Napoleon and the Boy Who Stayed

“It's...unique?” Darcy struggled to find the words to describe her gift.

“It’s alive and kicking alright,” her older brother Peter leaned over to have a look.

“I don’t get it…” proclaimed Gregory, the younger one. He crinkled up his nose in confusion.

“Children, leave Darcy alone,” commanded their father. He placed a hand on Darcy’s shoulder and continued, “if your sister is going to prove to me that she can handle a car,” he stressed the word, “then she’ll have to show me she can handle this minor responsibility first.”

Darcy’s face lit up, “a car?! Dad, do you really mean it??”

Mr. Pembly nodded, a serious smile on his face. 

“Don’t you just adore your gift?” her mother cut in with an obnoxious ‘awwww’.

Darcy turned her attention back to her present. She stared at it. Her brother’s stared at it. The gift stared right back.

Meow. The gift in question writhed under the close scrutiny of Darcy and her brothers. 

It was yellow and had burnt orange streaks like a tiger. 

“You should call it Tiger!” exclaimed Gregory.

“I will do no such thing,” shot back Darcy. 

“How about Simba?” offered Peter.

Darcy rolled her eyes.

“I think it looks like a lion,” said Gregory very seriously.

Darcy was sure the kitten’s watery grey eyes did NOT look like a lion. She shook her head.

The kitten stood up and immediately stumbled and fell. It’s impossibly short legs flailed wildly before it struggled onto all four legs and staggered drunkenly in the direction of the kitchen. 

Darcy giggled.

“He’s Napoleon,” she declared.

Peter laughed and Gregory looked incredibly confused.

“Napoleon was really short, like the kitten’s legs” explained Peter.

Gregory looked at the kitten just as he crashed into the trash bin and flopped over from the impact. His mouth made a big ‘o’ shape of realization. 

Darcy jumped up and gathered the kitten in her hands. He flailed out and scratched her arm, mewling desperately.

“Ouch,” Darcy put the kitten on the carpet between her brothers and cradled her stinging arm. 

“Darcy, you’ll have to get everything Napoleon needs as soon as you can,” Mr. Pembly warned.

“But Dad, he scratched me,” Darcy complained, “can’t we just get a dog?” she asked hopefully, “or a bird?”

“Darcy! A little gratitude would be nice!” accused her mother.

Darcy stared at her feet, “sorry,” she mumbled.

“That’s quite enough,” cut in Mr. Pembly, “take your brothers with you and don’t forget anything.” 

He handed his daughter the keys to his Range Rover with a knowing look.

Darcy’s face lit up for the second time that day and she snatched the keys eagerly.

“Dad! No fair, I’m older!” complained Peter halfheartedly. 

“Case in point, you’re legally an adult with a license so it’s your responsibility to drive with Darcy until she gets her license,” said their father severely. 

Peter sighed and grabbed Gregory’s arm, “come on losers,” he said. 

Darcy glanced at her mother sprawled on the floor cooing to the kitten and then hurried after them.

A feeling of dread grew in her chest as they made their way through the pet aisle in Pet’s Corner. Cat litter, kitten food, a green-brown puke colored bed, cat toys that jangled and rattled cacophonously- all these mildly terrifying items were tossed into the cart and then in the back of Mr. Pembly’s Range Rover. 

Darcy felt sick. She started the car but didn’t move.

“What’re you doing dumbo, let’s go!” urged Peter.

“I don’t want it,” whispered Darcy, staring out the front window.

“Want what?” asked Peter sharply.

“The cat.”

“Ahh,” Peter cracked his neck and stared out the window thoughtfully.

“Why?” Gregory piped up from the back seat.

“Why should I?” shot back Darcy.

“It’s a kitten, everybody loves kittens,” offered Peter helpfully.

“I hate it,” said Darcy firmly.

And she was sure she did. 

That night the animal urinated on her bed and stone-faced Mr. Pembly told her to clean it up as if it was her fault. Then it pooped on the carpet in her room. And Mr. Pembly’s stone-face was accompanied by their mother’s gagging and retching. 

It was always something with the tiger-striped cat.

