When I shot the cat it was sitting with its back to me. When the spear stuck into it, it jumped in the air and took off so fast it pulled the spear gun right out of my hand. Then it dragged the spear, cord, and gun behind it, until it came to the hedge that separated our chalet from the one next door. When it ran through the hedge the spear gun caught on the trunks of the hedge bushes and yanked the barbs out of the cat’s back.

I was glad it had pulled loose because it was easier to shoot a cat than to think what to do with it when you hit it, and it was jumping around spitting and growling and all.

The prayer meeting ended soon after, and by that time the cat had climbed the big apple tree and was sitting up in my old tree house Dad had built for me when I was little. Now it was growling in that low angry way cats do when they’re upset. I could see its tail all bushed out swishing back and forth and I felt sorry for it. But I also felt pleased that my aim was good since I planned to spear-gun fish all vacation. Not just a little but really concentrate on it and try to eat fish every night at the Pensione Biea. Maybe even have enough for the whole family to eat. If I saw anything I did not know was good to eat or that might be good to eat, like the octopus was, but not good enough, in the sense that it was not enjoyable or made you feel sick, then I wouldn’t even shoot it. I was going to swim out beyond the point of our bay to shoot the big fish that were out there. This was farther than I had ever been before. I had asked Dad about it, and he said that now I was almost fourteen he would move the swimming limits farther out for me since I was much older and more responsible.

He said that before I shot the cat, and I didn’t tell him about doing it so he didn’t change his mind about the responsible part.

I left a little blood, just a smear, and a couple of black cat hairs stuck to the barbs of my spear gun. This was because Mom had been reading a book to me by Jack London about men in the Yukon living rough, and it seemed like a good idea to leave the first blood of the hunting season on my spear like the Indians did when they marked their foreheads with a smear of blood from their first elk kill. As the blood dried I had to wet it a little and rub it around because otherwise it would have come off my spear like most of the cat hairs did.