ANASTASIO ATTANASIO ALIAS RICKY AND THE KING OF THE CATS
- The first chapter in the Adventures of Anastasio Attanasio -
When he was three, Anastasio Attanasio, fifth and last child of an old and famous wizarding family, had pointed his finger to himself and said: “I am Ricky.” And from that moment on, there had been no changing his mind. He was Ricky, and to Ricky he would answer; except - to be fair - when he had done something more than usually disastrous. In that case, he would respond to: “ANASTASIO ATTANASIO!!” with every evidence of embarrassment; even more so when his father saw fit to call not just for “ANASTASIO ATTANASIO!!”, but for “ANASTASIO GIUSEPPE PANDOLFO GEROLAMO MARIA ATTANASIO!!” From the number of baptismal names used, little Ricky could easily measure the seriousness of parental displeasure. Using all five was usually an off-to-bed-without-your-supper matter. Wizarding parents do not usually inflict physical punishment on children; the danger of unleashing wild magic is too great; but they have their own ways of making a point.
And yet Ricky got away with far more than his father suspected. Being by far the youngest of the family, he had the run of his father’s mansion from morning to night; and since his father, divorced and horribly busy, could not take the time to pay attention to him every minute, it was only the walls of the house that could tell all the things the child did. As his father had insisted on having a partly Muggle set-up, Ricky learned when he was four that sticking his little fingers in the electric outlet led to immediate and unpleasant effects. He learned that ivy was not often as solid as it looked, and that some plants could sting like nobody’s business. And he learned - as many little children of his age do - that pulling the cat’s tail was fun. Only this cat also taught him another lesson: magical cats, perhaps with some Kneazle blood in them, were perfectly able to fight back. The second time Ricky tried, he yelped and dropped the tail as soon as he had touched He felt exactly like he had felt when he had poked his fingers in the outlet.
And so things might have stayed had it not been for a rare and charming visitor to the Attanasio house. Apart from his work, Ricky’s father did not often entertain or have guests, but there was no rule against it, and from time to time Ricky would be told to behave, placed in clean clothes, and briefly introduced to some unknown outsider. On such occasions, he gave an altogether untypical performance, often hiding behind his father’s legs or some piece of furniture. The family would make jokes about the difference, and the visitors would go away with an impression of a timid, silent, angelic child.
By the time he was six, Ricky had learned to listen. And when his father’s visitor started asking about the curious Muggle devices in his house, and his father to courteously explain, he was paying attention.
When he got to electricity and its uses, the young witch sounded distinctly nervous. “Isn’t it supposed to very dangerous?” she asked, looking at the outlets with a worried eye. “I heard Muggles can kill people with it.” And Ricky, thinking of the shock, could only agree.
“Not with a little ordinary caution,” answered his father. “The cables are covered in plastic or rubber, which means that you do not get to touch live electricity unless you cut them off first. The inlets are too thin for people to reach inside” (Ricky almost said “Hah!”), and if you really have to touch them for any reason, if you put on rubber gloves and rubber soles it won’t hurt you. Of course, if I had any problem with it, I would call in a specialist. I would never try to fool with it myself.”
“I see,” said the young woman thoughtfully. “Electricity can’t go through rubber, can it?” And she smiled at Ricky’s father. “I wish I’d known you at Hogwarts, sir. I am sure that I lost Ravenclaw ten points for a wrong answer on this.”
But Ricky was no longer paying attention.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Early the next day, as soon as his father and his visitor left, the rubber gloves vanished from the wardrobe.
………………………………………………………………………………………
Gales of laughter rang out from every room in succession, as an exhilarated Ricky ran after the cat. He stalked the animal through furniture, curtains and carpets, and each time he managed to surprise it, he pulled its tail. And the cat yowled and ran. And Ricky ran after him, laughing madly. Even the family house-elf could not stop him; confused, and left without orders by the absent master, she just kept ineffectually going from room to room, reproaching Ricky without effect.
Eventually the cat escaped into the garden. Ricky managed to find it once more; but after that the animal made itself very effectually scarce. Ricky looked for it for a while, but he eventually lost interest. He sat down to play with some coloured pebbles he had found; and was soon asleep in the warm morning sun.
………………………………………………………………………………………
When Ricky woke up, something had changed. The sun was gone - it seemed as though it was night; and though he could see the garden still, it was strangely different. The trees, the trimmed hedges, the familiar paths and flowerbeds in which he had played since he first had been able to walk, were still there; but pacing back and forth, each apparently absorbed in its own walk, moving as though each of them was marching through an invisible labyrinth, head and tail held high, were one - two - twenty - a hundred - hundreds and hundreds of cats. They moved patiently, evenly, hypnotically, none in the path of any other, turning or turning back seemingly at random, and yet regularly. Ricky felt his breath coming short, and he was terribly scared; but scared as he was, the patterned motions of the cats held his eyes with a strange fascination.
