Page 2 - Nutshell 1

How the Cats Domesticated Man

Old Grimalkin sighed. Her daughter’s litter was huge this time:
half a dozen wide-eyed hyperactive kittens several weeks away from
leaving the den. Twice a day their mother went hunting, leaving her
youngsters under the watchful but weary eyes of their grandcat. A
cuff on the ear or a half-pretend bite on the neck could silence the
more rambunctious ones for a while, but when they all came at her
at once she needed a more powerful tranquilizer.
“Grandkittens!” she scolded. “I will not tell you a story unless
you calm down right now.”
Immediately, silence and down on all haunches. Only Meringue
was smart enough to know that they were being blackmailed, but
she loved the old cat’s stories as much as the others.
“Which one?” asked Leonid. “I don’t want to hear the one about
Dick Whittington’s cat any more: it’s too silly.”
Little Chiffon, who would never grow as large as the others,
piped up: “Then tell us a new one. But not a sad story, like the one
about the poor cat inside the evil sorcerer’s box who was neither
dead nor alive.”
Grandcat thought about it for a moment. “Did I ever tell you
how the cats domesticated mankind?”
“No!” came a chorus of mewling.
“Then listen carefully, and you shall learn how Nyattula, King of
Sylvestria, saved his kingdom from destruction.”
The littermates huddled up next to her, as rapt in her spell of
words as any prey caught in a raptor’s hypnotic gaze.
“It was long ago, and far away, in a place and time where cats and
human beings were enemies. Why? Because people, being a new and
clever kind of monkey, made weapons as good as our claws or
fangs, and could make them fly through the air faster than we can
run. So they would attack us if we tried to eat any of them, and then
they would come into our territory to hunt for the same animals we
have traditionally culled in order to maintain the balance of nature.
But that is another story.”