When it was potty trained the litter still had to be taken out regularly. When it meowed in the middle of the night, Darcy had to shut the door to her room and let it meow throughout the night while everyone else slept peacefully. For a while, the cat scratched and hissed at everyone who tried to pet it. Then it went through a phase where it would helpfully deliver hairballs into Darcy’s lap twice a day. 

Darcy was sure she hated the cat.

But she eventually got her car. She had to drive the yellow cat to the vet puking and retching on the floor of her brand new Range Rover Evoque. It stank for weeks. 

She cursed at it and stamped her foot. But the cat didn’t go anywhere. It stayed lurking around the house and curled up on Darcy’s bed purring and rumbling like a small tank. 

Its legs stayed short too. Gregory thought it looked all the more like a lion prowling around on stumpy legs. But Darcy couldn’t see it. The cat’s eyes were still light and watery the same as they’d been when it was a kitten.

Everything about the cat seemed to stay.

When Mr. Pembly left, the cat stayed and purred deliciously on Mrs. Pembly’s chest while she cried and ate ice cream.

When Darcy’s boyfriend came over reeking of weed and alcohol, the cat swiped at his shin and sank its teeth into his hand as he reached down to pet him. The boy left but the cat stayed and rumbled away at Darcy’s feet while she cried and ate maltesers. 

When Peter was shipped out, the cat was the last to say goodbye. It rubbed its head against his uniform and meowed. Then it curled up at Darcy’s feet while she and Gregory talked late into the night.

The cat would ride with Darcy and Gregory when Gregory was learning to drive and Peter wasn’t there. 

It seemed to like dividing its time between Darcy, Gregory, and Mrs. Pembly who was always sad these days and whose waistline was steadily growing every day. 

Soon enough the cat only had to divide its time between Darcy and Gregory. They would visit Mrs. Pembly in the hospital from time to time but even those visits stopped. The children had made one last stop at a garden of tombstones and old Mr. Pembly had come to watch Mrs. Pembly be planted under her own tombstone. 

Mr. Pembly left after a few days, but the cat stayed. 

Gregory was next. Each one of the children had gone to college locally but Gregory wanted to move out once his four years were done.

The cat didn’t go anywhere and for a while, it was just Darcy and Napoleon in the old house. 

Then there was another boyfriend. The cat scratched him but the boy didn’t go anywhere. He stayed just like the cat. 

Napoleon wasn’t invited to the wedding but he didn’t mind. He could feel his paws stiffening and his haunches begin to ache. He was glad that the boy was going to take over his watch. It felt like a changing of the guard in a way. 

“Sir, yes sir!” the boy would salute the cat.

The cat would stand at attention, his back arched and his whiskers bristling. The boy was nice and he treated the cat like a general. The cat would sometimes leave his spot at Darcy’s feet and have long conversations with the boy. 

Apparently, marriage meant that the boy was going to be here for a while. The cat felt very content.

One night, the cat felt very cold. Darcy noticed the old creature staring at her from the floor.

“You’re a good cat, Napoleon,” she said, hugging the cat gently for fear he would break. 

Napoleon purred. He liked it when she called him by his name. He leaned his quivering nose against her face for a moment. Then he climbed down and rubbed against the boy’s leg. He meowed and it meant “I have to go now so you have to take my place. Stay with her and don’t ever leave.”

The boy seemed to understand and he scratched the cat’s head for a long moment.

The next morning Darcy found the cat frozen in the garden.

She cried because she had somehow believed the cat was going to stay forever. 

The boy cried too but he did it quietly so no one would see him.

They planted Napoleon next to Mrs. Pembly and soon there was a new gravestone for Mr. Pembly on the other side of the cat. 

Sunflowers grew where Napoleon had been planted and Darcy loved them. 

They reminded her of the sunshiney yellow that stayed with her even though she hadn’t asked for it.

One day she brought a kid to the graves. She talked to her parents for a while and she told the kid that his grandparents were the stones in the ground. 

The kid looked confused and ran back to the car where the boy was waiting. The boy had stayed with Darcy and Napoleon would have purred if he knew. 

Finally, Darcy spoke to the two gravestones and the clump of sunflowers between them.

“Thank you,” she said, “I loved your gift. It was perfect.”



Then she went home to her family and had dinner.