One cat among them moved among the others, ever closer, ever nearer, turning, stalking, and turning again. He never, until the last second, looked at the child; and yet Ricky seemed to know that that cat was coming to him. And as it came closer, Ricky slowly realized that it was bigger than any cat he had ever seen - as big as a dog - as big as a Labrador. Ricky sat rooted to the spot, knowing, even if he could not have expressed it, that running would do no good.
Time passed - a long time - a scarily long time. And when at last the great cat was close enough to Ricky to be touched, he turned one final time, and - as the other cats kept pacing their intricate, incomprehensible patterns - its eyes locked with Ricky’s. Large, expressionless, staring eyes with slit pupils. The child could not look elsewhere.
“Anastasio Attanasio!” said a purring, unhuman voice. “Anastasio Giuseppe Pandolfo Gerolamo Maria Attanasio!”
“Yes, sir,” said the child in a barely audible tone.
“You have troubled one of my subjects, child,” went on the purring sound. “Why do you pull the tails of cats?”
“It… it makes me laugh.”
“Oh, really?”
“The tail, sir… the tail is so funny.”
No sooner had Ricky spoken, than he felt a strange pull above his backside. It was as though someone had just hung a heavy weight at the base of his spine; his legs nearly gave way under the unexpected addition. He turned his head to look, and, at first, could not understand. A kind of strange, upright, circular pillow or tube towered directly behind him.
Then the truth struck him. He had a tail!
Ricky burst out crying; and, as he cried, he heard the cats, one by one, burst out laughing. Soon, the whole host of cats, as they paced their strange patterns, were laughing; indeed, it seemed as though the trees and the hedges, the stones and the flowerbeds, were all seized by a common hilarity - as though the visible world were laughing at Ricky’s long, tall tail in a million clear voices.
Still sobbing, the child approached the great cat and begged it to remove the tail.
“Why should I?”
“All the kids will be laughing at me >sob!< And my father will be mad at me!”
“Why should the kids laugh at you? That’s a very handsome tail you’ve got there.”
“But people don’t have tails!”
“Quite right they don’t. And they look pretty silly to us cats, little one, going about on two legs and with not even a tail between them. You, at least, look more like a cat now.”
“But that’s not right!”
“How is that not right?”
“People don’t have tails! It is wrong for us!”
“Oh, and it was right to hound and frighten one of my people because you found it funny?”
“I… I don’t know…”
“As I said, little one, you look much better now to me. But if you insist…”
Before Ricky could tell what had happened, the great cat had leapt right over his head. One moment later, he felt a dreadful pain in his tail.
“…there. I’ll cut it out for you.” There were the signs of blood and hair on the great cat’s jaws, and when Ricky looked at his tail again, it was shorter and bloody.
So began the most dreadful time that Ricky had ever known. The cat stalked him all over the gardens, as Ricky fled and hid; and every time that it got the drop on him, it took a bite of the tail. Ricky fled from hedge to hedge, through flowerbeds and pebbled paths, trying desperately to get to home and safety; but everywhere, any time he turned, there was the cat. And as Ricky was no good at hiding his tail - he had never practised with a tail on before - the tail was often visible even when the rest of him was covered up; and every time the cat saw it, it took a bite - and Ricky howled with pain.
In the end, Ricky was cornered in the open ground before the house, standing alone before the cat, with nothing but a red stain where his tail had been, and all the other cats still pacing in patterns behind him and around him. And the cat just stood there before him and looked straight at him, with those large, patient, expressionless, enduring eyes.
“Well,” it said, “are you happier now?”
“Happier?”
“I did what you asked. I rid you of your tail.” Ricky looked and it was true; not even a stump was left.
“I… I thought you were going to eat me.”
“I did what you asked.”
“You scared me to death!”
“Really?”
Ricky was getting angry now. “Really really! You chased me up and down and bit me and would not leave me alone…”
“What I did to you” broke in the cat “is exactly what you did to your cat.”
For a second, there was total silence.
“With one exception. Your cat did not ask you for anything. He did not ask you to pull his tail over and over again, or to pursue him screaming all over the house. He did ask you to leave him alone, but you would not listen.”
There was more silence; and then Ricky spoke in a small, shamefaced voice, totally unlike his previous tone: “Is that why you did it?”
The cat answered quietly: “And if it was? What would you say if it was?”
“Maybe.. maybe I deserved it.”
