Smudge Does the Rounds

Once there was a tall old house at the end of a lane, and in it lived an old grey cat called Smudge, who had one white paw and a great deal on his mind.

What was on his mind was everybody. Every night, when the house had gone to bed, Smudge came down to the bottom of the stairs, where the slippers were left in a row, and he counted them. One pair, two pairs, three pairs. He counted slowly and seriously, with his tail wrapped round his feet. If he lost his place, he started again from one. A pair of slippers meant a sleeper, and Smudge liked to know how many sleepers he had before he began.

Then he looked up.

At the top of the stairs was a long landing window, and at midnight exactly the moon came and sat in it. It sat there the way a cat sits on a sunny sill, round and pale and pleased with itself. It stayed for exactly as long as it took to go round the house once. Nobody knows whether the moon waited for Smudge, or Smudge hurried for the moon. They had always come out even.

So up went Smudge, past the moon, and round.

He went to Mom and Dad first, then to Lou’s two big brothers, and last of all to Lou, whose door was nearest the goldfish bowl. At each bed he hopped up, very lightly for an old cat, and set his white paw on the blanket. And the blanket tucked itself in. One corner, two corners, three corners, four, neat as a letter in an envelope. It stayed warm until morning, however cold the night got.

Then Smudge sat beside the goldfish bowl on the landing until the water was perfectly still, which is how you know a goldfish has gone to sleep. That was the end of the round, and the moon got up and went on its way.

You may be wondering whether anybody knew about this. Mostly they did not. Every morning Mom woke up tucked in at all four corners, snug as a parcel, and said, “Thank you for tucking me in.”

And Dad said, “I didn’t. You tucked me in.”

And Mom said, “I certainly did not.” They had this conversation every morning for years and never got to the bottom of it.

But Lou knew. She had watched Smudge do his rounds from under her blanket for as long as she could remember. She had seen the moon in the window and the white paw and the four corners tucking. She had never said a word, not to Mom, not to her brothers, not even to Smudge. She thought he might be shy about it.

The tall old house was known as the best-sleeping house on the lane. Nobody in it ever had cold feet or a bad night. The neighbors said it must be the thick walls.

* * *

Then came midwinter, and the whole family came to stay.

Two aunts came, and three cousins, and Grandpa, with a suitcase and a bag of oranges. The aunts had the spare room. The cousins had camp beds, one in the hall, one behind the piano and one by the fire. Grandpa had the sofa. The sofa was not on Smudge’s round, because nobody had ever slept on it before except Smudge.

That night Smudge came down to the bottom of the stairs and found slippers all along the hall and round the umbrella stand. There were furry ones and fluffy ones and one pair with rabbit ears. Smudge sat down and began.

One pair, two pairs, three pairs. He got as far as nine, and then he came to a tartan slipper sitting next to a plain brown one. That was not a pair. That was half of one pair and half of another, and where were the other halves? He lost his place. He started again from one.

The second time he got to ten and a half, which is not a number of anybody. He started again from one.

The third time he decided the tartan slipper and the plain slipper must belong to somebody who was not very good at slippers, and he counted them as a pair just to be getting on. That made eleven. Eleven sleepers. Smudge had never had more than five.

He looked up. The moon was already in the window.

Up went Smudge, and round, as fast as an old cat can go, which is faster than you would think and slower than he would have liked. Mom and Dad: paw, and four corners. The big brothers: paw, four corners, paw, four corners. The aunts were in one big bed and took up all of it, so one paw did for both. He left Lou for last, as he always did, and went down again for the cousins.

The camp beds were the trouble. They were low, and they were in odd places, and in the moonlight one camp bed looks very like another. Smudge tucked in the cousin in the hall. Then he came round the other way and tucked in the cousin in the hall again. He set his paw on a heap of coats on a chair, which tucked itself in beautifully and was nobody at all. He could not find the other two cousins anywhere.

He went to the foot of the stairs and looked up. The moon had slid almost to the edge of the window, and half the house was still untucked.

Smudge sat down on the bottom stair. It is not often a cat does not know what to do, and he did not care for it.

That was when Lou came down the stairs in her socks.

She had been listening from under her blanket, the way she always did. She had heard him go up and down and up again, which was not how a round went, and she had peeped out and seen the moon.

“You’ve done the hall twice,” she said, very quietly. “There’s one behind the piano and one by the fire.”

Smudge looked at her. He did not seem surprised. Perhaps he had known all along that she was watching. Cats generally do.

“I’ll do the piano,” said Lou. “You do the fire.”

So Lou tucked in the cousin behind the piano with her own two hands, the ordinary way, one corner, two corners, three corners, four. Smudge put his paw on the cousin by the fire. A blanket tucked by a pair of hands that mean it is very nearly as warm as one tucked by magic.

“Now Grandpa,” said Lou.

Smudge looked at her as if to say, who?

“The odd slippers are his,” said Lou. “He lost the other tartan one on the train. He’s on the sofa.”

Grandpa was on the sofa with one foot sticking out and his blanket half on the floor. Lou picked the blanket up and tucked it in round his foot. Smudge hopped onto the arm of the sofa and set his white paw on it, and the blanket tucked in the rest of its corners and settled down warm. Grandpa sighed in his sleep and stopped looking cold.

That made ten.

Then Lou ran up the stairs as quietly as she could, which was not very, and Smudge ran up behind her. The moon was right at the edge of the window. Lou jumped into bed and lay down flat. Smudge jumped up after her and set his white paw on her blanket.

One corner, two corners, three corners, four. Eleven.

And the moon left the window.

Lou lay tucked in tight and warm from her chin to her toes. Smudge sat on the end of her bed and looked at her, and she looked back. Neither of them said anything, because one of them was a cat and the other one was nearly asleep. Then he went and sat by the goldfish bowl until the water was perfectly still, because a round is a round.

* * *

In the morning everybody woke up tucked in at all four corners.

Mom said to Dad, “Thank you for tucking me in.”

Dad said, “I didn’t.”

The aunts thanked each other. The cousin from the hall said it felt like being tucked in twice.

And Grandpa sat up on the sofa with his hair on end and said, “Somebody tucked me in. Nobody’s tucked me in since I was a boy.” He said it was the best night’s sleep he’d had in years, and he would come every winter if they would have him.

Lou said nothing. Smudge said nothing either, and washed his white paw.

Here is the moral, said softly so as not to wake anybody: somebody has to go round and check on everyone, and it goes best when there are two of you.

From then on, every night, when the moon sat down in the landing window, Lou came down to the bottom of the stairs in her socks. She and Smudge counted the slippers together, and if they lost their place, they started again from one. Then they went round the tall old house, a pair of hands and a white paw, and everybody in it slept warm until morning. In winter there were eleven pairs of slippers at the bottom of the stairs, and one pair did not match, and they counted it anyway.

The end.