It was a fresh September morning. Birds were singing, the sun was shining, and I was humming to myself as I tidied up after breakfast, when my feline companion started making troubling noises. “Eddie,” I asked, “what are you doing?”

Catlike, he didn’t say a thing. Which could have been because he was busy trying to get his nose into the tiny gap at the back of the houseboat’s dinette seats. More likely, he didn’t feel like responding. And, since he was a cat, whatever he didn’t feel like doing, he didn’t do.

“There are days,” I said, “that I wish I were more like you.”

Eddie’s yellow eyes flicked in my direction, then away.

For once, reading between the kitty lines was easy. “Yes, I know that anyone with any sense wishes to be a cat in general, and you in particular, but not everyone has sense, now, do they?”

My black-and-white tabby abruptly abandoned his efforts, jumped to the floor, and bumped the top of his head against the back of my leg. Since Eddie is a good-sized cat, this popped my leg forward against the kitchen cabinet.

“Ow!” I tossed the dish towel onto the tiny counter and rubbed my knee. “That’s proof. Washing breakfast dishes is hazardous to my health.”

“Mrr.”

“A bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice is the definition of breakfast, my furry friend. At least for all five feet of Minnie Hamilton.” I eyeballed myself from toe to shoulder. Other youthful expectations of mine had been that I’d grow taller than my mother and that my freakishly curly black hair would magically straighten. I’d given up on the height thing, but there was always a chance my hair would fix itself someday.

“Ready, Freddie?” I opened the door of the cat carrier. Eddie trotted inside, flopped onto his soft pink blanket, and glared at me.

“Giving me The Look won’t get us there any faster,” I told him.

“Mrr,” he said, and kept on saying that as I carried him into my car, as we pulled out of the marina parking lot and drove past the house where I’d soon be living, and the entire time we drove through downtown Chilson and to the library.