The cat stretched out a paw and placed it on Ricky’s shoulder, and looked him straight in the eyes: “You, Ricky Attanasio,” it said, “could one day be a very powerful person. But whether you are or not, you have to remember this: that you are not the only one who feels things. You are not the only one who can laugh or cry, love or hate. Everyone around you feels the same as you do. If you hurt someone else… you do as much wrong as if someone else were to hurt you. And you should hate it just as much.”
And as the cat was speaking, Ricky saw that the crowd of cats was beginning to thin. One by one, they seemed to be walking away, as though their strange patterns were now leading away from him.
“Do you understand, Ricky? When you do wrong, you are as bad as those who do wrong to you. If you do not like them, then you should not act as they do.”
Ricky said nothing. His eyes remained fix in that calm, immobile, expressionless animal face….
………………………………………………………………………………
Ricky stirred and woke up. The strange night had gone with all the cats, and it was now early afternoon. He felt tired, hot with the burning sun, and ravenously hungry. But below all the other things, he felt something else… disturbed. Something had happened today, and he was not sure that he would understand it for some time to come.
…………………………………………………………………………………
On the evening of that same day, his father came home late after saying goodbye to his visitor of the previous day. Another visitor, as he knew all too well, was waiting for him in his studio, and, as he entered it, he took off his hat and bowed.
“Your Majesty, welcome.”
“Your excellency,” replied the cat, “thank you.”
“It is really I who should thank you, Your Majesty. For teaching my son such a useful lesson… and for doing so, all things considered, so gently.”
“Gently?”
“I heard tales in which you were by no means so forgiving.”
The cat only smiled.
“My son loves to have fun. God knows he should - it is his time for it - but I would not want him to mistake fun with cruelty. It is a temptation all too easy for wizards.”
“Indeed it is, Your Excellency. But he is only a child… if I have been easy on him, it is partly for that.”
“And partly?”
“And partly -“ the cat smiled a wholly different smile - because even the King of the Cats does not want you for an enemy, Your Excellency.”
“Ah, well, Your Majesty, I too would rather have your sheathed than your unsheathed claws. I am glad we understand each other so well.”
“Indeed. You have a most promising kitten there, Your Excellency. May he be a support in the long years to come.”
“Your Majesty is most kind. I hope I may have the honour of your company again.”
“I hope so too, Mr.Minister.”
END OF THE EPISODE.
When he was three, Anastasio Attanasio, fifth and last child of an old and famous wizarding family, had pointed his finger to himself and said: “I am Ricky.” And from that moment on, there had been no changing his mind. He was Ricky, and to Ricky he would answer; except - to be fair - when he had done something more than usually disastrous. In that case, he would respond to: “ANASTASIO ATTANASIO!!” with every evidence of embarrassment; even more so when his father saw fit to call not just for “ANASTASIO ATTANASIO!!”, but for “ANASTASIO GIUSEPPE PANDOLFO GEROLAMO MARIA ATTANASIO!!” From the number of baptismal names used, little Ricky could easily measure the seriousness of parental displeasure. Using all five was usually an off-to-bed-without-your-supper matter. Wizarding parents do not usually inflict physical punishment on children; the danger of unleashing wild magic is too great; but they have their own ways of making a point.
And yet Ricky got away with far more than his father suspected. Being by far the youngest of the family, he had the run of his father’s mansion from morning to night; and since his father, divorced and horribly busy, could not take the time to pay attention to him every minute, it was only the walls of the house that could tell all the things the child did. As his father had insisted on having a partly Muggle set-up, Ricky learned when he was four that sticking his little fingers in the electric outlet led to immediate and unpleasant effects. He learned that ivy was not often as solid as it looked, and that some plants could sting like nobody’s business. And he learned - as many little children of his age do - that pulling the cat’s tail was fun. Only this cat also taught him another lesson: magical cats, perhaps with some Kneazle blood in them, were perfectly able to fight back. The second time Ricky tried, he yelped and dropped the tail as soon as he had touched He felt exactly like he had felt when he had poked his fingers in the outlet.
And so things might have stayed had it not been for a rare and charming visitor to the Attanasio house. Apart from his work, Ricky’s father did not often entertain or have guests, but there was no rule against it, and from time to time Ricky would be told to behave, placed in clean clothes, and briefly introduced to some unknown outsider. On such occasions, he gave an altogether untypical performance, often hiding behind his father’s legs or some piece of furniture. The family would make jokes about the difference, and the visitors would go away with an impression of a timid, silent, angelic child.
By the time he was six, Ricky had learned to listen. And when his father’s visitor started asking about the curious Muggle devices in his house, and his father to courteously explain, he was paying attention.
