Cat
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With cats Hermine had no luck. She had taken a wonderful book out of the school library: Hans and Eva wanted to get married. But far and wide there was no priest to be found, and also not the faintest hope of getting to a church. Hermine found this thrilling, and she tried to read on at the supper table. Father was not pleased. As punishment she had to clear the table. Then she made sloppy work of it. She didn’t put the milk jug—it was a white enamel basin that narrowed dramatically on top—back in the kitchen cupboard; in fact, she didn’t cover it at all, but hurried back to her book.
      Then just as she was getting annoyed at the writer for going off on one irrelevant tangent after another, there came a fearful noise from the kitchen, as if every cooking tin in the place had been hurled against the wall. What had happened was worse yet. The cat had the milk jug over its head like a hat and was tearing blindly about. Hermine’s quick sister paid the deep scratches she got no mind, and grabbed the animal. Father pulled at the jug. Mother poured on salad oil, so that the cat’s head would slide. One brother tried to widen the mouth of the jug with a hammer. Nothing worked. A tin shear!—Hermine offered to ride a bicycle to the plumber’s. Father roared: “Stay where you are!” For by now the cat was making peculiar twitches. Father decided to end her suffering and broke her spine with one hard blow. Then he raised the same hammer at Hermine. “I ought to . . .” He spoke to her no more after that—just the essentials.

From Hermine by Maria Beig

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