had shortened his tail had not curtailed his affection for his tormentors.

By the end of the week Drummond Street had forgotten about the tail; there was excitement of another sort. A new row of split-level houses was being added to the subdivision, and trucks and backhoes were swarming over the site.

One afternoon when all residents under ten years of age were supervising the sewer excavations, Vernon rushed home for his third chocolate-chip cookie and said to his mother: " The Drooler's smelling at our grass in the front. I think he found an animal down a hole."

" Oh, heavens! I hope the moles aren't burrowing in your father's lawn, " Mrs. Jamison said. " He'll have a fit."

An hour later Vernon raced home for a can of pop. " Hey, Mom, the Drooler's still smelling around. Gimme something to poke down the hole."

" Don't you dare touch your father's lawn. I'll go out and look at it."

The Drooler, Mrs. Jamison agreed, was performing a strange ritual, sniffing the grass eagerly, then retreating and twitching his nose. In a few seconds he was back at the same spot, repeating the performance with evident distaste, sneezing and baring his teeth.

Vernon shooed the cat away, and Mrs. Jamison examined a crack in the soil. " Why it's gas! I smell gas! " she cried. " I'll phone your father. Keep everyone away from it, Vernon. If it's a gas leak, there could be an explosion! "

Vernon ran back to the crowd around the backhoes. " Hey, I found a gas leak! " he said. " The whole street's gonna blow up. My mother's calling the cops."

Within a matter of minutes two emergency trucks rumbled into Drummond Street, and a service crew descended on the Jamisons' front lawn with testing apparatus and excavating equipment. Two men hurried from house to house, shutting off the gas lines.

Vernon, bounding with excitement, followed one of the men on his rounds. " Hey, I'm the one that found the gas leak, " he shouted, as he clung to the man's jacket.

" You're a hero, " the man said, smiling stiffly and shaking free of Vernon's clutch. " You probably saved the whole neighborhood from some bad trouble."

" I'm a hero! " Vernon proclaimed some minutes later when his father came home.

Mr. Jamison only groaned. " They've wrecked my lawn! There won't be two blades of grass left."

" I had a cake in the oven, and it's ruined, " his wife complained as she paced the floor, trying to quiet the baby, whose feeding was overdue.

The doorbell rang, and there on the front step stood a young woman with a tape recorder. Behind her was a man with a camera.

" We're from the Daily Times, " she said. " I understand your little boy saved the neighborhood from a disaster."

" Hey, that's me! " yelled Vemon. " I'm a hero! " and he grabbed the reporter's wrist.

" Vernon! " his father snapped. " Keep your hands off the lady."

" We'd like to take his picture, " she said.

" I don't think I want my son's picture in the paper, " Mr. Jamison said. " He would be —"

" Yeh yeh yeh, I want my picture in the paper, " Vernon squealed. He tugged at the camera. 'Take my picture! "

" Down, Junior, " said the photographer.

" Honey, " Mrs. Jamison whispered to her husband, " let them take his picture. It won't do any harm." So the entire family trooped to the hill of earth that had once been a lawn, Vernon clinging to the photographer's arm and Mrs. Jamison jiggling the fretful baby and talking to the woman from the newspaper.

" Exactly how did it happen? " the reporter asked.

" Well, " said Mrs. Jamison, " Vernon came running in and said the Drooler was sniffing at our front lawn."

" Who was sniffing? "

" The Drooler. He's just a cat that hangs around.... See! There he is under the junipers. He's a mess, but he loves the children."

" He's got a tail like a sheep."

" That's a weird story, " said Vernon's mother, rolling her eyes. " A couple of weeks ago my son pulled the cat's tail off."

" Really? Do they come off easily? "

" The Drooler's did. He didn't seem to mind."

" And what happened today? "

" Well, the Drooler was sniffing a crack in the ground, so I investigated and smelled gas — that's all."

The photographer, meanwhile, had pried Vernon loose from his camera and was posing the boy in front of the junipers. " Now stoop down, " he said, " as if you were examining the place where you smelled gas."

" Wait a minute, " said Mrs. Jamison. " Let me comb his hair and put him in a clean shirt. It won't take a second."

The photographer drew an impatient breath and looked up at the sky, and the reporter told him in a low voice: " It wasn't the kid who found the leak. It was the cat."

" That's even better. Let's shoot the cat." He aimed the camera at the Drooler and clicked off a whole roll of film.

When Vernon reappeared with damp hair and clean shirt, the photographer said: " Now stand where I told you and hold your cat so he's facing the camera."

" He's not my cat! " shouted Vernon. " I don't want my picture taken with that sloppy old Drooler."

" Sure you do, " said the man. " He's a celebrity. He smelled gas and saved the whole neighborhood."

" No, he didn't! " Vernon screamed, pounding the photographer in the ribs. " I saved the neighborhood! Get outa here, Drooler! " and he pitched a pebble at the cat, who blinked with pleasure and purred loudly.

" Vernon! " Mr. Jamison said sharply. " Do what the man says, or go in the house."

" That's all right, " said the photographer, suddenly agreeable. " Let him have his own way, " and he aimed his camera at Vernon and clicked the shutter — without, however, putting a new roll of film in the camera. To the reporter he added under his breath: " Let's get out of here. I can't stand a kid pawing me and grabbing my camera. Let's see the TV crew cope with the brat. Here comes their van."

So it was the Drooler's picture that appeared on the six o'clock news and in the Daily Times on the following morning. The story read: " A suburban cat with three-quarters of a tail averted an explosion yesterday when he sniffed out a break in a gas main, caused by sewer excavations nearby."

The photograph, which appeared on page one, was a good likeness of the Drooler, wet-chinned and congenial, and both the wire services and the national networks picked up the story. Almost overnight the Drooler became the media cat of the moment.

He is now receiving so much attention and so many offers that Mr. Jamison is acting as his personal manager. Since no family can lay undisputed claim to the Drooler, he has been incorporated, all shares being held equally by residents of Drummond Street. At the first shareholders' meeting a proposal to change the name of the street was hotly debated before being tabled.

Vernon has been sent away to school, and the Drooler is now occupying his room. He no longer drivels. After two visits to the veterinary clinic and a new diet of nutritionally balanced catfood, he has lost his unattractive habit. Nevertheless, T-shirts and bumper stickers still proclaim him as the Drooler, and his story will soon be made into a major motion picture. Meanwhile, news has been leaked to the press that the Hero of Drummond Street will be pictured on the cover of a national magazine, nude.

ENRICH YOUR VOCABULARY

1. Learn the meaning of the following words and reproduce the situations in which they are used:

to ponder abuse distaste

to ogle insult leak

copiously anguish fretful

to impair dignified to avert

to jeer tormentor to incorporate