When he got to electricity and its uses, the young witch sounded distinctly nervous. “Isn’t it supposed to very dangerous?” she asked, looking at the outlets with a worried eye. “I heard Muggles can kill people with it.” And Ricky, thinking of the shock, could only agree.
“Not with a little ordinary caution,” answered his father. “The cables are covered in plastic or rubber, which means that you do not get to touch live electricity unless you cut them off first. The inlets are too thin for people to reach inside” (Ricky almost said “Hah!”), and if you really have to touch them for any reason, if you put on rubber gloves and rubber soles it won’t hurt you. Of course, if I had any problem with it, I would call in a specialist. I would never try to fool with it myself.”
“I see,” said the young woman thoughtfully. “Electricity can’t go through rubber, can it?” And she smiled at Ricky’s father. “I wish I’d known you at Hogwarts, sir. I am sure that I lost Ravenclaw ten points for a wrong answer on this.”
But Ricky was no longer paying attention.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Early the next day, as soon as his father and his visitor left, the rubber gloves vanished from the wardrobe.
………………………………………………………………………………………
Gales of laughter rang out from every room in succession, as an exhilarated Ricky ran after the cat. He stalked the animal through furniture, curtains and carpets, and each time he managed to surprise it, he pulled its tail. And the cat yowled and ran. And Ricky ran after him, laughing madly. Even the family house-elf could not stop him; confused, and left without orders by the absent master, she just kept ineffectually going from room to room, reproaching Ricky without effect.
Eventually the cat escaped into the garden. Ricky managed to find it once more; but after that the animal made itself very effectually scarce. Ricky looked for it for a while, but he eventually lost interest. He sat down to play with some coloured pebbles he had found; and was soon asleep in the warm morning sun.
………………………………………………………………………………………
When Ricky woke up, something had changed. The sun was gone - it seemed as though it was night; and though he could see the garden still, it was strangely different. The trees, the trimmed hedges, the familiar paths and flowerbeds in which he had played since he first had been able to walk, were still there; but pacing back and forth, each apparently absorbed in its own walk, moving as though each of them was marching through an invisible labyrinth, head and tail held high, were one - two - twenty - a hundred - hundreds and hundreds of cats. They moved patiently, evenly, hypnotically, none in the path of any other, turning or turning back seemingly at random, and yet regularly. Ricky felt his breath coming short, and he was terribly scared; but scared as he was, the patterned motions of the cats held his eyes with a strange fascination.
One cat among them moved among the others, ever closer, ever nearer, turning, stalking, and turning again. He never, until the last second, looked at the child; and yet Ricky seemed to know that that cat was coming to him. And as it came closer, Ricky slowly realized that it was bigger than any cat he had ever seen - as big as a dog - as big as a Labrador. Ricky sat rooted to the spot, knowing, even if he could not have expressed it, that running would do no good.
Time passed - a long time - a scarily long time. And when at last the great cat was close enough to Ricky to be touched, he turned one final time, and - as the other cats kept pacing their intricate, incomprehensible patterns - its eyes locked with Ricky’s. Large, expressionless, staring eyes with slit pupils. The child could not look elsewhere.
“Anastasio Attanasio!” said a purring, unhuman voice. “Anastasio Giuseppe Pandolfo Gerolamo Maria Attanasio!”
“Yes, sir,” said the child in a barely audible tone.
“You have troubled one of my subjects, child,” went on the purring sound. “Why do you pull the tails of cats?”
“It… it makes me laugh.”
“Oh, really?”
“The tail, sir… the tail is so funny.”
No sooner had Ricky spoken, than he felt a strange pull above his backside. It was as though someone had just hung a heavy weight at the base of his spine; his legs nearly gave way under the unexpected addition. He turned his head to look, and, at first, could not understand. A kind of strange, upright, circular pillow or tube towered directly behind him.
Then the truth struck him. He had a tail!
Ricky burst out crying; and, as he cried, he heard the cats, one by one, burst out laughing. Soon, the whole host of cats, as they paced their strange patterns, were laughing; indeed, it seemed as though the trees and the hedges, the stones and the flowerbeds, were all seized by a common hilarity - as though the visible world were laughing at Ricky’s long, tall tail in a million clear voices.
Still sobbing, the child approached the great cat and begged it to remove the tail.
“Why should I?”
“All the kids will be laughing at me >sob!< And my father will be mad at me!”
“Why should the kids laugh at you? That’s a very handsome tail you’ve got there.”
“But people don’t have tails!”
“Quite right they don’t. And they look pretty silly to us cats, little one, going about on two legs and with not even a tail between them. You, at least, look more like a cat now.”
“But that’s not right!”
“How is that not right?”
“People don’t have tails! It is wrong for us!”
“Oh, and it was right to hound and frighten one of my people because you found it funny?”
“I… I don’t know…”
“As I said, little one, you look much better now to me. But if you insist…”
Before Ricky could tell what had happened, the great cat had leapt right over his head. One moment later, he felt a dreadful pain in his tail.
“…there. I’ll cut it out for you.” There were the signs of blood and hair on the great cat’s jaws, and when Ricky looked at his tail again, it was shorter and bloody.
So began the most dreadful time that Ricky had ever known. The cat stalked him all over the gardens, as Ricky fled and hid; and every time that it got the drop on him, it took a bite of the tail. Ricky fled from hedge to hedge, through flowerbeds and pebbled paths, trying desperately to get to home and safety; but everywhere, any time he turned, there was the cat. And as Ricky was no good at hiding his tail - he had never practised with a tail on before - the tail was often visible even when the rest of him was covered up; and every time the cat saw it, it took a bite - and Ricky howled with pain.
In the end, Ricky was cornered in the open ground before the house, standing alone before the cat, with nothing but a red stain where his tail had been, and all the other cats still pacing in patterns behind him and around him. And the cat just stood there before him and looked straight at him, with those large, patient, expressionless, enduring eyes.
“Well,” it said, “are you happier now?”
“Happier?”
“I did what you asked. I rid you of your tail.” Ricky looked and it was true; not even a stump was left.
“I… I thought you were going to eat me.”
“I did what you asked.”
“You scared me to death!”
“Really?”
Ricky was getting angry now. “Really really! You chased me up and down and bit me and would not leave me alone…”
“What I did to you” broke in the cat “is exactly what you did to your cat.”
For a second, there was total silence.
“With one exception. Your cat did not ask you for anything. He did not ask you to pull his tail over and over again, or to pursue him screaming all over the house. He did ask you to leave him alone, but you would not listen.”
There was more silence; and then Ricky spoke in a small, shamefaced voice, totally unlike his previous tone: “Is that why you did it?”
The cat answered quietly: “And if it was? What would you say if it was?”
“Maybe.. maybe I deserved it.”
The cat stretched out a paw and placed it on Ricky’s shoulder, and looked him straight in the eyes: “You, Ricky Attanasio,” it said, “could one day be a very powerful person. But whether you are or not, you have to remember this: that you are not the only one who feels things. You are not the only one who can laugh or cry, love or hate. Everyone around you feels the same as you do. If you hurt someone else… you do as much wrong as if someone else were to hurt you. And you should hate it just as much.”
And as the cat was speaking, Ricky saw that the crowd of cats was beginning to thin. One by one, they seemed to be walking away, as though their strange patterns were now leading away from him.
“Do you understand, Ricky? When you do wrong, you are as bad as those who do wrong to you. If you do not like them, then you should not act as they do.”
Ricky said nothing. His eyes remained fix in that calm, immobile, expressionless animal face….
………………………………………………………………………………
Ricky stirred and woke up. The strange night had gone with all the cats, and it was now early afternoon. He felt tired, hot with the burning sun, and ravenously hungry. But below all the other things, he felt something else… disturbed. Something had happened today, and he was not sure that he would understand it for some time to come.
…………………………………………………………………………………
On the evening of that same day, his father came home late after saying goodbye to his visitor of the previous day. Another visitor, as he knew all too well, was waiting for him in his studio, and, as he entered it, he took off his hat and bowed.
“Your Majesty, welcome.”
“Your excellency,” replied the cat, “thank you.”
“It is really I who should thank you, Your Majesty. For teaching my son such a useful lesson… and for doing so, all things considered, so gently.”
“Gently?”
“I heard tales in which you were by no means so forgiving.”
The cat only smiled.
“My son loves to have fun. God knows he should - it is his time for it - but I would not want him to mistake fun with cruelty. It is a temptation all too easy for wizards.”
“Indeed it is, Your Excellency. But he is only a child… if I have been easy on him, it is partly for that.”
“And partly?”
“And partly -“ the cat smiled a wholly different smile - because even the King of the Cats does not want you for an enemy, Your Excellency.”
“Ah, well, Your Majesty, I too would rather have your sheathed than your unsheathed claws. I am glad we understand each other so well.”
“Indeed. You have a most promising kitten there, Your Excellency. May he be a support in the long years to come.”
“Your Majesty is most kind. I hope I may have the honour of your company again.”
“I hope so too, Mr.Minister.”
END OF THE EPISODE.